Buzz About Social Media » Social Media In The Workplace

What Does Facebook Timeline Mean for Facebook Stalking?

writersbasement — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:44:18 +0000

Facebook Timelines offers a new look-- and possibly less privacy.

Written by: Vanessa Formato

We’ve all done it: one minute, we’re looking at an acquaintance’s Facebook status, the next we’ve perused 500 photographs of said acquaintance dating back to the early 2000s. “Facebook stalking”—secretly viewing large amounts of a person’s online profile—is relatively common in this age of connectivity, but that isn’t to say it’s exactly desirable. With some major changes coming to Facebook in the form of Timeline, the biggest question on users’ minds may be how the new layout will effect stalking—and with good reason.

Facebook Timeline is a new kind of profile that not only displays personal information and mementos, but displays nearly all types of updates—from status to photographs to “likes”— chronologically on users’ main profiles. The idea is to create a profile that will allow you to “tell your life story” according to Timeline’s Facebook page.

As Sarah Love wrote for March Communications, Timeline is “complete repositioning of the purpose of Facebook,” which may be the most significant aspect of the change that could manage to fly under the radar at first. Love, like many users, starting using Facebook as a method to connect with her peers, but with Timeline the focus is shifted away from connection to observation: it turns profiles into “scrapbook[s],” more suited to online stalking than ever before.

The traditional Facebook set-up required potential stalkers to work for their information: photos and certain updates were hidden in separate tabs, but Timeline sets everything out in the open. One can click to view updates from certain time periods (even one labeled “born”) as well as access important “life events” and personal information with unprecedented ease, and this is what has some users concerned.

All things considered, Timeline so far seems almost less invasive than some of the other features Facebook rolled out late in 2011. The live news ticker that now appears on the homepage shows activity between one’s friends and non-mutual friends with surprising thoroughness. Couple the ability to see complete strangers’ activities at any time with the new profile set-up and you have a stage set perfectly for invading others’ privacy.

Thankfully, Timeline does include potential solutions to the Facebook stalking problem, the most important of which may be that it allows users to sift through their profiles before they go live. Currently, users are given seven days to edit their Timeline—more than enough time to delete drunken status updates or unflattering duck-faced photos from high school. Plus, privacy settings can always be altered to keep strangers and co-workers from knowing too much.

Timeline is a lesson in managing one’s online presence: will users be willing to take the time and suffer the potential embarrassment of engaging in enough navel-gazing to make their Timelines secure? Only time will tell.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Facebook Timeline, Mark Zuckerberg, privacy, Social Media, stalking, Timeline

Creating Groups With Facebook!

Lincoln Rose — Sat, 08 May 2010 20:08:16 +0000

Facebook is a wonderful tool for keeping track of your friends and family. It can also be helpful in developing professional and social contacts. But did you know that Facebook makes it easy to create and manage groups?

Folks manage groups on FB for all kinds of reasons, from social to political to work-related. Being a group administrator is not a difficult task, and the time committment depends on the level of involvement you decide on. Here’s how you create a group:

1) On the left side of your homepage, find the link that says “Groups” and click on it.

2) On your groups page, you’ll see a grey box that says “Create a Group”. Click that box!

3) Now you should be on a page that asks for your group information. Fill in as much as you want to. The big decision is whether you want the group to be available to everyone on Facebook, or only people in your local network.

4) Once you’ve filled in all the blanks, click the “Create Group” button at the bottom of the screen.

5) This next page is about security and access options. Now is the time to figure out how much approval people will need to access your group.

6) After you save that, Facebook will take you to the Invites page. Congratulations! You’re ready to invite your friends to join your group and let the fun (or work) begin!

The best part? If at any point you feel overwhelmed and need to stop being administrator of the group, just tell Facebook. FB will pick a new administrator from among your group members. You can walk away without worrying about your group dying!

Technorati Tags: access, coalition, create, Facebook, friends, fun, group, job, link, play, work

Human Resources Professionals Use Social Media To Seek Out Candidates

Sarah Cruz — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:19:35 +0000

Human Resources

Social media can be used by Human Resources professionals to increase the quality of candidates and to stretch out further in to the available community of workers. While sites like LinkedIn naturally gravitate towards hiring and job searching, other sites also offer possibilities to increasing H.R. effectiveness.

Sites can be used to search for potential candidates and to screen candidates before investing time in phone calls and interviews. Additionally, communities can be formed on sites like Facebook. These communities would promote deeper relationships, thereby increasing the candidacy of hire potential. This would also weed out potential employees who simply want a job, and may not be necessarily passionate about a specific company’s mission or brand. By pulling from a community of individuals who have added themselves to that group, it can be nearly guaranteed that they have a purpose for adding and wishing to be a part of the community.

While recruiters are often simply too busy to create relationships with candidates, social media makes it easier and more effective for them to do this. It has been said that finding candidates through this vein, via connections made on social media sites, the workplace then becomes a more connected unit, as candidates and hiring managers and recruiters are already familiar with each other via social media sites and groups.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Human Resources Social Media, Social Media in Workplace, Social Media News

Nielsen And Facebook Seek To Increase Effectiveness of Advertising

Sarah Cruz — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 21:06:51 +0000

Facebook page

Nielsen and Facebook have partnered up to increase the effectiveness of social media advertising. They also seek to prove the ability of social media to further advertising dollars and efforts.

While some accuse the two of being strange bedfellows, and findings seem to be tainted by the partnership, they have concluded that Facebook promotes advertising success.

According to a Nielsen study, advertising on Facebook brings results, especially when used in conjunction with features such as the “Like” button, and having thier ads appear in the streams of friend activities.

Nielsen reports that it surveyed over 800,000 Facebook users and 125 advertising campaigns. The most successful ads were those featured on a homepage. When an ad was “liked” by a friend, teh success of that ad’s visibility and ability to be recalled by the viewer jumped to 16% and to 30% when the ad content appeared in a friend’s news feed.

The research also looked at intent to purchase and found the trends followed these same lines.

I “assume we will start incorporating offline purchase and other transactional data as part o the analysis,” said Jon Gibbs, VP of Media Analytics at Nielsen.

Technorati Tags: Facebook advertising, Nielsen Facebook Social Media Advertising, social media advertising, Social Media News

Social Media Survey Microsoft’s Employees Are Biggest Users

Sarah Cruz — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 20:56:10 +0000

Mouse

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that employees are on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. It has become increasingly apparent that banning usage of these sites might not be simply futile, but may also be a lost marketing and networking opportunity. NetProspex, a sales and marketing contact database, conducted a survey of corporations and ranked the top 50 for social media involvement. Microsoft’s employees ranked the highest for social media involvement.

“This report shows that in today’s business environment, employees throughout many of the country’s largest corporations are using social networks, ” said NetProspex CEO Gary Halliwell. “This presents a new opportunity for sales and marketing prospecting and lead generation, as strategies adapt to encompass the landscape of social networks.”

The companies with the highest percentage of social media users were, no surprise, technology and software companies such as Google, Apple and was graced by online retailers such as Amazon and eBay. and even Walt Disney Corp.

The timing of the survey publication is quite beneficial to Microsoft, who recently launched two phones, the Kin One and the Kin Two, which are specifically created to easily navigate social media sites.

Technorati Tags: Social Media, Social Media News, Social media survey Microsoft, social media workplace