Hey students and recent grads, here’s something that could have an influence on job opportunities: your Facebook profile. More specifically, we’re talking about your close and not-so-close friends–and the way you interact with them. This seems like a no-brainer, but some facts might surprise you.

Yesterday our sister site AllFacebook (like them on Facebook!) reported on a study conducted by the social network and Carnegie Mellon University that looked to answer an intriguing question: how do your Facebook habits affect your likelihood of finding a new job? Its key finding:

Facebook users who talked more with close friends regarding job hunts and job opportunities were much more likely to find employment than those who tended to reach out to acquaintances.

Other findings:

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After a long and sometimes troubled courtship, two of the biggest names in media finally agreed upon a domestic partnership: Netflix and Facebook will join forces to let all of your “friends” who also have streaming accounts know exactly what you’ve watched in the past and what you’re watching at any given moment.

We see this as a bigger deal for Netflix than Facebook, since the world’s largest social network is a perfect promotional venue for the world’s largest members-only streaming service (despite the fact that all of the “sharing” will take place on the Netflix site itself). And while we have no doubt that this announcement amounts to a PR win for Netflix, we do see some potential problems emerging:

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Move over, Farmville. Virtual farming is out, and virtual plumbing (for a good cause) is on its way in.

As part of its annual Tap Project, UNICEF has partnered with Droga5 to create an app that turns your Facebook page into a virtual water tap. The project’s goal is to help raise awareness of the staggering number of people around the world who lack access to safe drinking water (roughly 800 million), while simultaneously raising money to help get clean water to those people.

According to UNICEF, just $5 dollars can give one child safe drinking water for 200 days. By donating those $5 dollars to the cause via PayPal or text message, Facebook users can now turn their pages into virtual taps carrying water to those in need (money-raising) and then choose two friends to whom they can link “pipes”, urging them create taps of their own (spreading awareness). Through this dual-action campaign, UNICEF hopes to “turn the world’s largest social network into the world’s largest water network.”

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In case you missed it (because we somehow did!), HBO ran a massive Game of Thrones ad in last Monday’s New York Times. At first glance, this spot may have sent readers ducking for cover or calling out for the nearest sword-wielding resident of Winterfell.

We’d say this promo campaign, complete with fictional stories that ran parallel with the show’s plot points and an ominous dragon shadow splayed across two pages of newsprint, proves that newspaper advertising can still generate some serious buzz when it’s done right.

Of course, HBO isn’t relying on print alone for its major GoT marketing campaign; in a follow-up to the NYT ad, the premium cable giant decided to take the duck-and-cover dragon shadow to the next level by featuring the image on the facade of its own Los Angeles high-rise last Tuesday.

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We think you’ll agree: research on the influence of Facebook brand pages is confusing (to say the least).

Following reports of “Facebook fatigue” and a news that members of the all-important Millennial demographic spend more time on Tumblr comes a study proclaiming that the same 18-29 set doesn’t find Facebook brand pages “credible” and tends to avoid or ignore even the ones they “like.”

What to make of it all? Well, this week also brings us a Louddoor study revealing the twenty brands with the “most loyal” Facebook fans. We thought we’d check out the top twenty pages and highlight posts demonstrating why their fans are so much more engaged. Here goes:

These pages may not have the most fans, but they do have the most engaged fans–because they’ve all catered to their audiences very successfully. What do we think?

We’d like to interrupt your anxious scramble to master social media with some intriguing stats from a recent Pew Internet study on the very real “Facebook fatigue” phenomenon:

• 8% of people with Internet access who don’t have Facebook accounts are interested in signing up, but…
• 20% of those who don’t have profiles now once did, and…
• 60% of members have taken a “voluntary break” lasting several weeks or more

There are several ways to read these numbers, but the big point is: Many Facebook users are starting to re-think exactly what the site means to them, and while traffic and membership stats remain huge, very few members are spending more time on Facebook now than in the past.

The killer for PR/marketing pros: the only users who have increased their Facebook engagement levels are older adults. Young folk aged 13-25 are more interested in Tumblr.

We don’t mean to start yet another conversation about whether Facebook has plateaued, but one question is worth asking: has it lost value as a PR/marketing venue?

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Fellow cat people and farm girls, rejoice! Hasbro‘s month-long “Save Your Token” contest concluded at midnight last night and it’s official: Monopoly will replace the classic iron with a new token of the feline variety.

While we’re sorry to see the iron go, we’re more than a little relieved to know that our favorite token is safe – well done, #TeamWheelbarrow! May you continue to transport your dreams of financial conquest across the board via manual labor for decades to come.

For those of you who weren’t following this bit of interactive marketing genius, beginning in early January, Monopoly fans could vote to save their favorite token (and nominate a replacement for whichever classic playing piece would be retired) by visiting Monopoly’s Facebook page. According to vice president of marketing for Hasbro Jonathan Berkowitz, fans from 120 countries, including Djibouti, Kyrgyzstan, Guam and Liechtenstein, voiced their preferences. Even businesses got involved; Zappos created campaigns for the shoe, while Ames True Temper made a series of videos to help save the wheelbarrow (yes!).

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Excuse us for being a little skeptical about the relevance of Facebook‘s new “Graph Search” function, presented to reporters yesterday by the company’s communications staffers on demo stations that New York Magazine’s Kevin Roose calls “PR Borgs.”

Seriously, though: Why would we want to search for “pictures that my friends took in Canada” or “dentists’ offices where my friends have checked in” or “single women in Park Slope who know one of my friends and like Game of Thrones“? (OK, that last one might make sense if we were still single.)

The more we think about it, though, we feel like graph search–which really needs a new name, BTW–could infringe upon the territory of other social networks, primarily LinkedIn, Foursquare, Yelp, dating sites like Match.com and the big one…Google.

What does this mean for the PR world?

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As Instagram continues to lose members, Twitter decides whether to go public, Google+ screams “Notice Me!” and Facebook tries to resist the urge to piss off its members by endlessly tinkering with its formula, media pros wonder whether a new social network will emerge in the coming months and years to become a key communications tool.

HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes recently posted a list of seven up-and-coming networks that might gain influence in 2013, so we thought we’d review it to see whether any of these shiny new toys might prove valuable to PR professionals.

The list:

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If your games of Monopoly are anything like ours, the first heated arguments come long before anyone goes bankrupt after landing on Park Place. Try taking someone’s go-to token and you’re just asking for trouble.

It’s true: We’ve seen full-grown adults absolutely refuse to settle for the thimble instead of the battleship, or the shoe instead of the wheelbarrow.

Now, our irrational loyalty to these tokens is about to be tested; Hasbro has decided to replace one of the eight classic playing pieces with a new one “that’s more representative of today’s Monopoly players”. Possible newcomers include a diamond ring, a guitar, a toy robot, a cat and a helicopter. Which new piece will take its place among board game royalty and which familiar trinket is destined for the Island of Misfit Toys?

Well that’s up to you.

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