Facebook switches “Fans” for “Likes”

An Associated Press story tells us that Facebook will no longer use the term “become a fan of” in favour of the more colloquial and direct “like”. The terminiology change erases one of the few remaining distinctions between personal and brand interactions on the leading social network. It will be interesting to see if something as simple as more friendly language will increase consumer’s engagement with Facebook’s Fan pages.

Report issued on Social Media Ads that work best

Mashable summarizes a report from Psychster Inc. and AllRecipes that pitted various types of online ads against each other. Not surprisingly, there is a bit a gap between ad types that are good at selling (banner ads, emails) versus ads that are good at engagement (Corporate profiles with fan options and widgets). Read the executive summary here

YouTube Facelift

If YouTube seems a little bit different than the last few days, don’t worry it isn’t an April Fools joke (see below). Overall the video watching experience is a little less cluttered, but still has access to the same information as before via pulldowns. Most notably, we can say goodbye (and good riddance IMHO) to the 5 star rating system in favour of the simpler Like/Don’t Like model. According to MediaPost the re-design has increased time on site by 7% and increased video playback by 6%.

The Ten Plagues of Social Media

Social Media Insider writer David Berkowitz pushes a seasonal analogy a bit far with this one, when comparing the Plagues of Egypt to the top ten mistakes in social media. Personally, I can’t make the connection of how a plague of lice can be compared to campaign-based thinking, but most of the points are valid.