The Facebook Blog reports that a redesigned profile will be launched aimed at making things simpler, cleaner, and more relevant, while still giving you control over your own profile.

The new design will allow Facebook members to use tabs to prioritize fresh pictures, messages, or “feeds” on main profile pages and compartmentalise mini-applications and “static” information such as a curriculum vitae.

These changes are motivated by feedback from users as well as a trend toward people flooding the internet with digital content such as videos, pictures, and musings they want to instantly share. This is according to Facebook vice president of marketing Chamath Palihapitiya.

For more on this update, Facebook recommends that you start with their “Overview” album, or, if you’re itching to find out what happened at the Open Door Event, check out the video of it.

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I had the great pleasure on Thursday last week of attending a workshop hosted by Walter Pike on Social Media. It’s always nice to meet likeminded people and it was clear that Walter is very passionate about Social Media and the future ahead in this area.

Some of the very valid points he made was:

• The market is getting smarter faster than most companies.
• Building Communities with your customers will require trust, transparency and engaging them in the conversation

Something else I found interesting is that Walter was very passionate about Twitter. This is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to some simple questions. Although Twitter is not yet very popular in South Africa it has taken off elsewhere and is definitely something to keep an eye on.

If you are still slightly in the dark when it comes to Social Media and would like to hear more about the latest trends – this workshop is definitely worth your time. For more see below interview with Walter on CNBC:

I am fully aware that South African companies are a step behind in their thinking regarding spending budgets on Social Media in comparison to elsewhere. However the research revealed by Joe Jaffe, author of Join the Conversation, at this year’s New Comm Forum are indications that they will have to start thinking twice. One sentence kept on popping up: Communication will get you to the consumer’s door, however conversation is what will get them to invite you in.

• According to the research the spending on social media and conversational marketing will outpace that of traditional marketing by 2012.
• 81% of all respondents project that by 2012 they will spend at least as much on conversational marketing as traditional marketing.
• Companies will have conversation departments
• There will no longer be campaigns that begin and end – no going dark
• Talent is the biggest barrier
• This is not just a change in marketing and PR it’s a fundamental shift in how we do business
• Listening is the key – and only 30% of customers think companies are actually listening.

Clearly if you want to be a market leader in this country you will have to start acknowledging the impact of Social Media and how important it is for your company to be part of the conversation.

Social Media is not about pageviews or click-throughs, it is about the audience size. Rich Ord shares some very interesting information with us about Social Media Advertising which should open our eyes to a “new” media where our – your – target audience is waiting for you. This is the new Advertising space for your brand. Are you aware of it?

In a article entitled “Social Media Advertising To Succeed“, Rich make some very interesting comments, so let’s look at them:

Rich says that while Social Media Advertising is still in its infancy, it will succeed. Social media is a totally different type of advertising platform when compared to information-oriented websites and we should never compare the these two with each other. We should also not compare pageviews or click-through between the two. They are completely different, it’s more about the size of the audience when it comes to Social Media, not just the visits.

Before I get totally sidetraked, he goes on to say that we live in a reality where Social Media delivers the holy grail for advertisers on the Internet. Wow, just think about it. We can clearly see the trends by just looking at what’s happening with Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, etc.

You don’t have to believe me, let’s look at the statistics Rich provides in the rest of the article:

“The top 25 social media networks delivered over 155 million unique visitors in Feb. 2008 with 70 percent coming from MySpace, Facebook and Classmates.com. Add in YouTube and Flickr and you get another 60 million totaling an estimated 215 million humans viewing social media monthly.”

“Compare that to television where an average 24-hour period delivers around 50 million unique viewers. The highest viewership day of the year, Super Bowl Sunday, has an estimated 110 million unique U.S. residents viewing television. Even over an entire month there is arguably less than 200 million total unique television viewers.”

“The Internet has become a powerful platform for advertisers to reach mass audiences via user generated video too. According to comScore Video Metrix, U.S. Internet users viewed over 10 billion videos online in the month of December alone. Imagine a 15 to 30 second commercial with each video view and the Internet seems ready today to compete with broadcast TV in delivering commercial views.”

These are staggering totals when you think about it. Personally, I am spending more and more time in front of my Notebook and Desktop as compared to watching TV. My wife is even worse than me…

Rich goes on with more interesting information. He says that “It simply doesn’t matter what the click rate is for Facebook, MySpace and YouTube because they reach huge audiences that major advertisers like Ford, Pepsi and McDonald’s can’t help but see the value in.”

“Click rates are a reflection of pageviews and social media sites similar to TV have a large overlapping audience that hang around them all day, every day.”

“According to Compete’s figures for every unique visitor to YouTube there are 54 pageviews. With Facebook, a unique visitor creates an amazing 564 pageviews in a month and on MySpace each person generates a staggering 1,110 pageviews.”

“The social media audience is loyal, large and habit-oriented just like broadcast TV. They also hit the prime youth-tilting demographic who are big spenders online and are considered a high value audience by ad agencies and advertisers. Ultimately, what advertisers value is the audience, not just the clicks.”

Well, there is no denying it, there is a huge audience out there who is generating their own content, waiting for the World to share it. Social Media sites are the tools we should use – the “New Media” where we all ought to be. Are you thinking about it, perhaps you should…

This session did not give as much information as I would have like to but it is always interesting to note that search engines are indeed tapping into human knowledge more widely through tagging, click through tracking, search history features and other methods. I was here to learn about the social search revolution that’s underway, and this is what I could record from this session.

Social Media is made up from Internet tools and websites that have formed communities online though sharing various types of content.

Why use social media? Simply put, it engages your audience. Full stop.

You need to know your audience by talking & sharing information with them.

EFFECTIVE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Typical constraints:

• time
• goals
• suitability
• effectiveness

What to do when engaging Social Search – a few guidelines:

1. Define your goals and strategies
2. Content – contribute articles, opnions, tools, humor, photos and videos
3. Distribution of the content as mentioned above
4. Promotion
   For long term – use stumbleupon and niche blogs
   For short term – news blogs and tagging engines
5. Build a niche of your own
6. Start with a blog if time is a constraint
7. Add a newsletter
8. Add a Forum
9. Target local sites and businesses

The South African facebook network has reached 500,000 members, right now it officially sits at 506,669. Isnt this amazing, from just 80,000 members in June.
I thought that the growth may have started to level off but there aren’t any signs of this happening right now.
Speaking from my own experiences around social networking, and I have registered on most of them, facebook is really the only site that I really enjoy. The continuous flow of new apps and widgets makes it a great “time-out” to go and explore and, if one looks like fun then I’ll interact with it and send it on to my friends.
I also enjoy receiving the short email messages or “super pokes” from my friends / meta-friends, I dont have time to chat to them everyday and this is always a reminder that they are thinking of me; albeit a mass communication.
The appeal of friends from primary school days finding me is also more than I can resist, I suppose it is that “nosy” trait that woman seem to have in seeing what they have done with their lives, how many children they have etc.
The only part of the site that I dont enjoy is the banner advertising, facebook is still not providing advertisers with geo-targetting for South Africa and I am being served ads for totally irrelevant international products and services. I also happen to intensely dislike advertising in my personal space and I consider my profile on facebook my personal space, I chose to be there and want to customise it myself, not have intrusive advertising getting in the way.

I will, however, continue to frequent this site on a daily basis until I stumble across another social networking platform that holds equal appeal.

Longtail Social Media Presentation at Triba…..
Hmm, where to begin is the question….
If there were ever a good place to begin I suppose it would be to start from the very beginning, a very good place to start,….

La Audience…PR Net Group.

La Venue…Triba is a mommy home. That’s the best way I can explain it in layman’s terms. It’s a place where stressed moms, soon-to-be mom’s, contemplating-motherhood-potential moms, go to find some holistic advice and rest & relaxation. Dale (the brains behind the centre),was inspired by her driving ambition as an entrepreneur as well as her recent 6 year journey with her own child, conceptualized this in her mind and made it a reality. She was gracious enough to allow us to present at her centre.

So who would be leading us in our quest for knowledge about the unknown world of online?Ingrid Rubin of course!

Ingrid was introduced by Renee of Little Black Book Fame and the journey for our audience began.
Ingrid spoke about social media and how companies can better manage their Public relations with regard to their company image and branding with none other than the wonderful world of online, by participating in the conversation with a well thought through strategy.

Basically it was deduced that everybody had heard about some or all of the social media technologies but no one was too informed about how to even start trying to tackle the beast that is online strategy.

Is understanding online strategy (when you are new to the concept) difficult? YES! It is difficult to understand BUT with a speaker as eloquent as Ingrid it turned out to be almost child’s play for them. The key phrase in everyone’s mind was surely, “Where do I sign up?”

This is what she can do! I know, it’s her big red bag that she carries with her all the time that holds the secret to her talent!

Everything went off well, but as usual…so much to talk about …so little time…always the case.
We also had the privilege of listening to a man who believes that helping the poor in South Africa will help our crime statistics decrease, help our economy to rise and help us to enjoy our life here in S.A. this dynamic speaker was Stephen Thomas from a company called 1 IN 1 OUT.
His basic premise was that we as corporates can help assist his organization in contributing to the well being of our country.

We also met another interesting lady who has oodles of useful information at her fingertips. Marion Scher, a journalist, who writes for Bizcommunty and M&G (Mail & Guardian), as well as PR for UNILEVER spoke to Ingrid and I and we were so intrigued by her vast knowledge that we encouraged her to blog about all her experiences.

Ingrid and I thoroughly enjoyed the interactive session and judging by the smiles and thank yous, so did everyone else. Watch this space for when the longtail team will be out there spreading the gospel again….

To see the longtail Social Media presentation visit http://www.pr-net.co.za/