Tag: social media

Hashtags now work the way they were meant to on Facebook

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Hashtags have arrived on Facebook.

As mentioned on The Social Media Hat, Facebook recently made an announcement that they will be rolling out the feature to users in the coming weeks. Up until now hashtags appeared as plain text in Facebook and were not able to be used to group search results by keyword or topic.

Hashtags now work the way they were meant to. Enter hashtags in the search bar
Hashtags now work the way they were meant to. Enter hashtags in the search bar

What this means

When you type a search by keyword or hashtag (for example #stateoforigin) in the Search bar in Facebook it groups together all the public posts from Facebook Pages and Profiles into one search listing – you need to make sure the hashtag already exists, so once you see someone use a hashtag you can click on it or type a new search. You can also find hashtags that are trending on Twitter or Google +.

What about my private posts, will they show up when someone searches using a hashtag?

In short no. Any posts that you set to private or viewable only by your Friends, will continue to be only viewable by your network. Only Public posts will appear when someone you don’t know searches on Facebook using a hashtag.

Try it today and see how it helps you find out what fellow Facebook users think about a particular topic or event.

 

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City of Lights – Vivid Sydney uses Facebook and Instagram to woo crowds

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Vivid Sydney is an annual light festival which transforms iconic Sydney landmarks into illuminated pieces of art for two weeks each year. Think of a trippy architect being let loose in the city with light installations.

Sydney Opera House during Vivid Light Festival 2013.
Sydney Opera House during Vivid Light Festival 2013.

Over the last five years the festival has flourished to the point where crowds are so thick, Vivid’s Facebook page issues notices to Fans so they can avoid peak periods. And this is largely due to its use of Social Media.

Vivid has done a fabulous job of using social media to showcase the city light show. The public and both amateur and professional photographers are encouraged to  post their pictures on Instagram using #vivid and #vividsydney as well as the Vivid’s Facebook page. By encouraging Fans to share pics to the Vivid Facebook page and their own social network, the level of engagement and reach is very high. The Facebook page currently has more than 140,000 Fans and a Klout score of 66.

One light projection has a touch screen which allows you to choose your own architectural light design. My attempt below shows how fluro you can get within the 2 min timeframe.

Cadmans Cottage during Vivid Sydney.
Cadmans Cottage during Vivid Sydney.

Check out more pics at http://www.facebook.com/vividsydney

What do you think of Vivid’s use of Social Media to promote the festival? Does your city have something similar?

How HootSuite can help you become a Social Media guru

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HootSuite allows you to manage all your social media channels in one dashboard. It saves time and increases productivity, and is simple to use.

How can HootSuite help you become a Social Media guru?

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1. Remember one login and save time.
No more signing in and out of each social network. With Hootsuite, once you do the initial connection between it and each of your networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube) you can then simply sign in to HootSuite to post messages to all networks with a click of a button.

2. Analytics.
HootSuite can show you the most clicked tweets during a set period of time, you can also find out what platforms followers used, sentiments and dozens of other statistics across your networks. Reports can be customized to include your logo and scheduled so you can really impress the boss.

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Image source: http://media.hootsuite.com/media-kit/screen-shots/general/

3. Don’t want to hang around? Schedule your posts.
New feature called Auto schedule is now available which determines when the most effective time of day is to post and does the scheduling for you.

4. At a glance. The power of the dashboard.
Allowing you to see a stream of your mentions, what your followers are posting, messages and drilling down by adding custom streams of, say, a particular Twitter user that you would like to keep a close eye on is invaluable to any digital marketer. And it’s all on one dashboard screen. What’s more you can click on a follower or search for users to see their sample tweets, bio and Klout score.

Hootsuite is also available as iPhone or Android apps so you can use it on the run.

A new service is HootSuite University, Pro users get access to a series of the latest in social media education, delivered in short 20min webinars.