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Social Media Knight

Fighting our way into the social media realm

Research

Pinterest and Instagram beat Facebook for mobile clothes shopping sales

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The global analysis by Nosto, the ecommerce personalisation and retail AI platform, tracked the source of mobile traffic and orders to large, enterprise online fashion retailers based on the ‘last click’ (where a visitor came from prior to landing onto a retailers’ site from both paid and unpaid traffic sources). It reveals that Pinterest and Instagram deliver the highest average order value (AOV), way ahead of Facebook, on both paid and unpaid social media. The AOV on Pinterest is $154 (paid), unpaid $68, while on Instagram paid AOV is $103, unpaid is $65. In contrast, Facebook AOV is just $69 paid/$58 unpaid.

However, Facebook has the highest conversion rate on social media – 1.24% unpaid, 0.73% paid. Given that it is also the biggest driver of social media traffic to fashion retail, Facebook generates more orders overall, but they are smaller on average. Snapchat trails the other social networks in both conversion rate and AOV. This is most likely because it is more of a top of the funnel discovery channel where consumers go for inspiration rather than immediate purchases.

See Full Story at www.netimperative.com

Messenger’s chats might be putting back to Facebook Main App

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Facebook might be putting Messenger’s chats back into its main social media app. The feature is currently in testing and was spotted by app researcher Jane Manchun Wong, and would mean that you could use a single app to access both the social media platform and elements of the messaging service. The change uses the existing Messenger button in the Facebook app, but takes you to a new “Chats” section instead of opening the separate Messenger app.

Messenger was first released as a standalone app back in 2011, and in 2014 Facebook removed its functionality from its eponymous app. Half a decade later, as Facebook prepares to integrate its messaging services across Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, the functionality appears to be returning.

By Jon Porter

See Full Story at www.theverge.com

LinkedIn has a fake-profile problem

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These profiles then request to connect with the millions of legitimate users on LinkedIn or, if they pay for LinkedIn Premium, have the ability to just message users with peculiar asks.

Execs in the industry told Digiday while they find LinkedIn a valuable tool for their profession — to network and to keep up on industry news, for example — the amount of spam they receive leaves them frustrated. And it’s not a good look for LinkedIn, which proclaims a “simple mission” to “connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.” When users have to manage connection requests from fake profiles, LinkedIn becomes a time waster rather than a productive tool. While LinkedIn has worked to improve its product by introducing video and more sophisticated ad tools, the platform is still plagued by inauthenticity. It’s unclear how many fake profiles exist on the site.

 “Fake accounts are a violation of our terms of service and we take action against them. When we identify bad actors, we take appropriate action, which often includes a permanent restriction from LinkedIn. We use a variety of automated techniques, coupled with human reviewers and member reporting, to keep our members safe from all types of bad actors and abuse. If members encounter something that makes them uncomfortable, suspect someone might not be representing themselves honestly or see inappropriate behavior like harassment or inaccurate content, we ask that they report it to us immediately and know that they can always block another member or remove a connection,” emailed Paul Rockwell, LinkedIn’s head of trust and safety.
See Full Story at digiday.com

The Creator of Linux Says Facebook, Twitter, And Instagram Are “a Disease”

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Linus Torvalds, the Linux creator who’s himself known for angry tirades, said that if he could fix one thing about the internet, it would be modern social media — a flame-spitting recrimination by the inventor of the software that keeps much of the social web running.

“I absolutely detest modern media — Twitter, Facebook, Instagram,” Torvalds told Linux Journall in a new interview. “It’s a disease. It seems to encourage bad behavior.”

In particular, Torvalds said he takes issue with how social media is geared to generate as much engagement as possible.

“The whole ‘liking’ and ‘sharing’ model is just garbage. There is no effort and no quality control,” Torvalds said. “In fact, it’s all geared to the reverse of quality control, with lowest common denominator targets, and click-bait, and things designed to generate an emotional response, often one of moral outrage.”

By DAN ROBITZSKI

See Full Story at www.sciencealert.com

Why Pinterest Is The Future Of Advertising

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Today, while Google tries to discern your interest with all kinds of powerful and sneaky algorithms, Pinterest has a much more honest and transparent equation: You tell them.

You’re planning a wedding. What better way to develop potential themes, design ideas, floral arrangements, etc.,  than to grab images and create a pinboard of visual styles? The result: a visual cornucopia of ideas.

I’ve got Pinterest collections of robots, of mid-century modern furniture of clocks, and others. I enjoy creating them and using them as a roadmap of ideas. It’s a particular kind of organization, part hobby, and part visual to-do list.

While other so-called platforms have pivoted and tried to be all things to all people, Ben Silbermann and his team have been building a solid, growing, user-centric business.

So how did he get here, and what does the coming IPO mean for the future of the open web?

 

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See Full Story at www.mediapost.com

Facebook gives you more control over what you see in your News Feed

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Facebook has announced a new feature called “Why am I seeing this post?” which will help you better understand the content that shows up on your News Feed from friends, Pages and Groups you follow. Not only that, but this will also give you more control over what you see in the News Feed, letting you easily manage the posts you interact with on the site. The company says this is the first time it has built information on how News Feed ranking works directly into the Facebook app, noting that it is part of its efforts to be more transparent with users about how its algorithms target you.

To get access to the new tool, first reported by The Telegraph, all you have to do is click or tap the drop-down menu on the right hand corner of a post. From there, you’ll be able to view info at a glance on why you’re seeing certain posts on your News Feed — e.g. because you’re a member of X Group or Page on Facebook — as well as manage the content you’d like to see more or less of. You’ll get shortcuts to controls to help you further personalize your News Feed too, including See First, Unfollow, News Feed Preferences and Privacy Shortcuts.

Facebook says that during its research for the “Why am I seeing this post” feature, which is available starting today, it learned that people wanted more than transparency on its News Feed algorithms. They wanted more control, and that’s why it decided to roll out the tools to make it simpler for users to manage the posts they see on their feed.

By Edgar Alvarez

See Full Story at www.engadget.com

Facebook Ever-More Vulnerable to Policy Risks, Analysts Warn

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Facebook may also face more repercussions than other tech giants under scrutiny, like Alphabet Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., as its revenue model is uniquely ad-driven, Beacon said.

Facebook choosing “privacy above safety” may be a “trade-off not everyone will agree with,” MKM’s Rob Sanderson wrote in a note. He flagged Facebook’s moves toward inter-operability across messaging services and full encryption, and added that losing Chris Cox, whom he called Facebook’s second-most influential executive after Mark Zuckerberg, has been a catalyst for re-examining potential consequences.

Full encryption lets Facebook ensure technical privacy protection for all users, “including those that want to harm and exploit others,” which may become increasingly controversial, Sanderson said. Giving people better tools for finding and communicating with one another may boost problematic activity, while hurting Facebook’s ability to monitor “hate speech and other abuses.” And Facebook might be unable to gather as much user data, which has been “a huge enabler of better services and better ads.”

By FELICE MARANZ

See Full Story at fortune.com

WhatsApp CoFounder Tells Students to Delete Facebook

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During a public appearance at Stanford University on Wednesday, WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton told students to delete Facebook, BuzzFeed News reports.

He also criticized the profit models driving tech giants like Facebook and Google and how ineffective they tend to be at moderating content on their platforms.

“To be brutally honest, the curated networks — the open networks — struggle to decide what’s hate speech and what’s not hate speech. […] Google struggles with what’s a good website and what’s a bad website,” he said, as quoted by BuzzFeed News. “And we give them the power. That’s the bad part. We buy their products. We sign up for these websites. Delete Facebook, right?”

The Silicon Valley entrepreneur’s appearance comes days after Zuckerberg announced on March 6 that his company will shift towards a “privacy-focused” platform.

Acton sold WhatsApp to Facebook for $19 billion in October 2014. He left the company some three years later, following Facebook’s decision to allow for ads on WhatsApp.

See Full Story at futurism.com

 

Facebook Messenger had a vulnerability that could let hackers see who you contact

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A previously reported Facebook vulnerability was similarly found in the company’s Messenger product, according to security research group Imperva. Nearly a year ago, Imperva researchers discovered that, through Messenger, a hacker could use “any website to expose who you have been messaging with.” The bug was disclosed to Facebook in November and subsequently patched.

Hackers could target a Facebook user’s web browser and exploit iframe elements to see which friends the user had talked to and which were not in the user’s contact list. Imperva confirmed the hackers couldn’t gain any other data from the attack.

Like the vulnerability in Facebook reported last November, Messenger users would have been vulnerable if they visited a malicious site with Chrome and then clicked on the site while they were still logged in on Facebook. That would give the hackers access to run any queries on a new Facebook tab and extract personal data.

After Imperva disclosed the issue to Facebook, the company tried to issue a fix by randomizing iframe elements, an HTML element vital to the vulnerability. But later, Imperva pointed out that a hacker could still design an algorithm that would continue to expose a user’s contacts. Facebook then removed iframes from Messenger entirely. Facebook told The Verge in a statement: “We appreciate the researcher’s submission to our bug bounty program. The issue in his report stems from the way web browsers handle content embedded in webpages and is not specific to Facebook.”

By Shannon Liao

See Full Story at www.theverge.com

 

YouTube & Pinterest Are Cracking Down On Anti-Vax Propaganda

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Tired of scrolling through YouTube or Pinterest and being bombarded with anti-vaccine theories and messages? You’re in luck, as both platforms are actively taken steps to reduce the amount of propaganda like this you see on a daily basis.

“We’re a place where people come to find inspiration, and there is nothing inspiring about harmful content,” said Ifeoma Ozoma, public policy and social impact manager at Pinterest in an interview with The Guardian. “Our view on this is we’re not the platform for that.”

After a 2016 scientific study found that 75% of posts related to vaccines on their platform were negative, Pinterest swiftly updated their community guidelines to ban “promotion of false cures for terminal or chronic illnesses and anti-vaccination advice,” The Guardian reports.

So how exactly is Pinterest doing this? By blacklisting search terms like “vaccines” from the platform, along with sites that spread this sort of health misinformation. While it isn’t foolproof — as some content may still slip through the cracks — the site is confident that this is a good starting point.
YouTube has taken similar steps, implementing policies to regulate which videos ads can appear on. In a statement to Variety, the video sharing platform made it clear that videos promoting anti-vaccination content do not count.

BY: GABRIELA ALFORD

See Full Story at www.refinery29.com