It’s been a long-running question for companies: How can we get employees involved in brand engagement—without it turning into a social media debacle? When two Domino’s Pizza workers created a YouTube video of their hygiene hijinks, it created a media disaster and reinforced companies’ reticence to involve employees in social media efforts. But Facebook scholar Clara Shih says businesses can involve employees in their efforts and keep track of what they do online. READ MORE
Thanks to the social and mobile media explosions, in just six years of existence, YouTube has become the world’s most popular place for video viewing with about two billion hits per day. Additionally, YouTube is also the most trafficked video mobile site with about 7.1 million unique visitors each month. This infographic, designed by Emily Caufield and researched by Mashable’s Lauren Drell, breaks down YouTube’s timeline and explains how YouTube’s site and advertising strategy has evolved since launching in late-2005. READ MORE
This week, YouTube debuted a new look for its videos, playlists, and user channels called—not-so-obviously—”Cosmic Panda.” The new design features widescreen and HD poster frames and less white area around the video to create a greater cinematic experience. READ MORE
“What do people talk about on Google+?” goes a question in a current Xtranormal animation on YouTube. The answer: “Google+.” There’s a reason: Those of us fortunate few who actually have Google+ memberships can’t talk to most people we know because they aren’t there and we can’t invite them. The only thing we have in common with most other Google+ users is the service itself. READ MORE
Why is Tumblr like wine? “A quiet night with a couple of friends, and a couple of their friends. Spilling nostalgic stories, flipping through photo albums, singing favorite songs,” explains the new Internet Vices chart from HappyPlace. READ MORE
The Faceniff app, released this month, makes it easy to hack Facebook accounts. The app works on Android devices that have been “rooted,” and like every good app it’s extremely easy to use–”one-touch hacking” is how one security expert described it. And before you non-Facebook users get too smug, the app works on Twitter, YouTube, Amazon, and a Polish networking site as well. It even works on encrypted networks. READ MORE
Targeting the nation’s youth, technophiles, and Silicon Valley heads, The White House has arranged another social media town hall meeting. According to BetaBeat, President Obama will hold his first-ever Twitter town hall on July 6 at 2 p.m., the White House fittingly announced today on Twitter. READ MORE
Go to www.wdyl.com and you’ll be visiting Google’s new service called What Do You Love, a simple search box that returns results in one portal window from more than 20 different Google services, including Google Translate, Trends, YouTube, Maps, and Groups. As TechCrunch’s MG Siegler points out, the best queries are for broad terms like “love,” that will return pictures of love, patents about love, love on Google Trends, videos about love, how to say love in different languages, books about love, etc. A more specific search for say, “Keen girls sandals size 12″ isn’t going to be very useful considering there likely aren’t many blogs, books, or videos on the subject. Search for a celebrity, however, and you can see all sorts of things, such as the fact that in the last 12 months Matthew McConaughey was most popular in the beginning of March. Read more at TechCrunch and Mashable.
Even though you may have Facebook, Twitter and YouTube presences, blogging executives and elaborate social media monitoring in place, your business may be antisocial, writes Brian Solis for FastCompany. He defines “antisocial” as anything that goes against the laws and customs of society and says popular social media engines are their own distinct societies with unique cultures. READ MORE
Last time you posted on Facebook about the cute thing your dog did or awful thing your boss did, did you stop to consider how much that post might be worth? Not a lot, you might think, but in the aggregate, Facebook made more than $1.8 billion in 2010 from advertisers who paid to have their ads appear next to Facebook members’ posts. READ MORE
