An online petition signed by more than 20,000 people has forced Facebook to recant its position on censoring photos of those who have undergone mastectomies.

Now, Facebook will allow most post-mastectomy photos, as many are a means of raising awareness for those suffering from breast cancer and the treatments and procedures associated with it. However, "photos with fully exposed breasts, particularly if they’re unaffected by surgery, do violate Facebook’s Terms. These policies are based on the same standards which apply to television and print media, and that govern sites with a significant number of young people," the company said.Continue reading...

Following the lead of its younger, nimbler social sister, Facebook is rolling out hashtags, aiming to make its social network more conversational and more relevant to search engine optimization. The move will open up more revenue streams for marketers and give user posts a much greater public reach. 

In other words, "public posts with searchable hashtags are truly public and discoverable; they give your posts a larger but less familiar audience," notes Buzzfeed. 

While they jury is still out whether users will appreciate the broadcasting of their posts, brands on the other hand have a unique opportunity to leverage the power of hashtag campaigns on other social platforms by connecting them through Facebook, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.Continue reading...

Facebook is simplifying its ad buying process in an attempt to demystify the 27 ad choices currently available to advertisers with a simple question: "What is the goal of your ad?" Depending on the answer, Facebook will now suggest which format suits a brand best. "You are going to pick an objective," said Fidji Simo, Facebook’s product manager for ads, according to The New York Times, and "based on that, we will show you a range of formats."

More than half of the current ad formats will be eliminated, as well as a condensing of Sponsored Stories in an effort to create more uniformity. Offers for online deals will now incorporate elements of Sponsored Stories into a more generalized unit that includes Likes and comments at the top of an ad and links for coupons, while retailer’s with brick and mortar stores will still have a separate "offers" ad unit.

Marketers will still be able to select ads to run only on mobile devices or only on PCs. “It should be simpler,” Simo said. The changes are targeting smaller and medium-size businesses with fewer available resources as well as augmenting the ability to deliver better metrics on ad purchases.Continue reading...

When you're heading up a network of millions, its hard to please everyone. That's exactly what some of the web's biggest social networks are finding out this week as clashes between users, moderators and advertisers plague the system. 

In a highly-publicized protest over violent, offensive content on Facebook, activists have convinced a handful of advertisers including Nissan UK and Nationwide UK to drop their ads from the social site until Facebook admins remove the problematic content. The concern for advertisers is that their content may show up alongside posts and pages containing such content, much of which consists of "rape culture" memes depicting violence against women. 

The conflict highlights loopholes within Facebook's API, as the platform allows advertisers to target users based on "likes" and demographic, but there is no way to control where ads are placed—or not placed—on the site. “Marketers don’t want to be associated with anything negative or controversial,” Carl Fremont, chief digital officer at MEC told the Financial Times. “We need a filter on Facebook that can weed out the type of user-generated content that’s brand inappropriate.”Continue reading...

Social media mavens gathered in New York City Monday night for the 5th annual Shorty Awards, which honors the best short form content across Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube, Foursquare and more. 

Considered the Oscars for Twitter, the of-the-moment awards ceremony garnered more than 1.8 million tweet nominations during this year's voting process. With acceptance speeches limited to 140 characters, the awards capture the brightest spots on social, from the most viral memes to the most shared social campaigns. 

Started in 2008 by tech startup Sawhorse Media, the first Shorty Awards catered to a small audience of 300, but since then, the importance of social media campaigns have grown exponentially.Continue reading...

With GM pulling an about-"face" and now returning to Facebook as a limited advertiser, could the company's re-embrace of Super Bowl advertising be far off? Either way, Facebook is continuing to push skeptical advertisers to take a closer look at its site.

Chevrolet is advertising on Facebook again, in a test of mobile ads for the Chevy Sonic, less than a year after General Motors' very public repudiation of the effectiveness of paid advertising on the site. The brand "is testing a number of mobile advertising solutions, including Facebook, as part of its 'Find New Roads' campaign," Chris Perry, vice president of U.S. Chevrolet marketing, said in a confirming statement issued by GM in the wake of a story published by Advertising Age.

It's an "industry-first mobile-only pilot campaign" for Sonic that "utilizes newly available targeting and measurement capabilities of Facebook."Continue reading...

It seems we just can’t enough of Facebook, either reviling the world’s largest social network or checking in on it—14 times a day—according to research by IDC, which was sponsored by Facebook. 

It’s a perfect social media storm for the latest FB feature that lets brands target users for status updates that don't appear on their brand pages. The units, called "posts," are actually links to a brand's homepage or Facebook Page that run in the News Feed. Testing is underway for behavioral-targeting-based Facebook Exchange ads to run there as well—center-page real estate previously off limits.

“For example, a sporting goods brand could run a post appealing to basketball fans. While the post wouldn't appear on the brand's Page, it would run in the News Feed of fans who have an affinity for the sport,” explains Mashable. “The unit can be used for A/B testing of ads. In other words, a marketer can run two or more different messages and then see which ones do the best.”Continue reading...

#Hashtags #Are #Coming #To #Facebook

— Team Coco (@TeamCoco) March 14, 2013

Facebook is taking on growing rival Twitter in the hashtag realm by integrating the iconic marker into its own platform as the battle for mobile usage and ad dollars heats up.

The social behemoth is testing allowing users to click on a hashtag to pull up all related posts on a trending topic or event, incentivizing users to stay logged in longer and see more ads. (Instagram, which Facebook acquired last year uses hashtags so users can sort photos.)Continue reading...