The major changes to branded accounts in Twitter include:

• More prominent logo and taglines
• Customised headers
• Self-promoted tweets to appear at the top of the brand’s timeline
• Promoted tweets to automatically expand so the user will view photos or content that was posted as part of the tweet
• Allows brands to separate @ replies and mentions

Ad Age reported on the story, mentioning a quote from Chief Revenue Officer, Adam Bain that resonated well with me:

“A tweet’s only 140 characters,” said Mr. Bain. “[Brand page are] like an invitation to learn more. When consumers want to learn more, spend more time or get deeper in terms of engagement, we think they’ll end up on the brand page.”

We always knew Twitter was going to transform into something bigger, who would have thought they would transform into something that Facebook and Google+ are already offering?

You can find out more about the Twitter redesign Twitter’s advertising blog.

What do you think of the new brand pages?

This is an interesting survey and provides a glimpse on how small and medium sized businesses are dabbling (or not) in social media.

Tim Reed, CEO at MYOB and quoted in the release, observes that the hype in social media hasn’t yet translated to full scale adoption, which in my opinion is not a surprise, especially as 35% of those surveyed don’t even have a website.

What do you think?

More importantly, the digital savvy business owners and marketing teams in these businesses are focusing on their websites, and optimising content for search. The latest MYOB Business Monitor also reveals:

•    Female business owners are slightly more online savvy than male business owners, with 39% of female business owners having a website compared to 32% of male business owners.  Female business owners are also more likely to use social media to promote their business (Female 20% vs Male 17%).
•    Businesses in West Australia are more likely to have a website (40%) and more likely to use their website for marketing and sales – ecommerce (25%).  Compared to Queensland, with 32% of businesses with a website and 17% using their website for sales and marketing.
•    Business owners in New South Wales are the most likely to belong to business networks online (22%), compared to business owners in West Australia (11%).
•    Businesses in South Australia are more likely to use social media to promote their business (27%), compared to businesses in New South Wales (15%).

The Huffington Post in conjunction with Hopenhagen.org is sending one person to Copenhagen for the UN Climate Change Conference to both represent concerns of people around the world and to report back daily as a HuffPost citizen journalist.

Australian Cathie McGinn has put in her submission for the HuffPo Citizen Journalist competition, and we’re doing everything we can to support her bid to get there. So please help. Vote for Cathie, and when you’re done, get others to vote. Once you’re done with that, tweet about it. Then, once you’ve done that, share it on Facebook. And don’t forget to become a citizen of Hopenhagen! Call it bias if you will, but I think there is no one better suited for this role, than someone living in a country that is already feeling the effects of Climate Change.

Since 1950, Australia has already warmed by up to 0.7 per cent. We are seeing more heat waves, an increase in the intensity of Australian droughts and have experienced a 70 mm rise is sea levels. In Asia, crop yields are declining, and the retreat of glaciers is unprecedented. This is real. It’s happening now, and it would appear that the changes are gaining velocity with each day that we choose to do nothing.

Hopenhagen is change – and that change will be powered by all of us. Change will not happen unless the people demand it.

[Disclaimer: Ogilvy PR Worldwide Pty Ltd are a global partner for Hopenhagen.]

According to a report in AdNews, the Grey Sweeney Trust Scale Survey, will offer a new perspective on trust in brands and organisations. It was an online poll of 1500 people, conducted in Australia in August. Key highlights:

70% said firms are money hungry and too focused on profits.

20% highlighted banks or telcos as organisations they no longer trust

54% could think of an organisation or brand they no longer trust

59% placed more trust in Australian companies than overseas firms

Reassuringly, Aussies do have high levels of trust for charities, with The Salvation Army the most trusted brand. This is followed by Google, Australia Post and Medicare. When they look at the business sector, airlines are the most trusted, beating food manufacturers, sporting bodies and supermarket chains.

Does the rest of Asia concur with these findings, or are us Australians just a very different animal?

I am attending the Digital Marketing and Media Summit in Melbourne today and just attended a great session from Mark Higginson, Director of Analytics at Nielsen Online.

Mark shared some interesting new research from Nielsen Online today about Facebook and social media usage here in Australia:

• 8 hours/month:  Australians spend on average 8 hours/month on Facebook
• Australia Leads: Australians spend more time on average per month using social media (any social media site, not just Facebook) than any other country (7:12 hours/month per Australian on average)
• 8 million Aussies: the current number of facebook.com users is 8 million Australians/month
• 13.7 million overall: there are 13.7 million active monthly Internet users in Australia

I think these statistics are remarkable because they show that Australians are doing more than checking out sites like Facebook and Twitter, setting up an account, and then abandoning the sites after a short amount of time. That’s a common refrain of non-believers out there. We Australians are, as Mark correctly observed, addicted.

Here are some resources for anyone interested in learning more about the landscape of Facebook + social media here in Australia:

• Facebook for Business:  presentation created by myself and Thomas Crampton on business strategies for Facebook. This was tailored to Asia Pacific and delivered as part of our partnership with the Wall Street Journal Asia.
• Australian Social Networking Jumps:  link to a Digital Media news story about how Australian social networking jumped by 29% – from Comscore, Ausgust 2009.
• History of the Australian Social Web: much-Dugg interactive timeline of the Australian social media and digital evolution
• DMMS09 Twitter Stream: feed of Tweets from the 2009 Digital Media & Marketing Summit
• Asia Digital Map Australia + Social Media Posts: all of the Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence posts on Australia

Having just celebrated its 5th birthday, Faster Louder is hardly what one would class as new, but even as a social media veteran, FL hasn’t missed a beat when it comes to keeping up to speed with all things social. There are so many features, I wouldn’t know where to begin. But, I’ll try.

Faster Louder has an army of over 2000 active contributors who are constantly reviewing, podcasting, interviewing, photographing, filming and sharing their love of music with like minded fans. Once you set yourself up on the site, you start having a personalised user experience straight away, with all the relevant gig listings and reviews for your city being available to you. If you like any photos, reviews or articles, you simply click the “I heart this” button, and it will be bookmarked to your profile, so you can start searching for like minded music-lovers to connect with on FL. Similarly, any events you’re going to will be added to your social calendar, so if you’re looking for a concert buddy you only need to check who else is going.

Competitions are constantly being added, so you’re never short of great chances to win experiences that money can’t buy. Pretty much anything you see or do in FL, you can broadcast it to the rest of your social networks, and if you’re on twitter, you can follow @fasterlouder to be updated every time there are new reviews, concert announcements or competitions. The crew at Faster Louder have also done a great job of connecting their community in real life: hosting parties and gatherings and members only gigs. What can I say? I’m a fan!

So, whether or not you’re a music-lover, I can’t recommend Faster Louder enough. Click around; become a member; take a look at how people who GET social, DO social.