Mediaboss Marketing

Reggie Bradford is the founder and CEO of Vitrue, the leading provider of social marketing software, offering SaaS solutions to help brands and agencies harness the marketing-communications potential of social media on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other social communities. Follow Reggie on Twitter @ReggieBradford and Vitrue @Vitrue.

Facebook unveiled its much-anticipated new Timeline Pages Wednesday, giving marketers a glimpse of what lies ahead as the feature rolls out over the next few months.

[More from Mashable: Timeline for Brands: How to Prepare for Your Companys New Facebook Page]

Weve already experienced what Timeline means for consumers: a visual, multimedia chronological history of you. And it will be similar for brands: a dynamic new destination that will allow companies to present a visual treasure trove of stories, events and fan interactions.

[More from Mashable: Facebook Timeline Brand Pages Are Here [PICS]]

The Timeline Page feature does represent a significant improvement over the previous Page format. Not to mention, it creates a new opportunity for potential consumers to spend more time exploring brand Pages on Facebook.

But amidst the buzz of Facebook's new Pages, we should not lose focus on something that hasnt changed: the power and importance of the News Feed.

Providing relevant, interactive and valuable content via the News Feed is the number-one priority for consumer engagement. And with Facebooks recent EdgeRank changes, creating this type of content is more critical than ever in order to gain exposure on News Feeds.

Why is the News Feed where engagement happens? Because thats where consumers spend most of their time. Dont believe me? Consider your own Facebook behavior. Need some real-data proof? Our research shows that the News Feed is 110-times more engaging than other features.

However, the importance of News Feed shouldn't downplay the importance of new Facebook Pages. The Timeline Page format is a fantastic new feature for brands, a showcase for conveying information that should, if done well, get consumers more invested in your story, your history, your products and your success.

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Facebook Marketing: Why News Feed Still Trumps Timeline Pages

NEW YORK, Feb. 29, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Hearsay Social, provider of the leading enterprise social marketing platform, today announced Hearsay Social for Facebook Pages Brand Timeline, which delivers full integration and support for the new Facebook Page redesign launched today at fMC, the Facebook Marketing Conference in New York. All Hearsay Social customers can now tell their brand story with cover photos, pinning and starring of promotional content to their timeline, and corporate/local Facebook Page campaigns, all while ensuring brand protection and regulatory compliance.

Integrated into the Hearsay Social platform, Hearsay Social Campaign & Page Management now includes Hearsay Social for Facebook Pages Brand Timeline, providing a complete solution for marketers to execute and manage social campaigns. With this release, marketers can distribute posts, cover photos, apps, ads, and integrated campaigns to corporate pages, regional pages, and individual employee profiles and social pages. Marketers can easily manage thousands of apps and posts per day and offer engaging content to employees, stores, or branches.

"We are pleased to announce Hearsay Social for Facebook Pages Brand Timeline. Businesses have realized the power of social media, and the combination of Facebook Pages and Hearsay Social empowers brands everywhere," said Hearsay Social CEO Clara Shih. "Friends will be able to share experiences and feelings about brands with each other on the new pages. With Hearsay Social, companies will be able to manage social interactions with their customers at scale, even if there are thousands of Facebook pages associated with their brand."

"And Hearsay Social is still the only vendor offering complete compliance and full marketing capabilities for all the major networks, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google+."

Hearsay Social has a huge content library that makes it easy for customers to engage on social media effectively. Customers can, for instance, simply use a template to generate a social campaign or they can click on a marketing campaign and distribute it to users in the field, who then add content, personalize it, and post it on their own Facebook Pages.

Social marketers who want to do a deeper dive on the new Facebook Pages redesign are invited to download The New Facebook Pages Brand Timeline: Everything You Need to Know, a free guide that elaborates on the five rules of cover photos, tips for humanizing your brand timeline, and other best practices for marketing on the world's largest social network.

About the Hearsay Social Platform

The Hearsay Social platform delivers enterprise-class scale, reliability, security, and complete compliance for enterprises on social media. Today, tens of thousands of advisors, agents, local representatives, and franchisees rely on the Hearsay Social platform to engage in compliant social conversations with over five million customers. The Hearsay Social platform is the only comprehensive platform that both protects and empowers on every social network and at every level of the organization, from firm to business unit to individual employee.

About Hearsay Social

Read more here:
Hearsay Social for Facebook® Pages Brand Timeline Unveiled

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/f6621b/social_media_marke) has announced the addition of John Wiley and Sons Ltd's new book "Social Media Marketing for Digital Photographers" to their offering.

Teaching Photographers How to Use Social Media to Grow Their Businesses

With the rapid rise of both digital photography and social media, amateur photographers can now turn what was once a hobby into a thriving business. Social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Flickr offer loads of exciting marketing opportunities. This practical guide from a well-respected professional photographer shows you how to take advantage of social media to grow a profitable photography business. If you've been wondering which social media sites to use, how to use them, how often to use them, and more, this book is for you.

In addition to the powerful strategies, interviews were conducted with thought leaders in the photo industry -- Kenny Kim, Zach and Jody Gray, Jerry Ghionis, Becker, Jasmine Star, Catherine Hall, and Grace Ormonde -- to provide you with all-star tips and tricks.

Whether you're just starting a professional photography business or are a seasoned pro looking for good advice on using social media to promote yourself, Social Media Marketing for Digital Photographers is the book you need.

Key Topics Covered:

Author:

Lawrence Chan is a wildly popular wedding and portrait photographer, blogger, and marketing strategist. He also provides marketing and business management advice to photographers through his website.

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/f6621b/social_media_marke

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Research and Markets: Social Media Marketing for Digital Photographers

Illegal online pharmacies are using social media to attract young customers and sell them illicit drugs and medicines, a UN agency warned Tuesday.

"Illegal Internet pharmacies have started to use social media to get customers for their websites," Hamid Ghodse, president of the International Narcotics Control Board, said in the agency's annual report published Tuesday.

This "can put large, and especially young, audiences at risk of dangerous products, given that the World Health Organisation has found that over half of the medicines from illegal Internet pharmacies are counterfeit," he said.

Illegal online pharmacies often pretend to be legal but in fact smuggle illicit products to their customers, the INCB found, urging governments to close them down.

More broadly, the agency called for greater efforts to tackle poverty, violence, organised crime and corruption as these created a climate for drug abuse and trafficking, with young people among the biggest victims.

"Youth of these communities must have similar chances to those in the wider society and have a right to be protected from drug abuse and drug dependence," said Ghodse.

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Social media used to sell illegal drugs to youth, INCB warns

MOSCOW (Reuters) - It was like the bad old days of Soviet TV for Vladimir Pozner, a Russian broadcaster who began his career under Communism, when he found editors had cut parts of a pre-election talk show where he mentioned critics of the Kremlin.

But this is 2012. With censorship grown patchy and half the country online, the uncut program had been uploaded to the web - thanks to viewers in Russia's far east who had caught the show live, before the edited version was broadcast in Moscow later.

"I think it's just a Soviet reflex: 'How can you criticize power?'," said Pozner, who has watched Russian leaders, from Brezhnev to Gorbachev, Yeltsin to Putin, blow hot and cold on political censorship of the media for the past 30 years.

"It's called a hangover in English. Eventually, it passes."

That sentiment echoes many who believe the genie of media freedom is, slowly, pushing its way out of the bottle in Russia, notably since street protests began against the expected return of Vladimir Putin to the presidency at an election on Sunday.

A public who tasted post-Soviet liberties in the anarchic 1990s, combined with new technology, will, many believe, not let the Kremlin force it back in again - despite years of tightening state control under former KGB man Putin, and despite a backlash against small, liberal media since protests began in December.

Ranked 142nd out of 179 countries worldwide on the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, Russia has seen journalists intimidated, even murdered, for exposing endemic crime and corruption, while privately owned and critical media have been much diminished since Putin first took over the Kremlin in 2000.

Having retained power during his four-year stint as prime minister to his protege, the outgoing president Dmitry Medvedev, Putin has seen control of the media as a vital tool through which he has maintained his widespread popularity.

Yet in the Internet age even the state-controlled networks on which most Russian voters rely have had to offer at least some account of grassroots protests since liberal anger erupted over the handling of the parliamentary election in December.

Some cautious critics see that as little more than a sop to public opinion, in their view as much a stage-managed piece of political machination as the electoral process itself. Yet others believe the shifts of the past few months are real.

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Russian media genie pushing at the bottle