Facebook Changes Link Previews to Help Combat ‘Fake News’

By Caitlan McCafferty

Big changes from Facebook took effect the week of July 18. In order to combat the ongoing spread of misinformation, Facebook has changed the way users can edit the previews of links that they post to the social media platform.

This latest update from Facebook eliminates the ability to customize link metadata, which determines the headline, description, and image shown in the preview of the link.

According to an article by Engadget, the preview function has been abused by many fake news outlets, which “have been taking advantage of the ability to customize a story's metadata to spread misinformation.They often replace the headline, image and snippet with something controversial to get the most shares, likes and comments possible." This change allows Facebook to eliminate at least one method of disseminating false information.

The social media platform recognizes that legitimate publishers and content creators rely on the customization function to tailor their shares in order to improve audience engagement, and Facebook developers have been working on a solution for them. In the meantime, content creators can continue to customize how links appear with Open Graph meta tags. Open Graph meta tags are an important option to consider to optimize content on social media.

Overall, this change signals a serious commitment from Facebook to curb the spread of false information. Shortly after the 2016 election, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced an initiative to stop fake news. The elimination of the ability to alter link previews appears to be one of many steps the social media giant is undertaking to achieve that goal.

Benefits of Social Media Engagement for Municipalities

By Gina Rubel

I recently spoke at the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs annual conference in Hershey, Pennsylvania on the “Effective and Ethical Use of Social Media for Municipalities.”

Social media offers municipalities efficient and cost-effective ways to engage and inform residents, community visitors and businesses on a myriad of topics. But, in order to be effective, municipal leaders must understand the benefits and manage the risks of social media use without crossing into certain gray areas. The post will address the benefits only.

What is social media and why does it matter?

Many leaders in smaller municipalities shy away from using social media for official purposes. The common barriers to entry are budget, buy-in, the time commitment and a general lack of understanding of what social media is and how it can be beneficial.

Social media describes the online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives. Social media content can take many different forms, including text, images, audio, and video.

The term “social media” refers to forms of electronic communication through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages and other content. Social media provides new and capable ways for governments to communicate the value they provide to their residents. It offers cities/towns/boroughs a way to create added value by providing more targeted, useful, and detailed information and opportunities.

Questions to ask when deciding to participate in social media for municipalities. 

Several questions need to be answered before engaging in social media activities – which should not be ad hoc, a more common than not approach.

• Does your municipality and its leaders understand the benefits of social media? 
• Does your municipality and its leaders understand the pitfalls, risks and liabilities of managing a social media presence? 
• What protocols can be implemented to manage the risks and liabilities of social media engagement? 
• What best practices and training programs can be implemented for successful use of social media?  

Benefits of social media engagement for municipalities. 

Among the many benefits of an effective social media presence with relevant and regular content is that it can boost resident loyalty and engagement for municipalities. Thousands of elected officials in all aspects of government are using social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn and YouTube to communicate with their audiences. And yet, many boroughs, townships, cities, and other types of municipal entities are either not engaging or not engaging properly.

Here are some of the most notable benefits that we discussed at the conference:

• Citizen participation, communication and data gathering such as surveys
• Crime watch and safety alerts
• Crisis and reputation management
• Improves efficiency
• Increases trust and confidence with transparency
• Marketing cost savings
• Media relations and news dissemination
• Polls and election forecasting
• Promotes economic development
• Real-time communications
• Supports mission, objectives and message management

Examples of positive engagement on social media platforms include:

Doylestown Township, Bucks County, PA, which maintains active profiles on Twitter and Facebook with a prominent social media policy on their website.

Easttown Township in Chester County, PA, maintains social media profiles which can be followed from their website for their township, police and library.

The City of Philadelphia maintains a social media policy and profiles on various social media platforms including City of Philadelphia Government on Facebook, @PhiladelphiaGov on Twitter, and many government-sponsored videos on YouTube.

What examples do you know of that demonstrate a positive and effective use of social media by municipalities? Please share your examples below.

Should Solo and Small Firm Lawyers Use Chat and Photo Apps Like Snapchat for Marketing?

By Gina F. Rubel

I am of the opinion that lawyers don’t need to be early adopters of new technologies, and that includes many social media tools.

As with most businesses, law firms have a finite amount of time and money to invest in marketing. Limited marketing budgets, particularly for solo attorneys and small firms, should be focused on social media platforms that already have been tested and proven effective for legal marketing. For example, I advocate that all lawyers should have robust and active profiles on LinkedIn. And attorneys with consumer-targeted practice areas like family law, criminal law, wills, trusts and estates, workers’ compensation and social security disability also should maintain robust firm pages on Facebook.

But social media changes rapidly. Some platforms will flourish while others will fade away - think Ping, Orkut, Xanga, Digg, Friendster, Myspace and a myriad of other sites, many of which you’ve probably never heard of.

That means that until some of the newer photo and chat apps are tested by those aforementioned early adopters and found to be effective for legal marketing, law firms should focus their time and attention elsewhere. For example, Snapchat, What's App, Pinterest, Instagram and other chat / picture applications used by entrepreneurs are probably not good investments in legal marketing for most firms in 2017.

There are some legal marketers who would disagree with me on this, particularly as it relates to Snapchat, and others who are in full agreement. My biggest issue with Snapchat is that the majority of users are female between the ages of 13 and 25. Of those who are considered Generation Z (born after 2001), none of them are the target audience for law firms (yet).

Snapchat For Lawyers - Various Points of View

Snapchat for lawyers – is it really happening by Kevin O’Keefe
Lawyers Need to Pay Attention to Snapchat by Casey C. Sullivan, Esq. for Findlaw
4 Things Lawyers Need to Know About Snapchat by Monica Zent for Inside Counsel
Practical and effective social media use for lawyers: Snapchat edition by Scott MacMullan for The Daily Record

If your law practice is focused on reaching young millennials and, more specifically, millennial consumers, you should by all means keep a cursory eye on the social media platforms as they evolve. Until they are proven to work well enough to justify a return on your marketing investment, you likely will be better off focusing on creative ways to use existing social media channels for which content marketing best practices already have been developed.

Does your small firm use social media for legal marketing purposes? What kind of results are you seeing? Tell us in the comments.

Top 2017 Social Media Trends

By Caitlan McCafferty

Whether your business is already firmly established on social media, or whether you are just getting started, social media should be a top consideration for your B2B marketing plan for 2017. Here are some of the most important social media trends to consider in your social media marketing planning for this upcoming year.

1. Live Video

Social media users are increasingly interested in vicarious experiences. People don’t want to just see what their friends are doing, they want to feel like they’re there with them.

Snapchat’s success and popularity has encouraged other social media companies to incorporate live video into their platforms. Snapchat is likely to grow in 2017, with increased messaging services and real world glasses that capture a user’s world view.  Facebook and Twitter have also incorporated livestreaming into their platforms with Facebook Live and Periscope, respectively.

Due to the increasing popularity of the feature, brands should consider incorporating livestreaming into their social media marketing to reach their target audiences. Livestreaming would be a perfect social media tool to engage with your audience about grand openings, customer appreciation events, or product announcements.

2. Employee Ambassadors 

With LinkedIn’s Pulse feature, employees can be brand ambassadors for their companies. Ryan Holmes, Founder and CEO of Hootsuite, suggests motivating employees to post about the company on a regular basis. Employers should make it simple to share and allow the employee to edit the post to suit their audience.

Employee advocacy is digital "word of mouth" that allows a company’s brand and message to reach more people, with no cost to them. If the content is shared by the employees, the content then can be shared by the employee’s network, building an enthusiastic, engaged audience for your brand.


3. Facebook and Targeted Ads

Facebook’s audience is changing rapidly. It is no longer the favored social media platform for millennials. A survey from 2016 found that 41 percent of millennials still use Facebook every day, but Facebook is more popular among non-millennials. Simultaneously, Facebook has changed its algorithm making it more difficult to build an audience organically.

In 2017, targeted advertising will be the best way to push your message to an audience. The change in the algorithm might seem disappointing, but targeted ads provide better analytics to understand the ROI of a communications campaign.


4. Influencer Marketing 

EMarketer predicts that digital advertising will surpass TV advertising in 2017. With this new development, companies have more opportunities for Influencer Marketing.

A survey found that 47 percent of consumers block advertisements, so influencers are becoming the best way for brands to reach an audience. Influencers have established credibility with their audiences, and now they are using that credibility to vouch for a company’s brand. Using their own personal brand and voice as support, influencers can bring increased visibility and awareness for a given brand.

5. Chatbots for Customer Service  

Similar to the Influencer Marketing trend, consumers are craving a personal connection with their favorite brands. A way to service that connection is Chatbots for customer service.

With the evolution of messaging services with each social media platform, and the popularity of Chatbots like Slack and Skype, customers are interested in more conversational experiences.  This allows marketers to engage with their consumers on a regular basis. "Conversational Commerce" will only grow in 2017, and it will allow brands to provide their audiences an easier way to access their products and services.

The preferred social media platform for any given audience continues to evolve, but one thing remains consistent: consumers want brands that are easily accessible and personable. Incorporating these trends into your 2017 social media strategy will ensure that your brand stays ahead of that changing landscape.

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.

2 Social Media Tools You Need to Start Using in 2016

By Megan Quinn

Managing social media is a time-consuming process. Let’s say you have four, five or more social media channels to manage. Even the best multi-taskers can have trouble managing multiple social media profiles. And if you’re a solo business owner or start-up, finding time to manage your company profiles and run the business itself can be difficult.

Below are two social media tools we recommend using to make your life easier. Business owners, I’m talking to you.

Wouldn’t it be great if you only had to worry about posting one Instagram message that could also be linked, for example, to your Facebook business page? Check out IFTTT, which stands for “If This…Then That.” This Jack-of-all trades tool is great for social media marketers because it can post, email, and do all sorts of things with almost all major social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr and even Slack.

Each posting combination is called a “recipe.” For example, if you post a picture to Instagram and then want to post it as a pin on Pinterest, this is a recipe. One other easy trick with IFTTT is that you can add your social media profiles using recipes already created by other people. While customization is key, sometimes the perfect recipes are already set up so there’s less work for you.

If you have trouble finding copyright-free images for your blog posts, check out Canva. Social media has become increasing visual over time and people have shorter attention spans than goldfish these days according to an article from Time Magazine. If paragraphs of text can be broken up by images, it’s easier to keep your readers’ eyes on your blog post.

Canva is perfect for creating images that you need right away and on a tight budget. You can create many images for free and design them to your liking, but the tool also includes additional budget-friendly options, so if something else catches your eye, paying a couple bucks isn’t so bad.

Even if you aren’t great with design, Canva has easy-to-follow instructions and will set you up with a tutorial when you sign up. Choose from templates, symbols, backgrounds or headers and then edit them to your preferences. Once your new design skills kick in, you’ll be able to create an attention-grabbing social media or blog image in just minutes.

If restructuring can help your social media profiles improve, why not give it a try? Don’t streamline processes just because you can. Test out new tools* and make sure they work for you, while keeping the quality of your content high.

*These brands did not pay us in any way to promote them.

Is Your Law Firm Making These Social Media Mistakes?

By Megan Quinn

Social media in general and its various platforms in particular are not always easy for lawyers to fully understand, much less embrace. Social media engagement also is something that must be maintained over time to be successful. Unfortunately, too many attorneys and other professionals refuse to invest the time and energy needed in order to use social media as a successful public outreach tool, and so end up doing it poorly.

Other industries that adopted social media sooner have invested that time and energy into social media plans. They’ve practiced and learned from their mistakes, making them better marketers in the process. Getting the most out of social media requires the three Ps: practice, patience, and perseverance. It requires calculation and investment. It also requires a willingness to overcome preconceived notions about social media. Below are five mistakes attorneys often make regarding social media.

1. Thinking that simply being on social media equals engagement with target audiences. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter allow you to engage with your audiences, but this can be tricky because it requires actual two-way participation. Social media is not like a billboard or a newspaper ad. You can’t just push, push, push out your own content and messaging. It has got to be a real conversation.
2. Deserting a social media account when you’re not the getting results you expected. Great outcomes from social media marketing take careful planning and lots of time. Earning the users’ trust is key, and that can take months, if not years. Posting consistently about current industry happenings, commenting on others’ posts and being part of the conversation can help establish your credibility.
3. Not knowing the difference between social media platforms. For example, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn each have different posting and image standards so it’s important to research each platform before diving in. Put in the time and effort to understand each platform and tailor your posts according to each network’s best practices are the best ways to boost the results of your social media marketing. 
4. Not tracking and measuring metrics. This can be the most difficult task for attorneys to accomplish for several reasons. First, because many want to be able to draw a straight line between a social media post and a new client, and that often just can’t be done. Second, breaking down metrics is time-consuming and requires an in-depth understanding of each platform in order to determine whether what you are doing is working.
5. Not driving your social traffic to your website. Social media offers an opportunity for law firms to engage online with all target audiences and, by doing so, to be seen as a valuable resource. When a potential client or referral source has a legal issue, guess who they will be calling first? The firm that comes to mind first. That's where content marketing comes in. Sharing links to your firm’s blog posts about trends in the industry or to news items should point back to the firm's website. This will help you establish a following and keep you top of mind for the day when they do need your services.

The only way to truly know if your social media marketing plan is working is to define SMART goals – specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time-bound. What are your goals for your social media marketing plan? What tools or approaches have worked for you? We’d love to hear your thoughts.