Weekly Comms News Round Up 31/10/2013

Happy Halloween! This week’s comms news highlights include the FT’s soaring circulation figures, Facebook’s strong advertising revenue and LinkedIn’s growing user numbers. Make sure you also check the slightly spooky list of Britain’s most influential tweeters. Read my pick of top stories curated via @CisionUK.

Financial Times reaches highest circulation in its 125-year history by @GreensladeR via The Guardian
The Financial Times is in good shape, according to today’s trading update by its owner, Pearson. It reports that the FT, across print and online, has achieved its highest circulation in its 125-year history at nearly 629,000, which is up 5% year on year.

Digital subscriptions have grown strongly, says Pearson’s nine-month interim statement. They are up 24%, to almost 387,000, over the nine-month period.

Facebook revenue surges 60% on strong ad sales via The BBC
Social network giant Facebook reported a 60% surge in revenue, to $2.02bn (£1.26bn), in the third quarter. Revenue from advertising grew by 66% to $1.8bn, with nearly half of that coming from mobile ads.

“The strong results we achieved this quarter show that we’re prepared for the next phase of our company,” said Mark Zuckerberg in a statement.

LinkedIn Tops 250 Million Members @sfiegerman via Mashable
LinkedIn now has 259 million monthly active users, up from 238 million in the previous quarter and 187 million a year earlier.

The latest number, which came as part of LinkedIn’s third quarter earnings results, puts the professional social network firmly ahead of Twitter, which had 230 million active users last quarter according to its updated S-1. However, LinkedIn is still well behind Google+ (currently at 300 million) and Facebook (1.15 billion as of the June quarter).

What To Do If Your Social Media Account Is Hijacked by @ow via The Next Web
Almost everyone has had their social media accounts compromised at least once in the past, where their accounts automatically share scam links to friends and followers. The attack on Buffer showed just how easy it is for a reputable company to cause its users to become victims of social media attacks, despite having done nothing wrong.

It’s hard to know what to do in these situations so we’ve prepared a primer on how you can deal with attacks if  your social media account were to be compromised.

Britain’s most influential tweeters by @MirandaPrynne via The Telegraph
The members of boyband One Direction have been rated as the UK’s five most influential tweeters, ahead of David Cameron or Ed Miliband.

What To Do If Your #SocialMedia Account Is Hijacked