It is important to have an effective social media presence, but according to Penny Sansevieri, author and chief executive of Marketing Experts, Inc., improper use can harm your business as well.

Sometimes, we use social media for the sake of being busy, without being aware of the results, and that puts our company at a disadvantage.

The Negative Aspects of Social Media

Social media is destroying productivity, at least according to an infographic shown in an article by empowerednetwork.com. The infographic shows that 22 percent of the time we spend online is used on social networking sites. In addition, people spend more time using Facebook than exercising, in particular, twice as much time.

Using social media can be beneficial to your business, but it can also be detrimental as it could take so much of your time for other productive work. (Image: via rethinkingyourweb.com)

Ten percent of workers spend less time working than they do on the Internet. Among websites, 41 percent said the most time wasting for workers is Facebook, followed by LinkedIn (37%), CNN (29%), Amazon (25%), YouTube (13%) then ESPN (8%).

How to Control Time Spent on Social Media

In light of these disadvantages, business owners and entrepreneurs should know how to harness social media and use it to their gain. Here are some tips by Sansevieri:

1. Check the effectiveness of your social media strategies. Are your customers or potential customers really engaging in your Facebook page? Are your messages fit for the social networking site you put them in? For example, maybe your message is much more effective if placed on LinkedIn or Google Plus, than on Facebook. Try to measure the benefits, if any, that you obtained from using social media marketing.
2. Focus on important industry headlines. Sansevieri suggests that you skim through headlines and read only those that you find interesting while skipping the rest. That way, you get more value for the time spent.
3. Use a media alert system. Sansevieri recommends Mention.net or Talkwalker.com, among other new alert systems that will help you become much more acquainted with stuff taking place in your market. Using these systems, it is important to use appropriate and specific keywords, and change them up as your market changes. Media alert systems let you receive daily emails of stories and headlines that contain relevant information for your business.
4. Don’t be afraid that you’ll miss out. Most of us want to join all social media tools out there just because we don’t want to miss out. However, one should get rid of this habit because we should just focus on the tools that really matter right now. In fact, most of your customers and potential customers are likely to be found in just one or two social networking sites, so you need to focus your attention there.
5. Limit the amount of time using social media. Sansevieri recommends using only 30 minutes in the morning and another 30 in the evening for social media. Use the remainder of the day to capitalize time on other more important things.
6. Know the difference between being busy and being productive. Spending lots of time on social media might only make you look busy, but actually you’re not being productive at all. Think of the tasks you are doing, if they are just keeping you busy without leading you somewhere. Don’t relate being busy with being successful. If you try to figure out how you can be productive for each of your work tasks, then you will get lots of free time. If you’re just being busy without achieving anything, then you haven’t attained success.

1. Outsource if you can. You can hire other people to do social media work for you if you can’t manage to do it yourself. LinkedIn is a nice place to look for recommended experts in social media.

Social media can indeed take away lots of our time and keep us from reaching our potential productivity. While it is useful for your business for a number of things, such as raising brand awareness, it can also be harmful. One should try to be social but be productive at the same time and maintain that equilibrium.

Balancing the use of Social Media and Being Productive Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

Tweet is now officially a word.

By tweet, we and the folks at The Oxford English Dictionary, mean sending out a message via Twitter.

The official arbiter of the English language added the word tweet to the Oxford English Dictionary during its June update.

John Simpson, Chief Editor of The Oxford English Dictionary, said in a “quiet announcement” for June that:

“The noun and verb tweet (in the social-networking sense) has just been added to the OED. This breaks at least one OED rule, namely that a new word needs to be current for ten years before consideration for inclusion. But it seems to be catching on.”

Officially, the word tweet is defined by the dictionary this as either a noun (A posting made on the social networking service Twitter.) or as intransitive or transitive verb (To make a posting on the social networking service Twitter. Also: to use Twitter regularly or habitually.) (To post [a message, item of information, etc.] on Twitter. Also: to post a message to [a particular person, organization, etc.].)

It’s important to note that “retweet” has been added to The Oxford English Dictionary in 2011. Simpson did not provide an explanation why retweet was added to the dictionary first.

Image from mrpolyonymous on Flickr (CC)

‘Tweet’ Is Official Says Oxford English Dictionary Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

The government of Saudi Arabia may move to block Skype and WhatsApp in the coming weeks, new reports suggest.

According to local newspapers, the Kingdom’s regulators are pushing for the firms in charge of Skype and WhatsApp to comply with requirements they have put forward.

The move by the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) follows the banning of Viber, another communications tool, in the country.

One of the reasons why Viber was banned and why WhatsApp may be banned is because these apps are hard to monitor.

Furthermore, services like these take away from the revenue generated by telecoms companies through calls and texts. Viber and WhatsApp lets users text and call each other provided they have internet connection.

Arab News quotes Abdullah Al-Darrab of the CTIC saying, “We have been communicating with WhatsApp and other similar communication platforms to get them to cooperate and comply with the Saudi telecom providers, however nothing has come of this communication yet.”

According to the official, Skype and WhatsApp may be next to be blocked after Viber. The CTIC official said the block may come before the holy month of Ramadan start on July 9.

Featured image from _Skender_ on Flickr (CC)

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia May Block Skype, WhatsApp In Weeks To Come Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

Last year, the person beside you and the one you look at the mirror every day spent 3 hours and 7 minutes online for social media on a daily basis.

Voucher Codes Pro, a website dedicated at selling coupons or vouchers, crunched the number in an infographic after gathering data from YouTube, Netflix, TechCrunch, eMarketer, and Digital Marketing Ramblings.

The infographic showed the dramatic rise in online usage for the average Internet user from 2010 (2 hours and 34 minutes) to 2011 (2 hours and 56 minutes) to 2012 (3 hours and 7 minutes).

The rapid increase in online media usage led to a decrease in the popularity of other media sources during the three-year period. Struggling media sources include TV, radio, newspaper, and magazine.

The infographic broke down the daily online use with social media, spearheaded by social networking sites, leading the way for online media sources, such as emails, online videos, search engines, online games, blogs, online radios, online newspapers, and online magazines.

As the popularity of social networks and online media increase, the average person’s time online increases.

Click on the image to see an enlarged version of the infographic.

Social Media Increases Online Use As Traditional Media Suffers [INFOGRAPHIC] Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

Google has debuted on the big screen as part of the ensemble in the comedy film “The Internship,” starring the duo Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn of “Wedding Crashers” fame. The new movie revolves around two unemployed salesmen who become Google interns.

Last month, the search giant invited its employees and interns and the media at the Kabuki Theatre in San Francisco for a special private screening. After watching the film, the press no longer needed to state the obvious. It confirmed their doubt that “The Internship” is a Hollywood sales pitch for Google.

NOTE: Some spoilers hereafter.

With the movie centering on Google, it is natural to showcase the company’s products end-to-end. In some parts, “The Internship” covers a couple of Google products and services: Android smartphones, Google Docs, Google+ Hangouts, Gmail, Search, a Samsung Chromebook, and its self-driving car.

While there are no Microsoft devices in the film, some actors used Apple Macbook Pro laptops. Technology and pop culture are widely distributed throughout the film. There are references to Facebook, Instagram, X-Men, and more.

Google CTO and co-founder Sergey Brin has two cameo appearances, including one where he talks.

“The Internship” director Shawn Levy said during the post-screening interview that he wanted to Google’s portrayal to be as reliable and bona fide as possible. But he made the internship of the actors a more competitive procedure compared to its real-life counterpart. He did this to focus on the story of two unemployed men who are looking for a new career, and because the film is not about Google itself. The character of actor Owen Wilson describes the intership as the metal version of “Hunger Games.” The two protagonists, played by Wilson and Vaughn, struggle to compete in a series of challenges to land a full-time position at Google.

Danny Sullivan of Marketing Land reacted to a scene featuring a Google Helpline, where interns have to help customers who often call to solve problems related to Google products and services. Sullivan believes the Helpline scene may be a disservice to the search giant. Google does not have a helpline of sorts. If it does exist, Google is doing a great job to keep the helpline a secret from the outside world.

Both actors and the director shared that movigoers will learn some things from the comedy film. They said “The Internship” shares the hopes of people who want to search for new ways to improve their lives. Levy said that his job allowed him to see how Googlers do their best to make life easier and better for Internet users.

The film also features two generations of people who work together, and about Googlers, and employees in general, who work too hard in their work that they forget to pause and see life as it passes by. According to Levy, the film teaches people to face challenges in life even with little hope remaining and with a pile of hitches. He said “The Internship” is about standing up and holding up dreams.

The Wilson-Vaughn tandem makes “The Internship” a hilarious feel-good-movie that will cater to people who are looking for a good laugh, specially those who had a busy day at work.

In one way or another, Google had to get involved because the film reflects and promotes its culture and ethics to the world. Google CEO Larry Page said the film will spread his hopes that people have to take more interest in technology and share these interests with other people.

The search giant has taken a major role in the movie’s production. It helped the cast recreate its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia for set used in the filming. The Los Angeles Times wrote that real Googlers were in the film as extras, helped design the end credits, and the movie featured product placements Google.

Even though some people will think that more tech companies will use Hollywood as a new marketing channel, there is no escaping the possibility for that to happen. Facebook released “The Social Network” and Apple has created at least two movies, so far, to tell the life story of Steve Jobs.

After Facebook’s “The Social Network” Comes Google’s “The Internship” Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

We are social creatures. Whenever the opportunity opens up, we interact and share information with people. We socialize with family, colleagues, friends, and even passing acquaintances. But we often forget how to turn on the filters that make our lives private, specially when sharing personal details through social media, so much so that we tend to “overshare.”

According to research, people often share too much data to control subconscious anxiety. For society to accept us, we feel the whim to get in touch with family and friends and look interesting, smart, and full of wits.

Whenever we talk to real people, we often take hints from their body language and facial expression. For example, running may mean that person is in a rush for a meeting, hard breathing may mean exhaustion or an ailment, or anger may mean annoyance. These examples may mean several kinds of emotional or mental state. And because we see these often, we have leads to know what it actually means in person. Experts call this “self regulation.” Because of this, we are inclined to form conversations that are suitable for a given situation. But when we open our personal lives on social media, we do not have those hints. We do not see real faces. We do not see real emotions.

Featured image by Jason Howie / Flickr (CC)

How To Control Oversharing On Social Media

1. When in doubt, do not post it. Ask yourself many times over if the content is worthy of notice. For example, ask these questions: Will they care if I ate these for breakfast, lunch, or dinner? Will my friends care about the intimacy of my marriage?

2. Please enable your privacy settings. It has been said multiple times already. Social networking companies, at least we are led to believe, do their best to improve online privacy. The least you could do is take advantage of it. Even though we share important information with family and friends, we do not share intimate details with friends and acquaintances from grade school. If you want to post the inside information, though, you may be better off posting it at a private social networking site for security. But it would be best to just keep it to yourself.

3. You have to control posts on political chatter. While it is OK to comment on critical political issues, do not overdo it. All that yakety-yak may infuriate family, friends, and prospective clients or business partners.

4. Do not overuse “I” or “me.” Do not talk about yourself all the time. You may have to share exciting events, special occasions, and important dates, but do give a holler to another person or quote someone else’s words every now and then.

5. Never drag people through the mud. Do not speak unfavorably about your family, friends, or colleagues online. If you badmouth someone on the Internet, it is highly likely he or she will answer back in one way or another. We often see employees who knock their superiors and friends who badmouth their partners. Those comments and remarks will land them in a dangerous or distressing predicament. Do not bring that into your life.

Lucky for us, we are setting good and bad examples for the next generation. The children learn from our failures and mistakes. The Pew Research Center has found that the younger online users post less personal information on social media. The report said more kids are protective of personal information by enabling and adjusting their privacy settings.

Oversharing is epidemic. It has become normal for people to share all details about their lives. We have to make privacy the top priority of our online activities.

How To Control Oversharing On Social Media Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

The once exclusive analytics tool designed by Twitter for its micro-blogging platform is now available to the public.

According to the social networking company, Twitter Analytics is now open to all Twitter users worldwide.

Previously exclusive to the company’s advertising partners, Twitter Analytics is an online tool for users who want to check and analyze the performance of their tweets and show details about their followers graph or table form.

Twitter Analytics has a Timeline Activity feature that allows users to view tweets over the last 30 days, together with retweets, replies, and favorites. It also displays the number of clicks each tweet link received. To know which tweets received the most retweets, check the information at www.analytics.twitter.com.

Twitter Analytics provides a Followers view to show a graph of follower growth during the last 30 days. The growth may be grouped according to gender, location, or interest.

If everyone can use and run Twitter Analytics, they will have another convenient option to measure Twitter growth, apart from existing third-party analytics tools. But it is highly likely that more users will choose Twitter Analytics because Twitter itself developed it.

Twitter Analytics Opens Its Door To All Users Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

Yahoo has filed a patent to charge for ads that reach viewers who are influential in social media.

Advertisers will bid to target users that score high on their social media authority, a score determined by such parameters as user suggestions, subscriptions, liked products, number of contacts, post references, and others.

This high level of targeting, according to Yahoo, can even help advertisers decide where they want their ads placed on the screen, as placement affects various types of users. Key to the success of this purpose is the use of cookies.

Yahoo patents new way of charging ads based on targeting viewers that have the most social media influence. (Image: via techradar.com)

Marketers can benefit from this because as they target those who are influential in social media, that will create the perception among other social media users that that influential person has a positive evaluation of their products. That means that the advertised products will become popular as well, creating a multiplier effect that creates a positive perception of the brand. This, in turn, will lead to more sales.

On the other hand, privacy advocates are concerned that this new Yahoo patent is just another way to collect data and sell advertising, which can lead to potential risks in the privacy of consumers.

Nick Pickles, Big Brother Watch director, said that through targeted advertising, users are regarded as merely products that are observed, packeted, and retailed to advertisers who got the highest bids, so that privacy protection for consumers becomes very crucial.

Influential Social Media Users get Targeted in New Yahoo Ad Charges Patent Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

Did your Facebook Page fare well during May? Did you achieve the number of fans and likes you set for last month? Is your Facebook Page performing above the average? These questions, and more, boggle the minds of social media marketers and marketing managers.

Social media analytics firm quintly has released a new infographic to help advertisers, marketers, and users determine if their Facebook Page got along just right for the month of May.

In the statistical infographic, quintly measured Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for page size and analyzed the pages into segments.

For the average number of Facebook fans, the firm created a horizontal bar graph to highlight the importance of fans to Facebook marketers. As one of the most important metrics, it is crucial to have the number of fans go above the average with respect to the page size.

A circular diagram from the infographic shows the comments, likes, and shares distribution on Facebook posts using the same page sizes.

The firm also showed a chart to compare the interactions of a Facebook page regardless of its number of fans. And it even came up with a formula of its own.

The other graphs talked about the number of interactions against the number of people who talk about the page, the rate of people’s discussions about the page, and the number of own posts against the number of user posts.

Without further ado, check the infographic below.

How To Measure Your Facebook Page Performance [INFOGRAPHIC] Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

The human mind easily forgets while a hard disk drive is hardly foolproof. Thus both of these storage spaces of information are unreliable. Fortunately, the human mind works wonders to come up with solutions. To combat these problems, software developers developed automatic online backup systems.

JustCloud is an online backup program with unlimited storage space designed to synchronize copies of files to a remote, secure location with an encrypted connection. It keeps files safe in the cloud, in case a personal computer encounters a hitch. JustCloud is simple; it provides a user-friendly backup utility to avoid complexities that often cause the hardest problems, and it provides an uncomplicated automatic file storage system without pretense of a comprehensive system-wide recovery. For example, a hard disk failure will not affect the safety of files in the cloud, even though the operating system has to be reinstalled.

The Pitch

According to its official website, JustCloud makes it easy for users to share their files and folders with family, friends, and colleagues. Rather than send an email message attached with large files, the software allows the user to send a link to the recipient, and then the recipient gains access to the shared folder that contains the files.

JustCloud says it backs up files safely on the Internet and data will never be lost from accidental deletions, hard drive crashes, or fire and theft. A JustCloud user can carry around his or her USB hard drive without worries, since the files are accessible and on-demand from any supported device. After the download, the application automatically starts to backup all the files, with the same level of encryption used by financial institutions.

A user may also manage all files from Android, iPad, iPhone, and BlackBerry devices. JustCloud supports backups for photos, videos, music, documents, and sensitive financial data.

In A Nutshell

To backup all computer files to the cloud, JustCloud uses a small desktop application. The application not only constantly backs up the files, but also allows access to the files from any device, any location, and any time, with a simple log in to the JustCloud online control panel.

1. User discretion on files to upload

A JustCloud user may choose to back up only the folders and files he or she wants. After the first backup of a certain file or folder is complete, JustCloud automatically saves all the changes to the files in the cloud. A user may set a specific backup schedule for JustCloud to run in the background, without user intervention.

2. Files stay afloat in the cloud

When the time specified on the daily schedule arrives, JustCloud automatically backs up the file or folder to the cloud. But a user may backup a file any time he or she wants, specially if the file needs urgent protection.

3. Local and remote access anytime, anywhere

JustCloud stores files in the cloud. The files not only are safe and secure, but also are accessible from any device, anytime, anywhere worldwide. The application, like its competitors, ended the mandatory thinking of owning a USB stick.

4. Synchronization of files span across multiple platforms

Just Cloud allows the user to choose the files and folders for synchronization and where he or she wants to it to happen. Data is always available and backed up because the application works in the background. The user may start to edit a document from the office and finish the work at home.

5. Mobile browsing, backup, and synchronization

The JustCloud online control panel allows a user to access backed up and synced files from any device, as long as it has an Internet connection. Users can access their files from desktops, laptops, tablets, notebooks, netbooks, and smartphones. The application eliminates the need for other storage devices.

6. File sharing in an instant

A JustCloud user may share his or her files and folders with colleagues, friends, and family. The user may invite these groups through Facebook, Twitter, email, or a customized link. The application also makes for file collaboration and sharing of large files between different users.

7. Bank-level encryption for secure connections

The data stored by JustCloud constantly passes through a 256-bit security socket layer (SSL) encryption. During the transfer, the file passes through several secure connections and lands inside a data center monitored by the company.

8. 100 percent compatibility with all platforms

JustCloud supports desktop operating systems such as Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista (32- and 64-bit), Mac OSX 10.5 and higher, and Linux distributions. It also supports mobile operating systems such as Android, BlackBerry, and iOS.

The Critique

The online control panel of JustCloud provides a summary of the real-time status of a backup account. It also provides quick access to the online files, settings for folder synchronization, and file restore sequence. The panel also mixes well with the Windows operating system. Right-click on a file, folder, or partition, and it will provide options to add it to the backup list, to back it up right away, or to copy it to the synchronization folder that seems to be inspired from Dropbox.

The backup routine may be scheduled to run once an hour or less. The online control panel may filter some file types and set a fixed size limit for files to backup. For example, the user may save photos and documents but leave off large video files. to save storage space.

To save bandwidth, JustCloud only uploads files that changed since the latest backup. Even though its simplicity is an advantage, it also is a disadvantage because the application allows only one backup routine. For example, a user can set email backups every hour, but other file types can be backed only once per day.

When the backup is complete, a user may access the files from a simple web interface. The interface allows the user to browse and download files one at a time. For full restoration of files, the user has to install the JustCloud software.

Even though the main task of JustCloud is to provide backups, it may also synchronize files between a group of computers and share folders with lots of friends or family members. To do this, a user has to drop any file he or she wants to synchronize into the dedicated sync folder. A friend, family member, or colleague may view and access the file by logging in through a JustCloud installation using the main user’s account details. It is a simple yet effective method to keep files synchronized among lots of computers, even though it does not provide any other services or features, unlike other options such as Dropbox and SugarSync.

If you want to purchase JustCloud, its options vary by the length of subscription. You may prefer unlimited storage for only one computer and for one month if you pay upfront for a two-year subscription. An online backup service is useful and JustCloud may just be as powerful as SugarSync. Even though JustCloud works for some people, other alternatives, such as Livedrive, offer the same service and some extra features at a similar price. These alternatives have mobile apps to view files on the go and offer free support for the recovery of previous file versions one month prior to the latest backup, whereas JustCloud offers it only for 7 days.

These are just my opinions, though. Why not try JustCloud for yourself? Or if you have tried it, tell us about your personal experience in the comments section below.

JustCloud Review Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media