You have a business. Whether that be a brick and mortar local business or an online business, you recognize the importance of being involved with social media. With an overabundance of information on the web covering social media, many business owners can run in circles following the shiny objects of social media.
Ultimately, this leads to burn out, a messed up social profile, segmented messaging ? translation a big steamy pile of social media ambition. To clarify the world of social media, we have located an infographic that does an amazing summary of which social platforms you should use and exactly how you should use them! While you won?t find any surprises in the list with regards to names you have heard of, what you may be interested to read is how to use them!
Twitter
This is the conversation platform. Make sure that you are employing tools to scan the Twitterverse for conversations that include your business or your niche. This will enable you to enter the conversation and be present.
Facebook
Almost everyone has a Facebook account. Make sure that your business has a representative Facebook page and use this powerful platform to build an audience that is tuned into your postings and the items that you share. You WANT to be present on their timeline and you can do this by building your fanbase.
LinkedIn
The grand daddy of business networking. This heavy b2b network allows businesses to network with other businesses, colleagues, suppliers, etc. Use this badboy to build business relationships and find customers.
Pinterest
Got a camera? Start taking images of your products and customers to drive traffic to your website. Pinterest has revolutionized traffic driving.
YouTube
Inform your audience about your business. Utilize the 2nd search engine in the world to increase your brand awareness and drive traffic to your main website!
Google+
While first deemed the red headed step child of social media, the Google+ platform is quickly becoming a foundation on which businesses can build an anchor point related to their main website and local listing (if local business).
Instagram
Use Instagram as the icing on your social media cake. Create captivating images using the associated filters and post them on your social channels (Facebook, Google Plus, etc.) Photos are ULTRA important in today?s social space. They can tell a story, make someone laugh, and even inspire. All in all, photos evoke emotion. Figure out a creative way that you can do this and you will win!
Tumblr
Tumblr has a massive audience of content creators and sharer?s (is that even a word?) ? Essentially, you want to use Tumblr as a supplement to your main website. Here you can post your photos and videos as a stand alone platform to engage with your audience and tell your story.
Foursquare
If you have a local store/business, utilize foursquare to reward your customers for checking-in (raising a signal that is shared across social media). Foursquare is quickly becoming the platform to use for local businesses with respect to live interaction with the consumers.
Check out the infographic below from SDLSM2 that gives even more pro tips about social media platforms and how to use them in your business!
Good Eggs is a new service that delivers organic and sustainable meats, produce, and other goods from locally sourced farms and vendors. There are lots of delivery services that will bring groceries to you, and there are lots of Community Supported Agriculture programs around to connect residents with produce from local farms. But neither does a great job of getting users the stuff they want.
This cover image released by Girls Gone Wild shows the September 2009 issue of "Girls Gone Wild." "Girls Gone Wild" filed for bankruptcy Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013 in Los Angeles in a move the company says is aimed at restructuring its legal affairs amid several creditors seeking more than $16 million in disputed debts. (AP Photo/Girls Gone Wild via PRNewsFoto)
This cover image released by Girls Gone Wild shows the September 2009 issue of "Girls Gone Wild." "Girls Gone Wild" filed for bankruptcy Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013 in Los Angeles in a move the company says is aimed at restructuring its legal affairs amid several creditors seeking more than $16 million in disputed debts. (AP Photo/Girls Gone Wild via PRNewsFoto)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The company behind the "Girls Gone Wild" video empire has filed for bankruptcy in a move it says is an effort to restructure its legal affairs after several disputed court judgments.
GGW Brands LLC and several subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Wednesday in Los Angeles, listing more than $16 million in disputed claims.
The largest claim is $10.3 million that Wynn Resorts Limited is seeking from the company for judgments entered against "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis over a gambling debt and statements he has made about the casino and its founder, Steve Wynn.
The figure does not include a $19 million judgment Wynn won against Francis in a slander trial last year. The case, which centered on Francis' claims that Wynn threatened to kill him over the gambling debt, is being appealed.
Francis no longer GGW Brands, which has made a fortune selling videos and magazines of young women flashing their breasts. Subsidiary companies GGW Magazine and GGW Events have also filed for bankruptcy. Bankruptcy proceedings generally halt efforts to collect judgments in other courts.
"Girls Gone Wild remains strong as a company and strong financially," the company said in a statement, likening itself to other businesses such as American Airlines and General Motors that have filed for bankruptcy to restructure. "The only reason Girls Gone Wild has elected to file for this reorganization is to re-structure its frivolous and burdensome legal affairs."
The second largest claim listed in the proceedings is a nearly $5.8 million judgment a St. Louis woman won against Francis last year in a Missouri court. Tamara Favazza sued after she learned she had been featured on a "Girls Gone Wild" DVD over an incident when she was a 20-year-old college student and someone lifted her tank top at a bar and flashed a camera.
Francis and his company, Mantra Films, are seeking to have the judgment overturned in federal court.
The bankruptcy filing also lists unspecified legal fees in the Wynn and Favazza cases.
Photos and the news feed are where people spend their time on Facebook. Yet its last two big products were relatively niche features, Timeline and the new Graph Search. Facebook today published examples of how to use Graph Search, which merely highlight that it's not part of day-to-day life. Yes, Facebook needed to fix search, but it may have prioritized an intellectual wank over user experience.
Contact: Timothy S. Paul tp2111@columbia.edu 212-305-2676 Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health
Children exposed to the plastics chemical bisphenol A had an elevated risk for asthma
Researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health at the Mailman School of Public Health are the first to report an association between early childhood exposure to the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) and an elevated risk for asthma in young children. BPA is a component of some plastics and is found in food can liners and store receipts.
Results appear in the March edition of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
"Asthma prevalence has increased dramatically over the past 30 years, which suggests that some as-yet-undiscovered environmental exposures may be implicated. Our study indicates that one such exposure may be BPA," says lead author Kathleen Donohue, MD, an assistant professor of Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and an investigator at the Center for Children's Environmental Health.
Dr. Donohue and her co-investigators followed 568 women enrolled in the Mothers & Newborns study of environmental exposures. BPA exposure was determined by measuring levels of a BPA metabolite in urine samples taken during the third trimester of pregnancy and in the children at ages 3, 5, and 7. Physicians diagnosed asthma at ages 5 to 12 based on asthma symptoms, a pulmonary function test, and medical history. A validated questionnaire was used to evaluate wheeze.
After adjusting for secondhand smoke and other factors known to be associated with asthma, the researchers found that post-natal exposure to BPA was associated with increased risk of wheeze and asthma. BPA exposure during the third trimester of pregnancy was inversely associated with risk of wheeze at age 5. This unexpected finding is in contrast to the results of a previous study, which found that BPA exposure during the second trimester, a critical period for the development of airways and the immune system, was positively linked with risk for asthma.
Increased risk for wheeze and asthma was seen at "fairly routine, low doses of exposure to BPA," says Dr. Donohue. "Like most other scientists studying BPA, we do not see a straightforward linear dose-response relationship."
At all three time points, more than 90% of the children in the study had detectable levels of BPA metabolite in their bodies, a finding that is in line with previous research. This does not mean that they will all develop asthma, cautions Dr. Donohue. "Just as smoking increases the risk of lung cancer but not everyone who smokes gets lung cancer, not every child exposed to BPA will develop asthma."
The biological mechanism behind the BPA-asthma connection is unclear. The current study found no evidence that exposure to BPA increased the risk that the immune system would develop more antibodies to common airborne allergens. "Other possible pathways may include changes to the innate immune system, but this remains an open question," says Dr. Donohue.
The new study builds on existing evidence linking BPA exposure to respiratory symptoms, as well as to obesity, impaired glucose tolerance, and behavioral issues, among a range of health problems. In July, the Food and Drug Administration banned BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups.
"It is very important to have solid epidemiologic research like ours to give the regulators the best possible information on which to base their decisions about the safety of BPA," says senior author Robin Whyatt, DrPH, professor of Environmental Health Sciences and deputy director of the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health.
To reduce exposure to BPA, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) recommends avoiding plastic containers numbers 3 and 7, eating less canned food, and, when possible, choosing glass, porcelain, or stainless steel containers, especially for hot food and liquids.
###
The study was supported by grants from the NIEHS (RC2ES018784, R01ES014393, P30ES009089, R01ES08977, and PO1ES09600), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (R827027, RD832141, and RD834509), and private foundations.
Additional authors include Rachel L. Miller, Matthew S. Perzanowski, Allan C. Just, Lori A. Hoepner, Srikesh Arunajadai, Stephen Canfield, David Resnick, Antonia M. Calafat, and Frederica P. Perera.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Timothy S. Paul tp2111@columbia.edu 212-305-2676 Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health
Children exposed to the plastics chemical bisphenol A had an elevated risk for asthma
Researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health at the Mailman School of Public Health are the first to report an association between early childhood exposure to the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) and an elevated risk for asthma in young children. BPA is a component of some plastics and is found in food can liners and store receipts.
Results appear in the March edition of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
"Asthma prevalence has increased dramatically over the past 30 years, which suggests that some as-yet-undiscovered environmental exposures may be implicated. Our study indicates that one such exposure may be BPA," says lead author Kathleen Donohue, MD, an assistant professor of Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and an investigator at the Center for Children's Environmental Health.
Dr. Donohue and her co-investigators followed 568 women enrolled in the Mothers & Newborns study of environmental exposures. BPA exposure was determined by measuring levels of a BPA metabolite in urine samples taken during the third trimester of pregnancy and in the children at ages 3, 5, and 7. Physicians diagnosed asthma at ages 5 to 12 based on asthma symptoms, a pulmonary function test, and medical history. A validated questionnaire was used to evaluate wheeze.
After adjusting for secondhand smoke and other factors known to be associated with asthma, the researchers found that post-natal exposure to BPA was associated with increased risk of wheeze and asthma. BPA exposure during the third trimester of pregnancy was inversely associated with risk of wheeze at age 5. This unexpected finding is in contrast to the results of a previous study, which found that BPA exposure during the second trimester, a critical period for the development of airways and the immune system, was positively linked with risk for asthma.
Increased risk for wheeze and asthma was seen at "fairly routine, low doses of exposure to BPA," says Dr. Donohue. "Like most other scientists studying BPA, we do not see a straightforward linear dose-response relationship."
At all three time points, more than 90% of the children in the study had detectable levels of BPA metabolite in their bodies, a finding that is in line with previous research. This does not mean that they will all develop asthma, cautions Dr. Donohue. "Just as smoking increases the risk of lung cancer but not everyone who smokes gets lung cancer, not every child exposed to BPA will develop asthma."
The biological mechanism behind the BPA-asthma connection is unclear. The current study found no evidence that exposure to BPA increased the risk that the immune system would develop more antibodies to common airborne allergens. "Other possible pathways may include changes to the innate immune system, but this remains an open question," says Dr. Donohue.
The new study builds on existing evidence linking BPA exposure to respiratory symptoms, as well as to obesity, impaired glucose tolerance, and behavioral issues, among a range of health problems. In July, the Food and Drug Administration banned BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups.
"It is very important to have solid epidemiologic research like ours to give the regulators the best possible information on which to base their decisions about the safety of BPA," says senior author Robin Whyatt, DrPH, professor of Environmental Health Sciences and deputy director of the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health.
To reduce exposure to BPA, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) recommends avoiding plastic containers numbers 3 and 7, eating less canned food, and, when possible, choosing glass, porcelain, or stainless steel containers, especially for hot food and liquids.
###
The study was supported by grants from the NIEHS (RC2ES018784, R01ES014393, P30ES009089, R01ES08977, and PO1ES09600), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (R827027, RD832141, and RD834509), and private foundations.
Additional authors include Rachel L. Miller, Matthew S. Perzanowski, Allan C. Just, Lori A. Hoepner, Srikesh Arunajadai, Stephen Canfield, David Resnick, Antonia M. Calafat, and Frederica P. Perera.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
One of the first things that epidemiologists do when studying a new outbreak of disease is to map its occurrence. From there, they try to tease out patterns related to the malady?s cause and prevalence, and begin working on solutions to quell it.
For tracking sick frogs, toads and salamanders, it turns out that the same principle applies. Researchers have assembled an interactive map documenting the global emergence of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, the amphibian chytrid fungal disease that is blazing through populations of water-dwelling animals around the world.
Scientists are still struggling to understand this plague, regarding it as a major threat to the survival of many amphibian species. The research team hopes that the map will bring together fragmented research efforts and present an overarching picture of the problem.
Deanna Olson, a research ecologist at the Forest Service?s Pacific Northwest Research Station in Oregon, and her colleagues are ebullient over their success in assembling a world network of scientists and managers that are interested in conducting real-time surveillance. ?This is allowing us to track what we know about this disease, which has been implicated in mass mortality events as well as some extinctions at the global scale,? she said.
Along with colleagues from Imperial College in London and Oregon State University, Dr. Olson and her lab have developed an online database that currently holds more than 36,000 records of individual animals sampled in over 4,000 sites around the world. Plotting that data geographically allows the team ? or any other interested party ? to see where the fungus is and is not present, and where it has or has not been tested for yet.
Anyone can upload their data to the site, and Dr. Olson?s team updates it annually to make sure it reflects the latest findings in the field. The project, called Bd-Maps, got under way in 2008 and is described this week in the journal PLoS One.
The maps visualize data on both a global and individual country scale. Sampling sites are marked with pins that are color-coded to indicate whether the amphibians tested there turned out to be positive or negative for the disease. This allows scientists and wildlife managers to glean a quick understanding of how their area?s amphibians fare as a whole.
From this data, researchers can also extrapolate the odds of the disease occurring in any given location, and the level of threat that species in those locations may face. (The fungus does not affect all amphibians equally.) ?In some places chytrid fungus is a huge problem, but in other places it doesn?t appear to be such a problem,? Dr. Olson said. ?For example, in the U.S. there has only been a handful of mortality events, but places like Central America and Australia are experiencing a lot of mass mortality and even extinctions.?
The map does have a few potential shortcomings. At this point, the team accepts any data submitted; there is no formal process of standardization or validating that the the data comes from reputable experts. That means that some places could turn up with false positives or false negatives for the disease.
Because the map does include so much data, however, the researchers think it still paints a fairly robust picture of the situation on the ground. The team is also applying lessons learned from this project to create a new, more stringently screened map of the occurrence of ranavirus, another disease that affects amphibians.
Dr. Olson and her colleagues designed the chytrid fungus map as a community tool for others to explore and work with, but the team has uncovered some initial findings on its own. According to their data, 42 percent of 1,240 species sampled worldwide turned up positive for the fungus. There are more than 6,000 species of amphibians, so this means that just 20 percent have been sampled for the disease to date. From the 82 countries sampled so far, 68 percent came back with positive results.
Temperature range stood out as a driver of fungus presence, with places that experience less fluctuation between their hot and cold seasons being more likely to be heavily afflicted by the disease. Dr. Olson hopes that other researchers will investigate whether this large-scale pattern also fits at the local scale.
Already, Bd-Maps is generating interesting collaborations in the field. Dr. Olson said that the map has inspired some researchers to sample new locations in the central United States, for example.
?People have looked at our maps and seen that nobody?s reported on chytrid fungus here or there, then they?ve gone out to do a study to fill in the map,? she said. ?It?s like we?re playing a game of Risk ? we?re always excited to get a new place filled in, especially if it?s in a remote area.?
In other cases, researchers have used the map as a matchmaking service for chytrid fungus aficionados. An Armenian researcher recently used Bd-Maps to reach out for on-the-ground support, for example, and a scientist visiting Papua New Guinea obtained the necessary training to test for chytrid through contacts found though the the site.
?We don?t often see this type of collaboration in the research world, which is classically very much an ivory tower,? Dr. Olson said. ?We?re really excited that our project is being used at the global scale to investigate new hypotheses and patterns emerging from the data by a variety of biologists and managers.?
Filming in currently underway on "The Muppets... Again," a follow-up to the successful reboot of Jim Henson's beloved characters, but all we've seen from the English set is two photos of the felt cast and their new human leading man, Ricky Gervais. But a few days ago, Gervais uploaded a short video to his YouTube [...]
Good Eggs is a new service that delivers organic and sustainable meats, produce, and other goods from locally sourced farms and vendors. There are lots of delivery services that will bring groceries to you, and there are lots of Community Supported Agriculture programs around to connect residents with produce from local farms. But neither does a great job of getting users the stuff they want.
Photos and the news feed are where people spend their time on Facebook. Yet its last two big products were relatively niche features, Timeline and the new Graph Search. Facebook today published examples of how to use Graph Search, which merely highlight that it's not part of day-to-day life. Yes, Facebook needed to fix search, but it may have prioritized an intellectual wank over user experience.![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_t3-wTypA3orEtyIBGBKfznl4vyoFSZ7e_uWT8WnB0Q18Vk8gTcDS7PhEVFP-l6hKn89V5FU_BBr9_RIyo6XvEna3ckgS0ilfMjhE2wwiI=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 1-Mar-2013
Share ]