Social media changes so much in a week that it’s hard to keep up. Check back with us every week for our roundup of what we think you should know about.
- The Affordable Care Act takes effect in October – yes, that is this coming week – and it’s not surprising to learn that the social media savvy White House will use its platforms to encourage millions of Americans to sign up for health care. One of the campaign’s primary audiences is young adults in urban areas, an age group that has one of the highest number of uninsured Americans and also the most active age group on social media. In a related note, the White House denies any interest in the Adorable Care Act that is pawing across Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.
- Google announced Hummingbird, a new algorithm that the search giant claims will make users’ search results more accurate, relevant and “conversational”. According to Google the inspiration behind the name is “precise and fast” and it’s the first major change of this degree to its algorithm since 2001.
- Typo-prone readers rejoice: Facebook has announced a new feature on posts that allows you to edit content you have already published. This has been allowed in comments for the past year and is a welcome improvement to anyone who has ever deleted their status multiple times before getting it right.
- Sharecare, a network of health experts who answer user questions online to promote their practices, is expanding. New features include recommendations for doctors, appointment scheduling and a white label option for docs. This will allow medical professionals to customize and integrate the social network capabilities for their own websites.
- Here is something to consider when developing a communication plan: the Pew Research Center recently announced its finding that 15 percent of American adults don’t use the Internet at all. Age was the most consistent dividing line in the study: 40 percent of adult respondents older than 65 years are nonusers as opposed to only 2 percent of adults aged 18-29 years old.
- If you want some perspective on how many people use Facebook, consider this: it would take three years to scroll through all 1.2 billion profile photos, starting with Mark Zuckerberg himself and continuing in chronological order. Faces of Facebook created the visual and invites anyone to see where their own picture fits on its website.
Hope you had a great weekend!
Kelly