It’s close to just three months since Elon Musk took the helm at Twitter, and his tenure has been rocky, to say the least. His first month in charge saw mass layoffs, a new revenue stream that led to widespread impersonation, and the CEO at one point even locking the doors of the company’s San Francisco headquarters.

Twitter, as a result, is being sued by former workers amid complaints about the quality of the service rising, reporting cash flow issues, and brands weighing up whether or not to be active on the platform at all. An impersonation of pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, for example, caused its stock price to tumble, after a fake account with a paid-for blue tick said it would provide free insulin. The rocky start has also thrown advertising spend – Twitter’s main source of income – into doubt, with large companies withholding cash due to the rising instability.

The rise of social media was once seen as a new dawn for communications and marketing, giving brands the tools and channels to reach customers directly. Turbulence at Twitter, alongside ups and downs at platforms like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, though, means brands might need to examine how to evolve beyond social media for good.

Economic chaos and an unpredictable future

The shake-up of Twitter and its policies, particularly around content moderation and free speech has caused brands to reconsider their position on advertising through the platform, says Madeleine Sampson, telecommunications, media and technology analyst at Fitch Solutions.

“Companies such as General Motors, Audi, VW, and Pfizer have all paused advertising on the platform and have adopted a 'wait and see' approach,” she says. “Apple has reportedly cut its advertising spending on Twitter, receiving considerable public criticism from Elon Musk, and brands risk criticism for ending their association with 'free speech' or pursuing a ‘woke agenda’.

“All of this comes at a time when brands are already reining back their marketing spending due to inflation and the rise in operating expenses. Therefore, big tech is suffering significantly from the fall in advertising demand over the course of the year.”

Economic conditions don’t help the advertising business Twitter relies on, and neither does Musk’s erratic management style, nor the deteriorating quality of the platform. Users have reported the platform might crash completely, and anyone that says they can predict what will happen in the future is – as Rebecca Wettemann, CEO of industry analyst firm Valoir says – “full of it".

“I think a lot of CMOs have been pulling their hair out over the past month as they try to figure out what's happening next,” she says. “We are seeing a number of challenges for brands and marketers as they think about how to reach customers. Twitter is one piece of that, and concerns about Twitter are part of it.

“But we also have to think about what's happening with cookie deprecation, and the other challenges marketers have trying to reach this goal of being able to create one-on-one, personalised experiences for customers.

“In the short term, certainly we're seeing budgets be pulled back for Twitter, but we're also seeing companies surveying the other tools and technologies out there to help them understand what value they may get from Twitter versus other sources.”

Brands are falling out of love with social media

The question for brands could reasonably shift from debating how much of a presence to have on platforms like Twitter – to them asking whether it’s worth having a presence at all on popular social media platforms, given the risks. It’s especially true given the old adage of businesses craving long-term certainty.

One of the many roles Twitter plays is to serve as a contact point for frustrated customers. When all else fails, after being driven around in circles by chatbots or spending half an hour on the phone, calling out brands on Twitter is a regular occurrence.

Add to this the problem of the Twitter pile-on, in which swathes of users rally against a brand or person, and businesses might feel they’re between a rock and a hard place. However, Chris Bignell, founder of XL Communications, says a coherent communications strategy could avoid this, and that businesses are called out because people feel like they have nowhere else to go.

“It's very easy for brands to get called out on Twitter, and I think that's why the public has kind of jumped on it because it's a way of publicly shaming a company,” he says. “But I think most people turn to Twitter because they get a response. That’s led to corporations moving their call centre staff to Twitter, rather than answering phones, which means that by publicly shaming a company, the customer is probably more likely to get a quicker result.

What comes after social media?

As Bignell alludes to, the challenge with Twitter at the moment is not just down to the way that it’s run, but in maintaining the ways brands rely on it to communicate with customers directly. Wetteman says joining up the channels of communications, whether over email, phone, social media, or through their own website, would help alleviate the reliance they have on Twitter. Many brands have more to learn when it comes to customer interaction, she adds.

“There's a lot of interaction that happens before a ‘one-to-one’ communication, and some of the really interesting and innovative stuff that I'm seeing is around using artificial intelligence (AI) to understand, not just when a customer creates that one on one communication, but what happens way before that,” she continues. “Businesses want to understand what customers search, their activity on community sites, their activity on the website, to get a better understanding of what they need to do to make a customer happy, rather than just what their interaction may be with a chatbot.”

As brands look away from social media, the question of what comes next still looms – whether it’s another dominant social media platform or Twitter alternative, or something entirely different, like a metaverse-based experience.

Things don’t look like they’ll improve for Twitter any time soon. As Sampson points out, a pause on advertising is not good for Twitter’s profitability, on top of a user base that could fall. “Around 90% of Twitter revenues come from advertising, but the introduction of the Twitter Blue subscription service, as an attempt to build new revenue streams, could see advertising take a back seat and become less relevant to advertisers over the long-term,” she says. “Musk stated he wants to create 'the most respected advertising platform in the world', but it’s too early to say what the result of Musk’s overhaul will have on the number of Twitter users, which is one reason why some companies are biding their time before making a final decision.”

Twitter CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that the platform will give businesses a new type of verification to differentiate between types of organisations and individuals.

Verified businesses will receive a gold checkmark next to their profile name as opposed to the traditional blue checkmark that has been standard for all verified accounts since Twitter’s inception.

Blue checkmarks will remain for previously-verified individuals before Musk’s takeover, and also for Twitter Blue users - those who pay the Musk-introduced $8 subscription for paid verification.

He said government accounts will be designated a grey checkmark, similar to the grey ‘Official’ tag that the platform is currently trialling to differentiate accounts like genuine news organisations from paid-for Twitter Blue impersonations, for example.

He said the new approach will roll out next week on Friday 2 December and that “all verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates. Painful, but necessary”.

Responding to one Twitter user, Musk said that individuals with blue checkmarks can also choose to display a second, smaller logo that indicates they are part of an organisation, providing that organisation verifies their affiliation with it.

This means businesses and other organisations with a verified Twitter presence will also be able to offer their staff the chance to officially show they are part of the organisation.

The development could be especially useful for larger companies that need to ensure their staff aren’t impersonated - an issue that’s been rife on Twitter since Musk introduced paid verification.

A more detailed explanation of the changes is expected to be publicised when the new-look verification rolls out next week, Musk said.

Musk sought to overhaul the platform’s verification system as one of his first of many changes as CEO. The Tesla chief said that introducing paid verification would help limit the success and reach of ‘bot’ accounts, an issue which has led many users to be inundated with scam messages and exposed to misinformation.

Twitter Blue has been heavily criticised since its launch. One issue was that people thought account impersonations would become rife.

The prediction quickly turned to reality as many users impersonated Musk himself, as well as other organisations, posting unsavoury and PR-unfriendly tweets in an attempt to both defame the CEO and draw attention to the issues that 'verification-for-all' could present.

Other figures that were impersonated included senior politicians and former heads of state. The timing of the launch was further criticised for being so close to the midterm elections in the US.

Twitter is reportedly switching to a paid model for verification, requiring users to pay $20 per month in order to retain their 'Blue Tick' status.

Internal Twitter sources and correspondence allegedly indicate that the company will increase the cost of its Twitter Blue premium subscription to $19.99 per month, as first reported by The Verge. Verification will then become conditional on subscription to this service, with existing verified users given a 90 day grace period in which to purchase a Twitter Blue plan, or lose their blue tick.

The same report claimed that developers within Twitter have been told that they will be fired unless the relevant changes are implemented in time for a 7 November launch.

Twitter verification was introduced in 2009, as a means of distinguishing real accounts of notable people and companies from imposters. Today, the feature is used to denote accounts including brands and companies, news sources, activists, celebrities, sports or entertainment personalities, and content creators. There is a long list of requirements in order to become verified, but accounts as a minimum must be “authentic, notable, and active”.

It's a favoured feature for many businesses, as it not only ensures consumers can tell real brands apart from fake accounts, but also allows firms to stand apart from competitors or be seen as more ‘trusted’ by virtue of the blue tick.

Verification has also been widely relied upon to curb disinformation on the website, which notably surges whenever national elections are held or during geopolitical events, such as the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Technology newsletter Platformer had claimed that verification would only be available to Twitter Blue subscribers on Sunday, citing individuals with knowledge of Twitter’s plans. However, this report indicated this would happen while Twitter Blue remained at its current price of $4.99 per month. The same day, Musk tweeted: “The whole verification process is being revamped right now”.

The claims come just days after Elon Musk’s acquisition of the social media giant for $44 billion, after months of negotiations sparked by his initial offer of $41.39 billion in April 2022. In July, Musk had attempted to pull out of the deal, asserting that Twitter had failed to provide accurate information on the number of spam accounts and bots on the website. The move prompted legal action from Twitter itself, which sought to hold Musk to his original offer, and led to a public and protracted period of negotiations culminating in Musk’s eventual commitment to buy the company.

On Thursday, 27 October Musk tweeted “the bird is freed”, indicating that the purchase had gone through. Shortly afterwards, several C-suite executives were fired by Musk, including CEO Parag Agrawal and chief financial officer (CFO) Ned Segal.

In addition to promises that his takeover of the company will lead to increased free speech across the platform, Musk also tweeted an open letter to companies who advertise on Twitter, in which he addressed their potential concerns over his goal of increased “dialogue” on the platform:

“I also very much believe that advertising, when done right, can delight, entertain and inform you; it can show you a service or product or medical treatment that you never knew existed, but is right for you. For this to be true, it is essential to show Twitter users advertising that is as relevant as possible to their needs. Low relevancy ads are spam, but highly relevant ads are actually content!

“Fundamentally, Twitter aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world that strengthens your brand and grows your enterprise. To everyone who has partnered with us, thank you. Let us build something extraordinary together.”

IT Pro has approached Twitter for comment.

TikTok has announced Follow Me, a new multi-channel educational programme designed to help SMBs leverage the social media platform to drive business results.

The free 6-week, email-based course aims to provide businesses with a step-by-step guide on how to get started on the platform, acting as a guide for sharing their stories and building an audience.

“We created the Follow Me experience to empower more small businesses to dive into TikTok, so that they can also share their story with the TikTok community and reach their goals,” explained Sujatha Mamidibathula, TikTok’s Head of SMB, North America.

From now until August 19, businesses can register for the latest tips from TikTok’s Small Business Ambassadors, who will offer up advice on how to drive results through community and entertainment.

Follow Me also promises different learning roadmaps based on visitors’ goals, with the email series outlining best practices for running a first campaign on the platform, as well as how to integrate a brand story into videos.

Those signing up will also receive a guide for setting up a free Business Account, access to TikTok’s Creative Center for content inspiration, as well as information on the company’s Ads Manager and Promotion features.

“With Follow Me, any business can integrate the diverse and creative formats available on TikTok into their marketing strategies to involve, connect, and engage with the massive audience base available on the platform,” Mamidibathula added.

The move may provide some improved PR in the business space for the social media platform. Last month, FFC commissioner Brendan Carr urged Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores over its questionable data practices.

The app, which was been downloaded from both app stores almost 19 million times in Q1 2022 alone, is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, an organisation linked closely to the Communist Party of China and bound to its surveillance demands.

Carr described TikTok as a national security risk and requested Apple and Google to remove it from its app stores for failure to abide by their policies.

Hootsuite has acquired customer messaging platform Heyday for $60 million.

A pioneer in social media management, Hootsuite helps businesses schedule posts across multiple social networks in just a few clicks. Through Heyday’s acquisition, Hootsuite aims to offer brands an always-on and personalized customer service solution.

Montreal-based Heyday boosts engagement through 1-to-1 messaging via chat and video across customer touchpoints. Additionally, Heyday instantly recommends products matching shoppers’ search terms, putting e-commerce sales on autopilot. The conversational artificial intelligence (AI) platform also helps businesses filter conversations by department and team.

Hootsuite will leverage Heyday’s AI capabilities to help brands deliver personalized customer experiences at scale as part of the acquisition.

“Social is the new interface of commerce and customer care,” said Tom Keiser, Hootsuite CEO.

Keiser continued, “Modern day brands have to manage a multitude of daily interactions and conversations at scale—which is impossible to do without AI automation. With the acquisition of Heyday, Hootsuite will now give AI capabilities to marketing, sales and support teams globally so they can deliver exceptional experiences at scale.”

Heyday supports integration with over 30 messaging platforms, including WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

“We created Heyday’s conversational platform to make buying from a brand as easy as messaging a friend,” said Steve Desjarlais, co-founder of Heyday.

“Together with Hootsuite, we will bridge the gap between physical and digital brand experiences by leveraging social and messaging channels as the anchor and golden thread of the customer journey.”

Earlier this year, Hootsuite acquired Sparkcentral, a Saas-based automated messaging distribution (AMD) platform to “unify social marketing, social listening, and social customer care.” With Heyday's acquisition, Hootsuite will move closer to its goals.

Google has been accused by ten US states of colluding with Facebook in an online advertising deal dating back to 2018.

The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday by Texas and nine other states, alleges that Google broke federal and state antitrust laws and engaged in “deceptive trade practices”.

According to the legal document, the tech giant “sought to kill competition and has done so through an array of exclusionary tactics, including an unlawful agreement with Facebook, its largest potential competitive threat, to manipulate advertising auctions”.

The deal between the two companies was allegedly agreed in September 2018 and received the internal codename Project Jedi.

Facebook is said to have had access to Google’s data and policy exceptions, enabling its advertising clients to have more ads placed than any other Google partner client. The company led by Mark Zuckerberg allegedly “understood Google’s rationale as a monopolist very well”. However, unlike Google, it isn’t named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

The legal document, which has been heavily redacted, claims that the two companies colluded to keep their deal under wraps. Google allegedly chose not to publicly disclose that it had given Facebook preferential treatment.

“Given the scope and extensive nature of cooperation between the two companies, Google and Facebook were highly aware that their agreement could trigger antitrust violations. The two companies discussed, negotiated, and memorialized how they would cooperate with one another,” the lawsuit alleges.

Commenting on the lawsuit, Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint said that “Google (and Facebook)” shouldn't be allowed “to claim they are friends to small businesses or local journalism”.

“It's all one giant welfare reallocation being extracted by two dominant intermediaries of your personal data,” he added.

The allegations come days after California became the latest state to join an existing Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit that also includes 11 other states.

Filed on 20 October, it accuses Google of using anti-competitive practices in the search and advertising markets, such as locking up the search engine market by requiring it to be the default search engine for mobile devices and computers.

The lawsuit was the culmination of a year-long DOJ and multi-state investigation into Google's business practices.

Snapchat has added a new feature that allows users to display the number of followers or subscribers they have. Users can function on or off as they please. The addition of the subscribers display option was first reported by Tubefilter.

A Snapchat spokesperson said, “We’ve listened to feedback from our creator community and many of them expressed interest in having the option to show that their community on Snapchat is growing, So, starting today, we are giving creators the option to make subscriber counts visible on their public profiles…We understand not every creator wants to have public metrics visible to their fans. Therefore, creators can choose to toggle this metric on and off as needed in their settings.”

Subscriber numbers are important to companies, as they allow companies to show their strength and influence in an industry. It shows that your message is reaching others and you’re an influencer on some level.

This addition follows September’s news that Snapchat would let creators build permanent profiles in the same manner as “Snap Stars,” a group of Snapchat accounts the company handpicked due to their success.

In another user-friendly move, Snapchat announced a partnership with Headspace back in June to provide users with access to mental help and meditation.

The newly created The Chat Agency launched its Facebook Messenger chatbot and social media nano influencer marketing services to help online sellers increase their brand awareness, product sales and rankings.

According to a senior company spokesperson, "We noticed our listings were losing rank for competitive and valuable keywords. We knew we could solve the problem manually, but who has that kind of time when they have a valuable business to run? Wasn't there an easier way? As it turns out, there wasn't, so…we decided to create a better solution using proven practices."

The company uses intelligent Facebook Messenger chatbot marketing automation to help clients increase customer engagement and sales. Online sellers are now using Facebook Messenger chatbots more often to automate their marketing efforts. Chatbots increase the ability to speak to buyers more often and about more relevant topics, increasing conversions and sales.

Facebook Messenger has more than 2 million active chatbots and experiences more than 20 billion messages between businesses and users monthly. The number of global Facebook users is expected to hit 3.1 billion by 2021, so companies will benefit from engaging this audience.

The Chat Agency provides the following marketing services:

• Amazon Rank maintenance: A service that maintains or increases a listing’s relevance and traffic. It’ll help reduce seller costs to launch new products and rank. It uses existing audiences and those brought in by chatbots. The service includes automated rank analysis, intelligent chatbot automation, conversion copywriting and visually guided Search-Find-Buy Plus.
• Nano-Influencer Framework: A social media promotion system that uses up-and-coming influencers to create real relationships, influence and results. It includes social proof, brand ambassadors who will promote products, gamified product promotion and user generated content.

According to the company, people who follow nano influencers on social media are more likely to make purchases based on their recommendations. Social media influencers effectively drive sales, and the influencer marketing industry is expected to hit $15 billion by 2022.

Facebook is launching a new interface for small businesses that allows for pages and messages to be managed across the social network and its roster of apps.

The Facebook Business Suite lets users manage multiple accounts and post and read messages across Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram from one single space.

It will also include analytical tools for business to measure the impact of their social media strategies across their accounts.

The Business Suite is available globally, but only to SMBs at present, though there are plans to expand it to larger organisations in 2021.

"The last few months have been tough for small businesses everywhere, and while there are reasons to be optimistic there is still much uncertainty ahead," Chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said in a blog post. "But whatever happens, Facebook will continue to do all we can to help them adapt, survive and thrive online."

According to a report released by the company in July, in partnership with the World Bank and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), SMBs making more than 25% of their sales online were more likely to report higher sales than this time last year and were less likely to have reduced their workforce during the pandemic.

In another report, published in September in cooperation with Deloitte, nearly half of surveyed consumers said they had spent more money online since the outbreak, and 40% had increased their use of social media and online messaging for product and business recommendations.

Nearly two-thirds of consumers also said they had swapped at least one of their usual businesses for a new one during the pandemic, and that they used digital tools to discover that new business.

The survey also revealed encouraging support for local businesses. Of those who said they had started shopping somewhere new, nearly three-quarters said that at least one was a local small business. Just under a third (31%) also said they plan to increase their spending with local SMBs once the pandemic is over.

How often do you use Facebook? For many people, Facebook is part of their daily routine. They pick up their phone or open their laptop and go straight to Facebook to learn more about what’s going on in the world around them. In fact, Facebook has ingrained itself into our lives so effortlessly that it’s the most visited website in the world, according to Hootsuite.

Further consider that the average Facebook user spends around 19.5 hours on the platform each month, according to the research. What's more, having a Facebook business page can become a powerful tool for customer acquisition.

Why your business needs a Facebook page

With more than two billion monthly active users and Facebook clicks on searches for local businesses increased 23% from February to May, 2020, the reasons for having a Facebook page for your business are almost endless. From connecting with your business’ target market to determining the most effective ad strategy for selling your product or service to your consumers, your business can’t really afford to be without a Facebook page.

Understanding Facebook’s arsenal of tools for businesses

Facebook offers a wealth of tools for business owners. Each tool focuses on providing businesses with the opportunity to reach their target audiences and engage with their customers while solidifying their overall presence across the platform.

Business Manager

Business Manager brings together all of a business’ team members, pages and ad accounts. This puts all this into an easy-to-access and secure place. Plus, Business Manager is free to use.

Ads Manager

Ads Manager provides you with the tools you need to manage and determine the success of your Facebook page’s ad campaigns. When using Ads Manager, you can also access useful campaign tools such as audience insights.

Page Insights

Never underestimate the power of analytics. Facebook certainly hasn’t.

Page Insights serves as a valuable analytics tool for Facebook business users. Not only do insights allow you to keep up to date on comments, but it also provides valuable data, including your content’s reach and the types of posts and content your followers respond to the most.

Messenger

Your customers crave connection. Facebook Messenger gives them just that. Over 20 billion messages are exchanged between businesses and users monthly on Facebook Messenger and the platform even has over 300,000 active bots on Messenger.

Facebook Pixel

Facebook pixel is a piece of code that works in concert with your business’ website and Facebook page. When a customer takes action on your website after visiting its Facebook page, Facebook pixel reports this action to your account.

The more conversions Facebook pixel tracks, the better it is at delivering ads to your target audience.

Marketing your business using Facebook

Facebook has over 2.74 billion active users. An increasing number of those users visit the social networking site hoping to connect with useful products, services, and brands.

In 2020, an estimated 87.1% of U.S. marketers used Facebook marketing to reach their customers. Fortunately, Facebook offers plenty of opportunities for businesses to reach their target audiences using strategically designed Facebook ads.

Local awareness ads

For brick-and-mortar businesses, local awareness ads are key. Simply choose the proximity you’d like to reach around your business and the target audience you want to reach, and Facebook will target those people.

You can also send people straight to your front door, by adding a ‘Get Directions’ button to this ad.

Slide show ads

These are quick and easy video-like ads using marketing collateral you may already have. Unlike most video ads, slide show ads are affordable and take only minutes to create.

Carousel ads

With a carousel ad, you can give your customers the information they need by showcasing multiple products and services in a single post. If your marketing team’s goal is to showcase a product effectively or highlight a one-of-a-kind service, consider using a carousel ad.

Dynamic ads

To launch a dynamic ad on Facebook, you must have not only a Facebook business page but also a Business Manager account and a Facebook pixel. Dynamic ads allow you to promote products to those who may have browsed your website when they migrate to Facebook, encouraging them to revisit your website and become a paying customer.

Lead ads

In need of a solid email list so you can reach out to your customer’s on additional platforms? Use a lead ad to create contact forms that are pre-populated with a user’s contact information. Gather this information and continue to build connections with your customer base.

Canvas ads

Full-screen, instant-loading mobile ads are known as canvas ads. Think of them as an artificial landing page for your organization.

These ads aren’t only highly engaging, but they are great for segments of your audience that visit Facebook regularly and also consume a large amount of content while using the platform.

Keep your customers engaged using Facebook

Although the social media ecosystem is one that is constantly changing, there is one thing that remains the same: It takes a substantial amount of time and effort to transform your Facebook business page into a completely developed online community.

At the end of the day, however, ensuring you keep your customers engaged through a Facebook business page can make a huge difference.

Customize your audience

From lookalike audiences that aid organisations to discover more customers, to custom audiences that specifically target those customers you already know of, Facebook provides no shortage of opportunities to customize your business page’s audience and constantly engage with your customer base.

Create a community of super fans

If you are talented at real-time communication with your customers, it may be worthwhile considering having a Facebook group associated with your organization’s page. This could be your chance to create a powerful community of super fans, as more than one billion people use Facebook groups regularly, providing your customers with a chance to talk to each other and interact with the brand itself.

Focus on quality

Social media moves pretty fast, as Ferris Bueller might attest, so if your brand isn’t able to constantly publish eye-catching content or ads, your customers won’t stop and look. Furthermore, when it comes to platforms like Facebook, there’s no time for sub-par content. You’re more likely to keep your core customer base engaged if you put out higher quality content as consistently as possible. Obviously, the more engaged your customer base is, the better your business will be.

Businesses should be on high-alert throughout Twitter's December inactive account purge, because the perfect handle to increase brand awareness may be freed up.

Twitter doesn't often conduct mass purges of inactive accounts but with 330 million active users as of 2019, new businesses launching now will struggle to find the perfect social media handle due to so many already being taken.

Owners of accounts that haven't logged in for six months have been emailed to say their account is at risk of being deactivated if they don't log-in by 11 December.

An exact date hasn't been set for the purge, but businesses should check every day after the 11th if they have their eye on a handle used by an inactive account.

Twitter told the BBC that it would be removing inactive accounts gradually, starting with users outside of the US so it may take some time and frequent checking to ensure a business is able to snag the handle it wants.

The purge won't just affect inactive users – deceased owners of accounts will likely have their handless freed as Twitter, unlike Facebook, doesn't yet support a memorialisation of accounts.

Owners of bot accounts will also have to log-in again or risk deactivation, as will accounts created for archival purposes.

How important is a Twitter handle for a business?

Whatever level of social savviness a business has, the great power of social media marketing is incontrovertible.

Platforms like Twitter are favoured by businesses as they are news-centric and allow a place for businesses to publish material, publicly interact with customers to build brand loyalty and generally give interested users updates on the business with no up-front cost.

But building a brand image can be difficult, especially for new businesses starting out. In a world where the biggest and most trusted companies have their handles with no modifiers such as "TheReal-" or "-Official", finding an appropriate handle that doesn't scream "we're new to this" can be tough.

Pre-purge, businesses would have to resort to either asking nicely for account handles they wanted or resort to paying for them, something Twitter actively forbids.

For example, the banking and financial services company JP Morgan Chase reportedly offered a 'squatter' $20,000 for the @Chase Twitter handle.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has said that all political advertising will be banned on the platform in what appears to be a snub at rival social media companies.

The announcement comes in the midst of intense public scrutiny of Facebook's policy to not fact check political ads posted on their site, with many commentators commending the decision.

Twitter has plenty of compelling reasons to block political advertisements from their site altogether. In his series of posts, Dorsey cited machine learning-based micro-targeting, misleading information, and deepfakes as new tech threats to civic discourse, "all at increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale."

However, Facebook immediately shot back to defend itself against the suggestion that the company wasn't doing enough to police political messaging on its own platform.

"This is complex stuff. Anyone who says the answer is simple hasn't thought about the nuances and downstream challenges," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. "I don't think anyone can say that we are not doing what we believe or we haven't thought hard about these issues."

Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal, for which they've just paid out 500,000 in fines but rejected any of the liability, is a glaring example of just how powerful political ads can be, and just how dangerous they can become when riddled with false information.

Carole Cadwalladr, the journalist who exposed the Cambridge Analytica scandal, commended Twitter's move to block political ads from their site, adding "over to you Facebook".

However, others are wary of the ramifications of Twitter's drastic action, and wonder how Twitter will distinguish an advertisement as "political" or not. "It's hard to define where to draw the line," said Zuckerberg. "Would we really block ads for important political issues like climate change or women's empowerment?"

Twitter will define exactly what constitutes a political ad when their new policy is announced on 15 November. The policy will go into effect on 22 November.

Twitter's move to completely eliminate political ads globally, and Facebook's reluctance to do the same, might make a bit more sense when considering the amount of revenue political advertising brings in compared to Twitter's overall income.

The company does not release specific figures each quarter, but reported that political ad spending for the 2018 midterm election culminated in less than $3 million. The total third-quarter revenue was about $824 million.

According to TechCrunch, Facebook's revenue from political ads is likely to be between $330 to $400 million next year.

Still, Twitter's has been the strongest action to date by any social media platform on the topic of political ads. Although disagreements may persist about the implications of the new policy, it's seen as the first major step towards regulating false information, microtargeting, and other harmful tech in political advertising.

Facebook will use advertising to make money off the back of the Libra cryptocurrency, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at his US capitol hearing in response to Congressman David Kustoff's question about how Facebook and other Libra partners would profit from launching the cryptocurrency.

The congressman probed for a more thorough explanation of the monetary benefits of Libra for its board members after Zuckerberg claimed that the motivations for creating the cryptocurrency project were primarily charitable.

"Well, Congressman, you may not believe this, but [monetary profit is] actually not the first thing that we talk about at the company," Zuckerberg responded. "We focus on building services that are going to create value in people's lives, and we believe that if we do that, that we're eventually able to get some of the value downstream."

If more ad-influenced purchases are made through Facebook than other social media or search engine platforms, it will dominate a larger part of the online advertising market. In Zuckerberg's address, the CEO compared the process to an auction; small businesses bid on ad real estate, essentially telling Facebook what it's worth to promote their products and services.

By allowing customers to transact with businesses directly, thereby expediting and easing the purchasing process, advertisements will appreciate in value for the businesses utilising them, making them likely to bid more in the ad system.

"I would expect that over time that will lead to higher prices for ads because it will be worth more to businesses so they will bid more on the ads system," Zuckerberg said.

However, he had few remarks on whether or not Libra will have transaction fees. It's a distinct possibility, given that it's not a decentralised cryptocurrency, the type which doesn't have them. It's also yet another reason for the investor hesitation and continuous lawmaker scrutiny that have stalled the project.

Facebook critics might anticipate the conversion from Libras to dollars becoming so difficult, consumers and businesses will conduct all of their transactions over the social media's interface, since it will no longer be practical to do it anywhere else.

Although Libra was supposed to be the hearing's main topic, the five-hour session fleshed out a wide range of other topics, mostly to do with Facebook's many scandals over the past few years. It's clear that trust issues and a fear of the social media tech giant's influence are key components in the widespread aversion of lawmakers to the Libra project.

"Facebook has amassed too much power," representative Chuy Garcia said, "it has become too big, and we should seriously consider breaking it up."

"I want to be clear," Zuckerberg said in an attempt to appease the House, "Facebook will not be part of launching the Libra payments system anywhere in the world until US regulators approve."

While the myth of your smartphone ‘listening’ to you has been long-since debunked, the attentive internet user knows all too well the power of digital advertising companies and how easily you can be traced online. The digital footprint we leave behind is how these firms are able to deduce our likes and dislikes, our friends, our enemies, and what restaurant we want to visit before we even know ourselves.

Indeed, it can be unsettling when these odd occurrences happen, and remind us of the deep trail of breadcrumbs we leave behind after every browsing session. Of course, there are ways around being tracked, but these often require a much more laborious and scrupulous internet experience than many consumers are happy to undertake.

Not everyone is as carefree with handing over their data, however. It can be a disconcerting feeling to know that your entire life and personality can be mapped by any company with the requisite resources. There are certainly a number of ways to go about managing your digital footprint and understanding how companies track you is key to reverse engineering their methods.

The definition of a digital footprint

To better understand what we mean by the term 'digital footprint', we can use LinkedIn as an example. Once you fill out your profile, users can view certain pieces of information about you from the data that’s available, and make conclusions based on that data, whether or not you mean to make this possible.

From your profile, it’s likely that users can ascertain your goals, ambitions and career history. From other social media platforms, such as Facebook or Twitter, the same people can learn about your favourite restaurants or holiday spots, your closest friends, and the area in which you live. These examples are only a handful that demonstrate how filling out a few forms might generate a broad digital footprint that companies capable of processing big data can use to get extensive insight into you, and large groups of people.

Although it is almost inevitable that you will post things on social media and then regret doing so later, hidden data points that can be harvested by apps and systems are more alarming. This layer is far more valuable than the digital nuggets you’ll have dropped as you migrate between social media platforms, and if successfully harvested will certainly reveal more in-depth information than you would feel comfortable disclosing.

Each click on a website is registered as a data point, which is combined with other pieces of data including how often you’ve visited a certain page, and when. These can be on-site interactions — adding items to your shopping basket, for example, or likes and comments on social media platforms — or wider tracking of user activity. As a case in point, Meta uses tracking scripts to log user activity on websites accessed through Facebook links, and creates detailed advertising profiles based on them. This is often the reason you see ‘relevant ads’ on certain sites, even though you haven’t made an active search for the advertised items. These data points are combined and shared between organisations to process in a way that best suits their business models, such as Amazon's alleged use of third-party seller data to inform its own retail decisions.

This process isn’t inherently evil, and can benefit you by tailoring your browsing experience to only serve you adverts that you’ll be interested in pursuing further. There can also be moments, however, where you’ll be browsing and the level of personalisation you encounter, based on your digital footprint, becomes intrusive.

The downsides of your digital footprint

While personal data can be utilised for good, it can also be misused by hackers to fuel cyber crime. This may occur as a result of third-parties observing your method of payment, or observation of your spending habits out and about on the high street. Elements of your life you would prefer to keep private can be exposed through exploitation of your digital footprint, inadvertently or otherwise, and subsequently used to blackmail you.

There are several ways you can minimise these risks, but there are a number of moving parts of which you must keep track. When it comes to your digital footprint, for instance, there are two types: active and passive.

Active digital footprint

An 'active' digital footprint is the publicly traceable information that you share online, including Facebook updates, message board posts and Twitter rants. We rarely think about this type of digital footprint, but under the right (or the wrong) circumstances it can become a major headache.

The most obvious example is in employment, which is still a very subjective and human-led task despite increasing attempts to automate it. When hiring a new member of staff, the vast majority of companies now look up potential candidates' social media profiles. You may have a bulletproof CV, but if your Twitter feed is a stream of complaints and insults directed at your former employer, that will likely prove a one-way ticket to the rejection pile.

Similarly, many people have been brought down by ill-advised social media posts being unearthed years after they were first put up. The UK's first youth police and crime commissioner, for example, lost her job in 2013 after racist and homophobic tweets she had made emerged. The government's Data Protection Act 2018 allows people to clean up their childhood social media footprint, which should go some way to getting rid of embarrassing views people no longer hold.

Passive digital footprint

Your passive digital footprint is made up of the information that companies are harvesting behind the curtain, such as browsing data, IP addresses and purchasing habits. This is often collected without our full awareness, and is used for AdTech purposes, to build customer profiles and more.

There are a number of ways to minimise how large this type of footprint grows, such as using proxies and VPNs, or using anonymising technologies such as Tor.

Thankfully, this data isn't usually publicly searchable, so it doesn't present much of an issue in day-to-day life - unless you're especially concerned about what private companies like Google and Facebook are tracking about your internet activity.

Social media's security issue

In the age of social media, it has become increasingly normalised to share even the most personal information online. From seemingly-innocent pet photos to relationship statuses, the internet is now chock-full of clues that could lead to bad actors being able to piece together a startling overview of your life.

Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with posting a video of you playing with your dog on Instagram. However, if the pup’s name is mentioned and you also happen to be one of the 15% of Brits who use their pet's name as a password, this might serve as a prompt for any would-be password hackers.

Along with potentially hacking your personal or work email, or even your bank account, threat actors also partake in burglary, fraud, or identity theft using information gleaned through social media. It’s a big reason, along with the general prevalence of unwanted individuals, to never make a post that could help someone locate your personal address. Plenty of social media platforms offer the option to “tag” yourself at a given location when posting. However, this can also assist stalkers in keeping tabs on your whereabouts. With this in mind, it’s often better to delay posts from your brunch, picnic or social outing until after you’ve already left the premises.

Although it may seem over-cautious, this tactic provides at least two benefits: it lets you focus on your friends and family in the moment, but also protects you from being followed in real life, as opposed to just online. This won't, it should be added, prevent companies from tracking your location such as Google, which has been accused of invasive location tracking.

What is the best way to make sure your digital footprint doesn’t turn into a digital problem? The easiest solution is to ensure you don’t post anything potentially embarrassing or harmful on the web — a good rule of thumb is to never post anything that you wouldn’t be comfortable with showing to your boss or being read aloud in a full room.

Of course, this can be tricky to follow at all times. Aside from this rule being heavily restrictive, there will always be factors outside of your control. For example, someone could post an unwanted photo of you on their social media page, and it can be difficult to have such photos taken down.

Almost all social media networks give the option of adjustable privacy settings, whereby you can limit who gets to see your profile and posts, and change whether or not new followers or friends are automatically accepted.

You can always use anonymous social media accounts if you’re worried about your online activities being traced back to you. These can make use of entirely falsified information or personal details that aren’t linked to your professional life, like a maiden or middle name.

Lastly, the EU’s ‘right to be forgotten’ law is the most extreme avenue for managing your digital footprint. The legislation gives users the right to request that search results which are deemed to be "inadequate, irrelevant, or no longer relevant" be removed from search engines like Google. However, there needs to be a valid reason for the request, so the tactic doesn’t apply unless you can provide one.

The best guidance that can be given is simply: be sensible. A few pictures of you on a night out are unlikely to get you fired, but posting a soliloquy about how much you hate your boss just might. You are free to post your views online, but hate speech can and will come back to bite you. Exercise good judgement and common sense, and your digital footprint will likely lose you no sleep.

The advertising industry has been revolutionised by the internet and social media platforms. It's now cheaper and quicker for advertising companies to reach their target audience, not to mention considerably more effective.

Naturally, big tech companies have made this a key part of their business, effectively monetising users. It's the main revenue for social network giant Facebook, which, with its billions of users, is an advertiser's dream.

Facebook Advertising has seen rapid growth over the years, ranking above Google ads and traditional web advertising. There are more than two billion active Facebook accounts around the world, making a company's odds of reaching and connecting with its clients' ideal audience quite high. Whether that's a CEO, CFO, or a certain demographic of the public, you're very likely to find them on Facebook.

The popularity of the social network is the biggest incentive for using its advertising platform. But, AI plays a big role, with algorithms controlling what users see - the idea being that their news feed is tailored to them. A recent update to these algorithms made it harder for companies to find target audiences as Facebook has moved to favour "personal connections" over business posts. So, using the advertising platform is more effective than posting your own organic adverts.

As more businesses catch on to the benefits, these ads get more and more expensive. So, if you haven't already started using Facebook ads, perhaps now is the time to do so. Read on to discover strategies and tips to increase your digital reach through Facebook advertising.

Why should a business use Facebook advertising?

Although you may be thinking along the same lines as many other B2B businesses - that Facebook isn't worth spending money on to reach your target clients - your mindset needs to change if you want to jump onboard one of the most effective digital marketing platforms in existence.

In fact, 80% of all internet users have some kind of presence on Facebook and through spending as little as 1 a day, you will be able to much better reach those responsible for making buying decisions in a business, without needing to go for the hard sell.

But that's exactly when you should be targeting them. Not only is it used by such a huge variety of people, but it's also probably the most targeted and cheapest forms of advertising available.

If a customer is browsing their Facebook feed during downtime rather than work time, your business may not be at the front of their mind. However, if they see a well-targeted ad from your company even when they don't have their business hat on, your brand will still in their mind when they perhaps are looking to make a purchasing decision later down the line.

Facebook advertising is easily measurable. With Facebook Pixels, you can see exactly what traffic you're driving through to your website and those visitors' behaviour when they hit your site. Did they buy anything? Which pages did they visit? Did they add anything to their cart? Send a query to your customer service department?

With these insights, you can continue to market to them via other sales channels, making it more likely they'll convert into customers.

The key to success with Facebook adverts

To experience a decent ROI on Facebook advertising, it's hugely important to make sure you're focusing on the right group of people. Put simply, the more niche and narrow your audience, the better returns you'll get.

Because after all, if your audience is too broad, you'll be trying to attract even those unlikely to make a purchasing decision and paying for the privilege every time someone clicks on your ad to find it's not what they're looking for is a costly way of running advertising.

You also need to make sure your ad copy is well-targeted to your audience too. It's a good idea to create a range of ads to target each particular challenge your potential client has. These should be determined as part of your wider marketing strategy. You can then analyse which proved more successful and use this to define your ongoing Facebook advertising strategy.

With Facebook boasting more than 2.6 billion monthly active users, as well as a workplace collaboration suite to compete with the likes of Slack, its stranglehold on social and business communications is almost unparalleled.

Facebook’s dominance in the social media space is part of the reason it has become of the most efficient ways to generate an audience for your business, whether it’s in content creation or the restaurant industry. This is why one of the keys to growing your business in the modern age is appreciating how to use Facebook, and what role it can play whether you’re starting out a new venture, or looking to scale-up.

Facebook Analytics is the central pillar for how businesses can effectively use Facebook, offering users the capacity to make informed decisions around marketing strategies by using a rich pool of customer data. The information provided by users interacting with your posts and content, from their age, location and gender to their interests, allows you to truly understand your target demographic and cater your strategy towards their needs.

While Google Analytics offers a sophisticated set of tools for businesses to manage the users visiting their sites, the analytics capabilities offered by Facebook have quickly become a more popular alternative, if not a complementary tool. It’s especially important for businesses with the need to build a strong social media presence as part of their growth and marketing strategies.

What does Facebook Analytics do?

This was first released as an application-based analytics platform to help third-party developers understand how people were using their software and services. Only a small proportion of data was ever shared with developers in these early stages of Facebook Analytics, however, and insights we're unable to provide details about the types of people using these services.

A year after its rollout, Facebook Analytics was upgraded to offer cross-platform analytics, allowing organisations to collect data about those using their applications and websites they owned, across multiple devices.

Now, businesses could see how its users were interacting with more than just apps, but also on the platform as a whole, as well as how they were using bots within the Messenger app. If a user had dismissed the bot, they could try and ascertain why this may have happened and tweak the tech as a result.

As the social network began adding more and more features to its platform, it made the decision in 2017 to rebrand Facebook Analytics for Apps as Facebook Analytics, during the company's F8 conference.

"We're extending omni-channel analytics for Facebook's family of apps and services with the addition of Facebook Page interactions, such as post reactions and shares, so you can measure and understand the interactions people have with your Page alongside their other activity on your website, app, and bot," said Amit Finkelstein, engineering manager of Facebook Analytics, in a blog post at the time.

"For example, an e-commerce business can measure if people who comment on an item featured in their Page post go on to view an item on their website, or purchase it in their app. The ability to view customer behaviour across different channels gives businesses a unique ability to learn about and optimize their full customer journey to drive growth.

"We're also giving you the ability to see how people's online interactions translate to in-store purchases with the addition of support for offline conversions. By closing the loop between your online and offline channels, you won't have to wonder if people browsing items on your website translates into sales in your physical store."

At last year's F8 Conference, Facebook once more unveiled a catalogue of enhancements, including the Journeys feature, which has been designed to bring together different data points to work out a user's journey and touchpoints on Facebook.

The company also introduced machine learning to help advertisers automatically detect the most frequent routes a user takes within an app or site, and the tool now has a full-fledged mobile app available on iOS and Android. With the platform's scope widening, Facebook Analytics for Apps was ultimately rebranded to Facebook Analytics at the company's F8 conference in 2017.

How can businesses get value from Facebook Analytics?

The main idea of Facebook Analytics is to give organisations a better understanding of who engages with their brand and how they do it. Facebook provides a treasure trove of user information and its analytics platform allows businesses to gain almost unparalleled levels of insight into their customers, whether that be where they live, how old they are, their gender, or even the device they use to access the internet most regularly.

While it's generally up to an individual business how it derives value from all this data, one of the most recommended uses is to create targeted advertising from analytical data based on user habits and their activity history.

"If you rely on Facebook ads to attract customers, it's important to have a way to track them," advises Hootsuite's Ad Espresso blog. "Blindly spending money on Facebook ads without any insight into their effectiveness is a waste of time and effort. If you're not tracking the results, you'll never know if your campaigns are generating a return on investment."

Facebook's Finklestein, meanwhile, says the tool can also help track a customer journey across multiple platforms, thanks to its multi-channel monitoring feature.

"For example, an e-commerce business can measure if people who comment on an item featured in their Page post go on to view an item on their website, or purchase it in their app," Finklestein says. "The ability to view customer behaviour across different channels gives businesses a unique ability to learn about and optimise their full customer journey to drive growth."

"We're also giving you the ability to see how people's online interactions translate to in-store purchases with the addition of support for offline conversions. By closing the loop between your online and offline channels, you won't have to wonder if people browsing items on your website translates into sales in your physical store."

Facebook Analytics competes with Google Analytics by linking actions to users rather than cookies, which allows businesses to trace a specific user across all of their browsers and devices when signed on to Facebook. Google Analytics, however, uses cookies that only let businesses track users in a single browser.

For those not running an e-commerce business, Facebook Analytics can help track social interactions, enabling businesses to increase social engagement and adapt posts according to what has worked in the past (and what hasn't).

Overall, Facebook Analytics is a powerful tool that can be used to increase ROI, and any business with a Facebook presence would be well advised to add this to their analytics toolbox.

Although GDPR’s second birthday is rapidly approaching, the dust is yet to firmly settle around its implementation. Many questions and concerns remain unanswered, destabilising a data landscape that modern industries must navigate with caution.

This rings true with few professions greater than email marketers, with the email marketing campaigns they conduct experiencing the largest cause of complaints to data protection authorities across Europe since GDPR’s introduction in May 2018, alongside telemarketing and the use of video surveillance.

That’s because GDPR alters how organisations are able to use data, particularly the third-party data email marketers use to target existing and potential customers. For whichever reason – be it misunderstanding the legislation, or being unable to deliver personalised experiences whilst complying – over 100 GDPR-related fines have been distributed, stemming from around 60,000 complaints received by the European Commission. And perhaps nothing highlights how large a hurdle GDPR can be than the ICO’s decision to relax GDPR enforcement during the coronavirus economic downturn.

To avoid debilitating fines, it’s vital for businesses to follow established best-practices principles concerning the use of marketing and data. However, that's easier said than done.

The main point of concern is customer consent. GDPR holds organisations accountable for the data they hold and use, requiring them to have a strong reason for touching data, referred to as ‘legitimate interest’ – such as fraud prevention or the fulfillment of a legal contract. Such data processing has to be necessary to the act of achieving this purpose, provided that the rights of the individual whose data is being processed aren't infringed upon.

There are a number of ways to meet the legitimate interest clause, though its often the case that marketers rely on an individual giving their explicit and informed consent. Previously, many companies relied on tiny and obscure check-boxes that are ticked by default in order to obtain 'consent' from customers but, under GDPR, companies must explain in clear, concise wording exactly why customers' data is being gathered and how it will be used.

Many marketing departments are concerned that, if customers are given the choice about whether or not they want to be sent newsletters and other forms of marketing materials, they will refuse it. However, Skip Fidura, Chair of the Responsible Marketing Committee at the Digital Marketing Association, believes that GDPR actually offers an opportunity for marketers to use GDPR to their advantage.

We spoke to him to find out some of his top tips for email marketers who want to survive GDPR.

1) Don't panic!

The biggest thing that digital marketers need to remember, Fidura says, is that GDPR is not the apocalyptic cataclysm that many are making it out to be. If marketers have been doing their jobs properly, he argues, the laws should have a minimal impact on how marketers do business.

"There's really nothing in the GDPR that email marketers haven't been talking about and doing as best practice for years. Being open, honest and transparent when it comes to getting consent - you can use the GDPR language, but it all boils down to being open, honest and transparent," Fidura explains.

2) Don't re-permission your lists, refine them

A common response to GDPR from many marketing departments has been to try and re-obtain consent from their entire marketing list for life-long messaging, but according to Fidura, this is an unnecessary effort. "The myth when GDPR first came out," he notes, "was that consent is the only way we can market and therefore, because I don't have GDPR-level consent, I have to go get GDPR-level consent."

In reality, he continues, what brands have done is to take a step back and examine their data, working out how much of their lists they can continue to market to under GDPR's 'legitimate interests' provisos, which customers they need to approach to ask for new permissions, and which customers should be culled from their lists entirely.

3) Follow best practice

This dovetails neatly with another of Fidura's top tips, which is to make a point of following best practice - i.e. reducing email lists when some recipients haven't engaged for a defined period of time - no matter how unpalatable it may seem.

"[Marketers] know they should be culling people off lists, but when you go to the finance people and say 'I've just cut 25% off our email list', the finance people go 'what are you, crazy?'," he says. "So actually, I think in some cases, marketers have been able to use GDPR to do what they know they should have been doing all along."

4) Audit your data regularly

Of course, you can't cut dead weight from your email lists if you don't know that it's there. Fidura advises that companies conduct regular audits of their data stores to ensure that they know exactly what state their lists are in.

"The problem with data is data has a shelf-life, and just like a piece of fish that's gone off, if you let it sit too long, it's gonna stink," he states. Companies need to be aware of how long data is going to be relevant for when they collect it, and should regularly audit it based on the inflow of data and how many people are accessing and modifying it.

5) Don't forget about ongoing compliance

Many organisations went into a mad scramble to get ready for GDPR last year, but that doesn't mean that the work to get compliant is done. As Fidura points out, GDPR is far from a one-time deal. While initially complying with the regulations is important, ensuring that you continue to uphold those standards is actually more critical in the long run. The further we get from May 2018, the more relaxed companies are going to get, and it won't be long before "they're going to buy some new system and forget that they've got to now plug that into their GDPR compliance".

"What they need to think about going forwards is, they need to remember the steps they went through to get to their GDPR compliance; the data audit that they did," Fidura says. "Every time they bring a new channel, tool or system online, they need to think about what the potential impact of that is to the consumer. If necessary, they need to do a privacy impact assessment and they need to document all that stuff, because [GDPR implementation] is not the end; it's the end of beginning. GDPR doesn't go away."

6) Build customer trust

GDPR might be scary for marketers, but in reality, it offers companies an opportunity to build a deeper, more trusting relationship with their customers. According to research by the Digital Marketing Association, 62% of consumers are more willing to share their data if they have GDPR explained to them, and more than 85% want greater control and transparency regarding how their data is used and collected.

"We know that consumers get to be more comfortable about giving up data when they know how the data's going to be used; that's just human nature," Fidura says. "I think the opportunity for all marketers is to start talking about GDPR, start telling people about what's in the GDPR, what their rights are, how the business is implementing that, so that they start to rebuild trust. And then, of course, they have to live up to that."

7) Be honest about what data you need

It's not just customers that marketers need to be honest with around GDPR; according to Fidura, they also have to be honest with themselves. As part of the data audits mentioned above, marketing professionals need to take a step back and examine what data they absolutely need to have, and what data they're gathering for the sake of it.

"The example I always use is this: we have DotMailer-branded socks. In theory, to know how many socks to buy, we should ask people their shoe size. As an email marketing company, do we really have a need for their shoe size?", Fidura notes. "No - because we're probably going to buy a bunch of large, a bunch of mediums and a bunch of smalls anyway."

8) Be accountable

One of the fundamental tenets of GDPR is making companies accountable to the people whose data they hold, but Fidura says that this is a standard which companies should be holding themselves to regardless, in the service of rebuilding customer trust.

"Whatever you do, if something goes wrong and you violate that trust, be accountable for it. Hold up your hand and say 'you know what, we screwed up'," he says. "Too often, corporations don't want to say anything until they know all the facts, but by then, they've lost the story."

9) Don't let lawyers write your privacy policies

For marketers, GDPR isn't simply about getting customers to check a box indicating that they're happy to receive your emails; one of the stipulations is that you must give them a specific set of details about how you're using that information. Similar to the oft-ignored terms and conditions agreements for software, this is often represented by a wall of dense legal text, but it doesn't have to be.

"Don't let your lawyer or compliance team write your privacy policy," advises DMA managing director Rachel Aldighieri. "Work with them and the creative teams and your communications teams to write that." She says that privacy policies can be engaging and attractive when done well, citing examples from EasyJet, the BBC and more.

This article was originally published in May 2018, and has since been updated to include additional figures.

You have your accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. You know what types of content to post. You know when to post it. You are well on your way to success. If you need a refresher on any of these topics, in part one we covered how to choose the right social media platform for you, and in part two we explored the best types of content for each one.

But there's still work to be done. After all, it's no use posting to social media if you don't have any followers, and if your posts lack an interesting voice, it will be even harder to get people to follow you.

With that in mind, let's dive into how you can develop a voice that is both engaging and in line with your brand's goals, tone and character.

Developing a voice on social media

Similar to what you learned in your English classes, a piece of writing's voice is created by the author (or in this case, the tweeter), and is like writing from the perspective of a character. Except here, the character is your organisation or your brand.

When it comes to your organisation's social media voice, the key is to make it match your real-life voice. Doing this ensures a consistent experience regardless of whether customers interact with you online or in-person.

Two aspects of creating your voice are authenticity and transparency. By sounding like an authentic, real person, and being transparent about your values, your beliefs and your practices, you humanise your organisation and create a feeling of trustworthiness. People are more likely to purchase goods and services from companies they trust.

Here are some questions to consider when developing your business' social media voice.

• What is the purpose of the account? Is it to be the face of the business? To find prospects? To showcase products? Deciding this early on is important to developing your brand's voice.
• How do you usually speak to customers and employees?
• What is your company's culture like?
• What are your corporate values?
• If your brand were a person, what would its personality be? Conversely, what would its personality not be?

Your answers can help shape the voice of your online presence.

Once you have a few ideas for your voice, play around and try them out. It's okay to have an opinion and a personality, but don't be clever just for the sake of it, or tweet just to tweet. After you've taken a little while to test them out, it's important to create a long-term strategy. Whether it's for three months, six, a year or longer, it's important to make a plan, set goals and review what's working and what isn't at predetermined intervals. From there, you can tweak your process and keep going.

Be deliberate with your word choice, as that goes a long way with communicating your voice, and keep your posts short and sweet. Just because the platform gives you the room to wax poetic doesn't mean you should. You likely only have seconds to grab and hold your audience's attention before they move on, so make those seconds count.

For example, according to BuzzSumo, the ideal Facebook post should be about 50 characters. You can have over 63,000 characters, but engagement starts to drop off after 50. For some context, this sentence has 50 characters.

Similarly, Twitter gives you up to 280 characters, but Social Report says the sweet spot lies between 71 and 100 characters. This gives you more room than Facebook to play with, but this sentence is still only 99 characters.

LinkedIn is a little different. On a company page, statuses can be up to 700 characters, while for a personal account, the limit is 1,300 characters. However, the site hides content past three lines of the post. So if you have big news and don't want to depend on followers clicking " see more", make sure your content fits in the first three lines.

Though Instagram is used mainly for photos and videos, captions provide context and additional information. Like LinkedIn, your captions here will be cut off by a "more" button after 125 characters, though you won't be stopped from posting until you reach over 2,000. As for hashtags, the maximum number is 30, though you don't have to (and probably shouldn't) use that many.

Developing a following on social media

Building up an engaged group of followers on social media doesn't happen overnight. Don't feel discouraged if it seems slow at the start: building a following takes time, patience and effort.

Here are a few things you can do to help speed up the process.

• Be consistent and post regularly. Spamming your accounts one day then ignoring them for three won't help build your brand. As mentioned in part two, you can schedule your posts so you don't have to worry about remembering to update your statuses yourself.
• Promote your social channels on your website, and your website on your social channels.
• Offer your customers a promotion for liking, following, or connecting with one of your pages.
• Have your employees follow your accounts.
• Be ready and willing to interact, ask and answer questions.
• Follow other organisations, and stay on top of current events and trends.
• Put yourself out there and keep working at it.

Now you know what you need to do to start building your social media presence. If you need a quick reminder about the different channels and which is the best one for you to use, check out part one of this series. If you'd like to learn more about what types of content to post and when to post them, take a look at part two.

Welcome to part two of IT Pro's social media series. In part one, we discussed the differences between the four major social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram). Now that you have an idea of what all the platforms are for, it's time to learn about the best types of content for each, and how frequently your organisation should be posting.

As with any website, the audience for each platform goes to each site for different content. If you're looking for amazing, high-quality visuals, Twitter shouldn't be your first stop. Just as if you're on the hunt for the latest breaking news, you should spend some time on other sites before you visit Instagram.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at each platform.

The right content for Facebook

Facebook, with its wide reach and billions of users, is a great platform for videos and curated content. In fact, Facebook videos get over eight billion views a day and have an average engagement rate of 13.5%. But if you plan on posting videos, make sure they have subtitles and captions because 85% of users watch with the sound off.

Additionally, if your organisation has a blog or any other original content, it would be beneficial to share that here as well.

When it comes to how often you should post, the answers vary from no more than three times a week to up to 10 times a week. As a general rule, posting once or twice a day during early to midafternoon is most likely to get the highest engagement. Because of the way Facebook's algorithm works, engagement is crucial to your posts showing up in your followers' feeds. Business posts with little to no likes, comments, shares or reactions will lose to user-generated content, and then very few people will see your post.

Once you've shared your content, be sure to track how well your post is doing. You can do this by using the Facebook Insights tool through your organisation's profile page. After going through the analytics, you can adjust how frequently you post, what you post and when you post it, based on what Facebook Insights says.

The right content for Twitter

Almost three-quarters of all Twitter users say they use the platform to get their news. With that in mind, Twitter provides a great opportunity to share industry articles and announcements, as well as company news and blog posts. But not everything you post has to be original contentit's okay to curate, too.

It's also fairly common for organisations' Twitter accounts to take on a customer service-like function, as well. If consumers have questions, comments or concerns, there's a good chance they might tweet at the company. Be prepared to respond if necessary.

With over 5,000 tweets coming in every second, the average tweet has a lifespan of only about 20 minutes maximum. So, to stay relevant on Twitter, it's important to post more frequently. Tweeting either at least five times a day, or once an hour during the workday is a good rule of thumb. Some sites suggest there is no maximum to the number of tweets you should post, though most agree that around 15-20 is where organisations should top out for the day.

Just like with Facebook, you can track how well your tweets do and which get the most engagement through Twitter Analytics.

The right content for LinkedIn

With its focus on professional networking, LinkedIn is a great platform for posting professional content. This includes, but isn't limited to, job requisitions for open positions, company news and announcements, and career-focused advice and tips. Keep in mind that LinkedIn's algorithm prefers open and honest status updates from business professionals.

If, like most organisations, you don't have an abundance of company news and announcements, you can also share industry news. Just like with Twitter, making your profile a hub of industry information, relevant whitepapers and articles helps establish you as an authority in your field.

LinkedIn itself suggests you post once a day at the most (no more than five times in a week). But aiming to post two to three times a week is a good place to start. Don't forget to also check your analytics here; you can do so from your organisation's profile page.

The right content for Instagram

As mentioned in part one, Instagram is a platform created for aesthetically pleasing, highly-visual content. Whether that means high-resolution photos of company culture and behind the scenes moments, carefully arranged typography and inspirational quotes or cool graphics and stats, is up to you.

Instagrammers love themed and coordinating content. When done correctly, it unifies your account and attracts prospective followers and customers. There are a few ways to go about this, such as using a consistent colour scheme, editing all your photos in a similar way, taking all your photos under similar lighting conditions, or countless other methods. However, the most important thing to remember is that it won't matter how cool and aesthetic your theme is if your content isn't up to par.

With Instagram, posting once or twice a day is enough. Arguably more important to Instagram's algorithm than posting frequently is posting consistently. If you start off posting four times a week, or once a day or four times a day, do your best to keep that pace going, and the algorithm will reward you.

Tips and tricks

In general, it's good to remember that posts with a visual hook such as a photo, video or GIF have the best engagement. This is especially true among younger demographics.

If you're worried about consistently posting, it may be useful for you to use a website or app to schedule your tweets, posts and photos. Sites like Buffer and Hootsuite, for example, allow you to write your posts ahead of time, schedule them for a specific date and time, then post them for you, leaving you free to focus on other things.

Finally, keep in mind that posting too much is just as bad, if not worse, than not posting enough. When users get sick of your organisation's content, they'll unfollow your accounts at which point it will be hard to win them back. Go for quality over quantity.

If you need a refresher on the differences between the four major social platforms, be sure to check out part one, and for more tips, tricks and suggestions on developing your voice and a following, see part three.

Worldwide, 2.77 billion people use social media, and that figure is only set to grow. Such a wide reach provides a world of opportunities for organisations of every shape and size, whether they've got a dedicated marketing team or have just a handful of employees.

Since it's nearly impossible to avoid and could help find and inform both prospective and loyal customers, it's never too late to hop on the social media wagon, put your organisation out there and forge some connections.

There are so many different aspects to social media that it can be hard to know where to start, which is why this will be part of a series. In this first installment, we'll discuss the differences between the four major social platforms Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. Next, we'll talk about what and when to post. Finally, we'll dive into developing both your voice and your following.

When it comes to social media, each platform has different uses and styles. What works on one likely won't work as well (or at all) on another. Making accounts and trying to stay active on all four major sites would not only be overkill, but it would likely be a waste of time and lessen the value of each of your accounts. With that in mind, it's best to pick one or two and focus your attention on those.

So let's get started with a quick overview of each of the big platforms.

Facebook

As mentioned above, 2.77 billion people actively use social media. 1.52 billion of these people use Facebook daily and almost another billion use it monthly. That equates to 20% of the world's population using Facebook every day, and 30% using it every month.

As such, Facebook has a very broad reach. Despite this, Facebook's algorithms prioritise personal content, not sponsored, branded, or any kind of business content. This means that if users 'like' your organisation's page, there's a chance they won't see your content as frequently as you're posting it, resulting in lower engagement.

Additionally, Facebook has recently been falling out of favor with teens and young adults, so the active audience is increasingly the older generation.

Twitter

Twitter is the home of conversations. With its 280 characters, it's a great tool for customer interactions and engagement. In fact, Twitter-savvy millennials are much more likely to tweet at companies for customer service questions, comments and concerns, than they are to call.

Though it has an overall smaller base, the US and UK rank first and third respectively for most users, totalling a little over 60 million users between the two countries. Globally, six times this many people actively use Twitter each month, sending out 500 million tweets daily, or 5,787 per second.

Since the site has so much activity, organisations that choose this platform will need to be prepared to post more frequently to avoid disappearing into the Twitter void.

LinkedIn

Unlike Twitter and Facebook, LinkedIn is geared toward a working audience that wants to build its business networks. In fact, two professionals join the site every second.

Often used during the job hunting process, companies with positions to fill and individuals searching for new positions flock to LinkedIn to find candidates and opportunities.

30 million companies have profiles on LinkedIn, and unlike Twitter's conversations and Facebook's personal material, LinkedIn's feeds range more toward industry news, career advice and B2B content.

Instagram

Finally, there's Instagram. With an aesthetic emphasis and full of carefully composed photos, it's heavy on visuals and low on text. This makes it great for promoting the company culture, events and product photos, but not the best choice for anything that requires more explanation.

Over 70% of the one billion global monthly users are under the age of 35, but to attract them to your organisation's profile, you may have to put a little more work in. Since consumers expect visually pleasing photos, it can be a little harder to post regularly especially since Instagrammers prefer accounts with themed or coordinated content (which we will come back to in part two).

Take your pick

Now that you know a little more about each, choose one or two platforms that work best for what your organisation is trying to achieve and give it a shot. Don't forget to check out part two for tips, tricks and suggestions about what and when to post, and part three to learn more about developing your voice and following.

Twitter is possibly one of the hardest social media nuts to crack. Although it promises a lot for business users, and specifically those that want to use its leadership and influence capabilities, it can be very time consuming to manage, with a focus on interaction and responding, rather than simply posting.

One of Twitter's differentiators compared to other social media tools is that it generates so much more conversation, with people posting quickly and often very direct replies.

Twitter is a great customer service platform, too. Because it's so open, it can expose a company's flaws and potentially damage reputations. That said, it's a great way to demonstrate crisis management, with informative and accurate replies crucial to winning back some of that positive energy.

It's also a good place to connect with influencers, find out about the latest leaks and news and converse with people in real time. Instagram and Facebook just aren't designed to be used in the same way.

Twitter is growing in importance for politicians too. Donald Trump, for example, has pushed the platform forward, using it as a platform to voice his opinions, connect with voters and vie for support.

Twitter is first and foremost a marketing tool and, as such, it should be analysed and activity scrutinised in exactly the same way as your website is to make sure you're making the most of it.

Twitter Analytics is an extremely handy tool to help you understand how your followers are engaging, helping you to decide which posts people want more of and which you should perhaps scrap. You'll be able to see which accounts following you are most active, which click through to view more on your website and, ultimately, who is most likely to convert to become a loyal customer.

Although there are lots of tools to decipher how people view your Twitter account, the in-built Twitter Analytics are the first place to check out, before you start investing in extras. Here's how to use them.

How to see how many people have viewed a tweet

Many Twitter users will be au fait with the service's basic analytics package. These are the reply, like and retweet buttons that sit underneath every tweet. These will give you a broad understanding of the people who have interested in a particular tweet. But to get under the skin of how others respond to your glowing tweets, you need to go deeper and use Twitter's full-on toolset of goodies.

To get more data on how well your tweet is doing, click on the bar graph icon beneath the tweet to see its activity. This works both on the mobile app and Twitter's desktop site. This displays the basic analytics data for that tweet, including the number of times people have seen it, how much they've interacted with it by liking, retweeting or replying to the tweet, and how many times they've clicked on an image or link within it.

If you need a little more in-depth data as well as wanting to track a tweet's activity across a greater time frame, you can use the analytics tools integrated into Twitter's desktop website. There are aimed mainly at organisations that want to use the service for adverts and campaigns, but these tools can also help in tracking how well non-promoted tweets are performing as well.

How to access Twitter analytics

To access Twitter analytics, go to analytics.twitter.com, or click your profile picture in the top-right corner of the Twitter website to bring up the menu and click on 'analytics'. The homepage of the Twitter analytics site will show you a breakdown of all the key data from your Twitter account, with performance metrics (including number of tweets, mentions, followers and profile visits) from the last 28 days. It also compares those metrics to the previous 28 days to give you a sense of how you're doing.

Scroll down, and you'll find a monthly summary, with the metrics from each calendar month in chronological order, along with a number of highlights such as top-performing tweets or notable new followers.

Navigate to the 'Tweets' tab, and you'll find more detailed information. Here, you can examine the analytics data for tweets published within a specific period, as well as sorting tweets based on their number of impressions and engagements. You can also sort them based on the engagement rate, which is the percentage of people who saw the tweet and then interacted with it in some way, such as retweeting it or clicking on a picture.

The 'Audiences' tab offers a wealth of interesting information about who it is who's actually seeing your tweets. This has an almost frightening level of data; it includes all the usual data you'd expect such as age, gender and location breakdowns, but it also tells you which topics your audience is interested in. You can even access data about how many of your followers are homeowners, their household income brackets and even their net worth! Bear in mind, however, that this data is obtained from Twitter's partners, and applies only to your US-based followers.

If you want to tie your tweeting into what's happening in the world, you can use the 'Events' page, which basically functions as an expanded version of Twitter's trending topics. It'll give you an overview of current and upcoming events - like trade shows or public holidays - telling you which kinds of people tweet about it the most. For example, the upcoming CES expo in Las Vegas is most often tweeted about by men aged 18 to 24 (surprise, surprise).

If you're aiming to create a sponsored promotional campaign, Twitter can facilitate that in various ways, such as offering conversion tracking which allows you to track visitors to your website on Twitter, in order to target them with more relevant ads.

There are various third-party tools which you can explore in order to expand your data-gathering and analysis efforts, but by mastering Twitter's built-in analytics tools, you'll be able to spruce up your social strategy until you're sharing like the pros.

Facebook is redesigning Pages for small businesses in an attempt to revitalise an aspect of its platform that has become strangled with oversaturation and algorithmic tweaks to the news feed.

Pages will increasingly serve as platforms for consumers to meaningfully interact with small businesses, by making reservations or booking appointments for example, against serving merely as marketing tools which organisations use to compete for news feed exposure.

As part of the wave of changes, user recommendations will be given more prominence, and ticketed events will allow organisers to sell tickets directly from Facebook Events. The tech giant's job application tool is also being expanded worldwide to help businesses more effectively advertise for employees.

"Local communities are built, grown and sustained by people," said Facebook's vice president of local Alex Himel. "People like your neighbors, your friends and your favorite local business owners. On Facebook, there are more than 80 million small businesses using our free business tools."

Facebook's recently-rolled out Stories feature, akin to that offered by Instagram, will be expanded to businesses so Page-owners can post their own Snapchat-like update for their users and engage with customers.

Also introduced as part of the revamp are a host of 'action buttons' that can allow Facebook users to perform actions beyond just sending a message - such as booking a service with the business.

"These improvements are a small part of our commitment to help businesses connect with customers," the company added on its Facebook Business site. "We'll continue to work on new ways to make these connections easier and more valuable to help all businesses grow."

Revitalising pages for small businesses is a much-needed endeavour given the combination of oversaturation, and changes to Facebook's news feed earlier this year that prioritised person-to-person interactions over person-to-brand interactions.

According to research by Social@Ogilvy, as reported in the Philadelphia Business Journal, organic post reach for pages with 500,000 or more followers may be as low as two percent - while it could be even lower for smaller pages.

Image: Shutterstock

Social media has transformed marketing and e-commerce over the last decade and given an easy to use tool for practically anyone looking to promote and grow a business. This is particularly true for Twitter, where a large following can help to promote your business and its services.

It's one thing to have a good product, but if you don't promote it well enough it's a waste. Today millions of companies use sites like Twitter to promote services, push products and engage with customers. Small businesses also use the social media site as a tool to generate interest in their services and find others to partner and invest in.

However, it's not a case of creating an account and then sending out spam to the first fifty people who mindlessly agree to follow you. You need to plan a social media strategy, build up your followers and tailor your content for maximum impact.

The more followers you have, the better your content is and the shrewder your timing, the more chance your posts will be retweeted and liked, feeding your business, your product or ideas into the public consciousness.

Twitter is a great way to get your message out effectively with value for money. Here is our guide to boosting your followers.

Post good content

It sounds obvious, but the best way to increase your Twitter follower count is to frequently post high-quality tweets. What makes a tweet high quality is very much a subjective thing though. However, think about how a tweet is engaging to your target audience and how relevant it would be to them. A video is one good idea, so is running up a poll or asking questions of followers. The key is in interaction with followers.

If your tweets are interesting and informative - as opposed to a non-stop sales pitch - people will be more likely to follow your account. The last thing you want is to come across as spammy.

Use hashtags

Hashtags can be a great tool for getting your content in front of more people, but this doesn't mean you should jam as many as possible into every tweet. Instead, be selective about which hashtags you use - make sure they're relevant, and that they're broad enough that a decent amount of people will use them.

If you can, use appropriate hashtags to link your content to current trends or conference events. Another option is to use hashtags relating to an industry or field, like #cybersecurity or #DevOps. People searching for these hashtags will see your tweets, and may give you a follow. Alternatively, hashtags can be a great way of tracking participation in contests or feedback from customers around a certain topic.

Engage with people

Twitter is a social network, but it can be very easy to forget the 'social' part. People don't want to be bombarded with carefully-constructed marketing copy; they want to have actual human interactions.

By starting discussions with followers, or with well-known industry figures, you can give your Twitter account a sense of personality beyond that of a robotic corporate mouthpiece, which will make people more willing to follow you.

Cross-promote

A good social media strategy means using all of the various tools at your disposal in service of a greater whole. Cross-promoting your social media accounts on other services allows you to make sure as many people as possible are following all of your feeds.

Make sure you're putting links to your Twitter feed in the bio of your Facebook pages and Instagram accounts. You should also make sure that your website has a prominent button on every page allowing people to share your content and follow you on Twitter.

Picture: Shutterstock

New data protection rules will frustrate consumers who demand personalised experiences but are wary of handing over their data, but organisations who prove trustworthy stand to benefit, according to experts.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force on 25 May and gives people more control over what personal data organisations can collect, allowing them to move it to other companies or demand organisations delete it altogether.

It also requires companies to be more transparent about how they use people's personal information and gets rid of passive opt-outs some organisations relied on to obtain customer consent: now people must actively agree to their data being collected and processed.

As a result of that, and with GDPR making people more aware of the value of their data, marketers' jobs are about to get harder, according to The Content Advisory's privacy lead, Tim Walters, speaking at Aprimo's recent Sync Europe conference.

"I am convinced that GDPR will rather significantly reduce the amount of first party and third-party data that marketing teams have access to," he said.

Walters said the data was the fuel for marketing efforts and pointed to a recent report by Accenture that identified a more systemic or structural problem that is choking off the supply of fuel for customer management.

But he pointed to a "vicious circle" being created by GDPR, where customers want "hyper-relevant" experiences when shopping online, but are very reluctant to hand over their personal data that would inform those relevant experiences.

"Consumers will punish brands that do not provide ... relevant experiences by abandoning them for other providers," he said. "Not because they necessarily know that another provider can provide that experience, but because [they] hope that they can."

However, on the other hand, GDPR and the high profile Cambridge Analytica scandal, where millions of Facebook users' profile data was harvested to allegedly influence US voters in the 2016 presidential election, has increased public awareness about the risks around sharing their data.

"The fact that they don't know what's going on with the data that they surrender ... means that they are reluctant to provide that personal data. which is precisely necessary to create the kinds of experiences that they demand," said Walters, adding: "That's the vicious circle."

But GDPR provides an opportunity for companies that recognise people are in control of their personal data - creating that trust breaks the vicious cycle.

"Every company in the world, whether they are subject to GDPR or not, should be looking for some kind of framework or template or guidebook to show them how to go about putting consumers in control of their data," Walters concluded.

"That is the only way to make progress. That guidebook or template is exactly what the GDPR is."

Edmund Breault, head of marketing at Aprimo, told IT Pro that GDPR is absolutely going to help marketing organisations by putting customers at the heart of their efforts.

"While the efforts in the short term on marketing organisations to become GDPR-compliant have added burden, GDPR fundamentally makes customer-centricity a "legal" requirement," he said.

"We are now in a trust economy and marketers need to provide capabilities to allow consumers to stay in control of their data."

Facebook will allow users to be targeted with adverts specific to their political and religious beliefs in a trial rolled out for a small number of users in Britain as part of its preparation for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which comes into effect later this year.

The trial is designed to improve how Facebook processes and manages its customer data in order to be compliant with GDPR, which requires greater consent from data subjects, and ensure sensitive data is protected. As part of the trial, Facebook will ask users for permission to allow advertisers to target British users on the basis of their political and religious leanings, as well as their listed interests.

The tech company will also ask users whether they are happy for their public information identifying their faith and politics to remain visible for everyone. If the user agrees, Facebook will then provide an opt-in for allowing the information to be used to personalise content and act as one of the signals for relevant suggesting ads. This will include targeted advertising on lines of politics, sexuality and faith.

The social media giant said this option won't enable extremists to use targeted advertising for recruitment propaganda, though, claiming it would eliminate malicious advertising. As part of the trial, Facebook has also included an opt-in for facial recognition, which will be part of a measure to stop online impersonations by informing users whenever their faces have been used elsewhere on the site.

A spokesperson told IT Pro it wouldn't allow advertisers to target the information directly, however, but that it would be "one of a range of signals" quite how this works in practice or what these signals are wasn't elaborated on, however.

GDPR, which aims to scrutinise how companies collect and maintain customer data, arrives in May this year and has forced many companies, including Facebook, to begin processing data more carefully. Companies found to be in breach of the rules could face a fine of up to 20 million or 4% of their global annual turnover, whichever is greater.

Main image credit: Bigstock

Every web startup faces the same challenge: how do you get noticed amongst all that competition and build traffic? The clever money says leave all that search engine optimisation (SEO) stuff to the professionals. Yet money, clever or not, is the one luxury most startups don't have. This can often lead to a DIY approach to both SEO and online marketing, which is no bad thing if done properly.

The temptation to cheat and follow the dark side when building traffic is strong. Yet, grey- or black-hat SEO, along with social media follower farming, isn't the panacea you may have hoped for. So, what's the alternative to either investing in SEO expertise or becoming the Darth Vader of ecommerce? Well, you could ask SEO and digital marketing experts to pass their knowledge on for free which is precisely what we've done.

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

Let's start with how not to do things, even if it does look like an easy and relatively cheap way to build your traffic in no time at all. Some call it "black hat" SEO, while others try to disguise the underhand nature by labelling it as "grey hat" instead. Whatever you call it, if you try to game the system using dodgy techniques, you will likely end up on the naughty step with Google, Facebook and Twitter plus all the other services that you need to push traffic in your direction. So how do you know what is an illegitimate marketing technique to begin with?

Joe Linford is the head of SEO at ISP price comparison site Broadband Genie, and warns that Google has cracked down on websites "seeking to gain an advantage in the SERPs [search engine result pages] and will penalise sites for building unnatural links".

Links were the lifeblood of the Google algorithm for many years. Who you link to, and the backlinks your site gets from others, are still important; but link signals are not the sole determiner of strong SERP ratings. "Google has moved towards relying more on human opinions such as search quality raters, Chrome browser activity and Analytics data," Linford told PC Pro.

The trouble is that those Google algorithms are impenetrable to mere mortals. Which is why so many businesses still turn to high volume and low cost link-acquisition strategies, such as placing links into generic directories or link networks. These are a group of websites, more commonly than not owned by the network operator, that generate huge volumes of what are essentially fake links. They will offer the unwitting customer a bundle of, say, 250 or 500 new links to their site for a fee. Trouble is, not only are those links of very low quality, as they provide nothing of any real value to someone who clicks on them, but Google has become a Jedi Master at spotting link networks and blacklisting them. That's hardly surprising: if there are no "footprints" linking these disparate sites together, chances are the network is fake. By buying into such a link-farming network, your traffic could suffer as Google penalises you for being associated with a black hat operation.

It's not only link-farming that will get you into negative equity with the search supremo either. Jake Ramon-Capon is senior SEO consultant at Greenlight Digital, a digital marketing agency that counts eBay and Dixons Carphone (whose brands include PC World and Carphone Warehouse) among its clients. "Google has a long list of well documented tactics that could negatively impact your brand," Ramon-Capon explained, before pointing in the direction of cloaking. This is where you serve up different content to search engines than actual users, the former designed to be uber-SERPs-friendly of course. "Google spots this as its crawlers parse the source code of the page to find irregularities in the code that suggest cloaking," he said, "and then a member of the web spam team will manually check the affected pages." If they're served up something completely different, the site will be penalised.

Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Talking of content, we come to the much used "trick" of stealing someone else's, known as spinning. Marc Swann, search director at SEO specialists Glass Digital, told PC Pro that it's unfortunate that there are "50 shades of grey areas when it comes to SEO" courtesy of Google keeping spam-detection techniques something of an in-house secret.

That paranoia is understandable: if the process were made public then the black hats could game the system more readily. But that doesn't mean definite no-no's are hard to come by, including the aforementioned content spinning. "Stealing someone else's content using a word-swap script to turn stolen content into unique gobbledegook is an effective way to get slapped with a Google penalty," Swann said. He also cautioned against any agency or "expert" who "promises #1 rankings as absolutely no-one can make these kinds of guarantees".

Manchester based I-COM is one of the biggest digital agencies in the North West, and Jamal Atcha is the SEO manager there. He talks us through another black hat technique that should be avoided: keyword spamming. This is when specific keywords are used many times on a page to try and bump up the relevance ratings.

Google is, naturally, onto this one. Far better, Atcha said, "to avoid overuse of the same keywords or phrases on a page and write naturally with the user in mind". Similarly, overusing your keywords as the anchor text (link) every single time someone links to you is harmful. "When linking back to your website," Atcha advised, "keep anchor texts varied by including brand terms, similar keyword variations and generic terms like 'click here'."

It used to be that all that would happen if you tried to game Google was that it cancelled out any benefit, by making whatever technique was being used impotent. That all changed in 2013 when Google started actively penalising sites caught cheating the system. But what does "penalising" actually mean to Google? According to Ramon-Capon from Greenlight Digital, the penalty can vary from page-level to site-level and simply involve a drop in your organic, as opposed to sponsored/advertising, rankings. That, in turn, will harm organic traffic to your site, precisely what you were looking to build in the first place. "If you are penalised by either the Panda or Penguin algorithm," Ramon-Capon continued, "you will see the impact in near real-time once you make changes as these penalties happen in a very speedy manner."

Episode IV: A New Hope

Cheating Google may be a fool's errand, but what about social media? Social media can drive plenty of traffic to your online business if done properly. Of course, that takes time. You can kickstart traffic with commercial tools such as promoted tweets and targeted advertising that the platform itself provides. However, for many new online businesses, these can seem like a slow and expensive route to traffic they need right now.

This has led to the emergence of black-hat techniques such as follower and like farming. Both have become heavily marketed by the "farmers" in question, and both are against the terms and conditions of the social media platform -- be it Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter.

The pitch is simple: we will provide you with a bundle of followers or likes, in return for a fee. That fee will depend on how many thousands of either you are buying. Both can be detected by the social media platforms using pattern recognition technology, which can determine when fake accounts or click farms are being employed. Much of the time, for example, Facebook claims it can block fake likes before they even reach the target page of the buyer. Facebook says that it will "send notifications to page administrators when we block or remove fake likes... to help them learn how to gather authentic fans." Repeat offenders could find their accounts suspended.

Aggressive following is more in grey hat territory, where an account follows or likes large numbers of others every day in the hope of getting a reciprocal follow or like, and then unfollows those who don't play the same game. The thing is that none of this really works anyway, as Greenlight Digital's Ramon-Capon explained. "It's important to remember that it's not about the number of followers or likes you have but the engagement these followers have with your pages," he said. And, as Atcha from I-COM reminded us, "genuine customers will see straight through you if you have thousands of followers but only a few people liking or sharing your posts."

Episode IV: A New Hope

We've covered what you shouldn't be doing, which leaves us with the obvious question of what marketing path should you take to build web traffic legitimately? We turned to Joe Friedlein, founder and managing director of Browser Media, a UK-based "inbound marketing agency" that works to attract targeted web traffic for clients. Friedlein summed it up when he told PC Pro that the secret to building sustainable traffic to your site is to "think about your users rather than thinking about Google".

If you create a site that offers content and functionality that is genuinely helpful to your target audience, you will benefit from organic engagement and attract links. "The search engines will recognise this," Friedlein said, "and you will be rewarded, over time, with improved visibility across the major search engines."

Friedlein has a few tips to help grow that healthy, organic traffic. "You should use keyword research as a stimulus to understand what people are looking for and to steer the content that you publish on your site" he said. By using the same language that your target audience use, you will increase the likelihood of ranking for the keywords that they use to search and, crucially, increase the likelihood that the site will engage with your visitors. "Rather than focusing on commercially motivated pages," Friedlein advised, "think about content that you can offer that is genuinely helpful. This will naturally attract links, which will then help to improve rankings."

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Of course, content alone is very unlikely to deliver immediate success. And it's that immediacy that startups yearn for, and often need to survive until the next funding round or letter from the bank. To build traffic quickly you must invest your energy into what Friedlein refers to as "amplifying your content".

This is more of an online PR exercise than an SEO one. You have to build an understanding of where it is your target audience goes online, and then forge relationships with those sites. Sharing content works better than simply adding irrelevant links purely for perceived SEO gain. Understanding the type of content that will resonate with your audience, and that of any sites you share with, is key.It's better to start slowly, Friedlein advised, than rush in and ask for too much. "This is especially true for social media, which offers incredible potential for referral traffic.

"Take time to listen and understand the nature of the discussion before steaming in with your corporate message," he added. There's no doubt that social-media engagement takes time, but it can pay dividends in terms of shared links and consequently traffic to your site.All that said, Friedlein admits there isn't a silver bullet. "If you want immediate results you should look at paid traffic sources, especially paid search," he said. The argument being that if you want to build a brand, a business that will enjoy long-term success, then investing resources to build both a great site and great relationships is key to that goal.

The "building a great site" bit is often overlooked when it comes to thinking about hits. Which is a shame, as it really does matter. "It may seem obvious, but make sure your website is technically 'in shape' and keep up-to-date with Google Webmaster guidelines so you can future-proof your strategy," said Greenlight Digital's Ramon-Capon.

He also emphasised the need for ensuring all your important pages are keyword-optimised with relevant title tags, headers and engaging content. All of this will impact those key SERP ratings. As Google has strived to bring users more relevant search results, so its algorithms have been tweaked and evolved to better evaluate the quality of site content in a more human-friendly way.

"Google's crawlers are better at assessing websites the way users do," said Jamal Atcha from I-COM, "which means factors such as click-through-rates, bounce rate and time on site, and providing good user experience, have become important things to consider to improve how your website is perceived by Google."

Remember: the bots are never going to buy from you or read your articles. People will.

Main image credit: Bigstock

This article originally appeared in PC Pro

People convicted of online hate crimes are set to receive the same punishments as in-person offenses, under new plans announced by UK authorities today.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) stated that prosecutors will be instructed to pursue more serious penalties for offenders who carry out hateful and extremist abuse on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

Director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, said the spread of unchecked online hate can encourage the bigotry and hostility seen in the Charlottesville Nazi marches earlier this month.

"We should remember that there is a less visible frontline which is easily accessible to those in the UK who hold extreme views on race, religion, sexuality, gender and even disability," she wrote in The Guardian. "I refer to the online world where an increasing proportion of hate crime is now perpetrated."

"When an ever greater amount of our time is spent online, it is only right that we do everything possible to ensure that people are protected from abuse that can now follow them everywhere via the screen of their smartphone or tablet."

The CPS has been increasing its prosecutions of hate crimes, with a record number of over 15,400 for 2015-16, and a conviction rate of more than 80%. However, online abuse and hate speech has a tendency of being taken less seriously than offences carried out in public.

Experts praised the move from the CPS, but warned that it could have unforeseen negative effects on free speech.

"It is quite right that people who hide behind social media to commit hate crime should be held accountable for their actions by the criminal justice system and clearly, internet companies should not be left to 'police' online speech," said the Open Rights Group's legal director, Myles Jackman.

"However, some offences employ highly subjective terms like 'grossly offensive' and 'obscene' which could have a severe chilling effect on the more unpalatable but legitimate areas of free speech, if interpreted strictly."

Although the role of a social media manager is a relatively new job title on the market, it's a key one for many modern businesses trying to engage with potential customers.

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, to name a few, are no longer just chat platforms - they act as a powerful source of advertising, and in many cases are the face of a business. As companies have become savvier with their social presences, their demand for specific skills to reach the widest online audiences has also increased. Businesses want to exploit social platforms to their fullest, and for that they will typically appoint a social media manager.

Yet regardless of the industry, there are a number of skills and traits that all applicants should work towards in order to thrive on social media.

Creative copywriting

Writing is perhaps one of the most fundamental skills you will need to have to thrive on social media. Everything you do, from creating posts to maintaining profiles and bios, will involve writing copy that is engaging enough to sell a brand or message.

You'll need to learn to summarise content into snappy posts that accurately reflect what is being shared, in a tone that suits your audience. Remember, you're fighting for a user's attention in a sea of other posts, so every word counts.

A flair for design

An organisation's social media account needs to have some consistency to its social media posts, yet there is room for creative flair.

Perhaps one of the easiest ways to experiment with this is through the use of images and video. It's proven time and time again that social posts that make use of pictures or eye-catching content perform significantly better. However, choosing the right image, or creating an eye-catching thumbnail, requires not only an artistic touch, but an understanding of the audience: the social posts for a teen demographic will be drastically different to what will appear on an account targeting business users.

Video in particular is proving to be an immensely popular form of content, ranked third among the most sought after types of post. Having the ability to create video content to promote a story or a company message is a highly sought-after skill.

Gifs, charts, polls, custom images... every post can be brought to life in some way.

Strong public speaker

If you're preparing for the possibility of making lots of video content, you'll also need to be comfortable enough to appear in them from time to time.

Many businesses rely on their social media manager as a means of communicating directly with their audience and customers, and to do that successfully you will need to be comfortable with public speaking.

This may be in the form of a spoken segment to a camera, in which you explain a topic or something the business has been working on, or it may include live video sessions. The latter has become more popular recently as Facebook now favours live video content on its news feed over recorded videos.

Whether it be interviews, Q&As, reviews, or simply a short announcement, confident speakers will engage an audience far more effectively, and ideally entertain them enough so that they come back for more. This is important, because an audience's impression of a video will shape their attitude towards the brand.

Understanding analytics

Knowing how to craft the best social post is meaningless unless you're able to draw insight from how well it performs. Analytics and performance metrics act as a guide for developing a social strategy, helping to identify what works and what doesn't, how resources should be best spent, and what approaches serve your business best.

Business needs may change over time, for example a sudden need to drive clicks to a particular piece of content or campaign may appear. With an understanding of metrics, the best social media managers will know precisely what will deliver that goal, whether it be specially crafted posts or the use of video content. Tools like BuzzSumo and Buffer can help social media managers track their posts' performance.

Business-savviness

The social media manager is typically on the front line of an organisation, and in some cases the only opportunity a company has to engage directly with an audience. It is important therefore that anyone operating a company's social accounts are doing so with the business in mind, rather than using them as a second personal profile. Maintaining an air of professionalism is important for gaining the trust of the audience - that means avoiding Twitter spats and avoiding lengthy conversations with users.

An understanding of business operations is also essential for getting the most out of the audience - for example, B2B social media managers will assist sales teams by helping to generate and nurture leads.

Ability to adapt

The social media environment is constantly in flux, and it's important that a social media manager remains on top of the latest trends and is able to respond accordingly with new content strategies. As mentioned, video content is rising in popularity and many companies want to exploit it. Being able to change to meet growing demand will help ensure that the business is at the forefront of new social media trends.

It may also be that trends are platform-specific, such as Facebook boosting live video on news feeds. It's essential then that managers are able to create tailored strategies for each platform that are flexible enough adapt to new ways of promoting content.

Main image: Jason Howie/CC - body images: Bigstock

The National Lottery has issued an apology after a social media stunt on Twitter backfired spectacularly, resulting in the charity's official account inadvertently tweeting offensive messages.

As part of The National Lottery's sponsorship of the World Athletics Championships in London, the company ran a social media campaign whereby users that retweeted certain messages would be greeted by one of Team GB's athletes holding signs thanking them for their support.

However, users of the social network were baffled as British athletes such as Tom Bosworth and Sophie Hitchon were pictured holding signs bearing slogans including "Bolt's a roid head" and "Justice for Saville" (sic).

Early analysis indicates that the system worked by taking the Twitter display name of users that retweeted a given tweet, and digitally adding it to the boards held by the athletes.

However, it appears that Twitter's more mischievous users quickly realised that the integration would do this regardless of the content of an account's display name, and started exploiting this in order to force the account to spread distasteful and offensive messages.

A public apology stating it was "hugely sorry for any offence caused" was posted on Twitter and the posts in question were deleted.

IT Pro contacted Camelot for comment and was issued the following statement: "We are aware that some people were maliciously targeting our British Athletics Twitter campaign overnight on Monday 14 August with offensive and abhorrent content. We have disabled the campaign, deleted the inappropriate tweets from our feed and are continuing to look into exactly what happened. We are hugely sorry for any offence caused to our players, the athletes concerned and British Athletics by this deliberate act."

Many have criticised the organisation for not thinking the stunt through thoroughly enough, saying the charity should have more closely moderated the content generated by users.

The incident is not the first case of a company landing itself in hot water by letting social media users have a say over something. A poll to let fans name a new flavour of Mountain Dew infamously resulted in the top spot being claimed by the name "Hitler did nothing wrong" - although the company eventually went with 'Apple' instead.

Twitter has changed the default profile picture for new users from the classic egg, in a bid to help combat negative associations with harassment on its platform.

New users will be greeted with a silhouette, similar to many other social networks. Twitter hopes that this will encourage users to upload a profile picture, which will in turn help discourage abuse.

"We've noticed patterns of behavior with accounts that are created only to harass others - often they don't take the time to personalize their accounts," the company said in a statement.

"This has created an association between the default egg profile photo and negative behavior, which isn't fair to people who are still new to Twitter and haven't yet personalized their profile photo."

For the past seven years, any new user who signed up to Twitter would have an egg as their default profile picture, a placeholder that was supposed to be swapped out for something more individual.

However, the iconic egg display picture has now become deeply linked to Twitter's endemic problems with trolls, harassment and abuse. Because anonymous accounts are frequently created with the sole purpose of attacking other Twitter users, the default avatar has now become associated with harassment.

The decision has been met with criticism from the Twitter community, some of whom are sad to see the egg icon go. Some have even gone so far as to deliberately change their display pictures back to eggs after the swap.

Others have suggested that the move won't do a huge amount to actually stem the tide of abuse being experienced by certain users, and that trolls are going to be a problem until the company takes proactive steps to stamp them out.

Picture credit: Garrett Heath

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, has expressed concern about the way the internet is being used and how it can fulfill its "true potential" as a tool that can help everyone, not just those who want to farm data about the world's citizens.

In a Guardian exclusive, Berners-Lee highlighted three trends he thinks are having a detrimental effect on the web.

The first problem he has identified is companies taking personal data in return for very little that benefits the end user. Although people are happy to share their data in return for a freebie, that doesn't make it right for businesses to own the public's data and keep it out of sight in "proprietary silos".

"Through collaboration with or coercion of companies, governments are also increasingly watching our every move online and passing extreme laws that trample on our rights to privacy," Berners-Lee wrote. "In repressive regimes, it's easy to see the harm that can be caused bloggers can be arrested or killed, and political opponents can be monitored."

He said this may be an extreme example, but that even in more democratic countries, such as the UK, governments are increasingly monitoring citizens all the time and encroaching on human rights. It creates a "chilling" effect on free speech, he said, and means the web is no longer a place where people can safely explore important topics such as sensitive health issues, sexuality or religion.

Berners-Lee also referred to the dangers of misinformation or "fake news", which spreads rapidly across the Web because social networks and search engines have made it too easy to automate news distribution.

"Through the use of data science and armies of bots, those with bad intentions can game the system to spread misinformation for financial or political gain," he noted.

These tactics are being used for political advertising, he said, with politicians using data and the fact the public gets most of its news from just two sources social media and search engines to target political advertising campaigns at the vulnerable.

"One source suggests that in the 2016 US election, as many as 50,000 variations of adverts were being served every single day on Facebook, a near-impossible situation to monitor," Berners-Lee said.

The solution to this, Berners-Lee said, is to work with web companies to ensure people can control their own data, while fighting against data surveillance laws. It's also everyone's responsibility to push back against search engines and social networks to make sure they come up with ways to stop the spread of misinformation.

"We need more algorithmic transparency to understand how important decisions that affect our lives are being made, and perhaps a set of common principles to be followed," he concluded.

"It has taken all of us to build the web we have, and now it is up to all of us to build the web we want for everyone."

Twitter has scrambled to fix a glitch that automatically subscribed people to President Trump's tweets - even after deliberately unfollowing or blocking his account.

The company said the issue stemmed from an error during the handover of the official presidential Twitter account - @POTUS - from Obama to Trump. The account was supposed to retain its original 13 million followers, who would also be automatically added to an account containing an archive of the Obama administration's @POTUS tweets.

However, some users have reported that despite blocking or unfollowing the @POTUS account prior to the switchover, they found themselves mysteriously re-subscribed. There have even been claims that users have found themselves following the account despite never choosing to follow it in the first place.

Twitter blamed this on technical issues, and CEO Jack Dorsey took to the platform to explain and apologise. He revealed that in addition to the @POTUS account, the problem also affected other government accounts including the official vice president, press secretary and White House accounts.

The Trump-controlled presidential Twitter handle now has 14.3 million followers, and while the problem affected 560,000 people, Dorsey said that "we believe we've corrected all accounts to reflect your follow/unfollow intent".

Social media is an excellent tool, but it the wrong hands it can turn into a disaster of epic proportions. The history of the internet is littered with brands and individuals who have fallen foul of social media - here are the most egregious examples from 2016.

Artificial intolerance

In what was possibly one of the most easily-predictable social media screw-ups, Microsoft built a conversational AI and put it on Twitter. The internet then immediately turned it into a meme-spouting, Trump-supporting, holocaust-denying abomination.

Tay, as the chatbot was known, was modelled after a tween girl, and learned through Twitter interactions. By deliberately feeding it inappropriate and incendiary phrases, Twitter trolls managed to get it saying things like "Bush did 9/11" and captioning photos of Hitler with "swag alert" within a day. All of which is proof that the internet ruins everything.

Is Trump anti-semiotic?

Trump's Twitter feed is a catalogue of factual inaccuracies and poorly-judged outbursts. If we had to pick one low point, however, it would have to be the time Donald Trump retweeted an allegedly anti-Semitic image previously found on racist messageboards and forums.

The image featured Hillary Clinton of a backdrop of money, with a six-pointed star bearing the words "most corrupt candidate ever". Critics took exception to this, claiming it drew on anti-Semitic stereotypes and conspiracy theories. Trump denied the picture was racist, but replaced it with a revised version anyway, switching out the star for a circle.

The fall of @Nero

Prominent Trump supporter and professional troll Milo Yiannopoulos has had a rocky relationship with Twitter; he has been temporarily suspended numerous times and even had his verification revoked for violating its terms of service.

He was permanently banned from the platform this year, after suggestions that he encouraged a wave of sexist and racist abuse aimed at Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones. He called the move "cowardly", claiming that it signalled the death of free speech on the service and that the ban would only bring him more fans. According to Google Trends, this has not been the case.

David Davies' Marmite rebellion

Earlier this year, controversy was sparked when Tesco removed branded goods such as Marmite and Hellmans from shelves, in response to an attempted 10% price hike by parent company Unilever. The increase was reportedly due to the the falling value of sterling against the dollar, but the British public was outraged.

On hearing the news, backbench Tory MP and staunch Brexiteer David Davies was outraged, claiming that the company was merely trying to "punish us for Brexit". With righteous zeal, he fired off a tweet proudly proclaiming that he would "fight back" - by buying Aussie yeast spread Vegemite. Truly a national hero.

Eric Trump's ballot-box blunder

Not to be outdone by his dad in the arena of Twitter gaffes, Eric Trump took to the social network on election night to post a picture of his ballot paper, proudly declaring his support for his father. The only problem is that this is illegal in 18 states, including the Trump clan's home state of New York.

The maximum penalty for taking so-called 'ballot selfies' in the state is a $1,000 fine or a year in prison. Shockingly, this infraction seems to have gone unnoticed by law enforcement, as no charges have yet been filed.

"Delete your account"

2016 bore witness to the most infantile election in living memory. Most of this stemmed from future president Donald Trump, but Hillary Clinton hasn't been above getting involved in childing and embarrassing spats, either. The most notable example of this was when Clinton responded to a negative tweet from Trump by replying "delete your account".

This phrase is most commonly uttered by internet trolls engaged in the online equivalent of playground fights. She faced criticism at the time for sinking to Trump's level, but in retrospect, maybe she should have spent more time on puerile mud-slinging and less on reasoned political campaigning.

Yeezy's unorthodox investment pitch

2016 saw famous rapper Kanye West engage in multiple Twitter rants and meltdowns, but one of the most interesting was a protracted series of tweets in which he attempted to persuade Mark Zuckerberg and other Silicon Valley luminaries to invest $1 billion in his unspecified projects.

Zuckerberg did not comment directly on the issue, but he did like a former colleague's post that read "Dear Kanye West: If you're going to ask the CEO of Facebook for a billion dollars, maybe don't do it on Twitter." Which is a pretty good point.

Allen West's extermination fantasy

Former US congressman Allen West came under extreme fire recently for posting an Islamophobic meme claiming that Trump's secretary of defense, retired general James 'Mad Dog' Mattis would "exterminate" Muslims.

The post was taken down and apology was issued by the editor-in-chief of his website, who said that the image was posted without West's knowledge or consent and claimed that it "did not represent his views".

Un-Luckey for some

Palmer Luckey is best known for being the founder of Oculus and is in many ways the creator of modern-day VR. Despite being stupefyingly wealthy, he was also famed for being a relatable guy. He was into gaming, cult movies - and, as it turns out, pro-Trump memes.

Luckey was outed on Reddit as being the mystery financial backer behind a group dedicated to "meme magic" and "shitposting" in order to get Donald to the White House. Oculus swiftly went into damage control, and Luckey distanced himself both from Trump and from the company. He is currently lying low, and is keeping public interaction to a minimum.

Honourable mention: Ed Balls Day 2016

When then-shadow chancellor Ed Balls mistakenly tweeted out his own name in 2011, little did he know he was about to ignite a national sensation. Five years later, however, not only is 'Ed Balls Day' still remembered, it's virtually a national holiday.

Every year, the hashtag is consistently one of the most-used in the UK when 28 April rolls around, and according to the BBC, it's been used over 26,000 times. This year, Balls and his wife - fellow MP Yvette Cooper - even got in on the festivities, making a cake emblazoned with the infamous tweet. Proof, if ever it were needed, that not all mistakes are relegated to infamy.

Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and YouTube are joining forces to identify terrorist content and prevent it from being spread online.

In a statement announcing their partnership on this project, the companies said: "There is no place for content that promotes terrorism on our hosted consumer services. When alerted, we take swift action against this kind of content in accordance with our respective policies."

The companies are to create a shared database of 'hashes' (unique 'digital fingerprints') associated with violent terrorist imagery, terrorist recruitment videos and images they remove from their services.

By tracking terrorist content together, they hope to ensure that the same extremist content posted on one site does not later appear on another. This should ultimately make content easier to track and suppress.

"We hope this collaboration will lead to greater efficiency as we continue to enforce our policies to help curb the pressing global issue of terrorist content online," said the companies.

The statement adds that no identifiable information will be shared, the content will simply be flagged to the companies and that each of them will then apply its own policies in deciding what to do with it.

The partnership was announced shortly after the European commission slammed tech companies for not doing enough to counteract hate speech on their platforms.

In May, Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube and Microsoft signed an agreement that forced them to remove or disable hateful content within 24 hours of detecting it. But the European Commission still feels the companies often took longer than agreed.

The new partnership appears to be a further step towards identifying and censoring innappropriate content online.

The companies added: "Throughout this collaboration, we are committed to protecting our users' privacy and their ability to express themselves freely and safely on our platforms. We also seek to engage with the wider community of interested stakeholders in a transparent, thoughtful and responsible way as we further our shared objective to prevent the spread of terrorist content online while respecting human rights."

Russia's communications regulator Roskomnadzor has blocked LinkedIn in the country, after the social networking platform was accused of breaking a law protecting Russian residents' personal data.

LinkedIn confirmed that more than six million users registered in Russia no longer have access to the social media platform in a statement to Tech Crunch.

"LinkedIn's vision is to create economic opportunity for the entire global workforce," the company said. "We are starting to hear from members in Russia that they can no longer access LinkedIn."

Th"Roskomnadzor's action to block LinkedIn denies access to the millions of members we have in Russia and the companies that use LinkedIn to grow their businesses. We remain interested in a meeting with Roskomnadzor to discuss their data localisation request," it added.

A Russian Court ruled against the social media site for the second time last Thursday, after LinkedIn appealed an August verdict of the Tagansky District Court in Moscow, which ruled LinkedIn broke a law that requires websites to store Russian citizens' personal user data on servers located within the country.

LinkedIn tried to meet with the Russian regulator on 11 November, but it now appears that the meeting never happened.

Vadim Ampelonskiy, a spokesperson for Roskomnadzor, told The Washington Post that access to LinkedIn would be blocked within days, as "LinkedIn failed to provide documents on moving personal databases to Russia". Today, the block has officially been implemented.

Ampelonskiy added that other companies had made the changes necessary to comply with the Russian law in question, including Google, Uber, eBay and Booking.com.

A similar situation occurred when LinkedIn was launched in China, as it took some time to build an entirely separate site that hosted Chinese residents' data in the country, hence meeting very similar requirements.

11/11/2016: Russia could soon block LinkedIn

Russia could soon block LinkedIn, after a Russian court ruled against the social media site on Thursday.

Moscow's Tagansky District Court decided that LinkedIn's site should be blocked back in August, and yesterday the court opted to uphold the ruling against LinkedIn on appeal.

Communications watchdog, Raskomnadzor, said LinkedIn was violating a law that requires websites to only store Russian citizens' personal data on Russian servers, said the Interfax news agency (via Reuters).

This is the first time this law has been enforced since it was first introduced in 2014. Some critics see this as a way for the Russian government to tighten control on the web, trying to limit the use of social media platforms.

A LinkedIn spokesperson told Reuters: "LinkedIn's vision is to create economic opportunity for the entire global workforce. The Russian court's decision has the potential to deny access to LinkedIn for the millions of members we have in Russia and the companies that use LinkedIn to grow their business."

Vadim Ampelonskiy, a spokesman for Roskomnadzor, told The Washington Post: "The access will be shut within days. LinkedIn failed to provide documents on moving personal databases to Russia."

He also added that other companies such as Google, Uber, eBay and Booking.com have, on the contrary, started making changes to ensure they comply with the Russian law in question.

LinkedIn has more than six million registered users in Russia, who might no longer be allowed access to the site.

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is testing the use of social media accounts to verify the identity of people using government services to stamp out the risk of identity fraud.

Currently, the service called verify uses personal information such as a person's credit history or electronic passport details to verify the identity of someone accessing the services, but it doesn't work for everybody, the GDS explained.

It decided to test the use of social media and discovered that the system's ability to identify adults would increase by nine per cent if social media was used, while for 16 to 25-year-olds, this would increase by 38 per cent.

"Our research suggests that people appear to be becoming more amenable to using online activity verification and allowing certified companies access to their personal online accounts to acquire a verified identity that gives safer, faster access to government services," said the GDS's Industry Engagement lead Livia Ralph wrote in a blog post.

However, not everyone agrees the methods of using social media accounts to verify identities is safe, despite it being a 'compelling' way of making sure the person accessing services is who they say they are.

"In theory, the government's idea of using social media accounts as a means of authenticating a consumer's identity is compelling after all, the vast majority of the population is now signed up to one or more of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.," Lee Munson, security researcher at Comparitech.com said.

"In practice, however, I am concerned that the increasing use of social sites as proof of identity could actually lead to an increase in identity theft. Given how many people re-use simple, easy to guess, passwords across all their online accounts, it would only require a data breach at one large social media company to leave an awful lot of people in big trouble."

He suggested that if the details were stolen, not only could criminals access the person's social account, but they could also use the details to access government portals to and falsely claim for benefits or apply for a new driving licence under the victim's name, for example.

"While using social accounts to prove who you are to other types of website may be an effective means of authentication, I for one would not trust an association between my Twitter account and the HMRC account I use to pay my taxes," Munson continued. "Instead, I would actually feel far more secure doing things the old-fashioned way, sending documentary proof of who I am via snail mail which is a totally secure alternative isn't it?"

The Department of Homeland Security has put forward proposals that could demand anyone entering the country must disclose their social media usernames and other information so they can be monitored better by authorities.

The proposals would see changes to application forms for visa waivers, asking those applying for access about the social media accounts they use and their unique identifiers, such as usernames.

This information would be used "for vetting purposes, as well as applicant contact information," the official document, added to the Federal Register by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), revealed.

"It's very hard to see travellers not filling out this item - even though it's optional - as they may fear not getting entry into the country," Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist at the Centre for Democracy and Technology, told the BBC.

"Democracy in general requires having spaces free from government scrutiny and increasingly social life happens online. We would have a poor society if people were chilled from participating in social activity online so I really hope they rethink this."

Before the proposal is made law, anyone with objections must submit their comments within 60 days before the CBP will consider it.

However, a spokesperson for the Association of British Travel Agents added that it was not guaranteed the proposal would take place. "Just as with any change in entry requirements, the DHS will need to balance security issues against the need to encourage people to visit their country," they said.

If passed, the proposals would apply to anyone applying for an ESTA or Form I-94W application, meaning those who are travelling to the USA for leisure purposes would be scrutinised further.

Instagram is planning to become more business-friendly with three new features designed to increase use of the social media platform at work.

The company identified three desires from businesses to stand out, get insights and find new customers. Instagram Business Tools, launching in the US, Australia and New Zealand in the coming months, will offer dedicated business profiles with new contact buttons and directions, insights from within the app, and the ability to turn well-performing posts into an ad.

Instagram will suggest targeting for the ad to the user, and a call to action button will be added.

In an official blog post announcing the news, Instagram wrote: "With so many companies using Instagram, and many people on the platform interacting with them, there was a desire from our business community to do more. So we listened."

Facebook, Instagram's parent company, has been targeting business users for some time, launching Facebook at Work and making it easier for companies to communicate with Facebook Messenger with unique company usernames.

"With more than 200,000 advertisers now on Instagram, businesses are looking for ways to stand out to customers, know if what they are doing on Instagram is working and drive business objectives on mobile. That's why we are unveiling business profiles, insights on how all content performs and the ability to promote posts. Instagram Business Tools will be coming to all regions by year's end," said an Instagram spokesperson.

Instagram Business Tools will be available in all regions globally by the end of 2016.

More than 6,000 of Twitter users in the UK alone were targeted by abusive and misogynistic tweets over just three weeks, a study from independent think tank Demos has revealed.

Demos tracked the use of two words indicative of misogyny over a three week period, finding that 6,500 unique users were targeted by 10,000 abusive tweets during this time. To do this, Demos used specific algorithms to separate aggressive tweets from conversational, self-identification or commentary.

The study has been released alongside the Parliamentary launch of the cross-party Reclaim the Internet movement, which aims to support female participation on social media.

Alex Krasodomski-Jones, a researcher at the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos, said: "It is clear that just as the digital world has created new opportunities for public debate and social interaction, it has also built new battlegrounds for the worst aspects of human behaviour. This study is a bird's-eye snapshot of what is ultimately a very personal and often traumatic experience.

"While we have focused on Twitter, who are considerably more generous in sharing their data with us, it's important to note misogyny is prevalent across social media. This is a stark reminder that we are frequently not as good citizens online as we are offline."

Internationally, more than 200,000 tweets sent to 80,000 people used the two words in the same time period. The study also suggests that half of all misogynistic abuse on Twitter comes from female users.

This builds on findings released in 2014, which showed that such abuse was perpetrated by both men and women.

It is important to note that these statistics do not account for the possibility for Twitter users to create fake female accounts, nor the fact that the study only looks at the use of two misogynistically-charged words, and not the entire spectrum of abusive language many receive.

An online forum has been opened to encourage discussion of how to make the internet less sexist, racist, homophobic, and generally less aggressive.

Pictures, links and videos will soon no longer count towards Twitter's 140-character limit, in an effort to attract new users to the platform.

Tagged usernames will also not count and users will be able to retweet and quote-tweet themselves to form a running commentary.

New tweets beginning with a username will also be visible to all followers, rather than simply those who follow both parties.

Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder and chief executive, said in a blog post: "One of the biggest priorities for us this year is to really refine our product and make it simpler. We're focused on making Twitter a whole lot easier and faster.

"This is what Twitter is great at - what's happening now, live conversation and the simplicity that we started the service with."

Changes to the character limit have been talked about for some time, with previous rumours indicating that Twitter might allow anything up to 10,000-character tweets.

Twitter has failed to grow its revenue in recent years, which has led to moves such as the company hiring a new CEO, integrating live video streaming app Periscope into the timeline, and reordering tweets. Today's announcement is the latest attempt to entice users to the site and grow its user base.

Twitter switched its iOS app from the social media category to the news category without immediate explanation in April, signalling a redirection from the company.

"We're not giving up on the idea of Twitter being in the moment," Dorsey continued. "That concept of brevity, speed and live conversation - being able to think of something and put it out to the world instantly - that's what's most important."

The amendments to the character limit will be rolling out over the coming months, according to the official blog post, giving third-party developers time to update their own products.

Instagram has changed its icon and it seems the entire universe has gone crazy about the tiny design tweak.

The company said on its blog: "Inspired by the previous app icon, the new one represents a simpler camera and the rainbow lives on in gradient form."

"We've been inspired by all the ways the community has grown and changed, and we wanted to create something that reflects how vibrant and diverse storytelling on Instagram has become," a spokesman told the media.

However, its users are a little unhappy it has changed its branding, with many taking to Twitter to express their discontent, saying the company ripped of Apple's iOS Photos icon or that it was unprofessional.

"The new instagram logo truly is gross. and i'm sure it's totally coincidence it scans as a bolder version of the iOS photos app icon," said @TonyRomm.

New Instagram icon looks like something I created in Word Art when I was 10" complained @Eryn_NotErin.

One of the icon's designers stepped in to defend it, however, saying he thinks it is just a shock to Instagram fans and they will get used to it.

"It's kind of like the Uber redesign people freaked out, and now it's totally fine," designer and photographer Cole Rise told Mashable. "Change can be hard, and people will have to adjust to it, but I think people will love the new stuff once they get used to it on their home screens."

It is not just the icon that has changed though. Instagram has also updated the look of the app too.

"We've made improvements to how the Instagram app looks on the inside as well. The simpler design puts more focus on your photos and videos without changing how you navigate the app," the company said in its blog post.

Although Instagram users may have got used to the old branding, even that was not the original logo for the company.

Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom tried to buy a logo Rise had created for another job back in 2010, but instead, Rise suggested he create a brand new one for the photo sharing app.

"I made this brand-new imaginary camera that was Bell & Howell-inspired, with elements of the old icon so it was an easier transition,"

Rise explained he is more excited about this latest work though.

"I'm super psyched on the new one," Rise commented. "I love the minimalism. Regardless of the colors behind it, the white shape the actual bones of the new symbol itself is beautiful, and I think that can persist over time."

People searching for extremism keywords may see anti-radicalisation links in the search results, under a pilot programme Google is running.

National newspapers claimed that Google would be manipulating its main search results with anti-radicalisation links after Anthony House, senior manager for public policy and communications at Google, mentioned the programme at a Home Affairs Select Committee hearing on Tuesday.

However, Google told IT Pro that this is not the case.

Instead, the pilot Google AdWords programme will let eligible non-governmental organisations (NGOs) use AdWords Grants to run campaigns to combat terrorism.

Under the programme, NGOs can choose the search terms they would like their ads to run against, meaning curious or vulnerable individuals searching for extremist groups, such as ISIS, will be presented with ad links committed to countering terrorist narratives.

"The free Google AdWords Grant programme is starting a pilot for a handful of eligible non-profits organisations to run ads against terrorism-related search queries of their choosing," a Google spokeswoman told IT Pro.

IT Pro understands the trial is only available in some geographies at the moment.

Experts welcomed Google's programme as a fresh example of the steps a large technology company can take to curb extremism.

Rashad Ali, a senior fellow at the thinktank Institute for Strategic Dialogue, welcomed the pilot.

"We do know from research that often there are individuals who, through mere curiosity, end up on the dark web, that have been radicalised into illegal violence," he told IT Pro.

"Hence, redirecting those individuals who are merely curious to find a safe space for discussion and sounder sources of knowledge, would be, at an absolute minimum, a responsible thing to do if not a moral imperative.

"For those on the outskirts merely seeking information, then this should be an important safeguarding measure depending on how credible the sites that they are being redirected to actually are."

MPs at Tuesday's committee hearing grilled Google, Facebook and Twitter on the role they could play in combating extremism.

They were particularly interested in the companies' "proactivity" in notifying law enforcement, as well as their "hit squads" that monitor services for offensive and dangerous content.

IT Pro approached Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft about new steps each of them are taking to counter extremism narratives on their respective platforms.

Facebook did not offer any comment, but stressed that there is no place for terrorists on its platform, and the tools it offers its 1.59 billion users make it straightforward to report content that's offensive or threatening.

Last month, the social network began its Online Civil Courage Initiative, and pledged over 1 million ($1.09 million) to support non-governmental organisations in their efforts to counter racist and xenophobic posts.

Twitter declined to comment, but its UK public policy manager, Nick Pickles, told MPs it does not proactively notify about extremist tweets because "often it's been seen already". In contrast, Google and Facebook said their threshold was "threat to life".

Twitter's policy states that users "may not make threats of violence or promote violence, including threatening or promoting terrorism". If users do so, and their account information is requested by law enforcement authorities, Twitter's policy is to notifies users about the request prior to disclosure, unless it is prohibited from doing so under a court order.

Microsoft also failed to comment. However, in 2015, the software giant began its Intelligence-led, first response' campaign, a global best practice for anti-terrorism efforts, which is aided by Microsoft Aware, a service to help local and national law enforcement maintain public safety.

Lack of basic awareness among social media users is putting their data at risk, according to a survey from analyst house IDC and Kapersky Lab.

Nearly one-third of respondents shared posts, check-ins and other personal information publicly, the security firm found. Worryingly, nine per cent did not even realise they were sharing this information widely, believing only their friends could see it.

A quarter of those who took the survey also said they would have no hesitation clicking on a link sent by a friend without asking what it is. This puts them at particular risk if their friend's account has been compromised - something they had not even considered as a possibility.

A smaller, but still significant proportion (12 per cent) admitted to adding anyone to their list of friends, even if they were complete strangers, while 31 per cent said they would accept friend requests from people they did not know if they were "a friend of a friend".

This over-sharing means cyber criminals could carry out fraud and identity theft with little to no effort, or malware could be downloaded to users' computers if they clicked on rogue links. It could also open these users up to unwanted contact from recruiters, advertisers, compensation brokers and others.

This could also be of concern to businesses, not only because employees could be downloading malware onto their work devices, but also because it opens users up to phishing scams.

"Social network users are playing a dangerous game by not being cyber-savvy and essentially giving strangers easy access to their personal details and private information," said principal security researcher at Kaspersky Lab, David Emm.

"With social media profiles containing a raft of insight - from birthdays through to addresses and holiday plans - it wouldn't take much digging for a cybercriminal to find and exploit valuable information, or steal your identity for their own gain. This is even easier if you have unwittingly made them your friend," he said.

Kaspersky Lab recommended that users protect themselves through basic steps, such as being cautious who they befriend and trust online and, if in doubt, they should not accept a friend request. Additionally, they should not click on links they are not expecting and should ensure their privacy settings are as high as possible.

Facebook has launched the Notify app, a news stream that will go head-to-head with similar apps like Twitter Moments and Apple News.

Facebook has signed up 70 partners for the service, including CNN, Fox News and the Washington Post, giving users the choice to mix and match the news sources they want to read and the types of stories they wish to be displayed.

"Everyone has different interests, so whether you're into sports, celebrities, news, movies, music or shopping, Notify makes it easy to find notifications you're into with a broad selection of great "stations" across a variety of categories," Facebook said in a blog post.

It explained some of the types of content will include final scores for sports fans, weather reports, film trailers, breaking news stories about the world, regions or niches, such as technology and photography moments from this day in history.

The app will also offer recommendations according to themes it identifies from your newsfeed and interests listed in your Facebook profile. It will then send notifications through to you whenever related content is pushed through.

These notifications are sent straight to your lock screen so you can view them without even opening your phone and then decide what you want to read.

"If you want to see more, just swipe or tap through any Notify notification to open the link in the app's browser where you can read the full article, watch the video, or view the site," Facebook said.

You can also share these notifications with your friends via a range of different mediums, such as text, email or share them on Facebook straight from your lock screen, although it's recommended you read them first to make sure you're not accidentally promoting dodgy content.

At the moment, Notify is only available for iPhones in the US, but we assume Facebook will be launching it in the UK after a testing period.

Governments are making far more data requests from Facebook than ever before, with the UK asking for the third highest number of information records from the social network.

The UK asked for 4,489 user or account details between January and June 2015, according to Facebook's latest bi-annual Government Requests Report spanning the period, with 78 per cent of those requests being successful.

This is a 71 per cent year-on-year rise, and the number is 82 per cent of the 5,509 total data requests Whitehall made across the entirety of 2014.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg's social network claims that it only responds to "valid requests relating to criminal cases", and that every demand is "checked for legal sufficiency".

However, this is likely to be of little comfort to data privacy advocates, many of whom have criticised the track record of both Facebook and the government.

Whitehall's 'Snooper's Charter', which proposes the mandatory storing of people's internet histories, has been lambasted in particular, with the bill coming under significant fire from everyone from Edward Snowden to Dell.

Only the US and India surpassed the UK's demand for Facebook data, with the US making an unrivalled 26,579 user or account detail requests, and India asking for information on 6,268 users or accounts.

India was also the country that blocked the most Facebook content, restricting over 15,000 posts on the grounds that they contained "anti-religious and hate speech that could cause unrest and disharmony within India".

Shootings in America are, sadly, not unusual, but when two journalists were shot live on air on Wednesday last week, social media went into overdrive.

What made this particular attack unique is the fact it was filmed and broadcast by the victims as it happened and, it later transpired, the shooter himself had recorded the murder and posted it online before taking his own life.

Very quickly, my Twitter feed was full tweets from news organisations such as the Huffington Post linking to stories containing the "graphic footage" or, in the case of Russia Today, having a short Vine of two people dying auto-play when you scrolled down.

Soon though, news outlets reacted to the revulsion people expressed at their decision to rebroadcast the footage and removed it from their stories. Facebook and YouTube were also diligent in their efforts to remove the footage taken by shooter Vester Lee Flanagan as it was posted and reposted.

But, for some, the desire to see the footage first hand is too much, and cyber criminals know this as much as - or perhaps better than - anyone else.

By the evening, the Virginia trend on Twitter was full of rather suspicious-looking links to the "full uncensored video".

Social engineering attacks that take advantage of our curiosity are among the most successful at attracting victims and are also relatively easy to create, which is why they remain so popular with cyber criminals as a vector of attack.

It's not just social media, either - emails are still circulated in the wake of tragedies, be it a link to an alleged miracle survival video from a natural disaster or something more grisly, as in this case.

"Malicious actors are always going to use something that's in the media to try and lure in victims," Tim Grieveson, HP's chief cyber and security strategist, told IT Pro. "We're human, we are voyeurs, and they know that."

"To protect against successful attacks, you need to have good technology in place, but it's also about educating people to be careful, both in the business and at home. There are still a lot of people who get caught out by phishing emails - they still click that link - but education now has to be mulit-platform and include social media as well," Grieveson said.

Even though there's a strong moral argument against it, curiousity will always get the better of some people - they want to feel hope in the face of disaster, they want to feel righteous anger when ISIS execute a prisoner, they want to see something ususual and shocking.

But, just maybe the threat of malware, rather than a salacious video, will make us think twice in future.

UPDATE: Facebook has this week broken the barrier of 1 billion users in a single day.

On Monday, founder Mark Zuckerberg said, Facebook had been used by "1 in 7 people on Earth", marking the latest landmark in the site's meteoric growth.

The company already broke a million monthly users in 2012, but this week marks the first time that Facebook has had that amount of logins in one day.

Earlier this year, Zuckerberg claimed that over half of the globe's population used Facebook at least once a month.

"When we talk about our financials, we use average numbers, but this is different", he said. "This was the first time we reached this milestone, and it's just the beginning of connecting the whole world."

Zuckerberg has put his money where his mouth is in that respect; he has thrown Facebook's substantial weight behind the Internet.org project, which aims to bring internet connectivity to the world's developing nations.

Facebook has also made in-roads into the emerging virtual reality market, purchasing VR headset manufacturer Oculus in 2014.

The social media titan published its second-quarter earnings results in July, which showed that its monthly users grew 13 per cent to just under 1.5 billion.

This figure is comprised of everyone who uses Facebook at least once a month, but many access it much more frequently, with 65 per cent using the service on a daily basis.

It is estimated that around three billion people worldwide have internet access, bringing Facebook's total share of those users to roughly 50 per cent.

Mobile internet is clearly a key driver of this growth. Indeed, in the US, the company claims that for every five minutes of smartphone use, one is spent on Facebook.

Facebook profits drop by almost 10 per cent

Development costs on projects like the forthcoming Oculus Rift and Zuckerberg's Internet.org initiative pushed expenditures up to $2.8 billion for the second quarter, a rise of more than 80 per cent.

This means that despite a 39 per cent year-on-year revenue increase for a total of over $4 billion Facebook's overall profits suffered a 9.1 per cent loss, coming out at $719 million.

The recent spate of financial results have been a mixed bag for many companies. Following their recent Windows Phone mis-steps, Microsoft announced a loss to the tune of $3.2 million.

Apple, on the other hand, has had a relatively good quarter, with profits topping out at more than $10.7 billion. Huawei also had a fantastic year, with a year-on-year growth of 124 per cent.

According to reports, this growth has pushed them to the top spot in their native territory, as they nab the largest market share in Chinese smartphones.

Twitter has announced the 140-character limit on direct messages no longer exists, meaning customers can complain in longer sentences and companies can offer more in-depth responses too.

Users can now send longer direct messages from all platforms, including the official Twitter apps for Android and iOS, Twitter's website, TweetDeck and Twitter for Mac. The social network said people using other third-party platforms will see changes taking place over the next few weeks.

"While Twitter is largely a public experience, Direct Messages let you have private conversations about the memes, news, movements, and events that unfold on Twitter," the company said in a blog post. "Each of the hundreds of millions of Tweets sent across Twitter every day is an opportunity for you to spark a conversation about what's happening in your world."

However, Twitter will not be increasing the character limit on tweets, replies or content-led posts (such as images, videos or Vines) in an attempt to keep Twitter as the snappy social platform, so you'll still have to think carefully before crafting your public messages.

Twitter has been tweaking many of the features on its platform over the last few months, including a news service that is due to launch in the next year. Moments will aggregate tweets and contents, operating like a syndicated news services, but making the content relevant to you and where you are.

Kayvon Beykpour, CEO of Twitter-owned Periscope said: ""I would say that Moments and ideas like that are just extensions and reinforcements to that vision. Twitter is the only tool in the world today that actually shows you the world live, other than Periscope, so I think it's great that they're working on things like Moments to improve that."

iRights is campaigning for a change to social media policies that would allow teenagers and young adults under 18 to delete content from their profiles if they believe they could lead to embarrassment later in life.

The organisation is campaigning along with government supporters to give young people the ability to remove material they have posted if it will prevent them from getting into university or landing a job.

iRights has listed five requests that digital companies should agree to in order to ensure reputations aren't damaged when someone posts content on a whim. It is also campaigning for an open, easily accessible digital marketplace where teens are free to learn.

It says social media account holders should be able to delete pictures and comments easily and they should know who has access to and could be profiting from their information.

Those under 18 should be protected from illegal or distressing pages, they should be empowered to read what they wish, but disengage when they want and be free to access any literature they require online by learning their skills to "use, create and critique digital technologies," the document said.

"Personal experimentation is an essential part of childhood development, yet the internet never forgets and never corrects. It can possess an infinite memory of each individual and all of their online actions," iRights said.

"Errors of judgment, unhappy experiences and attitudes that were the product of immaturity are saved on the internet long after they have faded from the memory of friends and family. It is essential that there is an easily accessible route for children and young people to resolve disputes or correct misinformation that does not require recourse to the courts."

The process of killing Google+ as we know it has begun, as users will now be able to access Google products with a standard account.

In a Google+ update, Google executive Brad Horowitz explained the decision, saying the platform was part of a "well-intentioned goal", but admitted users sometimes found it "confusing".

We decided it's time to fix this, not only in YouTube, but across a user's entire experience at Google," he wrote. "We want to formally retire the notion that a Google+ membership is required for anything at Google other than using Google+ itself."

It was announced back in March that Google+ would be broken in half, separating the social network into two new products based on photos and an activity stream.

Sundar Pichai, SVP of products at Google, announced the split on stage at Mobile World Congress (MWC), revealing the new product titles to be Google Photos and Google Streams.

According to Huffington Post, he said: "For us, Google+ was always two things, a stream and a social layer.

"The stream has a passionate community of users, but the second goal was larger for us. We're at a point where things like photos and communications are very important, we're reorganising around that."

The stream will comprise services people can share, such as YouTube videos and Google Docs, though Google hasn't yet revealed any details about this.

Google Photos will let people auto upload their pictures, edit them in a browser and share them with friends.

Bradley Horowitz, an executive at the search giant, revealed he will be in charge of both new product lines.

He said in a brief blog post: "It's important to me that these changes are properly understood to be positive improvements to both our products and how they reach users."

Pichai didn't address whether Google+, once Google's own effort to compete with Facebook, will survive as a brand, but the new products make no reference to it in their own branding.

He did however confirm that web video chat service, Hangouts, would continue.

The Verge quoted him as saying: "We're going to put more energy into [Hangouts]. We're seeing good traction there and so we'll work hard to get to the next stage."

It's not clear yet when this change may take place, but more information could be released at Google I/O in May.

This article was first published on 2 March 2015 but has been updated (most recently on 28 July 2015) to reflect new developments.