Facebook is currently testing out a new feature for brand pages. This feature will allow page admins to receive private messages from users. Any Facebook user will be able to send a private message to a fan page.

Facebook has just begun introducing this feature, making it only available in Asia for the time being.

If the feature proves its value, Facebook will hopefully make this new communication option available in other countries.

This feature will not be a way for brands to flood their fans with spammy communication. In fact, the social network has recently revoked admins’ ability to message their brand page fans. The new private messaging option will be an opportunity for fans to reach out directly to page administrators – only they will be able to initiate a private conversation with a brand.

Even if Facebook users have not “liked” a particular page, they will still have the ability to message the admins directly.

This new option will definitely benefit customer-centric brands, such as telecom companies, that have to respond to a lot of customer service questions and requests. Private messaging will help make those pages less cluttered. And brands will be able to deal with negative feedback outside of public space.

On the other hand, the new feature might cause the growth of brand pages might decrease, because customer-brand communication will no longer appear on public timeline and the Ticker. The organic reach of the brand page will decrease, driving less traffic of new visitors.

Another drawback of private messaging might be its availability to everyone. A lot of people (fans and non-fans) could start using it as the primary way of communication with a brand. Pages with thousands of followers might get flooded with messages from frustrated or angry clients and will have to answer each one of them individually.

While private messaging does provide a better customer service for clients, it might get overwhelming for fan page administrators and might require some extra help.

The private messaging feature will be completely optional, and if page administrators will decide not to use it, the will be able to easily opt out of it.

Recently, many social networks became more brand-focused in the last month – Google+ introduced brand pages back in November and Twitter launched a new look for company pages in the beginning of December.

Now Facebook is up to speed with everyone else. The only question is – does it care more about improving brands’ customer service or proving to Google+ and Twitter that it’s unbeatable?

Twitter rolled out new platform redesign that lets you discover, connect and share more easily. Twitter is now “yours to discover” and is a “faster, simpler way to stay close to everything you care about,” according to the website.

The timing for the new redesign seems right, especially with the buzz about Google+ brand pages and the updated Facebook subscriptions feature. It looks like Twitter’s new interface and features will be stirring many discussions in the next few weeks.

Redesigned Twitter app for iPhone and Android was available since yesterday, and the new website is now live.

The iPhone app interface looks a lot cleaner and does not feel as crowded, and it is easier to navigate in many ways.

Content discovery on Twitter is a big part of the new redesign, and even the beloved user-created hashtag got a new name – the “discover” tool.

Twitter tried to make the experience with the Discover button as customized as possible – the tool will show you the information based on your interests, location, the users and hashtags you follow and what is currently happening (and trending) in the world.

Unfortunately, the saved searches are now gone from the mobile app, but Twitter’s new ability to guess what hashtags and stories will interest you eliminates the need for those. According to the website, “as you use Twitter more, Discover gets even better at serving up more content just for you.” I wonder if it will rise privacy concerns later on…

Just like a relatively new activity feature on the Twitter website, the Connect button on the mobile app allows you to see all the interactions you have on Twitter in one place – new mentions, followers and retweets. Another neat redesign feature is the ability to see the whole conversation of replies before and after the tweet where you were mentioned.

Along with the new features, Twitter also rolled out new brand pages, according to Advertising Age. Brands will now have an opportunity to post large header images and decide to keep a particular tweet on the top of their page. Right now, Twitter is launching brand pages with only 21 marketers, including Coca-Cola, and hopefully the feature will soon be available to everyone.

How will new Twitter brand page help your business?

A few days ago, many people woke up to find a dramatic decrease in their Klout score.

Apparently, Klout decided that their scoring model wasn’t accurate enough (yes, because I am definitely not an influencer in beer).

Ironically, in Klout’s corporate blog post, Ash Rust, Klout’s director of ranking, assured us that “a majority of users will see their scores go up or stay same, but some users will see the drop.” If that was true, the user outrage probably wouldn’t be all over the web.

It doesn’t matter whether your Klout score is a solid 65 or dropped 20 points this week, you shouldn’t be worried. Social influence is a lot more than just a two-digit number.

To describe recent Klout algorithm changes, Ash Rust mentioned that social influence “is the ability to drive action and is based on quality, not quantity. When someone engages with your content, we assess that action in the context of the person’s own activity.”

Now, your Klout score is based on the amount of people you influence, how much you influence them, and how influential they are. In theory, that makes sense: your post will get a lot more views if retweeted by Justin Beiber vs. one of your friends from college with 10 followers.

How come Justin Beiber has the highest score when the majority of those he influences has an average Klout score of 11?

Social influence is, of course, an important metric to keep in mind. After all, it’s the influencers who are most likely to make our Facebook/Twitter campaign successful by sharing it with their followers. But your success in the realm of social media cannot be determined by that score alone, which might mean that those who organized the #OccupyKlout movement on Twitter might not be all that social media savvy.

Unfortunately, some job seekers applying for an entry level social media position might be in trouble, as some hiring managers still make decisions based on candidates’ Klout scores. Which means that there have to be more ways to wow them.

So, instead of stressing about your Klout score, here are some things you could do to really increase your social influence:

Has your Klout score affected your business or job search? Share your thoughts about Klout in comments!

According to this article on Mashable LinkedIn will be revamping one of its least used features: Groups. LinkedIn is adding likes, follows and discussions. This mash-up feature set are at the core of other social networking platforms: Facebook and Twitter.

What I think those who heavily use LinkedIn enjoy about the site is its simplicity and being able to understand it without all the clutter and noise/scaryness of Facebook and Twitter. They enjoy the “set it and forget it” rather than feeling like they need to be on the site for every waking moment.

One could argue that Groups should have been killed rather than added to in order to go back to the basics. Will these changes encourage users to jump in the pool and engage in conversation on the site or will this open the door for another jobs-based social networking site like jigsaw to steal their thunder? Watch the video below to peep the new feautures and let us know what you think.

A recent TV campaign for a new Motorola smartphone satirizes both the pervading silliness in new media messages (the category of communication that brought us OMG and LMFAO) and traditional media’s struggle to get hip to it.

A “serious” anchorman reads inane new media messages, such as, “This just in via text message and wall post: The search is on for cute boots.”

The commercial is funny because it exaggerates. We all know that the mainstream media is becoming more and more social all the time. Nary an article gets published online that doesn’t come with widgets to share it on Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit and a bevy of other sites — not to mention the comments section at the bottom.

And people turn to Twitter and Facebook to find out what news — local and global — their friends are discussing.

So what are the real differences between the news content that the MSM create and the news-like content of our tweets and status updates?

It turns out the Motorola commercial, while ridiculous, may not be that far off in concept.

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism gathered a year’s worth of data on the top news stories talked about on blogs, in YouTube videos and on social networking profiles, plus seven months of same on Twitter.

The study found that not only do trad. media and social media differ from each other, different social media platforms each have a different function and personality. For example, bloggers tend to talk about stories that elicit emotion and involve things like political ideologies. On Twitter, the majority of the news talk revolves around technology. YouTube’s news content is dominated by foreign (non-US) video.

Perhaps the most surprising thing PEJ found, however, is that social media covers what the press does not (emphasis mine).

[S]ocial media tend to home in on stories that get much less attention in the mainstream press. And there is little evidence, at least at this point, of the traditional press then picking up on those stories in response. Across the entire year studied, just one particular story or event – the controversy over emails relating to global research that came to be known as “Climate-gate” –  became a major item in the blogosphere and then, a week later, gaining more traction in traditional media.  

That’s it? Climate-gate? That’s all the blogosphere generated? I find that surprising. Perhaps if the PEJ surveyors had drilled down to a more local level, they would’ve found less division between the press and the people. Having worked at an alternative newsweekly half of the past decade (which, granted, is not really part of the so-called MSM), I know that we always kept a collective eye to our Facebook and Twitter feeds for newsworthy local developments.

But, in any case, PEJ found that when it comes to breaking national/global news, the biggest news companies still have the widest reach:

More than 99% of the stories linked to in blogs came from legacy outlets such as newspapers and broadcast networks. And just four – the BBC, CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post accounted for fully 80% of all links.

Find out what else this rather stunning report uncovered here. And if you were shocked (or not shocked) by the differences between the Fourth and er… Fifth(?) estates, shout it out in the comments.

We could gaze at things like this all day.

Information Architects, the web design group known for its famous Web Trend Maps — compelling visualizations of the most influential websites — has turned to social media for its latest infographic.

Called Cosmic 140 and resembling a star chart, the map shows the 140 most influential Twitter users. It’s still in draft mode as iA is soliciting Twitter follower suggestions for tweaks at @iA.

Get an up-close look by downloading it as a free PDF here.

The map is actually kind of a Big Bang of Twitter. The epicenter registers the first tweets by the three Twitter founders (Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone) on 3/21/2006, each one having written “just setting up my twttr.”

Like a universe exploding outward from a central point, the map shows adoption along a chronological field organized by category — entertainment, technology, politics, humor, business, etc — and showing each users’ first tweets. The white circle indicates list rank, and the darker gray circle shows follower volume.

A few observations…

Late 2008 through early 2009 seems to have been the age of celebrity adoption, with characters like Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Perez Hilton, Alyssa Milano and Ashton Kutcher hatching accounts.

And it looks like after the geeks, the biggest early adopters were news outlets. CNN, Reuters, NY Times, The Guardian and the WSJ had all jumped on in 2007. And they say the news media is behind the times!

All in all, an interesting picture of the Twitterverse.

Could you shut off all forms of communication in your life except for social media?

No phone, no texting, no email, not even talking. You’re pretty wired, and so are your friends. You probably even make a lot of your social plans through tweets and Facebook messages. And perhaps you communicate with your coworkers through IM.

But what if you could only communicate through those media?

In 2006, Clark Harris participated in a bike ride fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Using mainly direct mail, Harris raised more than $6,500 for the LLS.

On February 14, 2009, Harris’ mother died after a long battle with cancer. This year, Harris decided he wanted to raise money for the LLS again but that he wanted to try something different.

And so, @SilentClark was born.

Curious as to whether online fundraising was more effective than traditional methods, Harris created the persona of Silent Clark — an alter ego who communicates only through social media.

For the entire month of May, Harris will try to raise $100,000 for the LLS as Silent Clark, communicating with people — including his own family — only through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn, Google Chat and his blog. He cannot talk, write or send emails or SMS texts.

He’s calling it the Social Media Experiment. It’s designed to raise the money through small donations from thousands of individuals, specifically $5 from 20,000 people. But it’s also very much a sociological experiment.

In the face-to-face world, he tells Mashable, he carries around a card that says: I CAN’T TALK! Why? www.socialmediaexperiment.com — How can we communicate? You talk. I respond via Twitter @SilentClark.

That doesn’t help, of course, when it comes to conducting simple domestic business. We feel for Mrs. Silent Clark.

Fortunately, when it comes to the fundraising, Harris reports that right now he’s ahead of where he was by this time in the 2006 direct-mail campaign and that strangers have been donating, which didn’t happen the first time around.

Right now he looks to be at about $3,000. Help him out and drop a fiver at SocialMediaExperiment.com.

Last night, the one and only Conan O’Brien brought his Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television tour to Kansas City.

I didn’t think I would be going, but when an idle Twitter search for “conan kc” around 6 p.m. revealed that 200 $20 standing-room-only tickets had just been released for the sold-out show, I was soon in my car, headed toward downtown.

The tweet I caught had come from Aaron Bleyaert (@BigBley), Conan’s in-house blogger and online videographer, though the official @ConanOnTour account also broadcasted the news. Either way, Twitter would prove a theme for the evening. As people walked in to the Midland, they were greeted with a sign instructing them to use the hashtag #pender (in honor of O’Brien’s trumpeter Mark Pender) if they tweeted from the show.

Reluctant Social Media Celeb

In the months since Conan got booted from NBC by clueless executives, social media has played a huge part in raising the late show hero’s profile and powering his career forward. Though part of that was necessitated by the fact that his exit deal with NBC barred him from TV appearances for several months (hence the tour’s name), much of it was organic and fan-driven.

Unless your network consist of 50-year-old+ Leno fans, you probably remember the ubiquity of I’m With Coco logos on Facebook and Twitter. True fans surrendered their own identities, posting that Obamalike black-white-and-orange portrait of Conan as their avatar.

When @ConanOBrien appeared on Twitter in late February, his followership exploded overnight. A few weeks later, O’Brien made a clever comment on the arbitrary nature of Internet fame by announcing that he would choose someone at random to be the first person he would follow on Twitter. Soon, unsuspecting 19-year-old Michigan girl Sarah Killen was catapulted to minor online celebrity.

When Conan gets off the road and is safely installed at TBS, it will be interesting to see whether he and his team continue to exploit social media for publicity, connecting with fans and providing humorous content outside of the TV box.

So How Was the Show?

Alright, enough social media waxing. As for the show itself, it was pretty epic. Backed by his Tonight Show band, Conan played guitar, singing parody versions of “Poke Salad Annie” and “On the Road Again,” plus a straight-up cover of a rockabilly anthem for the encore (can’t remember the title). He brought out Andy Richter, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog (via videoscreen) and local boy Jason Sudeikis to join in the performance, which, overall, was like a live version of the TV show, audience interaction included.

Photo courtesy of @TVBarn.

They did a smart job of working in local elements, poking fun at the shuttlecock sculptures outside the Nelson-Atkins Museum and doing a fake commercial for storied KC strip joint The Shady Lady that had the audience howling.

Conan definitely connected with the audience, receiving opening and exiting ovations. At times, it resembled a political rally, and I have a feeling that’s by design.

However, for my tastes, there were too many bits about the NBC deal. I mean, I understand it must be traumatic, having network execs basically shoot your beloved show in the head with a Leno-shaped bullet, but audiences don’t necessarily want to dwell on it. Plus, the publicity surrounding Conan’s ouster and move to TBS are likely to make him a bigger star. Move on, Coco.

Also, on a minor note: the sound in the upper reaches of the Midland Theatre is terrible. I can’t complain too much about a $20 ticket bought at the last minute, but I understood only about three-quarters of what Conan was saying and almost none of intriguing opener Reggie Watts‘ vocals. Just keep that in mind next time you’re offered a GA ticket with “limited visibility” at the Midland.

Still, I’m thrilled that I got to see Conan live. The man is truly one of the era’s defining comedic personalities.

And I can probably say that last night was the single most valuable experience I’ve gotten because of Twitter.

Oh, and I nearly forgot: Twitter wasn’t the only social medium to play a role in last night’s event. When I got home from the Midland, I noticed an email informing me that I’d just received a Swarm badge on Foursquare — the virtual prize for being one of 50+ people to check into a place within three hours on the location-based network. As far as I know, this was the first Swarm badge awarded in Kansas City.

Mashable has the exclusive on the new Twitter “Business Center,” a special account setup designed specifically for businesses.

It’s analogous to the difference between a Facebook personal profile (for people) and a Page (for businesses, organizations, musicians, etc).

It looks like the Twitter business “toolkit” will come with a few optimizations for businesses that individuals don’t get, most notably the following:

1. Faster “verified account” status so your customers know it’s really you. This was a feature previously available only to famous Twitter users, such as .
2. The ability for customers to direct message you without you having to follow them first, which would enhance private communication between businesses and customers (i.e., keeping customer-service conversations out of the public stream).
3. Allowing multiple users to tweet from an account. (For those who haven’t figured out a workaround already, such as passing around the login credentials and going through a client such as HootSuite.)

There’s also some indication the new toolkit will let businesses flesh out the content of their main account page. And it looks like if you’re already using a Twitter account for your business, you’ll be able to add Business Center features with the click of a tab.

All in all, some nice little features. Though when it comes to Twitter, the important thing to focus on is the content of your messages, not the details of your account.

The real value — and challenge — the microblogging platform offers is the ability to communicate with people and tell your story in real-time on an open forum.

If you’re still baffled by Twitter, start here.

Or give us a call — we’re here to twelp.

Um… yeah.