Time for more social media and Internet news! This time, we’ve got a mixture of links from Baptiste Limb and me.

• Privacy setting, regulations, do’s and don’ts—they’re all things you normally don’t like to think about when talking about social media, because social media needs to be quick and efficient. But these topics are becoming more and more important to Internet users. The Guardian released a really interesting article about the possible “threat” technology poses to our private lives. And the Next Web announced that the Advertising Standards Authority will regulate Twitter and Facebook marketing to reduce the number of spam messages, at least in the U.K. Time is changing, and so is the perception of how to use social media.
• So let’s get back to the customers, the ones we try to reach when using social media tools and channels for a brand or a company. “Move over influencers; advocates are more valuable to brands”—this is how the article “Social Media and the Era of Customer Advocacy“ starts. Britopian posted this really interesting blog post about why and how we have to focus on this group of customers.
• Of course, when you talk about social media at the moment, you won’t be able to not talk about locations, specifically, location-based services such as Foursquare and Facebook Places and Google Maps. Advertising Age announced that Google is offering a new marketing possibility for brands: sponsored map icons that allow the companies to pay for their logos to show up directly on Google Maps.
• Let’s end “The Week in Social Media” with a new slideshow that tries to answer one of the most popular questions of our times: What the hell is social media now? It includes updated facts and figures, awesome pictures, funny comparisons and a lot of swearing…

Till next week, or daily on Twitter—

Hillevi Lausten
Euro RSCG ABC Hamburg