Back in 1996 Bill Gates coined the phrase “content is king”, and ever since pundits of the digital era have recited it, dissected it, argued about it or agreed on it.

At the heart of any company’s social media strategy lies content —  engaging, inquisitive and topical content. To this day there are many brands involved in social media just for the sake of being in with the in-crowd and not because they’re actually committing to engaging in a marketing strategy.

One twelfth of the entire world’s population is on Facebook alone — that’s billions of status updates, comments and’ likes’ daily, engaging with their friends and family, projecting their voices and opinion.

The goal on LinkedIn is to establish your professional reputation within your field. The key to this goal is building a network of professionals through strong connections.

Like many forms of networking, the most important aspect is the quality of your connections – as opposed to the quantity.

How can you network and build quality connections? Here are some tips you can use to expand your LinkedIn network.

#1 Stay Active and Engaged: Unlike Facebook or Twitter, most people don’t log in to LinkedIn on a daily basis. Unfortunately, infrequent visits to the page can seriously hurt your visibility on the site. Think of it as LinkedIn SEO. Whether you’re updating your status, sharing an article, or commenting in a group, regular activity on the site is the key to getting your name in front of your connections.

#2 Join Groups of Interest: Search groups that are of interest to you. By joining and contributing to these groups, you are opening up opportunities to connect with a group of professionals with like-minded interests. When searching for groups to join, keep in mind that only a small percentage of LinkedIn’s millions of groups are active. Check the group size and activity before joining. Groups that are the most active and worthwhile typically have more than 1,000 members.

#3 Request Introductions: If you want to connect with a 2nd or 3rd degree contact, you can request an introduction from a mutual connection. Introductions act as a recommendation or endorsement, and can carry more weight than a direct contact. Recommendations carry greater weight than a random connection request.

#4 Endorsing Positions: The positions you have held can be endorsed by your past and present co-workers. According to LinkedIn, members with recommendations are three times as likely to get inquiries through LinkedIn searches. Receiving recommendations will get your profile more exposure, show recruiters how you have performed in the past, and potentially lead to gaining valuable connections.

#5 Start a Group: Creating and maintaining a group will have a positive influence on your network. For those who have not created one yet, or don’t think it is valuable to do so, I suggest you give it some serious thought. Why?

• Builds thought leadership in your industry
• Builds your personal brand
• Connects a thriving community for those with like-minded interests

#6 Continue to Connect: LinkedIn provides many different avenues to find the people you may know – and the people you should know. Use the “Connect with Colleagues,” “Connect with Alumni,” and especially the “Connect with People You May Know” options to quickly find and contact new connections. The “Alumni” search feature is particularly useful. It pulls potential connections within your educational networks and allows you to narrow the list by industry, company and location. Make sure to include a personal note about your interest in connecting.

Remember – don’t be shy, and constantly be on the hunt for connections that will be mutually beneficial for both parties.

You’ll be on your way to establishing a strong network of connections in no time.

Thinner, lighter and faster: Apple’s latest-generation smartphone, was unveiled in Australia last Friday.

Apple told us that it notched two million pre-orders in the first 24 hours, more than twice as many as that recorded for the iPhone 4S last year and over three times the iPhone 4′s figures.

Personally, getting my hands on one took 6 hours of standing in a line and a ton of patience. For those who camped out for days to be one of the first to get their hands on the latest Apple phenomenon, I applaud your will power but condemn your stupidity.

After a few days of playing around with the new iPhone, I’m sold. It’s unbelievably fast and the taller, 4-inch screen still has the Retina-grade quality we’ve all come to expect from Apple.

One of the best things about the new iPhone is the weight, or lack of. For those that haven’t got their hands on one, the iPhone 5 feels like your regular smartphone would with the battery removed. Whilst only 28 grams lighter than the last iPhone, you immediately notice and enjoy the lighter design.

The iPhone 5 measures 4.87 x 2.31 x 0.3 inches (124 x 59 x 7.6mm), making it about a third of an inch (nearly 1cm) taller than before, in saying that the new dimensions are surprisingly difficult to detect.

By far, the new height makes room for that 4-inch, 1,136 x 640 display is the most progressive change to date. The new height results in a phone with more usable space and better presentation for HD content.

With a quad-core A6 processor and 1 GB of RAM, the iPhone 5 is faster than the third-generation iPad on a Wi-Fi connection.

The iSight camera is basically unchanged from the 4S. With an 8-megapixel, backside-illuminated sensor shooting through a five-element, f/2.4 lens the quality is still among the best out there for a camera phone. The most significant improvement though, is the speed. The iPhone 5 has a ridiculously quick shooter.

While the camera on the back is minimally improved, the one on the front is a big step forward. Replacing the VGA FaceTime camera is a 1.2-megapixel FaceTime HD unit capable of capturing 720p video. Resolution is obviously massively increased, but so too is overall image quality, with far more accurate colour reproduction.

Last but not least, new with the phone is Panorama mode. Tap one button to sweep the phone around to create a massive image.

For the Facebook users out there, the redesigned Facebook App and fast processor from the iPhone 5 make Facebooking a better experience. You can consume more content more quickly. It’s amazing the difference an extra half-inch makes.
I couldn’t let the opportunity pass from playing the devil’s advocate.

The repositioning of the headphone jack to the bottom of the phone. This change has caused me to modify my well-established pocket-retrieval mannerisms.

Whist the 4G capabilities are fantastic, if you plan on using it more than a few times a day, you’d better have a charger ready. The 4G absolutely tears through battery life. My handset dipped below 10 per cent twice in one day with moderate use.

The phone’s speakers are also positioned on the bottom, playing out through a series of 26 holes that mark another major change in the iPhone 5, the lightning connector.

In general, the iPhone 5 has seen some nice nips and tucks where it needed it. iCloud integration is tighter, Safari is better and the overall experience is more polished. But, it isn’t a major step forward in any regard.

Following in the footsteps of Facebook and Google+, Twitter has introduced a redesign that lets you customise your profile with a “header photo.”

The header photo is different from your Twitter profile picture, which appears inline when you send a tweet. Your profile picture is an icon; the header photo is a background image.

Once uploaded, the header photo image is visible to others accessing your Twitter page via iPad, iPhone or Android apps as well as via Twitter.com.

To upload a header photo to your Twitter page, navigate to the gear icon in the top-right of your Twitter.com page and select “Edit profile.”

Then, from the menu on the left, click “Design” and scroll to the bottom. Under “Customize your own,” you’ll notice that your header defaults to a gray box. Here, you can upload your own image, but be sure that the minimum dimensions are 1252×626 and that it has a file size smaller than 5MB.

Your changes will appear instantly, but they’re not saved until you click “Save changes.”

Facebook’s widely anticipated job portal will launch on the back of their successful joint foray into job advertising with the US Department of Labor. If recruitment focussed sites like LinkedIn, Seek and Monster aren’t worried, they should be. A strong push into classified advertising, starting with jobs, is a logical play for Facebook and one which when combined with the networking capability of Facebook will be a game changer for online recruitment.

Social media is an indisputable phenomenon. One in every four minutes spent online in Australia is now spent on a social site. Facebook alone has more than 900 million members worldwide; 11 million are Australian and 75% of these members visit the site every day.

Facebook’s users are connected to 170 friends on average and spend over seven hours each month on the site, averaging 20 minutes on every visit. Between them, they upload 250 million photos a day to Facebook and ‘Like’ 80 Pages.

But will we connect Facebook with job seeking?  What do you think?

Read the rest of this article at http://bit.ly/Qkg25o

Facebook is not restricted to only connecting with family and friends. If you arm yourself with sufficient knowledge, it has the very real potential to take your business to the next level.

Facebook is an excellent platform which provides you with the opportunity to connect with over 750 million registered users who have similar interests. Put simply, this means you can expect to reach out to potential customers and promote your brand.

As a business on Facebook, you can expect to

• Create an online community
• Engage the target audience
• Create awareness about products and services
• Promote business-related content

Here are some ways how Facebook can you help you achieve your business goals.

Drives Traffic to Your Website

Pages have no restrictions on driving Facebook traffic to websites. Redirecting even a small portion of Facebook’s huge amount of daily traffic to your website could significantly improve the amount of qualified traffic on your site.

Turn your Facebook Fans into customers by your  linking your Page to your website  and customers into Fans inserting a widget on your website  linking back to your Facebook Page.

Improves your SEO

Google, through its new Social Search feature, and other search and decision engines are now indexing content created on sites like Facebook, so your Facebook content has the potential to generate favourable search engine results for your business and brand.

By linking your Facebook Page to your website, you can leverage Social Search to drive even more Facebook traffic back to your site.

Engage with your community

A branded Fan Page where customers and other brand advocates can post to your Facebook Wall, share photos and video, ask and answer questions, and interact with you and other customers.

On the flip side, you can send messages to Fans all at once or target individuals or groups by country, state, city, gender, and even age range.

Using the Events App, you can even schedule special events or promotions and then send invitations to only those Fans who live in or near the town where the event is scheduled to take place.

All of this is free to use for any business or brand using Facebook.

You can significantly deepen your relationships with customers and ensure brand integrity by connecting with them in a social rather than a business setting and not selling.

Listen and observe

Each time a Fan interacts with your Page, positively or negatively, you are presented with a wealth of information.

Encourage discussions to gather valuable market data and ideas on how to improve your business.

Allows you to keep pace with the competition free of charge

Still not convinced a Fan Page is worth setting up? Then consider the competition. If only one of your competitors launches a successful Facebook Page, that competitor can corner the market on Facebook and build a following long before you do.

Stake your FREE claim early to establish your business as the industry leader before the competition has a chance.

What’s one goal Facebook has helped your business achieve?

Facebook is the most visited site on the web and has over 11 million active users in Australia. On average users spend 12 hours each month on Facebook, have 130 friends and are connected to about 80 pages.

Our Facebook Strategy for Business course will help you create integrated strategies that reach this audience and help you maximise the potential of the medium.

For more information and to register for our one-day course, click here.

Social Media has fundamentally changed the manner in which we consume and share media and one of the biggest shifts is towards the consumption of video online. Internet video now accounts for 40% of consumer internet traffic and is predicted to rise to 62% by 2015 (Source; Reproductions).

YouTube now serves 4 billion global online video views each day, a 25% increase over the past eight months which aggregates to over 1 trillion video playbacks per annum or, according to Pingdom, 140 for every person on Earth.

In Australia alone, ComScore has 11 million Internet users watching an average of 10 hours of online video each month, so what is the best approach to creating video content that users will want to watch and share?

With over 48 hours of video content uploaded to YouTube every minute, creating content which people will want to share and harnessing the potential of personal referral is vital and according to the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, video content which is inspiring is highly likely to be shared through Facebook.

This is great news for corporate marketers keen to harness the power of video.  Corporates that don’t have a youth oriented brand may struggle to create hilarious and/or shocking video content as their brands may be too conservative or risk averse.  Inspirational content on the other hand is often much more achievable.

What’s a great video that you’ve seen recently that you’ve shared or had sent to you?

The latest social innovation, Social Gifting, arrived in Australia this week with the launch of Wrapp.  Founded in Sweden last year, Wrapp allows users to give their Facebook friends gift cards valid at a wide range of local retailers.  Some of the foundation retail partners in Australia include Roses Only, La Senza, Lorna Jane, Mossimo and The Men’s Shop.

According to Wrapp, we spend about $2.5billion per year in Australia on gift cards and they’re going to make it easier for us to decide who to buy for and which gift card to get.

All wrapped up!

At first view Wrapp seems to have it all wrapped up (pun intended!)

The platform integrates seamlessly with Facebook and instantly prompts purchase based on upcoming birthdays, which is now good news for at least one of my Facebook friends!  The option to send a free gift card with up to $20 value is also a great entry point.

Check it out for yourself and sign up at www.wrapp.com/au

Over the last three years, users of both Twitter and LinkedIn have benefited from a partnership between the two. After linking your accounts, either all or selected tweets could automatically appear on your LinkedIn feed, allowing you to easily integrate your content across both platforms.

However it’s been announced that this has come to an end.

Ryan Roslansky, Head of Content Products at LinkedIn, explains in an offical blog post.

“Consistent with Twitter’s evolving platform efforts, Tweets will no longer be displayed on LinkedIn starting later today,” he wrote. “We know many of you value Twitter as an additional way to broadcast professional content beyond your LinkedIn connections. Moving forward, you will still be able to share your updates with your Twitter audience by posting them on LinkedIn.”

So in other words… while you can still post from LinkedIn to Twitter, the reverse is no longer possible.

There has been some speculation as to why, and whether this is related to the recent LinkedIn hack. However I think this is unlikely. As Businessweek  notes:

“Twitter has been increasing its focus on getting more users to look at tweets through its own website and on mobile applications, as it seeks to boost advertising revenue”.

Molly McHugh of Digital Trends wonders, however, whether this is a good move:

“The risk Twitter runs, of course, is alienating the developer community… Facebook has branded itself as a platform, as an app marketplace, and Twitter is certainly not creating this type of reputation for itself. Of course, you could reason that Twitter’s on a different, more profitable trajectory that will win it a more successful IPO — that’s one theory, at least. Early speculation says Twitter has figured out mobile ads and Facebook hasn’t… but it’s still early.”

“One thing is clear: Twitter won’t be following in Facebook’s business steps,” she added. “And it’s certainly not at the path to becoming a platform to encourage third-party apps. This means it can control how Twitter works and what it looks like to its users, and that is something advertisers are happy to hear. But it also means that it loses the support of a group of people that could end up driving traffic. That inarguably hurts innovation, something that’s always in the user’s best interest. It’s a money move — a gamble Twitter’s willing to take — but it remains to be seen whether it pays off, or if the team’s shooting itself in the foot.”

Source: redOrbit (http://s.tt/1gvk7)

How will this affect the way you use either of these platforms?

You may have realised some time ago that Facebook automatically assigned you a facebook.com email address – which just sends your emails through to Messages – but chances are you’ve never used it.

Instead, most of us display our own preferred address on our profile so that friends (or rich Nigerian princes, depending on your privacy settings) are able to get in contact.

However Facebook has just rolled out changes that by default only display your Facebook email… and no, they didn’t tell you.

Boo.

Read more and find out how to change it at Gizmodo.