Facebook’s new design “Timeline” and Google Plus’ neat organization and visual impact have given it users something to talk about. Twitter has decided to follow its competitors’ strategies and give its users something to talk about as well. The social network has unveiled a new set of changes and modifications in its design.

The new design, dubbed Fly Twitter, proposes a new and fresh design for its users. The slogan, which appears on twitters official site (http://fly.twitter.com/index_en.html), portrays the new design by saying: ”Yours to discover. A faster, simpler way to stay close to everything you care about.” Although not yet publicly available, it will be introduced in the coming weeks to its 300 million users.

The new design will basically consist of four areas: Home, Connect, Discover and Me. According to Twitter, the Discover Page will be one of the most significant since it will expose trending topics and popular discussions that are being discussed around the web. On the other hand, the Connect area will be the platform where everything that users do–such as mentions, retweets and followers–will be placed.

These changes have clearly developed to grant the social media site a place in the market since its competitors have applied new designs too. ”Today we introduce a new version of Twitter. We’ve simplified the design to make it easier than ever to follow what you care about, connect with others and discover something new,” Twitter said in a post on its official blog.

“What we’re announcing today is just the beginning. We now have a framework in place that we will quickly build and iterate upon to help users connect with whatever is meaningful to them.” New apps for iPhone, Android and TweetDeck have been released this Thursday, December 8.

Twitter’s new image will integrate a lot of simplicity and visual impact. The users will be able to count on an easier way to navigate through the the page, and newer applications with different page areas will offer something different.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0qqDy5BmYKE

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Many companies do not see complaints as an opportunity to get free consultation from customers that can solve problems and make their services better for free. It could be that they cannot accept the fact that one unsatisfied customer makes a much greater impact on the image of one brand than the ones who are satisfied and how important it is to have a serious focus in changing these problems.

Companies should be aware about word-of-mouth, but now there is the much more powerful channel: word-of-mouse. Social networks such as Twitter — with more than 100 million active users updating more than 50 million times per day – are the perfect environments to complain and companies should seize this opportunity to gain valuable information about their image.

The advantages of listening and give attention to the complaints are open a channel for a good relationship with customers and increase loyalty, improve the image of the company, use as an assessment regarding performance and quality, study of the market and to be open to what customers want, and to be fast in innovation.

One crucial factor on the complaint management is the time to decrease the amount of dissatisfaction of one customer and turn him as soon as possible to a marketing positive compound. Twitter can became a tool to the companies and help not just in discover what people are talking about as help about the time factor and accelerate the process of a solution.

Companies in Brazil are giving a good example because companies are taking around 5 minutes to 2 hours to answer customers who complains in twitter , much more faster than using the foundation to protect customer – the “faster” way which use to take at least one month.

The US in other hand is wasting their opportunity. Around 70% of companies are ignoring customer complaints on twitter  and consequently losing chances to put their companies and brands to the front of others’ minds in a positive way.

Here are a few tips for companies to use Twitter as an efficient way to develop a good complaint management system:

• Team: The Company must be a team prepared to deal with complaint and with enough power to reach a balance between  company/customer interests and have enough powder to create solutions. Make customers talk and in the end do not have the powder to solve make him talk with one person, after to another, after with the manager, and the director just increase the level of irritation;
• Open the eyes: search who is talking about your company and what they are saying;
• Open the “voice”: contact the person in order to understand the dissatisfaction and open the relationship. Be polite and show empathy. Be aware that there are much more people watching this “conversation”.
• Give possibilities for solutions and show interest. It is also important remember that customers sometimes can abuse and this is not acceptable, but if the company shows their face in environments such as Twitter, others will understand.
• Time: all of this must happen quickly, and it is also related to the quality of the personal responsible for this task.
• 140 characters: remember the power of these characters in both sides: customer to the Companies and Companies to the customers.

The market has changed a lot. Before it was a few companies and a lot of customers with high level of loyalty, nowadays the reality shows a lot of companies and customers with no loyalty that are full of power to impact the network. The complaint management system must reach dissatisfied customers wherever they are, and for sure, a lot of them in Twitter.

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Social Media continues to expand around the world and impact it, in its own way. In Guatemala, e-Marketing didn’t start picking up until about 3 to 4 years ago and it wasn’t only until about a year and a half to two years ago that agencies started to develop social media strategies.

After seeing some of the success from local companies, restaurants started taking advantage of it, to get their share of the market. It continues to expand throughout the years, with Facebook being the biggest social media platform utilized in Guatemala today. With only 2.5 million people with access to the internet in Guatemala, 1.6 million people have a Facebook account.

However, before Facebook, hi5 was considered one of the most popular social networking sites. In 2008 hi5 had 12,831,000 Latin American unique visitors ages 15 and up, while Facebook had only 7,711,000. MySpace became very big 2 years ago. According to comScore, social media has always been huge in Latin American countries. They are heavy internet users and mainly use the internet as a way to communicate with others.

According to Enrique Parros of TPP Emarketing, Twitter is a Social Media platform that is starting to grow in Guatemala and the reason for this growth is that mobile phones are becoming more easily attainable. The demographic segment in Guatemala that is currently active on twitter is mostly made up of kids, but 24- 35 year olds are starting to pick up on Twitter. This is why twitter is still an educational process in Guatemala.

The main social media Platform used for marketing in Guatemala is currently Facebook, due to the high concentration of people logged into Facebook. Facebook, to TPP Emarketing, is a great way for consumers to communicate with a brand. It is also a great way for people to interact with the brand, which will later help them to decide the future of the brand, and where it is heading. Another way Facebook is being used in Guatemala is as a focus group.

One major success story for TPP Emarketing is from the Facebook page Claro, which has 264,196 likes on Facebook. Gallo was also another great example of how successful Facebook was in helping to boost sales. In April of 2011, Gallo had about 90% of the market share in the country.

TPP Emarketing works with so many brands, such as Claro, P & G, and McDonald’s, that it would be hard to manage each account separately. This is why they use Hootsuite. It is a service used to manage social media accounts on one dashboard. With Hootsuite, companies like TPP E-marketing can manage their Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Foursquare and myspace accounts at once, and even schedule posts for later dates.

E-marketing is still growing in Guatemala, and for some it is still a learning experience, but digital marketing is always growing and expanding. Agencies are starting to pick up on it and take advantage of the marketing tools that are accessible. Some of the services offered today are SEO marketing, Public Relations, E-Mobile, Social Media and E-Advertising.

Digital marketing may be growing but TPP E-marketing understands the importance of utilizing it in their marketing campaigns and strategies.

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Where are the children who play hide and seek in the streets, fly kites, jump ropes, ride bicycles, play with dolls and cars, spend hours building a Lego’s castle during their childhoods’ golden age? They are no longer easily found in the outside areas around their neighborhoods.

Instead, infants are hiding themselves and replacing their group activities on a sunny day for more and more solitary pleasures under their home roofs. One in four Brazilian children uses the Internet, according to research done by the Comitê Gestor da Internet (CGI), the Internet Manager Committee.

In the same report, the group reported that 90 percent of children surf the web to play video games and do homework. Video games, especially Internet games, are holding children’s attention who stare at a computer screen for hours and hours.

Children are also becoming familiar with modern technologies, such as smartphones that allow users to access the Internet just by touching the screen with a finger. They can download games on their phones, and play for long periods, which can represent a regression in their social activities and developments.

The research showed that 42 percent of the children, from five to nine years old, access internet from their homes, and 29 percent of them usually are by themselves when they use of it. Contradictory to previous studies that showed more children in the 13-18 age group used social media, research shows that one third of the children from five to nine years old are engaged in social media.

The most common websites used in Brazil are Orkut, Facebook, and Twitter. While kids are spending their times in social media, adults are not engaging themselves as much on the same websites. According to the website vagas.com.br, which receives résumés and job applications online, out of the 54,000 resumes registered, 8 percent of 30-34 year olds have a profile on Facebook, 9 percent use Twitter, and 11 percent use LinkedIn.

For people older than that, the estimate is even lower, with only 4 percent that use of Twitter, and 5 percent that use LinkedIn and Facebook. The general social media public is made up of those under 24 years old. Adolescents use Twitter the most at 44 percent, Facebook at 43 percent, and LinkedIn at 25 percent.

Brazilian social media users are not balanced in numbers. Children and teenagers use the technologies because they grew up in an environment surrounded by the innovations. Now adults and the elderly are following online trends by trying to insert themselves in the same environment.

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Social Media Today dedicates itself to understanding and studying the complexity of new media in our societies. This innovative website, gathers professionals from all around the world, forming a comprehensive community on the dwelings of social networking, advertising, publicity and other subjects.

A recent article by Barry Hurd, a speaker on online business practices, gives insight on the top five questions business owners must ask to completely understand social media policies and how to work with them to their advantage. They often rely on traditional human resources tactics and forget that they too can manage their workers by using online channels.

Who owns it?  Hurd brings up the important question: if employees are authorized to post online during work hours or if they must do so as a part of their job, who truly owns the company’s social media policy? Owners should take into account that a laid-off employee can easily take a firm’s mailing list and all of its contacts, causing hundreds of dollars in damages.

One must make proactive decisions regarding online communication and the owner must make sure his or her is its leader and the head of a social channel hierarchy.

Do you have access to all your social accounts 24/7? This topic is also related to leadership and control. One must be in complete control of the communication hierarchy to ensure that there are no leaks and that all of the company’s assets are protected.

Have you identified mission critical paths? Hurd said that a vast array of processes for a social media policy need special supervision, and some have particularities that must be taken into account. Barry Hurd singles out sales, marketing, security breaches, employee/client privacy, investor relations, regulatory concerns, among others:

“Each of these communication processes have mission critical elements that are accelerated by social media usage. In many cases the most immediate requirement is the management of fast and effective communication for senior managers and executive leadership.

In the world of social media policy, many mid-management employees feel they are doing the ‘right thing’ and are unfortunately trying to make decisions in an area of business that they are acting blindly in.”

Are you monitoring your employees for rogue communications? What should you do when an employee disrespects you or a company client? This is a very delicate matter which must be settled using sensible criteria and one must be very careful of its consequences; they could potentially violate someone’s civil rights and liberties.

And finally: Does it influence hire/fire decisions? This question takes into consideration the legal requirements of firing someone based on a comment they made in a social communication channel.

One must take into account the legal precedents involved in such cases, and according to the National Labor Relations Board, ”Our review of cases found many specific policies alleged to be overbroad, including those that restrict discussion of wages, corrective actions and discharge of co-workers, employment investigations, and disparagement of the company or its management.”

They have “only just begun to address these many important issues, and it is, of course, hard to speculate as to how the Board will rule as these cases develop and whether those decisions will withstand judicial scrutiny. It is hoped that this survey can assist employers and counsel identify issues with which they should be aware as they grapple with the application of labor law to employee use of social media.”

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The importance of social media in Turkey has increased considerably in recent years, which in turn has led to a mounting interest in the phenomenon and its overall impact on the Turkish society. Sharing her opinions on the matter, Gulay Ozkan, a Turkish internet and mobile entrepreneur, suggests that the increasing popularity of social media is mainly to do with the large percentage of young people in the country’s current population.

Different types of social media, such as Facebook or Youtube, can indeed be very appealing to young people all over the world. Turkey is a country where 70 percent of the population is actually under 35 years of age, a fact that makes her explanation both valid and rational. “Social Media is a very hot topic at the moment as it brings freedom to a culture that traditionally is shy”, Gulay says.

She lays emphasis on the idea that social media offers free and open communication, which is perhaps the aspect that appeals the most to young Turkish users. Currently, the most popular social network in Turkey is Facebook. The popularity of the well-known networking website rose to such an extent that Turkey has now become the fourth largest nationality on Facebook in the world.

However, Twitter and personal blogs have also gained popularity recently. Turkey’s mobile penetration is larger than internet penetration, which is an immediate consequence of people’s using mobile phones to access their favorite social networks. Gulay also predicts that this trend will grow even more in the future.

Increasing internet censorship is still a problem in Turkey, a situation that has led to numerous protests organized by youth groups. Although some networks such as Youtube may still be banned there, the restriction does not seem to prevent young Turkish people from freely accessing it by using DNS switching and other proxy settings.

This can be interpreted as a sign that the population is ready and wishes to open up to the new form of communication. In fact, it has been this extensive use of social media which have allow Turkey to join the global community. Information spreads far easier and faster via different kinds of social media outlets than via traditional media or educational platforms.

The importance of social media also extends to Turkey’s public relations campaign. There are many instances when international public opinion on Turkey have been shaped and influenced through the use of social media, which should propel the country to engage more in the use of social media as a means of promoting its own image.

One such example is the case of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan abruptly leaving a panel discussion on Gaza with Israeli president Shimon Peres in 2009. His gesture received a lot of media attention. At the time, hundreds of thousands visited Youtube to watch the video of the Prime Minister. Links of the video began to be circulated via Facebook, fan groups and other web applications were launched, all of them carrying the name of Erdogan.

The politicization of social media in Turkey is becoming more and more obvious. Many analysts recognize the role social media is starting to play in politics. “For the past two years, as the political environment has become more severe, the political weight of social media has increased,” Ozgur Uckan, a professor at Bilgi University, said in an interview discussing the relation between social media and politics in contemporary Turkey.

“Blogs on the one hand and social media on the other have begun transforming into a political agora, a forum space,” he added. However, the politicization of social media is seriously threatened by internet censorship. Besides Youtube, many other websites, such as Blogger, have also been banned in Turkey. This phenomenon has led to the foundation of groups such as “Don’t Touch My Blog”

Moreover, national protests have been organized in reaction to the government’s attempts to impose internet censorship. Such is the case of the national, multi-locational protests that took place on May 15 in response to legislation planned to impose filters on internet access.

“I think we will see more of these sorts of interactions in the future,” says Yaman Akdeniz, a law professor at Bilgi University, who also added that political parties themselves have begun using social media in their campaigns.
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Have you ever wondered if you are being watched when you use your social media or your mobile phone? The recent Retrevo Gadgetology study discovered that a lot of snooping and tracking goes on among people who know each other.

In other words, strangers are not the only people who collect personal information without your knowledge — also your intimates spy on you in secrecy. You would be surprised to know how regularly your parents, date or spouse read your emails or text messages or even track your comings and goings.

The study, which surveyed more than 1,000 online users, found that the percentage of spouses and parents who admit to digital snooping is significant and among romantic relationship – on the rise.

In the Retrevo Gadgetology study, more than a third of respondents, 33%, admitted that they have at least once checked their partner’s email or call history without his or her knowledge. The number for married couples is slightly more with 37% of married respondents admitting the same.

Parents, however, are the worst online snoopers. The number is highest among parents of teenagers with 60% snooping on their kids and possibly for good reason since 14% of those parents reported they found evidence that supported their concern.

Not only is snooping on emails, text messages and call history more common today but smart phones with built-in tracking technology make it easier for a suspicious partner or parent to secretly track their loved ones.

The majority of parents claim that they don’t have a problem with tracking their children’s location with a cell phone service or other device. Especially mothers are prone to snooping, accounting for 64% while fathers make up 53%.

Additionally, Retrevo researchers stated that when they looked at the data from their study conducted a year ago, they were surprised to learn that snooping had increased across the board. Overall, the number of people less than 25 years of age who check their boyfriend or girlfriend ’s personal digital correspondence rose from 38% last year to 47% this year.

Plus, women are more likely to admit to snooping than men.  For 2011, the number of women saying they check their partner’s phone-calls, emails, and text message without them knowing is 35%, whereas the percentage of men who do the same account for 30%.

Ultimately, while the government is busy crafting legislation to protect our privacy and prevent companies such as Apple and Google from tracking our online activities, the Retrevo Gadgetology study show that consumers may have just as much to fear from people they know.

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