This week you might have noticed that Facebook photos got an upgrade, hot on the heels of changes and upgrades to Facebook Pages. The Red Cross avoided what could have been a social media/pr nightmare by responding to a situation regarding a rouge tweet by reacting fast and responding with humour. The story of J.C. Penny being severely penalized by Google for building links on irrelevant web sites to boost search engine rankings has also been an interesting one, and a reminder as to why you should never try to cheat Google.

Facebook Pages and Photos Get an Upgrade

Last week, Facebook rolled out changes and upgrades to their Pages platform. Among the changes was the inclusion of more photos, the movement of the tabs to the left hand side and the ability for Page administrators to be logged in as the Page itself, enabling them to comment on behalf of the Page across to other Pages and on user profiles. Those weren’t the only changes, as Facebook Photos also got an upgrade. The changes include larger, higher resolution images, a lightbox-type picture viewer and general improvements to uploading and tagging. One notable feature of the new picture viewer, is that clicking on a photo opens it on-top of whatever page you currently have open. This allows users to browse through photos without leaving the page they were on before.

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Infographic: How We’re Using Our Cellphone

This infographic illustrates how we’re using our cellphones. Did you know that the number of text messages received in the US every day outweighs an entire years worth of regular mail?

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Red Cross Avoids PR Nightmare after Rogue Tweet

This Wednesday the American Red Cross demonstrated how to respond to a miss-fired Tweet, using humor to prevent the situation from getting any more messy. The mis-fired Tweet was made by the Red Cross’ social media specialist, and was the result of posting the message to the wrong Twitter account. The message in question read, “Ryan found two more 4 bottle packs of Dogfish Head’s Midas Touch beer…. when we drink we do it right #gettnslizzerd.” The Red Cross acted within an hour, removing the Tweet and posting a humorous response to the situation.

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The Value of a Tweet

This short case-study looks at how a single tweet impacted on the search engine rankings, and consequently traffic, of a web page. The author found that before tweeting, they had absolutely zero traffic for a particular keyword and after the tweet they did have traffic. It looks as if a high quantity of tweets from Twitter users does have a substantial impact on search engine rankings – although it does drop off after a period of time.

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Steps to Podcasting Success

We think that Podcasts are a great way to communicate with, and engage your audience using a new content format – which is why we produce a new podcast every month. Podcasts are growing in popularity and influence, and it’s a great time to jump in before anyone else in your industry does so. Social Media Examiner has published a quick guide on getting your own podcast up and running. If you’ve ever considered starting one, or just want to know a bit more about what is involved, then you need to read these 4 steps to podcasting success.

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J.C. Penney Penalized by Google for ‘Black Hat’ SEO

When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) there are proper, rule-playing ways to go about it (white hat SEO) and improper ways (black hat SEO). Until a few weeks ago, J.C. Penney was at the top of the search result for a number of Google searches, until their sneaky SEO tactics were uncovered by the New York Times. J.C. Penny had hired a company that had set up thousands of links on unrelated sites – engaging in practices that don’t align with Google’s guidelines. Google, once alerted to the situation, severely penalized J.C.Penney, burying them in the search engine results overnight. Read the full story on Search Engine Journal.

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Did social media help you this valentines day?

This video takes a tongue-in-cheek look at how people can use social media to create a better Valentines day. However, this is one Valentines story that doesn’t end in happily ever after.