Heads-up. YouTube Changes Underway.

The team at YouTube are up to something…I logged-in to YouTube today (1/2/2012) and was surprised to see a completely new look and feel, as well as more features. When I visited the site two weeks ago, it didn’t look like this. Clearly, the YouTube folks are stewing up a change. This must be in beta because under my Video Manager account, it offers me the opportunity to go back to the “old look.”

Now that the major social media players are on the cusp of maturity, we’re seeing many new layouts, features and functionality from YouTube, Twitter (back in December ’10) and Facebook’s launch of Timeline.

It appears YouTube is making an effort to increase engagement and increase user-friendliness by the looks of the options on the left navigation bar.

• Add channels
• New comments
• Subscriptions. Click on one of the channels you subscribe to and see it’s most recent activity.
• Social. This gives you the option of connecting your current social networking outlets such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Orkut.
• From YouTube: Trending, Popular, Music, Entertainment
• Suggested channels. Use this to find what you’re missing or what YouTube thinks you’ll like.

The navigation options on the left side help us find what we’re really after, whether it be trending videos, most popular videos, YouTube activity from our Facebook friends and more.

With a new YouTube home page comes a new look and feel for YouTube channels. Here’s an example from one of the channels I subscribe to, which is StyleMint. Ok ok, no Mary-Kate and Ashley jokes…I subscribe for the fashion snippets. First thing I noticed was channel subscribers can now easily interact with the channel by posting a comment in the status box (top right). Prior to the “makeover,” the status box was toward the bottom and difficult to find (red arrow in image below).

Do you frequent YouTube often? What are your thoughts on the change? More change may be coming, but I wanted this post to be a heads-up for you all!

Here’s a snapshot of the old YouTube channel layout, from MINIUSA.

New Twitter. Yay or Nay?

This post is long overdue considering the fact that Twitter launched its new layout and some new functionality last week. I’ve been in the process of moving and working nutty hours, apologies for the absence, gals. But I’m back!!

Twitter’s new “look” is all about user-friendliness, finding stories that are relevant, connecting with others easily and making your Twitter voice front and center with the new look of your Twitter profile.

How are you liking the new Twitter? I like it. It’s growing on me!

User-friendliness and new profile layout –

• Bold new menu on left side of our Twitter Profiles. The lay-out is similar to how we interact with online retailers. While online shopping, you’ll often find the menu and filters to help find items on the left-navigation bar. We’re familiar with this type of click behavior.
• A nice giant button to help us make edits to our Profiles. Create a new blog? Website? Make the change easily with one click on the giant Edit Your Profile button.
• Three simple call-outs on the top navigation bar: (1) Home, (2) @ Connect and (3) # Discover. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.
• The tweet window is now on the left side beneath our avatars. We’ll see how this works since having the tweet window at the top may have been easier for drafting.

Finding stories that are relevant and connecting with others –

• Visit the “Discover” tab on the top navigation bar and find the day’s top Twitter stories.
• Get access to your friend’s Twitter activity…who followed who, who favorite’d what
• Browse categories such as Sports, Entertainment, News, Health etc. Which categories do you often frequent?
• Visit the “Connect” tab and learn about your most recent interactions such as replies to your tweets, RTs from others and who recently followed you.

Customer Service and Social Media

It’s not often you’ll find exceptional customer service these days. You may end-up speaking with a customer service rep who clearly dislikes their job or a rep who is simply apathetic to your need. In fact, good luck if you even speak with a human. Many customer service phone lines are touch-tone menu with the expectation you’ll resolve your issue on your own. Bah humbug to crappy customer service, right?

Social media has opened the door to personalized customer service, timely responses to customer needs and wants, trouble-shooting tech issues and cultivating a relationship with customers.

Suggestions for how you can improve customer service via social media:

• Respond to questions and comments on Facebook within 24 hours
• Reply to tweets within 24 hours
• Retweet your answer if you feel it adds value to the rest of your customers/followers
• If you don’t know the answer, reply that you’ll circle back shortly with the information
• Be honest. Customers do not like “playing games” or “feeling in the dark”
• If a big issue erupts, affecting a majority of your customers, it’s best to simply do a Facebook update acknowledging the issue and your commitment to find a resolution.

Some brands that get customer service right on social media:

• Zappos: Facebook and @zappos_service
• Hootsuite: @hootsuite_help
• Zazzle: Facebook and @zazzle
• Best Buy: Facebook and @twelpforce
• Jet Blue: @jetblue

What brands have you seen do customer service right on social media?