"the rise of suggested content tools has shifted the balance between conversation and link-sharing, and in so doing has diminished the value of the links that get shared... a tweeted link no longer reflects any curation or judgment on their part; it may well be something that was found for them rather than by them. Nor is it a sign that they’ve…

Twitter’s editorial team (made of real, live humans) will define the big stories of the day, and will package tweets, images, and video to explain what’s going on. Those packages will be the primary unit of Twitter, and will be embeddable all over the Internet.... With this change, Twitter doesn’t have to look like an endlessly flowing, context…

I've broken down all of the major algorithm changes that have occurred over the past 2 years... - The Ultimate Guide to Facebook News Feed Changes... and How They Impact YOU!

"...after this Spring’s most recent NewsFeed algorithm updates is that Facebook Pages—the ones used by businesses—are generating appalling user engagement rates... work-arounds ... mostly involve investing even more resources into Facebook ... more money devoted to advertising to fans brands have already paid to acquire in the first place." …

the social network will share analytics, and Instant Articles is compatible with audience measurement and attribution tools... won't receive preferential treatment from Facebook's News Feed sorting algorithm... Facebook will parse HTML and RSS to display articles with fonts, layouts, and formats ... also providing vivid media options like embe…

I’ve broken down all of the major algorithm changes that have occurred over the past 2 years... Read on for your ultimate guide to Facebook news feed changes... - The Ultimate Guide to Facebook News Feed Changes... and How They Impact YOU!

Business-focused, but a lot of clear thinking for government communicators as well. Particularly like: "Certainly we have more conversations with more people but is that a sign of success? ... Until social media marketers get over themselves, and businesses start to integrate online conversations – and the tools and people that manage them …

"3M – the company that makes Ace bandages, Scotchgard, and Post-it notes... is succeeding on Twitter.... This is not Beyonce or Lady Gaga. 3M is not political. There are no professional NBA employees employed by the company... And yet 121,000 people follow it. " - Boring Brands Can Crush Social Media...And 5 Other Things You Can Learn From 3M -…

"Bloggers aren’t journalists or employees – they’re independent souls who have built a following by keeping their readers interested, amused and engaged. They don’t like to be controlled or deceived, and they definitely don’t like you to waste their time. Forgetting this will get you into trouble" - 6 Do's And Don'ts Of Blogger Outreach

"... suggests articles to its users ... and then lets users schedule and share those links across LinkedIn and Twitter... [aimed at] marketing professionals... with story suggestions letting them stay active even when they have no links of their own to share, and analytics ... create specific topic areas to track ... also coopting a company’s la…

"In an increasingly crowded news feed, Facebook’s algorithm updates can make it tough for brands to get much notice.... We’ve been scouring the web to find ... all the tactics, new additions and post types you need to know today."

"Interested in checking EU content on Twitter, Facebook and the rest? Use this search tool to find social media accounts with EU input." - EUROPA – Social networks and the EU

"Images with text over them ... do make a post more enticing to your followers or friends... Buffer's Pablo, which creates these images, out of beta." - Buffer Officially Launches its Image Creation Tool Pablo

"the Internet has dismantled newspaper’s geographic monopoly & business model ... & also upended the core assumptions underlying the actual journalism ... BuzzFeed as an organization has been figuring out what works online for over eight years now, and while “The Dress” may have been unusual in its scale, its existence was no accident... BuzzFee…

An article aimed at companies, so just substitute "government communicators" for "corporate marketers", and "citizens" for "consumers", as you read: "Technology changes fast ... but consumer behavior changes more slowly. As a result, people tend to overhype new technologies and misallocate resources, especially marketers. "posts from top brands …

"we wanted an easy way to create and share social cards with our readers... Vox Media’s ‘meme’, an open source social card making tool. A few hours of tinkering later, and we had our own version set up with some simple functionality, along with a new name: CardKit.... a simple and easy to use tool for everyone to quickly and dynamically create im…

"Twitter video allows users to post up to 30-seconds of video clips directly to Twitter... expect to see videos from live events and breaking news coverage ... also presents an opportunity for marketers to create unique content in a variety of ways..." Most intriguing suggestion: "Crowd-Sourcing Video Content" - Twitter Launching Video and Grou…

"people keep asking about how to start a personal brand... without having a clear understanding of what comes before that, which is actually knowing something about something... To position yourself as an expert is difficult, but most people aren’t asking the first important question, which is: expert in what? ... You have to earn the privilege…

"Starbucks’ first-ever brand campaign, Meet Me at Starbucks ... showcases stories of how people use Starbucks as a meeting point, with an emphasis on the idea that technology brings us together, but there’s nothing quite as authentic as an in-person cup of joe. ... an incredible job of striking an emotional connection with people by associating t…

"reach is an easy-to-see vanity metric and not what you should be focusing on.... Facebook Insights provides some handy numbers, but the most useful ones are somewhat hidden." - 6 tips on Facebook analytics and going beyond...

"Considering these difficulties it is, at best, disingenuous and at worst, fraudulent to claim that findings of such social media analyses are what “people think” " - Representation and the true value of social media data in an election | Gareth Ham | LinkedIn

"Rather than publishing and aggregating news on a central site, the idea is to take the information to existing communities on the web — distributed journalism... The specific focus is on providing context around breaking stories ... the number of sources and reporters on the story grew quickly over a number of days. That created challenges in se…

"Here’s a brief summary of a few questions we like to ask ourselves when testing. - Which one thing will you be testing? - What metric will be my best measurement of success? - Do I have enough data to assume this result will be true and repeatable for everyone?" Provides 10 top tests for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and G+.

Begins with a beautiful rant on technology's tyranny in individual and collective life: "Journalistic institutions slowly transform themselves into silent sweatshops in which words cannot wait for thoughts, and first responses are promoted into best responses, and patience is a professional liability... Digital expectations of alacrity and ters…

Here's a conundrum for you. And a probably quite dangerous post for me.

Fairly typical piece on integrating social media into organisations to improve customer service, employee productivity and sales. These points have been made before, but this article brings them together well and provides plenty of links to the underlying research, which makes it useful if you need to supporting arguments for change management. -…

"Here are 14 of some of the most recent changes to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+ and Instagram that social media marketers can benefit from."

Good overview of the year+ - long debate about comments, trolls & social media, "from the baby-and-the-bathwater dept ... This sudden disdain for traditional comments raises the question: is Facebook somehow immune to stupid comments? Is forcing all news conversation on to Facebook's terms really an improvement in meaningful dialogue?... It's lik…

" four ways to use visual content to expand your reach and improve social media results" Pretty standard stuff, but "3. Convresation starters" should be used more. - How to Use Visual Content to Improve Social Media Results

"we’re collecting all the Facebook algorithm factors, updates, and changes that we can find and placing them here in this post for easy reference." - Inside the Facebook News Feed: A List of Algorithm Factors