• Today Is Social Media Day! Also, Is Facebook Evil?
    Hey, have you ever thought that social media just doesn't receive enough attention nowadays? I know I have! That's why it was so important for Mashable to declare June 30 Social Media Day back in 2010, so that we can all take a little bit of time off of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat and meet up face to face to celebrate the contributions that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat have made to our lives. But I'm still waiting for Telephone Day.
  • More Home Buyers Turning to Social Media
    Social media is playing a bigger role in home-buying decisions, with over three quarters of homebuyers using it during the process of searching for and buying a home, up from 52% in 2011, according to a new survey of homebuyers by the California Association of Realtors.
  • More Employers Rejecting Candidates Because of Social Media
    It's no secret that an unflattering social media profile can torpedo your job search and indeed your whole career, and new data from a survey of employers by CareerBuilder confirms that more employers are passing on candidates because of ill-judged social media content.
  • Teens Using Facebook More, Not Less, Forrester Finds
    All the talk about teenagers abandoning Facebook (which I have contributed to in previous posts) may be overblown or indeed just plain wrong, according to a new report from Forrester Research, titled "Facebook Dominates Teens' Social Usage: Why the Sky Isn't Falling on the World's Favorite Social Network."
  • Half of Calls to UK Police Concern Social Media Threats
    Calls reporting threats, bullying, and harassment on social media now make up "at least half" of the calls that British police receive every day, according to the BBC, which quoted Chief Constable Alex Marshall, head of Britain's College of Policing, as saying: "As people have moved their shopping online and their communications online, they've also moved their insults, their abuse and their threats online."
  • Social Media Doesn't Affect Most Users' Purchase Decisions
    A clear majority (62%) of American consumers who use social media says it has "no influence at all" on their purchase decisions, according to a new poll of over 18,000 U.S. adults conducted by Gallup. That compares to 30% who said it has "some influence," and just 5% who said it has a "great deal of influence."
  • Audience Size Affects What People Share
    People are more likely to share useful information including product recommendations with single individuals, and more likely to talk about themselves when addressing large groups, according to new research published in the June issue of American Marketing Association's Journal of Marketing Research. That's because their focus is on the other person in one-on-one interactions, but on themselves in interactions with groups.
  • Teens' Favorite Social Network: Texting
    Texting is far and away the most popular form of social media among teenagers, according to a survey of 7,000 graduating high school seniors conducted by Niche, a Web site that provides quality ratings and other information about schools (while some might quibble that texting isn't strictly a social medium, I would argue that between group texting, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and other permutations, the lines are so blurred it might as well be).
  • FBI Totes Savvy to Social Media Slang
    You might think your patter is subterranean to all us square adults, but the FBI is hip to that online jive you kids are using, daddy-o. In fact, the Feds have compiled an 83-page manual of social media slang to help agents and analysts figure out what the hell everyone is talking about online. The manual was obtained by MuckRock.com under the Freedom of Information Act.
  • FDA Finally Suggests Social Guidelines
    After glacial consideration, the Food and Drug Administration has finally suggested some guidelines for how pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers can use social media to market products and correct misinformation. Of course, they're just "draft" guidelines, so they're still not fully official, and don't hold the FDA to it, because they might change -- but at least they're there.
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