Cision: Build your brand on Instagram

“being active on Instagram ensures you’re a part of this big party. But also, so many brands are struggling with how to use or aren’t using it at all, so for those of us on there, we can build our communities, grow our presence, and establish a foundation before everyone else catches on and are left playing catch-up. Instagram is a hyper-rich site for engagement too. With engagement rates 15X greater than Facebook and significantly higher than the other major social media sites, there is real opportunity to connect with and build a devoted audience on Instagram.”

Social Media Today: Yik Yak adds ability to add photos

Whether you use it or not, whether you know it or not, Yik Yak is a social app that’s on the rise, with close to two million monthly active users. Anyone marketing to younger consumers needs to be aware of Yik Yak – and now the app has added a new photo functionality, enabling users to share images to accompany their yaks – so long as those photos don’t contain anyone’s faces. But how will Yik Yak possibly be able to enforce such a restriction? Now that’s an interesting challenge.

Time: Stop trying to achieve work-life balance

At its heart this implies we should trade one aspect for another, compromising as we go. To me this trimming of excess in one area to prop up another serves to remove, not create, meaning.

The other argument that Whyte surfaces penetrates the fabric of our human needs: the constant tug of war between our social desires and our need for space. This is another area where we naturally try to find balance and in so doing compromise part of ourselves.

PR Daily: Five infographic tools for PR and marketing pros

Infographics are 30 times more likely to be read than a text article sharing the same information Tall images (with lengths of 800 pixels or more) are more popular with Pinterest users, as well, says Dan Zarrella, social media scientist at Hubspot.

Though it makes sense that these visuals are engaging—your fans would rather look at the data instead of reading paragraphs about your findings—finding and creating infographics can be daunting. Luckily, there are terrific resources.

Vitae: Ignore your haters and toot your own horn

Those who dismiss self-promotion are generally those whose privilege effortlessly promoted them. Walter’s study suggests that for many men, self-promotion is so natural and automatic that it doesn’t rise to the level of discussion. For the rest of us, however, it’s essential not only to do it, but to teach one another how to do it. Self-promotion is critical to the academic career at this point in time, and I encourage you to ignore the haters, and toot your own horn for all the world to hear.

AdWeek: 4 recommendations (and 1 calculation) to improve social media engagement

Marketers often have a spectrum of goals for their Facebook pages. From growing awareness to converting Fans into email subscribers, many marketers make progress on each of these goals by focusing on a strategy of building overall community engagement. To aid in this goal, here are four key ways to improve overall Facebook engagement and a great way to calculate average engagement.

Medium: The pink ghetto of social media

How do these statistics play into the culture of the newsroom? As a possible explanation, Taylor Lorenz, a social media strategist and editor, says that in her experience “women are not encouraged as much to get into hard news.” Similarly, many other social media editors who work in the industry (some of whom wish to remain anonymous) describe the perception that social media is a “girly job.” One woman notes a vibe of “let’s give this easy job to a girl, she can handle it” around the office; that social media is seen as easier, “fluffy,” and not on par with other editorial roles. Even though it’s no secret that social media is critical to the current business models, one woman who works as a social media editor in news thinks “the position is always gonna be viewed as some dumb 20-year-old woman job.”

Hootsuite: 5 social network features you need to stop ignoring (Twitter-favorites; Facebook-interest lists, LinkedIn-search for posts, Instagram-the following tab, Google-Google analytics snapshot)

Like certain spices in every rack, social networks have features that we simply pass over without giving them much thought. Sometimes we use them, but often as an afterthought with no strategy behind it. But these features were carefully thought out and built. They serve a purpose, a place in a recipe that many of us simply haven’t discovered yet.

99U: How to avoid miscommunications and email like a real human being (Add empathy to your emails.)

Chris Balttman: The UCLA sexual harassment case that every professor should be aware of (This is something every professor should be aware of.)