socialmedia

You don’t make viral videos. Sorry, the truth hurts.

As a conciliation prize I’ll tell you that you were half right. You do make videos. But it’s the public that makes a viral, so you shouldn’t be selling it to a client under that label.

Apple’s latest mobile operating system, iOS 5, is due to be released tomorrow and it boasts to have “added over 200 new features — taking a mobile operating system that was already years ahead of anything else and moving it even further ahead.”

With so many new features I’ve put together a quick and easy to read list of the main changes and what it means for iUsers worldwide…

Facebook: from the bedroom of an Ivy League colleague to a Silicon Valley powerhouse. It's an all-American startup dream, but one that the Brits have taken to heart and then some.

This new infographic from BLiNQ Media, who have recently opened an office in London, shows Facebook penetration in the UK (49%) leads the US (48%). OK, so obsessed might be going a bit far, but safe to say, we're fans despite any privacy concerns.

Whilst luxury brand tops the chart in the UK, it's Starbucks in the US, the other 4 top brands are all confectioners: Skittles, Cadbury Creme Egg, Cadbury Wispa and Maltesers.

Internationally renowned speaker and CEO of PeopleBrowsr UK, Andrew Grill describes himself as “passionate about marketing.”

He tells me he's been an advocate for using technology to connect people for around thirty years – through the current form of social media, amateur radio and even the original online bulletin board. “We've started to call it social media in the last few years,” he says, “it's really about communication.”

If Zuck gets his way, every breathing moment will be automatically captured in a Facebook timeline. OK, so a slight exaggeration but ever more information is aggregated on social networks.

According to a recent survey from Reppler, whose service helps candidates manage their online reputation, 91% of employers are using social media to screen candidates with 67% making a decision based on the info they find, whether it's their personal triumphs to sordid bloopers.

Professionally, Anthony Mayfield runs digital agency Brilliant Noise and is the author of best-selling book Me and My Web Shadow. Personally, as I find out, he's a man fascinated by the power and scope of what he calls the social media 'phenomenon'.

Nokia is a brand that has never been afraid to hold it's own in the social space. No doubt as a result of this, they have a global audience of over seven million.

Tejal Patel leads social commerce at Nokia. She's passionate about the accountability and ROI of digital, and during her time with the brand she's been working to prove the value of their social efforts.

Today is the last chance to grab an early-bird ticket to this week's Facebook Marketing Conference on Thu 6th Oct. We know everyone works late, so the early-bird lasts until midnight.

Early-bird tickets start at just £199+VAT+booking fee with the chinwag discount code, saving £100 off the regular price. And for those interested in the Facebook Marketing Bootcamp workshop on Wednesday, there's just one ticket left.

The full programme is up on the website with a few last-minute additions helping us to take an in-depth look of the impact of the f8 announcements. It's going to be a busy day with 30 speakers from leading brands and agencies, discussing the strategies of getting ROI fro Facebook Marketing.

The impact of Facebook's announcements at f8 are still being digested, Mat Morrison, Head of Social Media at Starcom MediaVest and a speaker at Chinwag Insight: Facebook Marketing this week, takes a look at what these changes mean for brand adverisers.

Despite reaching half a billion Daily Active Users (DAU), Facebook's real value lies not simply in its reach, but in the depth of the data that it holds about that audience.

Much has been written about Facebook being driven by competition from other social networks, but it should be remembered that the real competition is not for users' time and attention, but for advertisers' budgets.