Social Network Enhancements: This Week in Social Media

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?

Google Socializes Search Results With +1:  “Plus one” is digital shorthand for “this is pretty cool” and it’s Google’s version of the Facebook Like button.  “To recommend something, all you have to do is click +1 on a webpage or ad you find useful. These +1’s will then start appearing in Google’s search results.”  To try out this new feature, you need to have a Google profile and visit the Google Labs site to opt in to the +1 program.

Twitter’s New Web Intents Creates Interactive Tweets on Your Website:  Twitter’s new Web Intents feature now makes it possible to have interactive tweets directly on your website or blog.

With Twitter's Web Intents, your readers can tweet directly from your website.

Facebook Allows Personal Profiles to Be Converted Into Business Pages:  This new migration option will interest some small businesses, but stay tuned for more advice on whether this is the right thing for you to do.

This Profile to Business Page Migration tool makes it possible to change your profile to a business page if this is best for you.

Flickr Updates Share Functionality: Flickr makes it easier to share your photos to multiple social platforms.

You can now share your photos on Flickr to other social media platforms.

WordPress Blogs Look Cool on iPads: WordPress and Onswipe collaborated to give all of WordPress.com blogs an iPad-optimized browsing experience. There are sure to be more designs and cool functionality for other mobile devices in the future.

Onswipe also has a plugin for all self-hosted WordPress.org users.

Here are a few other social media tools worth a look.

GroupMe: “GroupMe lets you effortlessly group text with the people in your life who are important to you. It’s your real-life network, in your pocket. It’s totally free and works on every phone.”

GroupMe offers businesses a Sponsored Groups option.

Summify: “A service that creates a periodic summary of the most relevant news stories from all of your social networks, and delivers it by email and on the web.”

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Roost:  A social marketing platform comes with both free and paid options.  It’s designed specifically to help individual professionals and small businesses manage their social media marketing with minimal time investment thanks to a unique suggested content feature.

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And don’t miss this:

Social Media Examiner’s Social Media Success Summit 2011: Check out the largest online social media conference! Help your business grow with social media.

What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.