Welcome to our weekly edition of what's hot in social media news. To help you stay up-to-date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.
What's New This Week?
Facebook Improves Photo Posts on Mobile: “Now you can choose the exact order of photos when you upload them to Facebook for iPhone and Android.”

SlideShare Introduces Professional Journey: “A dynamic interactive look back at all that you’ve accomplished — from your skills to where you were educated, from your years of experience to the types of positions you’ve held.”

Here’s news worth noting:
IBM Announces a Landmark Partnership with Twitter: “Twitter data will be offered in IBM Watson Analytics.”

A few cool social media tools worth checking out:
ContactSaver: This new app “searches your inbox for contacts – so you don't have to.”

Intro by about.me: “Now you can easily stay in touch with new contacts by sending your about.me page as a digital business card.”

Here are some recent studies worth noting:
Study: Instagram is the social channel of choice among Interbrand Top 100 Brands: Q3 2014 Instagram Study released by Simply Measured found 86 percent of the Interbrand Top 100 Brands integrate Instagram into their marketing strategy, representing a 15 percent growth in activity since 2013. The study also reveals that an active posting strategy and location tagging yields better engagement from users.
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The Psychology of Sharing: Why People Share Online: Research conducted by The New York Times Customer Insight Group and Latitude Research reveals primary motivations for sharing online and identifies 6 sharing personas. Over three-fourths of the respondents share information online to stay connected with people they may not otherwise stay in touch (78%), connect with others who share their interests (73%), or lend their support to a cause or issues they care about (84%).
Report: In Q3, Facebook Drove 4x More Traffic Than Pinterest: Shareaholic released its quarterly report detailing traffic stats from eight of the largest social media websites for Q3 2014. The report shows Facebook pushing over 22 percent of traffic referrals. It's followed by Pinterest at 5 percent. Twitter at third place is down to less than 1 percent. The study also reveals a general increase in social media traffic referrals across the board, with Facebook’s influence growing 115 percent and Pinterest 50 percent compared year over year.
Your Self-Promoting Is More Annoying Than You Think: A team of scientists confirmed that excessive self-promotion in an effort to create a favorable impression often backfires and causes the target recipients to view the self-promoter as less likable and annoying. Not surprising, self-promoters overestimate the extent which their audience is proud and happy for them and underestimate the extent to which they are annoyed.
Social Engagement Benchmark Report for Twitter: ExactTarget Marketing Cloud found an average 43% increase in Twitter followers across all companies in 2013. Four industries in particular saw a significant increase: technology and manufacturing (93%), retail and e-commerce (75%), consumer packaged goods (55%), and financial services (55%). The study also found social engagement is highest on Sunday (the day with the fewest brand tweet) and users are twice as likely to retweet a photo tweet. Yet, brands only send photo tweets 8 percent of the time.
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CLICK HERE TO LEARN MOREInfographic: Facebook responsible for 58 percent of social logins in Q3:Â A 3Q 2014 report from Gigya shows, worldwide, 58 percent of social logins happen with Facebook, solidifying its position as the dominate identity provider on the web.
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