Some social media-content is easy to evaluate. Cute cat pictures? Great. Helpful how-to videos? Perfect. Unfortunately, parsing posts gets a lot more complicated when the content flowing through the tubes of social media involves news. Earlier this week, the House Judiciary Committee brought in representatives from Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook to discuss the companies policies and practices for evaluating and moderating content (mostly political in nature) and the internet scourge that is fake news.

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Thousands of years ago, clans gathered around fires to share their days experiences and to tell stories that established group norms and shaped social organization. Today, the fires embers have been replaced by the glow of internet-connected devices, but the communal exchange of stories and perspectives remains a fundamental force in social development.

From a business standpoint, a few important differences emerge from this evolution. Social media users can now publicly discuss their experiences with brands or products, forming large coalitions of interest that exert vast social pressure on brands and other organizations. From the presidential election to the newest cereal, everything is now a matter of public interest.

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This month marks the fifth anniversary of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag, which was first coined following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin. In the course of those five years, #BlackLivesMatter has become an archetypal example of modern protests and political engagement on social media: A new Pew Research Center analysis of public tweets finds the hashtag has been used nearly 30 million times on Twitter – an average of 17,002 times per day – as of May 1, 2018.

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Content is still king.

Today’s best social media strategists focus on aggregating content on their platforms. They elevate their own brands through collaborations with others, leveraging their content, while also minimizing operating and production costs. And the better your reputation for social media excellence becomes, the more users you will find who are willing to work together for little-to-no compensation.

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Every marketer today wants to make their brand presence felt. That is the reason why social media is being leveraged on a big scale.  Whether one owns an established business or a startup, social media marketing is something that everyone is using to reach and communicate with the customers. Doesn’t it make sense to be in a place where the crowd is? One often comes across some social media marketing activities that fail. While, on the other hand, some Facebook and Twitter pages become popular than the others. Many times, marketers observe that their competitors are doing better than them in social media marketing!

Everybody does make mistakes. How can social media marketers be any different? But the fact is, making too many mistakes can see the followers dwindle and their count drop. Indeed, it does affect the revenue of a business. As with all mistakes, the first step is understanding and becoming aware of them. It then becomes easier to avoid them in the future.

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Talent drives engagement when it comes to posts from social media accounts owned by TV shows and networks.

According to Nielsen, which earlier this year started measuring Owned Account Performance as part of its Nielsen Social Content Ratings talent accounts generated almost 20 million engagements for their associated TV programs.

That represents about 30% of all owned engagement for series and special programming.

For a three-week period during this year’s fall series premieres, Nielsen Social Content Ratings measured over 160,000 pieces of TV content and over 250 million engagements coming from thousands of active owned accounts.

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In recent years, social media platforms have evolved from simple communication channels to full-blown news and entertainment hubs. From Facebook Watch to this years innovations like IGTV and Snapchat’s Story Ads, social platforms are stepping up the game to keep its users engaged and entertained -- and your company should not be too far behind.

If you want to keep up with the latest social media trends, you will have to reevaluate your strategy with an eye toward the future of this ever-evolving industry. Below, Forbes Agency Council members share 13 ways to step up your social game in 2019.

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Every parent that has a teen or a preteen should have both Snapchat and Instagram on their phones. If their child uses those applications, you should follow your child on those applications and I think having constant conversations with kids about responsible social media use is important, said Haase.

If they want their child to use social media responsibly, Haase said the parent needs to model good social media behavior as well.

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Tip:
A good social media manager will be able to adapt to your brand’s voice and understand how to connect with your ideal audience on social media.

Is this person capable of managing multiple channels?
If you want your business to make a big splash on multiple social media channels, you will need a social media manager who can juggle multiple different accounts. An effective social media manager will not rely just on a sharp memory and good multitasking skills; this person should be familiar with the tools that will make his or her social media management more productive.

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Social media is a crucial component of any small business marketing efforts. When done well, a strong social strategy helps you connect directly with your customers, and can even create some free publicity along the way.

For all of social media's advantages, there are pitfalls as well. The internet can look like a cavalier place when it comes to copyright rules, but there are plenty of no-nos that you need to follow if you want to stay out of legal trouble.

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Of the more than 7 billion people on Earth, the number of mobile phone users is approaching 5 billion devices, while toothbrush ownership is closer to 4 billion. Indicating that both marketing of technology and public health have great disparities, but also that leadership in health care are not executing on their brands, social media or marketing. But in the U.S., hospital identity and health branding are paramount for success in a community. By listening to patients, getting feedback on wants and needs, and creating new incentives to engage individuals, increased revenue, greater trust and improved health might be achieved.

Here are 10 surprising things to keep in mind when health care and hospital leadership plan marketing efforts for 2019:

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We have brought together some of our favorite hello 2019 images in order to honor the coming year, which will bring with it plenty of joy.

The beginning of a new year brings with it plenty of hopes and dreams that could completely change the course of your life for the better if you discipline yourself, put the work in and try your hardest to make those changes happen. In the long run, keeping your New Years resolutions could be the thing that helps put everything into place for you.

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After suspending Cambridge Analytica from its platform in March, Facebooks data management issues remained the lead social media news story throughout 2018. The companys constant stream of user privacy challenges left little space for other social platforms to make waves — but, some still managed. Twitter put its focus on election integrity and performed a massive purge of bad user accounts. While Facebook and Twitter focused on cleaning up timelines, Snapchat, Pinterest and LinkedIn continued to build out their ad offerings.

Nearly all platforms released new political advertising policies, and you could not open an app without bumping into a Story. (In fact, now that Snapchats original concept has made its way to Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, the real question is why does not Pinterest have them?) In its spare time, Facebook did its best to recruit more video creators, YouTube gave its creator base more monetization opportunities, and Instagram launched a video platform. Not to be left out of the mix, Reddit wrapped up its first major redesign in over a decade.

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Social media sites and apps are constantly changing and evolving to match the needs of their user base — for good, and for ill. Whether its Facebook Watchs new shows actually making it worth using, or Snapchats reviled redesign, social media changes can be a polarizing topic for the millions of people who use the sites every day.

But sometimes, the changes just raise the whole site or app a bit, and make the experience of using them better (or mercifully less tedious). These are the best social media changes we saw this year.

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Those viral videos really are giving you all the feels.

New research from the Netherlands suggests that we mirror the emotions of those we see in videos.

Tilburg University researchers studied more than 2,000 video blogs (aka vlogs) on YouTube, focusing on the more popular channels with at least 10,000 subscribers. They analyzed the words and emotions being expressed by the vloggers in their clips, as well as the emotional language of the online comments left by people who viewed the videos. And they found that when a YouTuber posted a positive video, the audience responded with more heightened positive emotions; but if the video broadcast negative emotions, the audience responded in kind.

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There are very few industries these days that change as quickly as social media. Every new discovery or algorithm update has the potential to shape the future of how we connect with each other and our clients. This past year has been an exceptionally tumultuous one for social media networks, even for an ever-changing industry. We have seen a huge paradigm shift in social media in 2018 toward consumer awareness and expectation. It’s bound to have a major effect on how brands will connect with their customers through social media in the future.

As we wrap up the year, lets take a look back at what has changed in social media in 2018 and how it will impact social media marketing strategy building in 2019.

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Brands were more creative than ever in their social media posts this year and connected with audiences by raising awareness of social issues, according to social media analytics company Unmetric.

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Contractor complaints and safety concerns with smartphone apps were among what the ABC 7 I-Team found to be the top three consumer complaints in 2018.

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Ever since it started existing, governments have had a love-hate relationship with social media. Predictably, the romance starts to sour when social media contains criticism of the government as it often does and the affair blooms when the opposite happens, in particular when sycophancy takes on gargantuan proportions. In our particular case, only days before the elections, we have a peculiar situation where social media is being manipulated with the seeming intention of bringing about a certain outcome in the polls.

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Asking if social media makes you lonely and depressed is a little like asking if eating makes you fat. The answer is yes, absolutely, but not always, not in everyone, and not forever.

Social media use is fine in moderation. But as with any diet that tilts heavily toward foods that lack nutritional value, an excessive intake of social media may be bad for your health.

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The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is looking to get its hands on a product that will help its agents investigate tax dodgers who have set up shop on social media, according to a request posted to the federal government’s procurement website, FedBizOpps.

The post indicates that the IRS, whose under-equipped enforcement agents ferret out financial crime related to the tax system, is looking for a new way to investigate potential tax cheats based on their social media usage, citing as one example the ubiquity of online stores. The IRS currently has no formal tool, it says, to comb through social media feeds.

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Social media can be intimidating, especially for more private individuals. But if your business does not have a social presence, it can actually hurt your reputation and hinder your growth.

While you must manage them carefully, your social media accounts give you the power to engage directly with customers and build your personal brand while promoting your business. Below, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their social media suggestions for introverted business owners.

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Every company marketer posting on social media is curious about the best times to post their content. While each audience is unique, having a rule of thumb can be extremely helpful when you are first starting out. Sprout Social recently published the results of their Best Times to Post on Social Media: 2018 Industry Research, a report which includes preferred time slots for the big 4 — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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Most modern businesses understand the importance of using social media to promote their brand and interact with consumers. Indeed, social media is at the core of many companies’ digital strategy, often delivering measurable results in terms of sales, leads and customer service. That said, there are many social media mistakes that we see time and time again: strategic errors that leave leads on the table and opportunities unexplored.

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Carmel Fire took to their Facebook page to notify people that they should not be putting their own spin online regarding situations like Wednesdays explosion at the high school. CFD went on to add that people were posting pictures of patients and minors from the scene.

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Entrepreneurs who are cheating taxes with online stores, beware: The IRS is looking for new ways to catch suspected tax cheats over social media.

Specifically, the IRS wants a new tool to help it check public social media feeds and websites for details on people already suspected of not complying with the tax code, the tax-collecting agency said in a Dec. 18 request for information from vendors.

Social media could provide investigators with a treasure trove of data, showing where taxpayers live, what they drive and what they are selling online. That data could be useful to the IRS as it tries to catch people cheating on their taxes — if the agency can figure out how to collect and use it without running afoul of its own internal rules.

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Hootsuite, the master of everything social, has released a report detailing its predictions for the future of social media trends in 2019, and it is a must-read. After surveying thousands of customers and consulting with several top-notch market research firms, Hootsuite has distilled some crucial information and understanding for every business owner, large and small.

The information they reviewed covers just about anything and everything one could think to ask about when it comes to social media, from the best way to channel customer service to big-picture ideas for customer relations overall. The top social media trends for 2019, then, can be understood very specifically, and very broadly.

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This past year, many people deleted their social media accounts following revelations about privacy violations on social media platforms and other concerns related to hate speech.

As people adopt their resolutions for the year, it is likely that many more will reconsider their social media use.

However, as a scholar of social media and religion, I would argue that rather than just stop using social media, people could use it to improve their overall well-being. Here are three ways to do so.

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For many consumers, spending too much time on social media often happens subconsciously. We pick up our phones, and before long, hours have passed.

While many of us think nothing of the extra time spent scrolling on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, a new study conducted by researchers from Michigan State University found that too much time on social media can lead to bad decision-making.

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This past year, many people deleted their social media accounts following revelations about privacy violations on social media platforms and other concerns related to hate speech.

As people adopt their resolutions for the year, it is likely that many more will reconsider their social media use.
However, as a scholar of social media and religion, I'd argue that rather than just stop using social media, people could use it to improve their overall well-being. Here are three ways to do so.

1. Be active
Studies have shown that there is a big difference between passive social media use and active use. Scrolling through a newsfeed and merely looking at what others have posted is considered passive social media use.

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Global social media and technology giants are gearing up to fight sweeping new rules proposed by the Indian government that would require them to actively regulate content in one of the world’s biggest Internet markets, sources close to the matter told Reuters.

The rules, proposed by the Information Technology ministry on Christmas Eve, would compel platforms such as Facebook, its messaging service WhatsApp and Twitter to remove unlawful content, such as anything that affected the sovereignty and integrity of India. This had to be done within 24 hours, the rules propose.

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Excessive social media use has negative consequences that include the kind of risky decision-making associated with drug and gambling addicts, new research shows.  

Researchers at Michigan State University had 71 study participants take a survey gauging their Facebook dependence; it included questions about users feelings when unable to access the website, the influence Facebook has had on a users job or education, and attempts to quit.  

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We have all thought about it. Maybe it's time to flick Facebook. Terminate Twitter. Silence social for good, and just be a person again.

Sadly, if this dream of going off the grid is about reclaiming your lost privacy, that might not actually be possible, according to new research.

A new study by researchers at the University of Vermont shows that social media posts by people you're connected with can actually be used to predict your own future posts – and even more accurately than if your own previous posts were being mined for insights.

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I say social media engagement metrics, what comes to your mind first?

Most likely it will be likes, comments, and shares.

While these certainly are high-level indicators of content engagement, and (presumably) the effectiveness of your social media efforts, they are far from the only metrics you should consider.

This section will help you understand the full spectrum of metrics available to you for evaluating your content and social media marketing, the meaning and importance of each, and how to use and improve them.

Few will need to keep track of all these metrics, so choose the mix that gives you the most valuable information.

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We have been hearing more and more about loneliness, and the loneliness epidemic, in recent years, as research has stared to lay out both its causes and effects. There are likely many reasons for this increasing psychological/societal issue, but one that is almost certainly involved is our dependence on screens, and in particular social media. And a new study from the University of Pittsburgh and West Virginia University finds that social media use—or at least negative experiences on social—is linked to more feelings of social isolation, a.k.a. loneliness.

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I am blessed to say that I get to wake up and live out my dreams each day, says social media influencer, comedian and actress Lala Milan. She creates content for many platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, as well as various apps, doing almost all of the writing, filming, directing, and editing herself. This career has enabled her to generate a six-figure annual income and secured her celebrity bookings at events. Recently, it landed her a role on Boomerang, a TV series coming to BET in February 2019.

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Just because you are not on Facebook or Twitter does not mean your data is safe from the social media giants or their prying algorithms. A study from the University of Vermont adds yet more evidence to the argument that your privacy is no longer in your hands, even if you abstain from social media.

Researchers from UVM's Department of Mathematics and Statistics published a paper in this week’s issue of the journal Nature Human Behaviour demonstrating that social media users not only generate substantial behavioral data about themselves but also about members of their social circle.

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As social medias influence over politics and elections has risen, so too has our collective anxiety about it. Over the last three years in particular, the use of megaplatforms like Facebook and Twitter as vectors for misinformation has been the subject of congressional hearings and not a few columns on the websites of some of our finer magazines. And as we gear up for elections in 2019 — and, assuming we make it through this year, in 2020 — the anxiety is gearing up, too. On Monday, in anticipation of the European Parliamentary elections in May, the Mozilla Foundation, an influential internet-advocacy non-profit, released an open letter to Facebook, co-signed by 32 civil rights and transparency groups, demanding that the social network implement measures designed to increase transparency, facilitate research, and combat misinformation.

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It happens here and there - Facebook goes down, Instagram goes down, then everyone runs to Twitter to figure out what the heck is going on. Last week, we experienced this again, with both Instagram and Facebook going down for 10+ hours, and sparking panic among many brands and influencers who now rely on these platforms to generate income.

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Are you looking for ways to measure the success of your social media marketing efforts? Want to know if your social media campaigns are worth your time and effort?

The team from Social Success Marketing share the metrics you can, and should, track in this infographic.

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Traditional sales tactics have begun to shift thanks to social media networks. Social selling leverages social networks and gives salespeople the ability to connect directly with customers. In 2016, LinkedIn found that 90% of top-performing salespeople use social media as part of their sales strategy.

Social selling relies on having robust, well-built social networks, which is why social media marketing is a crucial aspect of social selling. Since these two concepts are so similar, many people confuse the two.

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While the social media landscape is always changing, the fundamental building blocks of an effective strategy remain the same. Without them, you're likely wasting your time - or at the least, you're not seeing optimal results from your efforts to connect and engage with your online audience.

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In todays climate of hyper-competitive technologies, the ways that technology is sold often has much more to do with how a brand is perceived and the cultural relationships that this brand has to an imaginary field of power much more than how good a brand actually is. Where social influencers have far more sway with younger consumers than celebrity endorsements, how do they fit into the greater social fabric that necessitates that not only items are bought and sold, but which nurtures a cultural connection between the object and a deeper ethos that speaks to us as individuals? In essence, what makes the social influencer integral to new tech culture today and what are the indicators of their value or, according to some critics, that their time is up?

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Social media plays a vital role in our daily life. Websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are the most common social channels used to connect with our loved ones. With over 2.77 billion social media users today, such social media websites make a perfect platform for identity thefts. With huge user database of private information, it is the responsibility of social media platforms to keep personal information safe.

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Turn on the news, scroll through Twitter or chat with a friend these days, and you are likely to hear about yet another brand or individual suffering yet another social media-induced crisis of some kind.

It seems that every day, every hour, theres some other social media disaster. Does this mean that brands are suddenly behaving more poorly, or is this the state of how we live now?

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There is no questioning the influence of social media in modern society, and our broader interactive process. But still, many businesses remain unsure whether it's right for them, whether they actually need to have a social media presence.

To be fair, it may not be for everyone - if, for example, you sell products aimed specifically at an older sector of the market, it could be that you would be wasting your time posting to a Facebook Page that no one's likely to read.

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Social media offers the chance to carefully curate a public image and, while some choose to broadcast their professional success or vacations, others are keen to make a show of their moral worth.

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The great promise of social media was that by giving voice to ordinary people all across the world, their collective experiences and expertise would help society reach a higher consciousness. Much as the web was bringing together the world of knowledge, social media would bring together our diverse perspectives and especially the vast wealth of uncodified human knowledge. The reality, as we all know, has been quite the opposite: a toxic cesspool of hate and stupidity, where the loudest and most obnoxious one wins and enlightened insight is overwhelmed by emotional sarcasm and toxicity. Is there any hope for a social future?

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Businesses have spent years diligently amassing followings and figuring out the best way to connect with users.

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One of the biggest challenges in implementing an effective social media marketing strategy is time.

When I ask people about their social media strategy for their business, I often get responses like:

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