Social media 'will not kill email'

People will still use emails for more official business messages, even if social media is likely to become the normal way of chatting, a marketing website has suggested.
Although social media will reduce the use of email to an extent, it will not make it obsolete, according to a marketing website.
Marketing Sherpa claimed that social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter look likely to become the normal way of communicating short messages.
However, it would seem unlikely for social media to take over from email in receiving confirmations of business transactions and other more formal correspondence.
"When we look at media use over the last 15 years, we see a pattern of aggregation and adoption rather than replacement. Some media suffer in the exchange, but none are eliminated," said the website.
In a survey carried out by the website, 78 per cent of people said that they use email to share links with friends or family, while 22 per cent used social media.
This week, Facebook announced that it has developed the design of its groups feature, so that people can collaborate online more easily.

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Social media groups 'enhanced for user collaboration'Social media groups 'enhanced for user collaboration'

Facebook has improved its Group design in order to develop the way users can collaborate on the social networking service.
Facebook has announced that it has developed its group feature to make it easier for people to communicate and work together on the social media website.
Knot Pipatsrisawat, a software engineering intern writing on the website's official blog, revealed that messages and activities occurring in groups will appear on users' news feed.
He noted that group design now looks very similar to profiles and pages, but that businesses should remember there is a difference between them.
"Groups are for fostering member-to-member collaboration, while Pages remain the best way to broadcast messages to your fans if you are a business, organisation, public figure or other entity," explained Mr Pipatsrisawat.
This new group design will be rolled out over the next few days, he added.
According to Robin Goad, a research director at Hitwise UK, Facebook is "far and away" the most popular social media website, gaining 14 per cent of all page views in September.

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Paid-for social media monitoring 'more advanced'

People who wish to find out more in-depth results about what people are saying about their company on social media networks should think about using paid-for services, says an expert.
Those businesses that are willing to pay for social media monitoring services will get more complex results, an industry insider has commented.
Jason Falls, a blogger on socialmediaexplorer.com, made his comments following research from Harris Interactive, which indicated that nearly double the number of consumers are complaining about problematic online transactions on social media this year than they were in 2008.
He pointed out that by paying for a service to check what people are saying on social networking sites, companies can get far more advanced results than if they use a free program such as Google alerts.
Mr Falls stressed that the cost of the service will normally rise proportionally with the depth of information being offered.
"Scout Labs, Radian6, Spiral13, Techrigy and Visible Technologies are just the tip of the iceberg of paid solutions that are very good," he explained.
In his view, it is worth checking out some of the lower cost paid monitoring solutions, because some of them are very effective.

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Facebook is "Far and away" most popular social media site

Facebook is still leading the social media pack and a contributing factor in its popularity is the amount of time people spend on the site, says a commentator.
In terms of the popularity, social media service Facebook is still leading the way and it shows no sign of losing its dominant share of the market, according to an industry analyst.
Robin Goad, research director at Hitwise UK, made his comments on his Analyst Weblog following research by the organisation, which indicated that 14 per cent of all page views during September were of a Facebook page.
He pointed out that it is not just the quantity of usage which is important in terms of its popularity, but also how long people spend on the site each time they use it.
Mr Goad stated that this figure stood at 26 minutes 14 seconds for September.
"Although it has fallen somewhat off the media radar in favour of Twitter recently, Facebook remains far and away the most popular social networking website in the UK," he wrote in the his blog.
Last week, Facebook announced that it has developed its offensive behaviour reports, so that users can be better protected from abuse on the website.

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Companies 'still unsure on social media use'

Marketers are still not clear how best to engage with consumers on social media sites such as Twitter, says an industry commentator.
It is still not clear to many businesses how social media can be used most effectively, an industry insider has suggested.
Peter McCormick, general manager and co-founder of ExactTarget, claimed that a lot of firms are still considering which is the best way of approaching consumers on social networking platforms.
He pointed out that there is plenty of potential in social media just waiting to be utilised by marketers.
Mr McCormick made his comments following the release of a new product by ExactTarget which automatically generates Tweets based on email marketing content.
"This allows marketers to adopt a process-based approach to enhancing the interactivity of an email marketing campaign, while creating a meaningful dialogue with customers," he said.
The new Twitter integration product will be available from November 6th.
Last week, the social media site stated that it will be producing and selling wine in the future to raise money for international literacy charity Room to Read.

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Staying abreast of social media conversations 'can be free'

Business owners can sign up to free services which will help them monitor what is being said about their company, states an expert.
Companies that want to keep their ear to the ground when it comes to their reputation on different forms of social media can do this for free, an industry insider has suggested.
Social media consultant and blogger on socialmediaexplorer.com Jason Falls pointed out that the free services on offer will only give basic monitoring of online chatter, but they will show up to 85 per cent of what is being said about a brand.
He highlighted how easy it is to sign up to one of these services compared to having to run searches every day in order to understand how a product is perceived by the public.
"Through services like Google Alerts and searches on Twitter, Technorati, Bing and Google Blogsearch, you can pretty much blanket the web with ears at no cost," Mr Falls said.
Recent research published by Sage indicated that only 8.4 per cent of small businesses are utilising social media to learn more about their customers.

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Social media site enhances offensive behaviour reports

Facebook users are now able to give more specific abuse reports when something offensive is uploaded to the website, according to the official blog.
Users of the social media website Facebook have been encouraged to give more specific details of any unwanted contact taking place with the development of its report tool.
Jessica Ghastin, a specialist on the social networking site's user operations team, wrote on the company's official blog that it is now possible to classify exactly what sort of abuse the user is encountering.
As well as this, she pointed out that the report tool now asks for the specific timeframe of a video or section of text that is causing offence, which makes dealing with the issue easier.
"These additional details are an important part of the process. We'll continue to work to improve your experience and give you the proper tools to report bad content and behaviour," explained Ms Ghastin.
This week, the developer of Facebook application Causes told users that social media allows everyone to do their bit for charity, as people can easily raise awareness of an issue, even if they cannot make a donation.

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