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On March 7, Facebook announced the first major redesign of its News Feed (the center column of the home page) in more than three years, which places greater emphasis on visuals and provides options that allow users to tailor the information they consume based on their specific interests. The changes are considered to be a win for Facebook users and a big win for referral marketers.

“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.”

Social media has evolved beyond cat memes and vanity status updates into active engagement with consumers. Today, businesses active on social media increase exposure, improve search rankings, generate leads, and grow partnerships that lead to wild success in the online marketplace.

In 1954, Abraham Maslow laid out a theory that would radically reshape ideas on human development: the Hierarchy of Needs. In layman’s terms, the theory held that individuals couldn’t realize true emotional development unless basic needs were satisfied.

It’s widely accepted among dog trainers that the most effective and humane way to train a dog is through positive reinforcement. Basically, it means you reward the animal’s behavior that you want to see repeated and ignore the behavior you don’t.

There seems to be a strong inverse correlation between the use of social media and users’ attention spans: as social media becomes more popular, people are less willing to spend a lot of time reading long form content. Therefore, one might conclude that the obvious answer to this dilemma is to shorten your content, otherwise known as “microcontent.”

The marriage of social media and e-commerce continues to blossom. And with American Express’s recent announcement of its new “pay-by-hashtag” feature on Twitter, the love between these two Web industries has never been stronger.