Mediaboss Marketing

This article first appeared in issue 230 of .net magazine the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers.

A universal problem for anyone using social media to build their profile or raise awareness of a product or service is deciding where to focus their efforts. People tend to start with the most well known, i.e. Facebook or Twitter, or they set up profiles on lots of different platforms and then struggle to keep them updated. This is what I would call a tools first approach and it should be avoided if you want to get the best out of your social media activity.

There are two problems with this approach. First, youre making an assumption that your target audience is actually using the platform. And second, if you are working with a small team, or on your own, its going to be a struggle to keep all of your profiles and pages effectively updated.

Before you do anything, start with your objectives; what are you trying to achieve? Do you want to drive traffic to your site? If so, which page do you want to drive them to? Or maybe you want to use social media to help drive new business enquiries or to position yourself as an expert in a particular subject.

Being clear on what youre trying to achieve will make it much more likely that you will be successful. You should then spend some time defining your target audience by doing research into where, online, is the best place to reach them. Once youve taken these steps, it may be clear that in terms of reaching your target audience and achieving your goals, having a Facebook page, for example, is not necessarily the best use of your resource.

The most usual malfunctions in social media arent the high-profile fails, where an intern tweets something inappropriate, or a company does something wrong and finds itself trending on Twitter. Much more common are the times a company or individual sets sail into the world of social media, with the idea of setting the world alight, only to return home with a bruised ego after failing to register on anyones radar. A bit of work before you set off will make all the difference.

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Choosing your social network

LONDON, July 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Event Details Announced, Including a Keynote Presentation by Julien Codorniou, Facebook's Head of European Partnerships

Rising Media and WebMediaBrands, producers of the Social Gaming Summit, today announced details of this year's event on 15 November in London. Social Gaming Summit (SGS) is the only conference which fuses mobile gaming, immersive worlds, real-life brands and social networking. http://www.mediabistro.com/socialgamingsummit/

The third annual Social Gaming Summit is the must-attend event for media owners, games developers and anyone involved in the games, mobile, social media and entertainment markets. SGS features presentations, lively panels and engaging discussions on the convergence of gaming and the social web from business visionaries and pioneers who are driving the industry forward.

Social Gaming Summit - London will take place at - 200 Aldersgate, St Pauls, London, EC1A 4HD.

Julien Codorniou, European head of gaming partnerships for Facebook, will kick off the event with the morning keynote presentation. Julien supports the development of the local gaming ecosystem for companies including Wooga, King.com, Social Point and IsCool Entertainment.

"Social games received more than $800 million is funding last year, which has fuelled the gaming industry, with developers pushing to inject compelling social interaction and engagement into every game they create," Matthew Finlay, CEO of Rising Media. "The stakes are high and there is a greater need for mastering the business and technology of successful social and mobile games. The Social Gaming Summit unites established industry leaders, along with emerging start-ups, all leading the charge in this very exciting industry."

Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit

Delegates who register for the Social Gaming Summit will also be able to attend Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit, which will be co-located at 200 Aldersgate, St Pauls. Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit will focus on the emerging smartphone and tablet games industry. The conference features an intensive programme of presentations and panel discussions from leading experts in game design and monetisation strategies. For further information, please visit http://www.mediabistro.com/smartphonegamessummitlondon/

Register before 14 August 2012 to take advantage of the lowest-available super early bird rates: http://www.mediabistro.com/socialgamingsummit/register.asp

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Social Gaming Summit, London 2012

Ascension Parish Major Kevin Hanna reports the Sheriffs Office was called to a Gonzales home on Thursday, July 5, 2012, at 2 am to investigate a juvenile runaway case.

A preliminary investigation identified the runaway as a 13 year old female. Authorities discovered that the 13 year old left the home and left with an unknown male subject in a blue four door truck. The parents were alerted that their daughter was possibly headed out of state with an unidentified 40 year old man, Hanna said.

During the course of the investigation the Sheriffs Office utilized a number of resources, including assistance from the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriffs Office, U. S. Marshal Service, FBI, Louisiana State Police. The investigation revealed the 13 year old received a call on her cell phone just before she ran away. That cell number was identified as belonging to a Michael Long. With limited information on Long, investigators began a process of elimination as they located a number of Michael Longs in their data base.

And emergency order was obtained on the13 year olds cell phone which permitted the cell phone company to provide several key pieces of information. One piece of information confirmed the phone belonged to a Michael Long. A second piece of information revealed that the 13 year olds phone was shown to be in Baton Rouge area which gave the family and investigators hope that she was still local. The cell phone company also supplied investigators with recent text messages that documented communication between the 13 year old and Long.

A Sheriffs Offices forensic computer examiner had to break a password code to gain entry into the 13 year olds computer. Upon examining the computer it was discovered that the 13 year old posed as an adult and visited a number of adult dating sites and also entered members only sites where she had dialogue with members. The sites included explicit sexual activity in addition to dating services. At this point of the investigation the examiner is still attempting to identify where the 13 year old and Long had dialogue on the computer.

By mid afternoon of July 5 investigators narrowed their suspect list down to Michael Long of 4530 Sunny Brook Avenue Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Research revealed that Long was not a registered sex offender although he has a criminal history consisting of domestic abuse battery, 2nd degree battery, assault and resisting arrest. Unknown to Ascension Parish authorities, as they was preparing to proceed to Longs Baton Rouge home the family received a call from a relative who had just convinced the 13 year old, by phone, to be picked up from the Sunny Brook home.

The 13 year old was transported to the Sheriffs Office where she admitted to being picked up by Long and taken to his home in Baton Rouge. Ascension Parish investigators, assisted by East Baton Rouge Sheriffs Office, proceeded to the Sunny Brook home where Long was taken into custody. He was transported to the Ascension Parish jail where he confessed to picking the 13 year old up and having consensual sex with her. He is currently in Ascension Parish jail and charged with 2nd degree kidnapping and contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile. Pending further investigation Long will face possible charges in East Baton Rouge Parish.

The 13 year old is currently in the St. James Youth Detention Center on a juvenile status offense of being ungovernable (runaway). Her fate will be determined pending a hearing in juvenile court.

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Social networking leads to arrest for kidnapping

By Roger Dobson

PUBLISHED: 16:19 EST, 14 July 2012 | UPDATED: 16:19 EST, 14 July 2012

Internet use has been blamed for mental health problems and social isolation among young people but new research suggests that silver surfers are less likely to suffer depression.

The study, based on a survey of almost 8,000 men and women aged over 50, shows that regular users of social-networking sites are almost a third less likely to be diagnosed with depression compared with non-users.

It is known that rates of depression increase with age. Research from the University of Illinois found the incidence of depression was at its lowest around the age of 45, and highest among the over-80s.

Silver surfer: Regular users of social-networking sites are almost a third less likely to be diagnosed with depression compared with non-users

Prevalence increases from five per cent at the age of 70 to 13 per cent at 85.

Loneliness, social isolation and lack of emotional support are among the reasons for the trend.

In the new study the biggest so far on the health effects of internet use among older people participants were asked whether they regularly used the internet and were then assessed for mental illness.

Our findings suggest that internet use has a positive effect on depression, says Dr Shelia Cotten, who led the research at the University of Alabama and other centres.

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Over 50s who regularly use social networking sites less likely to suffer with depression

Darrin Underwood's father died from cancer 25 years ago, but he still thinks about him each day. And while Facebook didn't exist when his father was alive, his memory now lives on there.

Underwood created a memorial page on Facebook for his father through Evertalk, a new Facebook app. It's one of the burgeoning services that have launched in recent years to cater to the digital afterlife, that is, all that happens online after a person passes away.

The Internet, after all, continues ticking. More than 300 million photos are uploaded to Facebook daily. Some 340 million tweets are sent each day. But what happens to the photos and tweets after the person who created them dies?

Evertalk - as well as 1000memories and about 30 to 40 other startups - are trying to respond to that thorny question. Many offer a way to remember and honor the person online, so friends and family can write messages and share photographs in a digital memorial. Others look after a person's digital assets, such as their e-mail and social media accounts and passwords. And some online services enable people to send pre-written messages to their friends and family years after their deaths.

"We've had this huge shift happen. This physical world has become a very digital world. Elements of our lives are now digital," said John Romano, a researcher and co-author of the book "Your Digital Afterlife" and the blog "The Digital Beyond."

Take Facebook again. With more than 900 million users on the social network, it has become the destination to share, rant and rave. But at some point, a person's Facebook timeline ends. San Francisco's Evertalk wants to be there to pick up where it left off.

"We are using Facebook as a story of our digital life, but what happens after you die?" said Evertalk founder Russ Hearl. Evertalk "picks up where the Facebook timeline ends."

Hearl said he was inspired to start Evertalk a few months ago after a friend passed away and he only heard about it a few weeks later on Facebook.

Online memorial sites have been around for years, but Evertalk takes the trend to Facebook. It notifies friends and family on the network about the person's death and allows them to upload and share photos, write messages, make donations and send announcements about the memorial, without having to go to another website and create a new user name and password.

Underwood, who works in technology sales in San Jose, created the page for his father a few weeks ago and plans to share it with some of his friends and family on Facebook. So far, he's uploaded a few photos and written a biography about his father. In the future, he'd like to share it with his children.

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Death doesn't stop social networking