Stop, you’ve been tweeting all wrong. This is how you do it

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Twitter Opens HQ in Dublin

Twitter has followed in the footsteps of Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Ebay and many other online companies by setting up their international HQ in Dublin...


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Google+ Goes Public

Google Inc. has opened there social networking site Google+ to the public...


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Facebook & Twitter Unite to Link Users Accounts

Facebook is set to allow their users the ability to publish updated statuses automatically to users Twitter accounts.


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MySpace admits defeat to Facebook

MySpace is to go a different direction as Facebook’s dominance of social network can no longer be ignored.


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Arsenal to Increase their Digital Marketing to Raise their International Fanbase

Arsenal is set to up their digital marketing campaign through digital activity by introducing social gaming and other media initiatives in order to compete with other world known Premier UK football clubs such as Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool... Click here to read more!

Twitter Sues Twittad Over a ‘Tweet’ Dispute

Twittad, an online advertising service that uses Twitter as its promotional audience, filed a trademark application in 2008 for the term ‘Let your Ads meet Tweets’.

For years Twitter, who already owns trademark terms such as ‘Retweet’, has been disputing ownership of the term... Click here to read more!

British Airways recruits pilots through YouTube

BA has used YouTube to recruit potential employees for the first time. The video, promoting the 'Future Pilot Programme', features British Airways pilots describing their roles and the benefits of being able to travel the globe with BA.

The recruitment is British Airways biggest in a decade and aims to take on over 800 pilots by 2016 and will help people to secure funding for private training costs.

There will also be a joint initiative with the UK Armed Forces to provide military pilots with a planned career path into commercial aviation.

You can view the video below:



BA has recently appointed content marketing agency Wardour to create a number of campaigns through video, posters, social media and e-mail, which aim to "inspire pride" in the company.

Amanda Poole, deputy head of internal communications at British Airways says: “We are moving in to an exciting time at British Airways and we wanted an agency that could bring to life our sponsorship of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, our support of Comic Relief through our Flying Start programme and really engage our staff in the brand.”

Randi Zuckerberg leaves Facebook

Randi Zuckerberg, director of marketing at Facebook, has announced her resignation to the social networking company.

Zuckerberg, sister of co-founder and CEO Mark, is leaving to start up her own business RtoZ Media. The firm will assist businesses in becoming more social.

In her resignation letter, Zuckerberg wrote:

"I have spent my years at Facebook pouring my heart and soul into innovating and pushing the media industry forward by introducing new concepts around live, social, participatory viewing that the media industry has since adopted. We have made incredible progress, but there is still much to be done and other ways I can affect change. Now is the perfect time for me to move outside of Facebook to build a company focused on the exciting trends underway in the media industry."

Notably absent is a mention of her brother, and there was no direct statement from Mark Zuckerberg in the official Facebook company statement:

"We can confirm Randi has decided to leave Facebook to start her own company. We are all grateful for her important service. "

TheDrum claims this impersonal approach may suggest a "major disagreement" between the pair, while CNET writes Zuckerberg "had [been] given her time to reflect on what she wants to do next" following the birth of her first child.

"The move is likely to be much noticed...[Randi is] a high-profile and charismatic personality both inside the social-networking company and in Silicon Valley."

Can Google+ build on it's 25 million first-month visitors?

Google+ managed to attract over 25 million visitors since it opened its digital doors on 24th June, according to research from Comscore. Thtis is much quicker than the early growth of Facebook, but Andrew Lipsman, ComScore's vice president for industry analysis, told the LA Times that speedy uptake does not necessarily mean stable and sustained growth. He said that Facebook's growth was much more steady and stable than that projected for Google+.

Here at BD, we've been checking Google+ out and although the 'Circles' functionality certainly improves on the Facebook privacy settings, it seems that this is the only major improvement over Facebook. Otherwise the layout is strikingly similar, aside from slight cosmetic changes, such as being able to use italics in status updates. We've also noticed that they may be a severe flaw in Google+ in terms of spamming. It is currently possible to import up to approx 5,000 email addresses, click "select all", drag them into a circle and start spam messaging. This is similar to how spamming works on Twitter, but in this case the spammer can have thousands of contacts from the get-go. You cannot do this currently on Facebook, and Google may have some sort of impenetrable spam filter in the offing, but it doesn't seem to be operating now.

Social Media Plays Key Role in US Debt Crisis

As the USA works through it's debt crisis, Facebook and Twitter have become central tools as Congressman, Senators and journalists look for a digital platform to air their views and debate in real time. CNN have reported that politicians have been increasingly using Facebook to get feedback from constituents, run opinion polls and to reach new constituents. Andrew Noyes, manager of public policy communications for Facebook, said: "Over the past week, our team has seen a marked increase in the number of members of Congress speaking directly to constituents through their official Facebook pages."

Social media has become a battleground in the debate, with Democrats pushing strong Facebook and Twitter campaigns against John Boehner's Debt Ceiling Bill, whilst Beohner himself has been using his personal Facebook page to air his views, with one of his posts getting over 15,000 comments last week. Personal Democracy Forum founder Andrew Rasiej told CBS that voters find political statements made through Twitter and Facebook more authentic, and it gives the politicians a chance to bypass the agendas of big media corporations: "Imagine polling from years ago being instantaneous...That's what social media, Twitter and Facebook, allows candidates or congressmen and citizens to do with each other." Rasiej continued: "Obama is trying to use social media to create a 21st century fireside chat -- the difference is, when we were sitting at home in the Great Depression we couldn't talk back to the radio. Now, everybody gets to talk back." As of today, the USA is now poised to approve a deal to avoid defaulting on its debt.

Microsoft Slammed for Social Media Cash-in on Amy Winehouse Death

News of the tragic death of Amy Winehouse has been impossible to avoid since Saturday, with the social pathways of Facebook, Twitter and now Google+ providing a forum for commentary, whether it takes the form of praise and mourning, or whether it be of a rather more distasteful tone such as the Amy Winehouse death scams that appeared on Facebook, or the generally poor 'rehab' jokes that most of us are bored with now.

 Another regrettable social media tactic has been companies trying to capitalise on the Back to Black singer's untimely death, and no one failed more spectacularly in this regard than tech giants Microsoft. The company's X-Box PR company in the UK tweeted: "Remember Amy Winehouse by downloading the ground-breaking ‘Back to Black’ over at Zune…" After recieving hundreds of irate replies, @tweetbox360 was forced to rectract its statement, and it apologised for the 'commercially motivated' tone of the message. Esquire Magazine were also rounded on for their tweet which linked to their latest article: "Meet the stylish man who inspired Amy Winehouse". That man was non other than Blake Fielder-Civil, Amy's ex who was seen as central to her descent into drink and drug addiction. The article states that Fielder-Civil will: "...be great, even if he's still a bit fked-up."

Although Microsoft and esquire have taken most of the flak, a number of tweeters underlined that fact that Apple are running a 'remembering Amy' advert on the front page of their iTunes store. One could also point out that Amy's record label, Universal, could be in the firing line, as rumours circulated that an album was being cobbled together from rough demos she had been working on.

Google+ adds further layer to Google's SEO monopoly

There has been much fanfare about Google+, mostly revolving aroung how it has trumped Facebook and Twitter is a series of ways, but many in the SEO world have known all along that one of the major reason why Google have invested so much into their social networking layer is because of the advantage it gives them in terms of social rankings.

As BD blogged earlier this month, Google+ has an advantage over Facebook in terms of both privacy and video conferencing, and it is primarily its better handling of privacy that is a key factor in the SEO advantage. The 'circles' strategy, where users can split their friends into different circles, which each have differential levels of access, may mean that users are more forthcoming about what content and websites are being shared socially.  The Econsultancy blog have pointed out that this could be a great addition to Google's search algorithm. They have noted that what some call the 'linkerati' - those who own their own websites and blogs, and have the ability to make multiple links to sites - have been the main early adopters of Google+, giving a boon to Google's new '+1' API, which has been designed to compete with the Facebook 'like' and the Twitter 'follow'. This concentration of webmasters and bloggers may see Google generate data on social trends faster than its competitors.

Meanwhile, Reuters have reported that Google+ is beginning to face it's first challenges, as some loopholes in user creation are beginning to be discovered, leading to an acceleration of 'spam' accounts and spam links. Google have been insisting on people using their real names, using the bizarre analogy of people wearing shirts in a restaurant (!). The way Google handles these teething problems will determine how successful it's social networking layer will be, with many groups such as the LGBT community slamming Google for not letting people hide behind pseudonyms for self-protection.

Facebook's iPad app Revealed by Blogger

Facebook is yet to release it's official iPad app, but the tech news website TechCrunch has found a loophole in the latest Facebook iPhone app that reveals what it will look like. TechCrunch columnist MG Siegler wrote: "Hidden in the code of Facebook’s iPhone app is the code for something else. Something everyone has been waiting over a year for. The iPad app." Siegler went on to reveal some of the details of the app, stating: "In particular, the navigation system is great. Unlike the iPhone app…the Facebook iPad app uses a left-side menu system that can be accessed by the touch of a button or the flick of the iPad screen...When you flip the iPad horizontally, the list of your online friends appears and you can chat with them as you do other things on Facebook. The photo-viewer aspect looks great — similar to the iPad’s own native Photos app. Places exists with a nice big map to show you all your friends around you."

 Jemima Kiss from the Guardian's PDA blog was so impressed with the app that she wondered what might be holding it back from release: "With the app this finished, you have to wonder what finishing touches are worth holding back for. Or, what kind of opportunity Facebook is looking for to time this launch." It is thought that Mark Zuckerberg will announce the app during the forthcoming Skpe press conference.

Google+ sets the agenda for Facebook and Microsoft

The clamour for invites to Google+, the company's new social networking application, was huge last week, and it wasn't just us Average Joe's who were curious:  Mark Zuckerberg has a Google+ account and has been looking around, gaining over 30,000  followers in the process. Although the Facebook CEO is guarded about who he befriends on Facebook, and is fairly quiet on both Twitter and LinkedIn, he has very publicly shown his hand on Google+, following its opening last week, as he sizes up the competition on an application that is widely considered to be the strongest competition that Facebook has ever faced.

Whilst Twitter differs quite significantly from Facebook in terms of structure and networking, the Google+  layout takes a similar approach to the 'profile' and 'wall' pages on Facebook, but has clearly been designed to usurp Facebook in two key areas: privacy and video chat. The inability of Facebook to provide flexibility in terms of privacy, particularly the lack of a user-friendly option to split friends into groups with different levels of access, has been remedied by Google+'s 'circles' function, where friends can be dragged and dropped into interlinking groups or 'circles' that have different levels of access to your information. The 'hangout' option in Google+ also enables webcam chats with multiple circles of friends, and is widely thought to have provoked Facebook's partnership with Skype, which will enable free voice and video conferencing through Facebook.

 The Facebook-Skype deal is perhaps most telling of Microsoft's move to strengthen itself against it's longtime search-rival, Google. In 2007, Microsoft bought a 1.7% stake in Facebook for $240 million, and it recently purchased Skype for $8.5 billion. Skype SEO Tony Bates revealed to CNET that for himself and Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, better linkage with Facebook was the key behind the deal: "The day we announced, we definitely came to see Mark [Zuckerberg]...It was for both of us, Steve and I, the most important strategic relationship." The Guardian reported that Zuckerberg chose to play down the extent to which Google had prompted the Facebook-Skype deal, saying: ""I'm not going to talk too much about Google. Lots of companies that have not traditionally looked at social networking apps – not just Google – will be trying apps. I view a lot of this as validation of how the next five years will play out – every app will be social."

 Early indications are that Google+ has been a massive hit during it's week-long 'invite-only' test phase, and has certainly wowed the early adopters in a way that Google Wave spectacularly failed to do. Whether Zuckerberg sees Google as his main competition or not, he is clearly aware that Facebook needs to up its game in view of strong challenges.

Monster Moves in on LinkedIn with new Facebook app

LinkedIn's monopoly over professional-social networking may have met it's most serious challenge to date, with the launch of Monster's new Facebook app. Leading jobs site Monster, who have around 40 million members compared to LinkedIn's 100 million, launched their new BeKnown app over the weekend in over 35 countires, which account for of 450 million of Facebook's 700 million-strong userbase. The app solves two problems that have previously inhibited people from promoting themselves professionally both on Facebook and LinkedIn. Firstly, it enables users to mobilise their Facebook friends in order to search for professional contacts without exposing their personal behaviour - all activity on BeKnown is kept seperate from personal Facebook accounts. Secondly, the app allows users to import their LinkedIn profiles and manage them within the comfort of Facebook, thus making use of the large number of LinkIn profiles that are hardley being used.

Harriet, a senior technical recruiter at BD Recruitement, thinks that if the app takes off (and it's a big 'if') it could mark a sea-change in how jobs are searched for, found and filled: "If BeKnown can solve the pitfalls associated with the blurring of the personal and the professional on Facebook, that would significantly change how we look for potential candidates online. LinkedIn is very much used as a professional-only tool at the moment, and if you could harness the personal/social-time people use on Facebook in order to recruit, then there is potential for seismic shifts in job search and recruitment." Harriet specialises in .NET recruitment and is currently recruiting for jobs in the IT/Technical area, click here to see the jobs.

Facebook and Apple: Friends or Foes?

We are all well versed in the battle for mobile app supremacy between Apple and Google’s Android platform, but a new battleground may well be emerging, which pitches Apple against Facebook. Whilst Facebook is ramping up its efforts to become more Apple-friendly with its forthcoming iPad app, it is also planning to dethrone Apple as king of mobile app distribution.

Facebook users have been crying out for a dedicated iPad app since its release a year ago and CNET have reported that the app is in the final stages of testing. According to the New York Times, Mark Zuckerberg has personally overseen development, and its slick design has been tailored to the iPad’s touchscreen interface, and users are able to seamlessly upload video shot by the iPad.

 While this may suggest that Apple and Facebook are scratching each other’s backs, other reports suggest that this is merely the first stage in Facebook trying to beat Apple at its own game. Recently, TechCrunch uncovered details of Facebook’s top-secret ‘Project Spartan’ – a new Safari-only app platform designed to work on iPhone and iPad. Facebook plans to use this to design and distribute its own apps from within Apple’s devices, and is apparently working with 80 outside developers including The Huffington Post and Zynga. Techcrunch claim that Facebook’s intention is “…to use Apple’s own devices against them to break the stranglehold they have on mobile app distribution.”

Relations between the two digital giants soured earlier this year when Apple chose Twitter as its partner in the development of iOS 5, when it was thought Facebook had been the preferred partners at an earlier stage. So take heed all you mobile app developers looking for jobs, as you may soon need to focus your energy on building apps for Facebook’s 700 million strong userbase. BD is currently recruiting for UI, PHP and .NET developers in London and Manchester. For our latest technical/IT jobs, click here.

Destroying Your Business with a Single Tweet: How Social Networking can be a liability

It seems there isn’t a day that goes by without an actor, professional footballer or politician apologizing for a misplaced rant on Twitter - just ask Russell Crowe, Wayne Rooney or Anthony Weiner. Recent events have shown that these pitfalls are not confined to celebrities – poor usage of social networking can also ruin your business. 

Redner Group, a PR agency based in California, managed to lose its largest contract last week, with video games publisher 2k, after tweeting that those who had given bad reviews to the game ‘Duke Nukem Forever’ would not be receiving review copies of games in the future. The tweet read: “too many went too far with their reviews. We r [sic] reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn’t based on today’s venom.” It was sent by the founder of the Agency, John Redner, who later returned to Twitter to apologize. It turned out he was too late to stop his company losing the contract.

Earlier this year, car company Chrysler fired New Media Strategies after one of their employees, who was being paid to tweet on Chrysler’s behalf, used the f-word in a tweet from Chrysler’s account, thinking they were signed in to their personal account.

Chris Crawford, MD of BD Recruitment, thinks that the increasing importance of online reputation management could see more jobs being created for specialised social media analysts and reputation managers in coming years: “One person’s slip up could see multiple people losing their jobs and business’s going under. The appointment of social media reputation managers could become commonplace in organisations, as the glare of Twitter and Facebook increases.” BD Recruitment specialises in digital marketing recruitment, including social media jobs. Click here for our latest jobs.