France’s data privacy watchdog may fine messaging app WhatsApp if it does not comply with an order to bring its sharing of user data with parent company Facebook into line with French privacy law.
Separately, Germany’s cartel office said on Tuesday it had found Facebook had abused its dominant market position, in a ruling that questioned the company’s model of monetizing the personal data of its users through targeted advertising.
Some 79 percent of U.S. 13- to 18-year-olds surveyed said they have a Snapchat account, more than any other type of social media. Of that age group, 73 percent have an Instagram account and just 57 percent say they are on Facebook.
Respondents had to choose only one social network they could keep if they were “trapped on a deserted island.” This time, 44 percent of teens picked Snapchat, ahead of Instagram (24 percent) and Facebook (14 percent). One year ago, for RBC’s same survey question, the percentage of teens who insisted on keeping Snapchat on a desert island led with 28 percent — suggesting the app is still growing in necessity/popularity among young people.
The law has been criticized as encouraging censorship.
The companies will also be forced to introduce an official complaint structure, obliging platforms to monitor their content and improve their real-time reporting protocols.
Platforms failing to react within 24-hours face €50 million fines. The challenge to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Tumblr, VK, Vimeo, Flickr and the like are facing a major technological challenge which could come with significant costs.
The law adopted in June 2017, went into force in October 2017 and will be enforced from January 2018. The new law implies hiring hundreds of more employees.
For the completely uninitiated, RSS is just a standardized way of presenting text and images in a feed that can be used by a variety of apps and web services. It is just like how Twitter has a standard way of presenting text and images that all the various Twitter clients understand.
As we’ve already alluded to, when you follow the news via social media, you’re relying on other people bringing you the news, unless you’re following individual news stories. RSS is like getting your newspaper of choice delivered to the front door rather than relying on heading down to the local bar to listen in on what everyone’s shouting about.
With only one page to visit rather than dozens to catch up on, you can spend less time aimlessly drifting around and more time catching up on the posts that matter.
It’s not just for news
Basically anything you might want to keep track of and not miss because of the cacophony of voices on social media,
The always-useful IFTTT (If This Then That) is fluent in RSS, giving you even more ways to make use of RSS. You can build applets to generate tweets or Facebook posts or Instagram updates from a particular feed. Zapier is another service that can take RSS feeds from anywhere in the web and plug them into other apps and platforms.
Throw in LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and region specific social networks like Vkontakte and Sina Weibo and WeChat, and you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who’s online but isn’t on social media.
What has led to the rise of these social networks? What kind of people do they attract?
What is their psychology? What kind of content do they like to consume? And most importantly for bloggers and marketers – what works, what doesn’t on social media?
Facebook has become the ‘home base’ for most people online. While they may or may not use other networks, a majority maintain a presence on Facebook.
Popular: Used by 72% of all adult internet users in America.
More women users: 77% of online female users are on Facebook.
Younger audience: 82% of all online users between 18-29 are on Facebook
USA (14%), India (9%) and Brazil (7%) form the three largest markets.
Twitter’s quick flowing ‘info stream’ attracts an audience that swings younger and is mostly urban/semi-urban.
Younger: Used by 37% of all online users between 18 and 29.
Educated: 54% of users have either graduated college, or have some college experience.
Richer: 54% of online adults who make over $50,000+ are on Twitter.
More women than men: 29% of all online women are on Instagram, vs. only 22% of all men.
Overwhelmingly younger: 53% of all 18-29 year olds are on Instagram.
Less educated: Only 24% of Instagram users are college graduates, while 31% have some college experience – fitting since its audience is largely younger.
Google+ is a mysterious beast. It is ubiquitous, yet doesn’t attract nearly a tenth of the attention as Instagram or Facebook. Some marketers swear by it, while others are busy proclaiming its death.
Younger users: 27% of all 16-24 year olds online are active members of Google+. In contrast, only 18% and 14% of 45-54 and 55-64 year olds are active on Google+ at the moment.
Large non-US user base: Only 55% of Google+ users are American. 18% are Indian and 6% are Brazilian. One reason for this international user base is Android’s popularity outside the US (since Google+ is baked right into Android).
Even income distribution: According to GlobalWebIndex.net, 22% of people in bottom 25% of income earners are on Google+. For the top 25% of income earners, this number is 24%, while for the mid 50% earners, this number is 23%. This means that nearly all levels of income earners are nearly equally represented on Google+.
Pinterest’s visual nature makes it a fantastic marketing tool for B2C businesses. And it’s got the potential to drive a large amount of traffic to your blog if you have a solid strategy.
Here’s what you should know about Pinterest demographics:
Overwhelmingly female: 42% of all online female users are on Pinterest, vs. only 13% of men.
Older audience: 72% of Pinterest’s audience are 30 years or older. Only 34% are between 18 and 29. Significantly, 17% are over 65 years old.
Distinctly suburban: Suburban and rural users form the largest share – 29% and 30% respectively. This is distinctly different from other networks where urban users rule.
Higher income: Given the higher average age, Pinterest users also have higher disposable income, with 64% of all adults making $50,000+ on Pinterest.
The professional networking site LinkedIn attracts an older audience that is largely urban, wealthier, and more educated.
Older: Only 23% of users are between 18-29 years old. 21% are over 65 years, and 31% are between 30 and 49 years of age.
Urban: Very limited number of rural users – only 14%. 61% are either urban or suburban.
Wealthier: 75% of users earn over $50,000.
Highly educated: 50% of LinkedIn users are college graduates. Another 22% have some college experience.
Snapchat is the newest social networks on this list, but also one of the fastest growing. Here’s what you need to know about its demographics:
Dominated by women: 70% of Snapchat’s users are females.
Overwhelmingly young: 71% of users are younger than 25.
Limited income: 62% earn under $50,000 – fitting given the average age of Snapchat’s users.
ere’s what you should take away from all these stats:
If you’re targeting younger users, stick to Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat.
If you’re targeting women with disposable income, head over to Pinterest.
For professionals with better education and income, use LinkedIn.
For everyone, go with Facebook.
The psychology of social media users
Facebook is a ‘closed’ network where your friends list will usually be limited to family, friends and acquaintances you’ve met in real life. Privacy is a big concern for Facebook’s users, and all posts are private by default.
This ultimately affects the way users interact with each other and with businesses on Facebook.
Facebook users are more trusting (since the network is closed).
Facebook users have more close relationships. Pew found that heavy users of the platform are more likely to have a higher number of close relationships.
Facebook users are politically engaged and active.
To understand why people share or follow on Twitter, researchers at Georgia Tech and UMichigan analysed over 500M tweets over 15-months. They found that the three biggest reasons why people share/follow on Twitter are:
Network overlap: Your network is similar to your followers’ network.
User tweet-RT ratio: The number of tweets vs. the number of RTs for a user.
Informational content: The more informative the content, the better.
As per one study, a person’s Pinterest boards represent his/her “ideal self”. That is, it is a representation of everything the user would want to be or have. This is in opposition to Facebook that represents the user’s “real self”.
keep the following in mind:
Instead of marketing yourself on every network, pick the network whose demographics matches your target audience’s.
Positivity always wins – unless you’re deliberately trying to create controversy (not a good option for most non-media businesses).
Rules of content: Informative content on Twitter and LinkedIn, aspirational content on Instagram and Pinterest, fun/positive/uplifting content on Facebook.
#2: New Platform Features Spur Millennial Adoption
Facebook – An RBC Capital Markets social media survey showed that in the last year, an average of 33% of Millennials who took the survey increased the time they spent on Facebook, whereas an average of 23.5% decreased their time on Facebook.
Instagram –
Twitter –
Snapchat –
#3: Millennials Prefer Indirect Sales Messages
These days, the preferred formats are content marketing and influencer marketing.
the old “sell without selling” idea.
In your content marketing, give Millennials something for their time, attention, and (hopefully) loyalty. They’re more likely to trust your brand if you show a genuine interest in educating them with a how-to, for example.
While Facebook has tried to push other copycats of Snapchat, they’ve typically lived in separate apps like Poke and Slingshot, or as features buried behind the News Feed, like its revamped camera. But now it will be impossible to use Facebook without being exposed to Facebook Stories.
Sheryl Sandberg has visited German government officials in Germany in an effort to smooth relations after the country threatened to fine the social network for publishing fake news. Mrs Sandberg met with officials in Berlin at the weekend, when Facebook announced a partnership with German third-party fact-checking organization Correctiv in an effort to tackle the proliferation of fake news shared on its platform.