Today for the first time, Facebook has started rolling out large adverts on their login screen. An interesting space for advertisers, no doubt worth a healthy sum of money.

A curious move after headlines this week reporting that Facebook reported its first quarterly revenue decline in two years, blaming seasonal advertising trends for its weaker than usual performance. Read the full article from Marketing Week Facebook: ‘revenue decline due to seasonal ad trends’

Although not popular among everyone, Facebook is changing at an incredible pace and we promise to keep you updated along the way.

You can find us on Facebook and Twitter for other social media and digital marketing news & updates.

Amazing new interactive “clickable” video tool allows you to add your own tags to people and objects in a video and wireWAX tracks it. You can also allow users to interact inside the video with a “find out more” feature, “buy-now” or even “watch extra content”.

The video was styled entirely by SSENSE, where you can shop Iggy’s, FKi’s and Diplo’s looks using interactive hotspot technology from wireWAX – every item featured is available to purchase directly through the video.

On April 26, Facebook will be updating the size of the profile picture on all Pages. They have sent out notifications recently to let you know about this small change in advance so that you can update your profile picture on April 26.

The new profile picture will be 160 x 160 pixels and will sit at 23 pixels from the left and 210 pixels from the top of the Page.

If you would like any help updating your Facebook profile image to fit in with the new dimensions as above they get in touch today. You can ring us on  0191 3867373 or email info@virtuoso.uk.com

www.virtuoso.uk.com

Thanks to greater image optimisation, faster download speeds and smarter loading methods, designers can now look forward to creating websites that blow viewers away with beautiful images – we just need to get that job for the redesign of the National Geographic site and we’re laughing…

by Glenn, Designer

The new changes to Google+ were launched mere weeks after Facebook rolled out its new timeline design to all business / brand pages at the end of March.  So what do the new changes offer Google+ users?

Like Facebook, Google+ is keen to create a personal user experience, enhancing the sharing process by bringing all of your life into 1 place but they just don’t seem to be different enough and so the struggle for domination continues.

Of course Facebook is still the social media king with an estimated 794,564,900 registered users and Google+ at 170m.

However, a clever article on The Register by Kelly Fiveash: 170m people ‘upgrade’ to Google+, but how many stick around? rightly points out that the stats claimed by Google+ should often be taken with a pinch of salt.

“Given that all new Google account signups are now automatically plonked into Google+, many of those new users won’t necessarily know that they can opt out of that “upgrade”. Add to that those people who were using Gmail and other Chocolate Factory services long before Google+ arrived, who may have had existing public profiles that they then used to take a quick look at Google’s latest attempt to do social networking – but who never went back.”

As a social media marketer, social media plays a big part in my life both socially and personally as well as the multiple social media channels and profiles that I manage for our clients at Virtuoso. This is why I can confidently say that Google+ does not work for me. It didn’t before the changes, although I was willing to give it a chance, but the new changes seem to move closer to what Facebook already does…and very well at that.

It’s nothing to do with a lack of understanding or a fear of newness, Google+ just does not offer users a newer experience to that of which is currently offered on Facebook. Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest all work in harmony alongside  Facebook because each experience is different.

I am now reluctant to log in to Google+ or any Google account with my personal log in, in the fear that I forget to log out as the feeling of exposure across their multiple platforms in daunting. With Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest, I feel comfortable sharing my world and that when I log out, my online experience is then drawn to a close… at least enough so to make me feel comfortable as a user.

By Joanne, Social Media Marketing Manager

With the recent changes that you have seen across Facebook with both business and personal profiles getting the new timeline design, Facebook is now updating the check-in numbers for pages.

They are revising check-in numbers on Facebook Pages to give a more accurate picture of how people are visiting a business or company. Among these changes, previously, if an individual checked into a business multiple times, each check-in was counted into a Facebook Page’s total check-in number. Now, if someone checks into a business multiple times within a 12-hour period, that action will be counted as one unique check-in.

In addition, when people tag their friends at a location and upload a photo, those photo tags will be counted more holistically. For example, if 20 photos were uploaded to an album at a specific location for an special event, Facebook will now only count that as a single check-in. If a user checks into a location and tags five friends in the photo they upload with their check-in, the total check-ins number will be six — The person who uploaded the photo plus the five people also tagged in the photo.

If you would like any further advice on the new changes to Facebook and what these mean to your business Facebook page, please get in touch and we will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Call the team on 0191 3867373 or email info@virtuoso.uk.com

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Due to their on-going compatibility issues With mobile phones and tablets (ok, Apple products) Adobe has confirmed they will no longer continue to develop their Flash Player to work with new mobile device configurations. This obviously doesn’t mean that Flash will disappear from our websites overnight, but it puts even more significance on the emerging HTML5 and CSS3 languages that designers will have to learn to get their animation fix…

by Glenn, Designer

Since I started working on websites in the late 90s, designers have been restricted to a limited number of system fonts that would guarantee that what they saw is what other users would see – thankfully that is changing (although copyright issues may still need to be resolved).

Here are a few of the main players that are making this possible:

Cufón consists of two individual parts – a font generator, which converts fonts to a proprietary format and a rendering engine written in JavaScript. The only downside I can see with Cufon is that the text isn’t selectable in the browser.

http://cufon.shoqolate.com/generate/

Typekit – for a small yearly fee, open-source fonts optimized for the web are available and are served through their own servers. Typekit has recently been acquired by Adobe.

www.typekit.com

Google – Like Typekit, Google shares it’s fonts over their own servers and they provide the code you need to upload to your website and thanks to Open Source licensing – they are free to use! Although there are hundreds of fonts available here, I’m not too convinced about the quality of some of the fonts – early days I suppose.

www.google.com/webfonts

@font-face – unfortunately they have now backed out of the market now that Google Fonts has entered the game using the same free hosted model.

www.font-face.com

Fontsquirrel – As well as allowing you to download hundreds of pre-packaged @font-face font kits, you can also upload your own fonts which it converts into multiple font formats, CSS and HTML code with its own generator tool.

www.fontsquirrel.com

by Glenn, Designer

The wave of Twitter spam bot attacks seem to drift in and out of the Virtuoso circle intermittently but time after time, people are falling for the same kind of spam message or tweet.  However, Twitter bots can be stopped, and by following these steps below, like us, you can help safely protect your Twitter account and never be invaded by the pesky little critters.

Recently we have noticed a whole host of company types and sizes updating their Facebook business page to the new timeline design. Some look great, with stunning cover photos and interesting milestones. However, we are also seeing an increase in the amount of business pages which are in breach of the new guidelines outlined by Facebook on the content type used in your cover photo.  Below is a breakdown of what not to have in your cover photo for your new Facebook business page:

• No contact information such as telephone number, web address, email address, mailing address, social media links e.t.c.
• No call to actions including the use of arrows directing people to like your business page or saying “get it now” or “tell your friends now”
• No price or purchase information including discount offers such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
• No references to share your business page or directions to like your page such as “like us now.”

Facebook recommend that you “use a unique image that represents your Page. This might be a photo of a popular menu item, album artwork or a picture of people using your product. Be creative and experiment with images your audience responds well to”.

Additionally, Facebook adds that… “all cover images are public, which means anyone visiting your Page will be able to see the image you choose. Covers must not be false, deceptive or misleading, and must not infringe on third parties’ intellectual property. You may not encourage or incentivize people to upload your cover image to their personal timelines.”

Facebook wants all information to be available to the public and not just to your Page’s “fans”. Any contact information you wish to add should be added to your “About” section.

 Need more information? Visit the Facebook Help Centre

We manage a number of Facebook pages for our clients so if you need any further tips or would like to ask any more questions about the new Facebook Timeline design, you can speak to the team on 0191 3867373. You can also email our Social Media Marketing Manager Joanne@virtuoso.uk.com

Don’t forget to visit our Facebook page to see our cover photo and how we are working around the new Facebook guidelines.

Post by Joanne, Social Media Marketing Manager