What We’re Reading: Instagram Zoom, Twitter Tips and News Consumption Habits

By: Caitlan McCafferty

Zooming on Instagram
No more hacks needed for Instagram users on Apple products. Instagram recently announced an update that allows all iOS users to pinch to zoom  in on photos or videos. It will be available across the app – people’s profiles, users’ feeds, and the explore tab. Instagram says that the Android app will receive the updates in the “coming weeks.” If you’re a dedicated Android user and you can’t wait until then, don’t despair. You still have a hack that will let you zoom in Instagram. AndroidPit has the story.

Twitter Tips
Are you using Twitter to its full capability? This article from Social Media Today highlights “5 Under-Used Twitter Features That Can Help Your Business Stand Out Online .” Bring more value to your Twitter presence by using Lists, Collections, Photo Collages, Featured Tweets, and Gallery features. Twitter Collections and Twitter Lists help users better listen to the accounts they follow. They both offer improved content curation and better organization on the fast-flowing platform. With Photo Collages, Featured Tweets, and Gallery, a user can create a story or message for their followers. Check out the article linked above for specifics on using these tools to create a better Twitter experience for your brand and your followers.

Study Highlights Consumer News Consumption Habits
Pew Research recently released its latest findings on the modern news consumer  and concluded that 8 out of 10 news consumers get their news online. Pew found that 62 percent of Americans get their news through social media and 72 percent get news delivered to a mobile device. Most Americans continue to use news organizations as sources of news, but some receive news from their friends and family. Despite the rapid increase in digital consumption, however, television still commands the largest market share – 57 percent of respondents said they often get their news on TV, while 38 percent said they get the news often online. These findings should help brands and organizations make better strategic choices when considering how best to executive their public relations plans.

Social Network Sites: How do they Work for you Personally?

By Rose Strong

What started out in 2004 as a small network at Harvard has grown into something much, much bigger than just a group of students using “the facebook” to connect with one another on a Massachusetts campus. Besides giving us the ability to keep up with friends and family, social networking sites became the go-to space by which business connected with their audiences / clients / customers.

In PR and marketing we know what it’s used for: pushing out product information, connecting with customers, seeking new business leads and the like. But, how do you make use of sites such as Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook for your personal connections that have nothing to do with business?

How do you use social media personally?

A few weeks ago, my wife had a medical emergency just after we had eaten dinner. After heading to the emergency room and sitting there for hours on end amidst a sea of flu-stricken adults and toddlers, I kept my friends and family updated through Facebook’s Messenger app. When texts wouldn’t go through, the Messenger app, posting directly on Facebook or sending a picture through Instagram worked!

The best thing about using social networking sites during an emergency like we experienced was that my friends, several of which are insomniacs or in different time zones, were there and supported me through a very long and intense night.

This is just one example of how these sites also have given us ways to get information out en masse to those we wanted informed.

How’d we do it back then?

In the olden days – she said very sarcastically – I would have had to wait until I returned home to make many phone calls to family and friends. It would have been exhausting. By the time things were stabilized at the hospital and I was able to go home at 6:45 a.m., I only had to make a few personal calls and take a much-needed nap.

According to a survey done by PewInternet.org, Facebook remains the most popular social networking site today, although its growth has slowed somewhat. Other popular sites, meanwhile, are making headway and seeing growth.

From the highlights of PewInternet.org survey, I found the following pretty fascinating:

• Social networking sites are increasingly used to keep up with close social ties
• The average user of a social networking site has more close ties and is half as likely to be socially isolated as the average American
• Facebook users are more trusting than others
• Facebook users have more close relationships
• Internet users get more support from their social ties and Facebook users get the most support

I know it may sound strange, but I’ll admit that I have friends online whom I’ve never met but who still mean a lot to me. I belong to several closed Facebook special interest groups. The people in these groups share my interests and we often speak beyond our interests either online in the group or through email or instant messaging, becoming distant participants in each other’s lives simply through social networking.

We share our lives with each other. And only what we want to share. Several people have lost husbands or wives, some long-time members have passed on, family members of the group associates have become sick, graduated school, seen the births of their first grandbabies, and lost pets or adopted new ones, been in car accidents, won awards, traveled around the world, been laid off, fired or found new jobs. In each instance, members of the group rally, be it with tears, kind words, encouragement or congrats.

Without these folks from all over my social network sites, I don’t know what I’d have done to get through such a long and arduous night in the emergency department. I found it a godsend to be able to keep my friends and family updated and gain their support back as I needed it.

When YouTube and Google+ Profiles Violate Copyrights – How to Protect Your Image Online

What a way to start the day. I got an email from my friend Ken Jacobs who alerted me to the fact that “Katie Smith” is using my personal (and copyrighted) headshot on Google+. So I searched Katie Smith – I had to scroll through several hundred “Katies” until I found: https://plus.google.com/u/0/113040793477820168275/posts

This is the second time Ken has seen a profile on a social networking site that falsely uses my photo. Last year the same thing happened on LinkedIn and I had to jump through several hoops to get LinkedIn to flag the profile in violation.

I filed a copyright violation notice with Google / Google+, at: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dmca-notice?hl=en&pid=1

We will see what happens….

So I decided to run my Google Images search early. I usually run one every six months just to make sure I am who I purport to be online and that no one is using my image falsely.

To my chagrin, I found several profiles on YouTube and one on a website where my photo is being used as someone else’s profile. The “company” name is Orthofill and the website is a dot net. Since I know it’s a bogus site, I don’t want to include a link here in the event that the website carries a virus or some other malware. My photo is being used on the “team” page attached to a woman named “Claire Hamel.” Rest assured that our legal counsel will be contacting GoDaddy.com since the site is registered with them (and of course, Orthofill’s registration is private). A cease and desist letter will also be forthcoming.

So here it is, several hours into my day and I have spent all of my time cataloging the URL’s where my rights are being infringed, filing a complaint with Google / YouTube regarding all of the video which have a profile image of me (that I did not post nor authorize), and posting a comment below every YouTube video that falsely uses my image stating:

“This person is using my copyrighted photo on their profile. This is a violation of my intellectual property rights! I want this photo removed immediately!”

Needless to say, I’m beyond aggravated! I just hope the folks at YouTube do the right thing by removing all the B.S. video posts that have my image attached to the person who posted the videos.

So here is what you need to do proactively to protect your image, reputation, and personal intellectual property rights online:

1) Schedule a Google search of your name (in every conceivable form) on your calendar every three months. Look to see what is out there about you. I also do this with the names of various family members, my company and blog. If you find anything suspicious, you may have to take steps to have the content removed (not an easy task).

2) Schedule a Google Images search of your headshot. Here is an excellent video that demonstrates how to do this.

It is important to know who owns the copyright to your headshot too. I own mine which I purchased from the photographer but oftentimes, the company that commissioned your headshot or the photographer actually owns the copyright. This can lead to more hurdles when dealing with infringement issues and filing complaints with social media sites.

3) After filing a complaint, if your issue is not resolved, you may need to contact legal counsel. Start with an attorney that focuses on intellectual property law issues and be sure they have experience dealing with IP issues and the Internet.

I’ll be keeping an eye on the several complaints I filed today. Stay tuned and share your Internet identity war stories too. Misery loves company.

10 Must Reads About LinkedIn, Twitter, Social Media and More

Furia Rubel Social Media Illustrations (Copyright 2013 )

I recently shared a number of article links on my various social networking profiles. However, I believe these articles are so valuable that I am re-posting links here. Enjoy.

LinkedIn

The Secret Benefit of LinkedIn Endorsements - (Social Media Today)

8 Ways to Get More Leads for Your Business on LinkedIn - (Social Media Examiner)

Twitter

Your Tweets Are Now More Important Than Your Resume - (Business Insider)

6 Truths About Using Twitter that Traditionalists Might Not Want to Hear -
 (JeffBullas.com)

Seven Easy Ways To Expand Your Business With Twitter - (Soshable.com)

Social Media Tips and Tricks

How to Size Images for Social Media: Cheat Sheet - (Entrepreneur.com)

How to Choose the Right Social Media Management System to Scale your Social Media Marketing -  (JeffBullas.com)

Blogging / Writing / Content

The Science of Storytelling (For better blogs) - (PRBlogger.net)

PR Firm Gets Client’s Site Blacklisted for Duplicate Content - (Spinsucks.com)

Business Productivity

Multitasking Paradox - (Harvard Business Review)

Digital Footprint Can Damage Job Seekers - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Furia Rubel Marketing and Public Relations President and CEO Gina F. Rubel was recently interviewed for a digital dirt article published in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The article explores how those seeking job opportunities need to be keenly aware of their digital footprint. More specifically, Gina shares how she utilizes social media as part of her staff hiring research and strategy.

To read the full article, go to Digital Footprint Can Damage Job Seekers.

How to Stop Following Inactive Twitter Accounts with Manage Flitter

Did you know that Twitter users are limited to the number of accounts they can follow in comparison to the number of followers they have? I didn’t know this a few years ago when I reached 2,000 followers, but since then, I have had to continually manage my following to follower ratio. This is certainly not a problem for high profile individuals, celebrities or push-content accounts that share popular posts like Pete Cashmore of @mashable, @huffingtonpost or @ladygaga (who has the most followers at more than 33 million), but it is the case for most Twitter users.

There are various Twitter “Following Rules and Best Practices” that you should be aware of. The rule as it relates to the ratio I eluded to above states:

“… every user can follow 2000 people total. Once you’ve followed 2000 users, there are limits to the number of additional users you can follow: this limit is different for every user and is based on your ratio of followers to following. When you hit this limit, we’ll tell you by showing an error message in your browser. You’ll need to wait until you have more followers in order to follow more users…”

Image from ManageFlitter.com

During the last few years, I have found that I frequently hit my following limit and have to go back and un-follow users (especially at conferences when I’m actively networking and building relationships) who either no longer interest me or are inactive – a task that I used to do manually until I discovered Manage Flitter.

Manage Flitter allows users to filter followers and those they follow on Twitter so that users can make better use of the social media platform. Before using Manage Flitter, I was following more than 500 accounts which have been inactive (i.e. not shared a Tweet) since before 2012. That was close to 10% of the accounts I was following. I have since stopped following all of those accounts so that I can create more opportunity to follow active and engaging users.

And did I mention that Manage Flitter has a FREE option? Once you have subscribed by allowing the application access to your Twitter account, you can sort in various ways including: activity, no profile picture (another reason you should have a photo attached to your twitter account), not following you back, “fake-following” (Be careful with this one. I found many followers who are not “fake” in that list.), non-English accounts (which may or may not matter to you), and more.

Manage Flitter does seem to encourage users to un-follow accounts that don’t follow them back – but this is not a philosophy to which I subscribe absolutely. For example, I follow many media outlets which push content out but don’t necessarily engage in social media interaction. I follow them because I am interested in the news they have to share and as a result, I don’t expect them to follow me. Same holds true for celebrities with whom I don’t have a personal relationship, etc.

You can also learn more about each account, including volume of followers, following and messages, by hover the cursor over the username.

Bottom-line: If you’re going to use Twitter, then use it. That means actively engaging, sharing information of value, and managing who you follow by using tools that add to your productivity such as ManageFlitter.com. I’m hooked.

Thanksgiving Meal Preparation – Tradition vs. Technology

Posted by Leah Ludwig

Image from Mashable.com and YouTube.com

For most, long gone are the days of rolling out of bed on Thanksgiving morning, driving over to grandma's and learning how to create in sheer magnificence the traditional Thanksgiving meal with just a ratty old cookbook and grandma’s amazing culinary talents – passed down from generation to generation of slaving over Thanksgiving meals.

This all hit me when I stumbled across some very interesting and real-time articles on how people can craft their holiday meals via YouTube and tech gadgets galore. One of the articles which knocked my old school Thanksgiving meal socks off was Mashable’s “How to Cook a Complete Thanksgiving Meal Using YouTube.” This article displays 12 YouTube videos on Thanksgiving meal how-tos from roasting the perfect turkey, cooking all the critical sides like mashed potatoes and stuffing to creating the dessert course of pumpkin pie AND incorporating the proper table setting and musical ambiance to enhance your dining experience.

Then I found myself scoping out another Mashable article, “6 Tech Fixes for Your Thanksgiving,” featuring ways that people can make the holidays less stressful by putting their gadgets to good use. The article shares tips such as using a free smartphone app for your Thanksgiving menu. The app helps you pick out a menu; it includes recipes, generates a shopping list and helps you lay out a step-by-step schedule for cooking. Here are a few other tech features for you futuristic Thanksgiving meal preparers:

- A vegetarian cooking app for your vegetarian guests.

- An iGrill thermometer which enables you to connect your mobile device through Bluetooth and monitor your bird’s temperature without ever opening the oven door.

- A Belkin Chef Stand which is a non-slip base that keeps your tablet from moving around - all while the stylus maintains a clean screen as you navigate your way through various recipes.

- A MyFitnessPal Calorie Counter and Diet Tracker which is a smartphone app that can be downloaded for free and helps you get back on track with your calorie counting after a hearty Thanksgiving meal.

Perhaps it’s time for me to teach grandma a thing or two about combining traditions and technology to create this year’s Thanksgiving meal. All I know is that all this talk about Thanksgiving meal prep is making me very hungry and excited for this year’s festivities. I think I will stick to the tried and true traditions of jamming as many family members into one kitchen to create a Thanksgiving masterpiece using the traditional methods; however, these tips may be an interesting way to mix things up in the years to come.

Social Media and Electronic Communication Statistics Lawyers Should Not Ignore – The Legal Intelligencer Blog

In her blog post for The Legal Intelligencer, Gina Rubel discusses how social media and electronic communications are critical legal marketing tools that cannot and should not be overlooked by law firms and lawyers. She also explores statistics and trends about social media tools and electronic communications. To read more, go to the blog post: Social Media and Electronic Communication Statistics Lawyers Should Not Ignore.

Nonprofits: Putting Pinterest to Work for Social Good

Posted by Leah Ludwig

Image from Mashable.com

As many of you know, Furia Rubel Marketing and PR is dedicated to supporting our agency's local community and the nonprofit organizations within it. In fact, our agency is closing out our 10th anniversary year and along with it, our “10 for 10” Community Service Campaign – in which we participated in community service programs and supported, through pro bono PR and marketing services, several local and regional organizations. We are always looking for new and inventive ways to support nonprofits near and far.

Gina Rubel recently shared a nonprofit Pinterest best practices article with me from Mashable.com. The article highlights UNICEF and how the organization set up a fictional Pinterest profile from the perspective of a 13-year-old girl from Sierra Leone. Instead of sharing images of rich desserts and the newest fashion trends, the organization uses this page to share images of things a girl from Sierra Leone may covet such as a handful of rice or a rusty water faucet. Each of the pins then link to a specific UNICEF Web page where the organization hopes to drive Pinterest users to in order to source donations to provide food or clean drinking water to those in need.

I personally think this Pinterest strategy is brilliant. Images tend to effectively drive home messaging to a variety of audiences and to additionally link each image to a correlating donation Web page for UNICEF – you have a captive audience, what more could you ask for? And, in general, these strategies help to bring awareness to Pinterest users about the needs that exist in other countries and what UNICEF as an organization is working to do. Having traveled to Honduras myself for two different mission trips and having seen first-hand the need that exists in developing countries, I applaud UNICEF and its strategy to put things into perspective for other Pinterest users – in a very practical and visual way.

The Mashable article also includes what other global organizations such as Amnesty International USA, the World Wildlife Fund and Operation Smile, to name a few, are doing on Pinterest for social good. More specifically, Amnesty International USA, the world’s largest grassroots human rights organization, shares a human rights reading list. World Wildlife Fund, a conservation organization working to protect the future of nature and reduce threats to the natural world, has a board of cute animal e-cards that individuals can send to friends. Operation Smile, an organization that provides safe and free cleft lip and palate repair surgery to children around the world, shares images of new smiles – before and after photos of children that have been helped by the organization. To see more of the examples shared in the blog, go to 10 Non-Profits Using Pinterest to Better the World.

Please share this post and nonprofit Pinterest best practices resource with community organizations that may benefit from it – and help us to pay it forward.

The First Social Olympics – London 2012

Courtesy of paypromedia.com

Posted by Amanda Walsh


The city of London has spent years building and preparing for the 2012 Olympic Games, while fans on social media have been buzzing with excitement and anticipation. The London Eye is even being lit up in different colors based on Twitter users' sentiments throughout the games! 


Even though the opening ceremony doesn't commence until this evening, some athletes have already been hard at work in the competition. Mashable compiled some of the photos, tweets and status updates from the female soccer players that began competing in the tournament yesterday. This large amount of social media activity on the first day of competition is surely an indicator of how social media will continue to play an integral role in the 2012 Olympic Games.

Courtesy of Time Magazine

It’s been four years since the 2008 Olympic Games and social media has grown in popularity by leaps and bounds. “Why Social Media Will Reshape the 2012 Olympics” takes a look at the three most popular social media platforms that users are utilizing to engage and follow the Olympics - Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. There has been an explosion of user engagement and growth on these platforms over the last four years.

• Facebook in 2008 – 100 million users
• Facebook today – more than 900 million users
• Twitter in 2008 – six million users
• Twitter today – more than 500 million users
• YouTube in 2008 – users uploaded 10 hours of video per minute
• YouTube today – users upload 72 hours of new video per minute

Due to this growth in daily usage, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has published social media guidelines that must be followed by all athletes and coaches. Some are worried that the guidelines are too restrictive. But according to ReadWriteWeb, the IOC has every right to create and distribute a social media policy. Athletes are contractually obligated to follow the established social media guidelines. Implementing a social media policy to ensure that all participants know what is and isn't acceptable to share is a wise decision.


However, with a global event of this size, each social media infraction will have to be considered on a case by case basis. The offender will most likely be asked to remove the content, but as we all know once a tweet or post is out there, it is difficult to remove it completely. Just ask Paraskevi Papachristou, the Greek triple jumper, who has already been suspended from the games for posting a racist tweet.


We'll see how social media usage affects the games and athletes as the competitions get underway. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to feeling like I'm a part of the action via social media while I watch and cheer for the USA!

Optimal Auto Sharing from Hootsuite

Posted by Amanda Walsh 

They say that you can use social media productively with just 15 minutes a day. Perhaps during that time you find several industry articles that you want to share with your audience, but don’t want to bombard them with a continuous blast of tweets or posts. Hootsuite just announced its new “Optimal Auto Sharing” hootlet app, which takes all the guessing out of when to schedule posts. The app schedules your posts for specific times throughout the day or night without any input from you.

According to The Next Web article, the app "analyzes users’ social activity (and their followers’), automatically delivering each message at an optimal time to avoid swamping followers with too many updates at once.” 

The new app can be downloaded directly into your Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox web browser. By simply clicking on the hootlet app in your browser toolbar, you can share posts at regular intervals seamlessly. Just click the calendar to schedule the post, make sure that the "AutoSchedule" option is selected, click the button to confirm and you're done!

No one likes to be overwhelmed with numerous consecutive tweets or posts from the same person on social media. Even worse, other users can choose to ignore your articles or consider your posts to be spam. We think this tool is pretty neat so far because it doesn't require much more than a few clicks of the mouse and you know the article is being shared with your followers across many social media outlets.

Big Changes Coming to Look and Feel of LinkedIn

Posted by Amanda Walsh

LinkedIn is quietly rolling out a major site redesign to their more than 161 million users worldwide. The updates come at a perfect time, shortly after the news that Twitter and LinkedIn will no longer be partnering to allow tweets to be posted to LinkedIn. We noticed it in the office yesterday when some of us were able to see the new design on their profiles and others not.

TechCrunch reports that the layout “will put a lot more emphasis on building out relationships, make better use of socially curated news content — and, if things go according to plan, should make the site a lot more sticky.”

The new menu is darker and contains the same navigation, but will remain at the top of the page as you scroll. Also, LinkedIn Today features bigger images in the feed. Another addition is that the “people who have viewed your profile” feature will have more functionality with “message/connect” buttons right next to the person’s profile. The new gray/black layout plus other visual changes and button integration are meant to encourage sharing and engagement among users.

New Layout

Old Layout

The TechCrunch article notes that the redesign exhibits an overall move towards simplification for LinkedIn, which has also been asserted by the company CEO Jeff Weiner. As with most website design updates, the site’s algorithms will probably be revamped as well, leading to more accurate “people you may know” suggestions, targeted LinkedIn Today stories and ease of sharing and creating content. Have you noticed the changes on your LinkedIn profile yet?

Using Social Media Effectively Before, During and After Conferences

Posted by Amanda Walsh


As I mentioned, Laura Powers and Gina Rubel have been attending the Legal Marketing Association annual conference in Dallas, Texas. Laura shared a great post from Lindsay at Zen Legal Networking outlining the Twitter handles of various people who are also attending the #LMA2012 event.

There are many benefits of social media engagement pre- and post-conference. Here are some tips and things to keep in mind when going to your next conference and what to focus on afterwards.


- When preparing for an event, do some research by using the event hashtag on Twitter (in this case, #LMA12) and seek out those that will also be there.


- Identify thought leaders and like-minded attendees in advance and make a note of those that you would like to meet in-person.


- Be on the lookout for special meetings or events at the conference geared toward the attendees who are using social media.


- Stay in touch post-conference and maintain those relationships. If the conference is an annual event, you probably will see the same people next year.


- Building solid relationships online and in-person can also open the door to tap these contacts as a focus group in various parts of the country for legal marketing ideas and tactics.


By being active on social media and using a hashtag for the event while you're tweeting, you can start conversations and build relationships pre-conference, during and post-conference, as well. 

Raising A Few Eyebrows: Law Firms Deal With Gray Area In Employee Social Media Conduct

Posted by Amanda Walsh

There were a few giggles going around the office when this article, The Tweet that Roared: Lawyers and Law Firms Navigate Social Media Landmines, hit our inboxes recently. The story did bring to light an important question regarding law firm social media policies and lawyers' personal social media use outside of the office.

A recent social media firestorm began over a tweet from law firm Kramer Levein Naftalis & Frankel litigation associate Jill Filipovic. Returning from a recent trip, Filipovic tweeted a photo of a note left by the TSA in her luggage. The security tag had “GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL” written on one side and Filipovic explained, “Guess they discovered a ‘personal item’ in my bag. Wow.”

Needless to say, the tweet about a vibrator, spread through social networks like wildfire. The TSA responded and reprimanded the agent. In the meantime, Filipovic was doing her best to forget about the incident while worrying about losing her job. Fortunately for her though, her employer Kramer Levein Naftalis & Frankel had a policy in place and stood by Filipovic, responding that to their knowledge, “policies have not been violated.”

However, the article author Sara Randazzo, notes that this incident raises a good question, “Should a lawyer at a large law firm ever tweet about vibrators, or anything else of such a personal nature, even when doing so doesn’t grab widespread attention?” Law firms are contending with issues like these more and more since many attorneys are active on sites like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Furia Rubel strongly encourages law firms to put a social media policy in place in order to proactively face any issues that could arise from employee engagement on social media. Typically, social media policies prohibit online discussion of firm business or clients, however personal sharing crosses into a gray area. More and more, law firms are grappling with lawyers’ social media conduct outside the office that may not directly violate the policy, but could raise a few eyebrows.

Some lawyers have been reprimanded for racy comments online, while others have been able to strike a good balance between personal and business use of social networks. According to New York lawyer, and Sullivan & Cromwell corporate partner, Frank Aquila, “The key from my perspective is that lawyers should not be tweeting or saying anything in social media or blogs that they wouldn't otherwise be saying or writing in any other environment."

We couldn't agree with him more. This is also a rule of thumb that we at Furia Rubel try to emphasize when advising clients: what goes online stays online for an infinite amount of time; so if you have to second guess posting a tweet or comment, then you know it probably isn't a good idea!

To read more, http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202524814192&slreturn=1

photo credit: insure.com

Facebook Announces Timeline

Posted by Amanda Walsh

Facebook recently announced a new feature on users' profiles called Timeline. They describe it as “a collection of all the top photos, posts and apps that help tell your story.”

Timeline will put all of your activity and updates into one place on your Facebook profile. At first, I thought it was a neat idea to be able to chronicle your life with photos and status updates. You can go back to any year of your life and fill in your timeline with events that you may not have documented. Then, I thought about the early adopters of Facebook, like myself, who joined the platform way back when it was only open to college students.

Facebook also announced the ability to integrate apps into a Timeline. The apps allow users to see what music their friends are listening to via Spotify, or what TV show they are watching via Netflix.

With recruiters and HR managers using social media platforms like Facebook to peek into prospective job candidates’ lives, many users scramble to hide status updates or bury old photos. I wonder how Timeline will impact job seekers, or even professionals in the workplace.

Maybe some people prefer to leave photos and status updates in the past. I’m anxious to see how Facebook will handle the privacy matters surrounding this new feature. One user commented on the announcement that the change could create a spike in identity theft and that it seems to be reminiscent of the book, A Brave New World.

All of these updates will have implications for how users interact on the platform. What do you think? More importantly, will this have implications for companies who use Facebook in a business capacity?

Timeline won’t be available for a few weeks, but users can sign up for it here: https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline

Using LinkedIn To Build Professional Relationships - The Legal Intelligencer Blog

Below is Gina Rubel's latest blog post for The Legal Intelligencer blog.

Where do you stand on LinkedIn usage?

"I have a personal LinkedIn account and ...
a. I actively update and manage."
b. it is managed for me by marketing."
c. I rarely use it."
d. I don't remember my login."

Or, e. "I do not have a personal LinkedIn account."

The majority of lawyers that I've polled have a LinkedIn account and rarely use it, or they do not have a personal LinkedIn account. For those of you who answered the question with letter A, kudos to you. For those of you who answered with letters B, C, D or E, it's time to get with the program.

To read more of the blog, visit The Legal Intelligencer blog.

Google+ 411 for Beginners & Intermediates – Part 1

Posted by Leah Ludwig

You may remember reading Amanda Walsh’s Google+ intro post just last month. Well, now there’s more from ThePRLawyer. Mashable writer Amy-Mae Elliott recently posted articles “Google+ Tips & Tricks: 10 Hints for New Users” and “Google+ Tips & Tricks: 10 More Ways To Make the Most of Your Account.” I found them both very helpful in navigating and finding how to best utilizing this new social media tool.

Here are the take-aways in a nutshell from Amy-Mae’s post for new users:

1. Add More Info to Your Profile Pop-Up Window – Your pop-up window is an easy way for people to quickly learn more about you, similar to your Twitter profile window. You want to grab others’ attention with this and make sure that this is filled-in with your name, profession and company.

2. Organize Content with Circles – You can create empty circles and use this space to create bookmarks and a notepad, save links that you want to read later or use it as a place to test things out without alerting your followers.

3. Click on Profile Pics to Scroll Through – You can scroll through a user’s uploaded profile photos directly from the profile or post page. Some companies have utilized this space in a really neat way – for example, see graphic design company Phouthong Luong and how they feature a creative avatar image that winks and an action image that you can scroll through.

4. Disable Sharing on Posts – Unlike other social media tools, Google+ allows for limited sharing with your friends. You can share a post with one person or your entire network.

5. How to Find Post’s Permalinks – This is simple. Go to the drop down menu arrow in the top right corner of the post and select “link to this post” – a separate window will open where you can access the permalink.

6. Drag and Drop Content to Share – If you maximize the size of your share window, you can drag and drop any type of content into it.

7. Change the Visibility of Your Circles – You have control over which individuals from your circles are displayed on your profile by going to the “Edit profile” and then click the circles box on the left hand part of your screen. A box will pop-up where you can choose which circles you want the world to see and whether to display people who have added you to circles.

8. Notify People About Posts – You can specifically notify those in a circle about your post without having to add their Google+ name. To do so, simply click on the circle that you are sharing with and select the box that pops-up and says “notify about this post.”

9. Add Special Photo Effects in Google+ – You can easily edit your photos by clicking on the individual photo and choosing the Actions tab in the bottom right hand corner, then choose Edit photo. Google+ offers some really neat photo editing features here.

10. All the Google+ URLs – Another interesting tidbit from Amy-Mae is that Google+ has a wide array of URLs from http://google.com/+ to http://plus.google.com and http://google.com/plus.

New Changes Coming To Twitter

Posted by Amanda Walsh

The other day when signing into Twitter I saw this pop-up about sharing images. Now the social networking site has made it easier to engage your community with photos. Users can even preview the content before hitting the “Tweet” button.


Most recently, the Huffington Post reported more Twitter changes. These updates are most likely stemming from features utilized on Tweetdeck, an application that Twitter acquired earlier this year.


More content will be coming to the @Username tab on the Home page. Users can see who has tweeted about them, favorited a tweet from them, retweets of their tweets from followers, as well as mentions of their @username handle. Users will be able to monitor when new followers start following their account.

A new stream will be added under the “activity” tab. Users can monitor what other tweeps on the platform are discussing or sharing, other tweets that followers are favoriting or retweeting, and the web of new followers who follow others will also be monitored in this tab.


In my opinion, these changes will make engagement on Twitter even easier because activity and interaction with an account will be kept all in one place.


To read more or see screen shots of the changes that are coming to Twitter users everywhere, go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/10/twitter-new-features_n_923902.html?1313015248&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008

Screen shot to the right courtesy of Huffington Post.

Could Your Online History Come Back To Haunt You?

Posted by Amanda Walsh


We’ve all heard the warnings before — watch what you put on social media, it may come back to haunt you! Recent articles have highlighted that some companies are able to dig up online data on you from several years ago.


I first heard about this news via the blog the PROwl. The blog features posts written by students from the student-run PR firm at my alma mater, Temple University. Student Emily Ascani posted a brilliant article highlighting recent news about HR firms dedicated to digging up online dirt on job candidates. In the article, Emily references a CNN interview with Max Drucker, CEO of Social Intelligence, that can be found here.


I started to do some more research about this and came across a New York Times article titled, Social Media History Becomes a New Job Hurdle, which references the same company, Social Intelligence. The company provides services to employers looking to hire talent by scouring the Internet and preparing 7-year report of prospective job candidate’s online activity!


In response to the NYTimes.com article, Saavysugar associate editor, Emily Co came up with a list of tips on how to manage your online identity to avoid messing up opportunities for a job in the future. We’ve added additional commentary to the tips below:


- Google yourself: Don’t just type your name into Google, but be sure to constantly monitor your identity by setting up Google alerts for your name and combinations of other keywords. For example, look for your name and industries you’ve worked in, your past employers, schools you’ve attended, and extracurricular activities.


- Make a list of emails and accounts: Check up on those old email accounts that you may have forgotten about. Try to access them and take a look at old websites, online journals or other accounts that you may want to take a look at. Remember when LiveJournal was so popular? Did you have an account and get a little too personal on the blog? Scour for red flags on these ancient accounts and even delete them if you’re not comfortable with them being active.


- Play around with privacy settings: We have learned that nothing that is ‘private’ is really private but even so, consider turning your Twitter stream into a private account. Check your Facebook settings to be sure that users who aren’t your friend only see the bare minimum of your accounts. Some options make you unsearchable on Facebook. Google Plus is still fairly new and I would caution newbies to be extra vigilant with privacy settings as the site continues to evolve and resolve bugs.


- Don't put up anything racy or offensive: We always advise clients to keep their online identity in line with a company social media policy but more importantly, remember you are representing the company no matter what. For those who are job searching, a good rule of thumb is to not post any comments, photos or videos of yourself doing anything you wouldn’t want your grandmother to see. We agree with Emily’s advice, “The best way to keep your record clean is to be clean on the Internet."


It’s better that you take the proactive step to monitor your online identity now and from the past. Try to go back and delete anything questionable, however recognizing that photos or comments are out there is the first step to correcting the issue. If you find something you are unhappy with, Google now features a product called, Me on the Web to help users remove unwanted data.


Photo Courtesy of prescottech.com

Video: PICPA Social Media For Accountants Series - YouTube And Social Media Recap From Gina F. Rubel

Gina F. Rubel, Esq. speaks to accountants and financial professionals at the 2011 Women's Conference for Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA).