Has social media become the new media news source? Think about it. We see and look through thousands upon hundreds of thousands of statuses and tweets a day (depending on how

Traditional marketing just doesn't cut it anymore. Today's media is filled with Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Instagram, YouTube and the list goes on. Social media has become a playing field for witty comments, strategic ways to pull in customers without really "reeling them in" with salesy statuses, and promos etc. 

How are you using them? Do you like that Facebook has included hashtags? For a long time, some Facebook users have avoided including hashtags on Facebook because they did not want to combine the features of Twitter and Facebook - they were used separately on each platform and were not integrated - so what was the point? Facebook has now taken on hashtags, so all the rebels who used hashtags before are now able to do so and they can be searchable. 

Since the recent launch of Facebook's newest feature, the Graph Search, Facebook hashtags have taken on a life of their own. Graph Search brings you results based on the social graphs of your Facebook friends and followers. What does this mean? When searching, you will see the search results relating to your friends and businesses you are closely associated with. 

We've seen so many well known companies fall short when it comes to handling a crisis. In order to maintain a calm sense of control in a crisis - there has to be a plan set in place. Every company, big or small, needs to have a plan if something goes wrong publicly. A Crisis Management Plan will become your manual to handling any issue - large or small. Here is a starting point: Survive the Unthinkable Through Crisis Planning.

Everyone is at risk of being hacked. There is no fool-proof way to prevent your accounts from being accessed by individuals who should not have your information. The best way to protect your account is to create a strategy and always be aware of the information that is sent out from those accounts. When it comes to social media - word spreads fast. If you are hacked, it is almost guaranteed that everyone will know about it, see the information that is posted and possibly respond to it before you can even halt the posting. This is an unfortunate occurrence but don't fret - you can fix this. As long as you move quickly and have a crisis management plan in place. 

What is a crisis management plan? Every large organization or business should have one. [Check out our blog on crisis management plans and how to start one.]

First, establish a password that is not easily "guessed". Rather than using a common word or name, use a phrase. Maybe add in a number of punctuation to make it more unique. You could have several different types of hackers; what many would call 'professional hackers', disgruntled ex-employees or activist groups who may disagree with what you stand for and take action. Make sure you are prepared for any form of hacking. 

With all Facebook's changes to the timeline, people's profiles, cover photos, ads and pages - there is so much to learn once those changes take effect. Facebook pages have the ability to reach hundreds or thousands of people, depending on how well you promote the page and publish content that people will want to know. There are several ways to create a promoted post - either from the Facebook page itself or from the ads dashboard.  

When you are creating a page that will be shared on Facebook you need to use the Facebook Open Graph standards html meta tags and "hint" your page with images that Facebook will know to use on a wall post. Here is an example of a post without good html references to show the correct image when your new content get viral attention. 

While attempting to merge two Facebook pages for a client, we came across a major issue - the pages cannot be merged the way we wanted them to be. We created a page for their new location, wanted to maintain the same audience from the previous business since the two were coming together as one. After requesting the pages to be merged, we noticed that there are more rules for the merging of two like pages. Facebook provides a simple "merging pages" page, but there is no indication that further approval would need to be taken. 

What is ySocial? Here at Thrive, we realized that YMCAs have a very unique position on Facebook and Twitter. Just like any organization, YMCAs want their members to know what is going on at each location, fundraisers and events, pool closings, fitness classes etc. Since the booming growth of social media, alerting members of this information has become much easier. 

"Can I combine two Facebook pages?" We recently had a client ask this question. They had two different Facebook pages, one that had been started a few years ago that management no longer had access to and had not been posting information in almost a year. They had created a new page, but were not able to redirect all of their followers away from that page to view the new one with the correct information. The client had already searched online for the instructions but could not figure out how to combine the two. This is where we came in to help. We also figured that many clients we currently have might also be wondering the same thing.