On Facebook Breaking Up is Not So Hard to Do

Getting customers to follow you on Facebook is hard enough, but once you have them, it’s just as much of a chore to keep them. According to the latest Subscribers, Fans and Followers report from ExactTarget, social media followers are like Goldilocks. Too big, too small, too hard, too soft — finding a happy medium that suits the majority of your visitors is nearly impossible according to their stats.

“After liking a company, 51% of consumers say they expect the company to send them marketing messages, while 40% say they don’t expect to receive marketing messages from the company.”

Forget Goldilocks, that’s more like Alice in Wonderland. If you don’t get the mix of entertainment vs value correct, only 57% of the unhappy followers will click the “Unlike” button but don’t rejoice yet. The rest of the unmerry band will simply ignore you or chose to stop showing your posts in their feed. Either way, it means you’re broadcasting to less people than you think you are. That’s why page activity is, in many ways, a better indicator because it’s proof that people are actually reading your message.

Why do people jump ship? Mostly because there were too many posts coming through either individually (63%) or because the have too many marketing messages in their newsfeed as a whole (43%).

38% said they unliked a brand because it was boring and 26% said they only signed up to get a one time offer and unliked soon after. I’m surprised that number is so low. With so many companies offering deals and giveaways on Facebook, I would expect that “one-time” number to be much larger.

The good news is that “unlike” doesn’t mean you’re un-loved. 63% of people surveyed said that their decision to disconnect from a brand on Facebook didn’t effect their opinion of the brand overall. I love Hershey’s chocolate but I don’t follow them on Facebook. Maybe I should.

Unfortunately, the point of all of this is that there’s no formula for success on Facebook. Random posts may work for Skittles but not so much for Bank of America. TV fans may tolerate multiple posts a day from their favorite show but as much as I love Del Taco, I’m signing off if they hit me up more than once a day.

The best thing about Facebook is that it’s easy to change the plan. Play around with content and frequency until you find the right mix that works for both you and your followers. It could take a while to get there, but if you hit the mark, it’s worth the effort.

You can download the full Subscribers, Fans and Followers: The Social Breakup report for free at ExactTarget.

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Make Your Facebook Fan Page a Party

This guest post is by Caz Makepeace of y Travel Blog.

Facebook Fan pages are swiftly becoming a standard extension to blogs’ brands and messages. This is a highly effective form of engaging with your target market and building a community around your brand.

If you focus on making your Fan page your homepage for the social web, you can create a page that serves as your mini-hub. Then use it as your platform to connect on a deeper level.

Today’s currency is engagement

People like to socialize with, and ultimately do business with, people they like and trust. So it’s very important that you’re actively engaging with your followers and they are engaging with you—hence the word “social”. That’s how you build strong and rewarding relationships.

From personal experience, by building an engaged and interactive community through our own travel blog’s fan page, our community member numbers grow every day. And although ours may not have as many fans as some other Fan pages, it does have a great deal more engagement, which is not only important to us, but important to Facebook.

Facebook rewards you for building relationships. The degree to which you engage with your fans, and how much they interact with you, determines whether your status updates show in your fans’ news feeds.

Strive for social success first, not marketing success

There are five critical errors most people make when they start using social media for business.

The secret to our success has been very simple. We made the intention for our Fan page to build an engaged community and start conversations. We wanted to create a place where those within our travel community can meet for some socializing and fun, not just get travel tips and information. Our intention is not to use our Fan page purely as a marketing tool.

Although we know it’s a highly effective tool, we do not build our fan page community based on this. If your intention is just to use your page as a tool to promote your products, that will clearly come through, and your success with Facebook will be limited.

Think of those who are most successful in your niche. I bet most of them began blogging by building their brand and a community first, and any monetization came later. First, build a passionate community based around social interaction and sharing. Any monetary rewards will come naturally later on.

Make your Fan page a party

We approach our Fan page strategy as if we were hosting guests at a party. For us to remove all thoughts of the page being a marketing tool, we had to think of it as the type of place we’d like to hang out. So our intention was to make our fan page more like a party. We love to socialize, and have never been shy in hosting parties in real life in any of the countries we’ve lived in. After all, isn’t that what the “social” part of social media is all about?

We invite and welcome

First of all, we invite and we welcome visitors. No one will come to your party if you don’t first invite them. We have clear invitations set up on our blog and all our other online platforms. And when our new guests arrive, we warmly welcome them in. We tag and give a shout out by video to every 100th guest. And we also have a “Fan of the Month,” which is the person who has contributed the most to the community in that time.

We interact and respond

This is our biggest recommendation for keeping social media “social.” How long would your party last if you didn’t talk to your guests? Or worse still, if they spoke to you and you ignored them? We do not ignore our guests. We respond to every comment left on our Fan page. Yes, it takes work, but we value our community members and suggest you value yours. Fostering a community involves a strong leader who supports, encourages, recognizes, and inspires.

Managing fan comments has become much easier since we started using a great free app called Hyper Alerts.

We ask questions and share

To be interesting, you must be interested. The best way to get to know new people is to ask questions. Remember, people like to talk about themselves, so let them. Don’t make the conversation all about you, what you’re doing, and your opinion.

Ask questions as a way to get your fans to share, to stimulate conversation, and to give advice. A lot of people won’t open up initially if they don’t feel like someone wants to listen or will respond. Be the listener and when your guests do answer the question and share, be the responder. Continue to ask questions throughout the conversation to encourage a more in-depth discussion.

At least once a month, we have a status update that runs something like this:

“Go ahead and introduce yourself:

1. Where are you from?
2. Where are you currently?
3. What is your favorite travel destination?
4. Can we help you with anything?”

This gets people to open up and feel welcomed. Sharing helps others to make new connections and form bonds. Simply through this particular update, community members become aware of others’ geographical locations and special interests, and can connect more directly. Sharing also shows that you are interested in and care about your fans. We also make an effort to share other people’s articles, videos, and blog sites through our Fan page.

Every Friday we have “Post Your URL Day,” when we encourage other travel bloggers to post their URLs and a three-line description under their status updates. From the URLs posted, we randomly choose a winner to do a featured interview on.

We say it with photos

Pictures really do tell a thousand words. Being in the travel industry, we find there’s no better way to inspire others and stir emotion than through travel photos. So we post a daily travel photo of a destination we have personally visited.

We also post random photos from our day-to-day lives. That way, our community members get a behind-the-scenes look into our life that creates a deeper connection.

People love to look at others’ personal photos, and Facebook is great for that. And did you know that using photos to stand out in the Facebook news feed carries more weight than text updates when it comes to your Facebook EdgeRank Score?

We play games

Everybody loves a good game—especially if they’re at a party and there are a few beers involved! There won’t be beers at your Fan page party, but you can still have a good time. We run a “Where in the World” game, where we upload a travel photo from somewhere in the world, and our fans have to guess the location. This stirs interaction and creates a fun vibe.

We also have “Happy Hour” once a week, where we encourage our fans to post a link to their favorite blog, website, or resource on the Web. Take some time to think of games you can play on your Fan page that relate to your niche and encourage participation.

We run competitions

Once you have enough fans engaged and interacting at your party, consider introducing competitions with prizes to let them know you appreciate them. We run photo contests every second month with a different photo theme which relates in some way to our prize. Last month’s prize was a backpack sponsored by Kelty, and the photo theme was National Parks. Fans get to vote on the best photo, and the top five are then sent to the sponsoring company, which selects the ultimate winner. Competitions like this are a win-win for you and your sponsor, who gets exposure to a new audience.

New ideas for a fantastic fan page party

Keep thinking of new ways to make your Fan page—and party—better. Don’t initially approach Facebook asking, “How am I going to use this as a monetization tool?” Instead, ask “How am I going to make this the fun place to hang out?” That’s the way to create an engaged community.

Don’t just create a Fan page, create an experience. Get this right, and the rest will naturally follow.

How much of a community are you building around your brand on Facebook?

Caz Makepeace has been travelling and living around the world since 1997. Along with her husband Craig they are the founders of y Travel Blog. You can visit her Facebook Fan Page or sign up for her

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Google, Social, and Facebook: One Ring Does Not Rule Them All

When I read Google announcements like this one, An update to Google Social Search, I find myself wondering why Google doesn't just come out and say something like this: "We know social search is important, and we're working on it. However, we don't think the solution lies in working only with Facebook, because, to be honest, we think social media is bigger than one company, one platform, or one "social graph." We've got a bigger vision for what social means in the world, and here it is."

Wouldn't that be great?

Because honestly, I think the company does have a bigger vision, and I think it's rooted in the idea of instrumentation and multiples of signals (as in, scores if not thousands of signals understood to be social in nature). In other words, there is not one "ring to rule them all" - there is no one monoculture of what "social" means. For now, it appears that way. Just like it appears that there's one tablet OS. But the world won't shake out that way - we're far too complicated as humans to relegate our identity to a single platform. It will be distributed, nuanced, federated. And it should be instrumented and controlled by the individual. At least, I sure hope it will be.  

Google might as well declare this up front and call it a strategy. In that context, it might even make sense to do further Facebook integration in the near term, as one of many signals, of course. Google already uses some limited Facebook data (scroll down), but clearly has decided to not lean in here (or can't come to terms with Facebook around usage policies). Clearly the two companies are wary of working together. But it's my hope that over time, whether or not they do should be a moot issue.

Why? Because I view my Facebook data as, well, mine. Now, that may not really be the case, but if it's mine, I should be able to tell Google to use it in search, or not. That's an instrumentation signal I should be able to choose. Just like I can chose to use my Facebook identity to log into this blog, or any number of other sites and services. It should be my choice, not Facebook's, and not Google's either.

Switch the control point to the customer, and this issue sort of goes away. I have a longer post in me about "social clothing" - came up on a phone call with Doc Searls yesterday - and hopefully when I get to that, this might make a bit more sense....

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Facebook Won’t Go Steady With Only One Phone

The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is really heating up. Today, it’s all about Mark Zuckerberg and his plans for mobile phone domination.

For a long time, it’s been rumored that Zuckerberg was backing a Facebook-branded cell phone, but the man says it’s not going to happen. Instead of going steady with only one manufacturer, Facebook is going to play the field, working to develop increased social networking capabilities in all the top brands.

Sticking with the software side of the business seems like a pretty smart move. Facebook may technically be a “tech” company, but electronics is a little out of their line. By spreading the love around, Facebook will further cement their social media domination and that’s gotta be a bigger money maker for them than a warehouse full of phones with a big blue F on the case.

Says Zuckerberg;

“Phones are inherently social devices and the industry is just beginning to discover what’s possible.”

It’s kind of funny, actually. When you think about the fact that phones were initially designed to allow one person to communicate by voice with another. Now it seems that only a small percentage of mobile usage is dedicated to voice calls. We’re all too busy texting, checking email, playing Angry Birds and watching missed episodes of “The Big Bang Theory.”

Right now, iPhone and Android users can access Facebook through an application that allows them to easily connect photos and friends. The Windows 7 phone, however, is more of where the company is headed with Facebook “baked in” to the system allowing for an automatic flow of data from FB to your phone.

Do we really need to be this connected to our social networks? Of course! Have you seen the OnStar commercial where the guy has his car check Facebook to find out if his date enjoyed their evening together? I don’t know. Sometimes I miss the good old days of “reach out and touch someone.”

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Where in Social Media are Young Teens?

Last week, first lady Michelle Obama explained that Facebook is not something her daughters need. More specifically, when asked if Sasha and Malia are on Facebook, Mrs. Obama joked that she’s lucky to be under a lot of constraints, stating the United States Secret Service as one of the obstacles preventing her girls from obtaining a personal Facebook account. I couldn’t help but wonder, how many people share Mrs. Obama’s sentiments? More notably, does parental disapproval affect the way young teenagers use social media?

Pew Internet Research released last Wednesday displayed teenagers ages 12-17 ranking in second of all age groups in social networking website usage at 73%, following their 18-29 adult counterparts at 82% .  Over the course of the past three years, Pew Internet Research suggests that the number of teens using these networks has increased overall, while youth activity on Twitter and blogs has significantly decreased.

Within the past year, a total of 8% of teenagers ages 13-17 used Twitter, compared to an overall 7% of adults ages 50-64. This is a significant drop for young teenagers, considering only 47% of these adults use social networking websites. Not to mention, Pew has also conveyed that youth activity on blogs has dramatically decreased in the past two years. Compared to 2006, the amount of teen blogger activity halved in 2010.   This statistic is strengthened by Pew research regarding how frequent of teens comment on blogs. In 2006, 76% of “teen social network users” accounted for commenting on friends’ blogs, whereas only 52% of teens declared doing so in 2010. If young teenagers are not as active on Twitter and blogs, where are they active?

Last July, Candytech’s SocialBakers.com, an analytics outlet specializing in Facebook statistics, released this 2010 infographic revealing the general breakdown of Facebook’s then 500 million Facebook users by region and age.

15% of Facebook users were teenagers ages 13-17, totaling to almost 73 million teenagers  using Facebook. What I found most interesting is that when these two studies are compared side by side, the number of teens using Facebook climbed, despite the decrease in Twitter and blog use.  Similarly, the number of young teens who use Facebook has also soared.

As a Digital Strategist and as a word-of-mouth marketer, one must ask, how  are these teenagers using Facebook? In the same Pew study, the amount of teenagers using social networking websites for messaging purposes have steadily risen from 21% in 2006 to 25% in 2010. Teenagers are progressively relying on Facebook as a means of communication and they are increasing as a demographic on  Facebook.  Off the top of my head, I can list robust Facebook campaigns geared towards moms, sports fanatics, families, and frat boys. However,  a compelling Facebook campaign targeting younger teens does not come to mind.

Is it just me? When I was drafting this post, I had wondered what statistics I could find regarding youth teenagers and their use of social media. While these statistics exist, I had found far more data for age groups between 18 and 64. As young teens are becoming increasingly visible on Facebook, we should allocate the time to learn how to reach them as an audience.

In your opinion, should Facebook be integrated into teenage marketing campaigns? If so, how?

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Love Is Indeed A Battlefield

I think Pat Benatar had it right when she sang “love is a battlefield” almost thirty years ago. Love is, and will always be, a space for our hearts’ inner most fears and desires to be won or lost for all to see. Love is just that motivating, inspiring dangerous and sometimes, simply nuts. And Valentine’s Day brings all the vastness of love to a head and often times, leaves some of us out in the cold. That is, until social media showed up.

What with all the social media marketing efforts flying around for Valentine’s Day, such as being able to send loved ones an Angry Birds - themed Facebook valentine or sending a virtual gift from CBS’s Mad Love Facebook Page, it is easy to assume that Valentine’s Day has lost all of its remaining sentimental value. However, I would argue that social media is actually beneficial for all the lovers out there. With tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, Yelp or even a recent startup (that connects to Facebook to help people find local & gift recommendations that match a loved one’s taste), making plans and sending gifts has become a simplified process. Now, there is really no worry (nor excuse) to not have plans, a gift or even a simple status update to showcase your love for another on Valentine’s Day.

Check out this video from Socialnomics to see just how easy social media has made it for anyone who needs to pull together great Valentine’s Day plans at the last-minute:

Now, if you are single on this heart-filled day, you might wonder “what about me?”, especially given some unsatisfactory results on large dating sites due to fake profilers and high subscription fees. Well, you’re in luck because social media can help you out too.

With all of the personal data available via social networks, it is much easier to leverage the information to establish safer & more reliable dating connections. One such way is through Facebook apps such as Matchmaker from Match.com. Or through dating network sites such as Zoosk and Gelato (the self-proclaimed “Friendfeed of dating”), that both pull in your social media data to help you find a better match. All of these developments, even with one as funny as Grouspawn (where you get $60k if you had a first date with a Groupon coupon that resulted in a baby), will continue to flourish and use social networking & its valuable data to establish great love connections. And if nothing else, at least it could be a great date story to share with your friends over Twitter, Facebook or even Flickr the next day.

So, the next time you are trying to win over a crush’s heart, solidify your love for your significant other or just not feel too lonely on Valentine’s Day, remember that social media is on your side — there to help you make love connections a bit easier to establish.

What do you think? Do social media platforms hinder or help on Valentine’s Day?

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Social Media Week 2011: Facebook Takes Center Stage

Looking back on last week’s Social Media Week 2011,  one thing is clear.  The event that was born in New York in 2009 has certainly secured the title of “Best Newcomer” on the conference circuit. And Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence jumped at the chance to host events in several hub cities including London, San Francisco and New York.

Since February marks Facebook’s seventh birthday, what better way to celebrate in NYC than to host an interactive workshop with partner and Facebook powerhouse Buddy Media? Entitled “It’s 2011…How’s Your Facebook Strategy Doing?” this session brought together the industry’s top experts in branding and platform development to share their experiences.

The half-day work session kicked off with best-in-class case studies from Ford and Starwood Hotels. 360 Digital Influence’s Karen Untereker showcased how Ford became the first automotive manufacturer to unveil a vehicle over 24 hours on Facebook. How? Tips included rolling out photo teasers, serving up fresh content every 30 minutes and hosting live chats with Ford experts to drive lasting engagement and positive word of mouth for the new Ford Explorer as it was launched.

Alyssa Waxenberg of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide shared tactics that have led to the phenomenal growth of Starwood’s official presence on Facebook - more than 1,000 of its properties have distinct Facebook Pages. Some of her tips for success? Senior-level support, tracking and responding to fan queries around the clock globally and adjusting the in-person Starwood experience based on feedback shared on Facebook. See her presentation here.

A workshop on Facebook would not be complete without hearing the facts straight from the world’s most popular website - Sarah Personette, US Head of Agency Relations at Facebook, presented a “State of the Union” address to the audience in Ogilvy’s Theater. She focused on the fact that every brand needs a customer-centric strategy, whether its using Facebook to deliver customer service or crowd-source around product development. The fact is the web is reorganizing around people,  and so businesses are reorganizing around people - because this approach delivers results.

Some of the latest Facebook numbers around the globe:

• More than half of Facebook’s 600+ million users return to the site daily
• In the US, that percentage is even higher: 70% of the 125 million US Facebook users return to the site every day
• France has 22 million active users, with 65 percent returning daily;
• The UK has 29 million active users, and Canada has 19 million active users

To wrap up, the event culminated in a panel debate featuring Pepper Evans Roukas of American Express; Beth Colleton of NBC Green Is Universal; Michael Lazerow, CEO Buddy Media and Julio Fernandez, Global Strategies International. Panelists focused on sharing their Facebook experiences and providing practical tips covering topics from fan acquisition and engagement to driving compelling, current content, measurement, effective advertising, and a look ahead to the next 12 months on the platform (spoiler alert: more mobile functionality and measurement were the top of the panel’s wish lists).

Could not attend? See TechCrunch’s report here.

And tell us, what do YOU think the next 12 months hold for Facebook? What will we be discussing with our panelists at SMW 2012?

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Social Media Week 2011: Facebook Comes Of Age

As Social Media Week 2011 wraps up, one thing is clear. The three year-old event has secured the title of “Best Newcomer” on the conference circuit in the eyes of many. And this year  Digital Influence jumped at the chance to host events in several hub cities including London, San Francisco and New York. Since February marks Facebook’s seventh birthday, what better way to celebrate in NYC than to host an interactive workshop with partner and Facebook powerhouse Buddy Media? Entitled “It’s 2011…How’s Your Facebook Strategy Doing?” this session brought together the industry’s top branding and platform development experts to share their experiences working with Facebook. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; color: #1738f5} span.s1 {text-decoration: underline}

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The workshop kicked off with best-in-class case studies from Ford and Starwood Hotels. 360 Digital Influence’s Karen Untereker showcased how Ford became the first automotive manufacturer to unveil a vehicle over 24 hours on Facebook. How? A successful mix of posting photo teasers, serving up fresh content every 30 minutes and hosting live chats with its experts drove lasting fan engagement and positive word of mouth for the new Ford Explorer. Alyssa Waxenberg of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide shared tactics that have led to the phenomenal growth of Starwood’s official presence on Facebook - more than 1,000 of its properties now have their own distinct Facebook Pages. Some of her tips for success? Senior-level support, tracking and responding to fan queries around the clock via a global network and adjusting the in-person Starwood experience, based on feedback shared on Facebook. See her full presentation here. A workshop on Facebook would not be complete without hearing the facts straight from the world’s most popular website itself - Sarah Personette, US Head of Agency Relations at Facebook, presented a “State of the Union” address to the audience in Ogilvy’s Theater. She showed how every brand needs a customer-centric strategy, whether its using Facebook to deliver customer service or crowd-source around product development. The fact is the web is reorganizing around people, and so businesses are reorganizing around people. Some of the new Facebook-by-numbers:

• More than half of Facebook’s 600+ million users return to the site daily
• In the US, that percentage is even higher: 70% of the 125 million US Facebook users return to the site every day
• France has 22 million active users, with 65 percent returning daily; the UK has 29 million active users, and Canada has 19 million active users

The event culminated in a panel featuring Pepper Evans Roukas of American Express; Beth Colleton of NBC Green Is Universal; Michael Lazerow, Buddy Media and Julio Fernandez, Global Strategies International. The discussion centered around sharing Facebook experiences and providing practical tips covering topics from fan acquisition and engagement to driving compelling, current content, measurement and effective advertising. The panel ended with a look ahead to the next 12 months on the platform;  mobile functionality and advanced measurement were the top of the panelist’s visions for the future. Could not attend? See TechCrunch’s report here and Sarah’s presentation. And join our panel debate by telling us what YOU think the next 12 months hold for Facebook? What will we be discussing with our panelists at SMW 2012?

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View All of Your Favorite Content in One Place with Faveous

Tweet

If you use sites like Google Reader, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to find and favorite interesting content then you’ll love Faveous. Right now Faveous is a very basic service in its “first private alpha,” but if you check out the features page you’ll see that there are a lot of new things coming soon. What it does is import all of your favorites (and “likes” from Facebook) into a single location so that you have easy access to them.

Connecting your desired services is easy and takes only a minute to authorize each one. If you want to manually add content from other sites not listed above, you can do so via the bookmarklet or Chrome extension. Content added manually will be displayed on the Faveous tab.

Your content will begin importing right away and you can view all items together or separately by choosing a tab. The search box on the right side of the page is also a nice touch because you can search through all of your favorites and find exactly what you’re looking for. Right now there is no way to actually organize your favorites, but that is coming soon. Honestly, I think it’s fine without that feature since there is the ability to search, but some may feel differently.

As I mentioned above, Facebook items are not actual favorites, but “likes” on videos, links and pages. If you’re visiting a blog and “like” an article, things like that will be imported as well. Faveous does not to import likes on statuses and comments.

Right now, the only option for each item is to delete it. Clicking on the Google Reader, Facebook and YouTube items will take you to the actual page on that service. Unfortunately, the only things clickable on Twitter content are links included in tweets (not usernames).

On a final note, I feel that Faveous has staying power and potential. We have enough services out there that let us view all of our content and very few that let us focus just on our favorites. Users want a site that is easy to use and doesn’t require too much work and Faveous offers just that. Why bookmark content when you can have it automatically imported from the social network itself? The latter method is definitely more convenient and helps to increase productivity.

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Zuckerberg Gets Letter From Congress About Data Privacy Concerns

If you are a company that depends on your users’ information to make a good portion of your revenue like Facebook does for advertising you likely don’t want letters from politicians about your tactics. It’s like getting a letter from the Principal in school. You know you did something wrong but you are hoping it doesn’t go on your permanent record. Then the letter arrives at the house. Ouch.

Well, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg got one of those little notices. It came from U.S. Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass) and Joe Barton (R-Texas), Co-Chairmen of the House Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus and it was dated February 2. The concerns come from the plan that Facebook launched in January then pulled off the table to be tweaked for re-release that gave developers access to mobile phone numbers and addresses of Facebook accounts. Representative Markey’s website tells some more.

“Facebook needs to protect the personal information of its users to ensure that Facebook doesn’t become Phonebook,” said Rep. Markey. “That’s why I am requesting responses to these questions to better understand Facebook’s practices regarding possible access to users’ personal information by third parties. This is sensitive data and needs to be protected.”

“Facebook’s popularity has made it a leader in innovation and we hope they will also be a leader in privacy protection,” said Rep. Barton. “The computer – especially with sites like Facebook – is now a virtual front door to your house allowing people access to your personal information. You deserve to look through the peep hole and decide who you are letting in.”

Some of the questions that Facebook is being asked to answer include:

Would any user information in addition to address and mobile phone number be shared with third party application developers under the feature as originally planned, and was any of this information shared prior to Facebook’s announcement that it would suspend implementation of the feature?

What user information will be shared with third party application developers once the feature is re-enabled?

What was Facebook’s process for developing and vetting the feature referenced above before the feature was suspended, and what was the process that led Facebook to decide to suspend the rollout of this feature? What is the process Facebook is currently employing to adjust the feature prior to re-enabling it?

What are the internal policies and procedures for ensuring that new features developed by Facebook comply with Facebook’s own privacy policy, and does the company consider this a material change to its privacy policy?
What consideration was given to risks to children and teenagers posed by enabling third parties access to their home addresses and mobile phone numbers through Facebook when designing the new feature?

What are the opt-in and opt-opt option for this new feature?

Why is Facebook, after previously acknowledging in a letter to Reps. Markey and Barton that sharing a Facebook User ID could raise user concerns, subsequently considering sharing access to even more sensitive personal information such as home addresses and phone numbers to third parties?

It’s the last question in the previous quote that pretty much sums up how Zuckerberg and Facebook approach the world in most cases. You see, back October the company had told these same two representatives that sharing Facebook User ID’s with developers raised privacy concerns. Now, Facebook goes ahead and gets caught with its hand in the privacy cookie jar looking to give away even more sensitive information like mobile numbers and addresses. That’s either chutzpah or just plain disregard for concerns that had been voiced by these reps in the past. If you are Facebook does it make sense to ‘poke the bear’ and open this door again after ticking off the same two men you had issue with in just the past few months?

At any rate, it’s obvious that Facebook will push every envelope it can to get user data in the hands of people that can help Facebook make money. As a capitalist that makes sense. But Facebook’s apparent disregard for any convention of decency is going to come back to bite them in the end. Despite all the accolades and platitudes cast upon Zuckerberg as a visionary etc, etc there is no denying that he is also arrogant and feels to be above the law in many ways. In a word, there are times where he is just unlikeable. This culture and attitude has been created at Facebook as well so this will likely not be the last time the company gets called into the principal’s office.

If you would like to see a full copy of the letter you can do that here.

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For Bloggers, Who Will Be the Next Digg?

Tweet

It wasn’t that long ago that, for bloggers and other Webmasters, being on the front page of Digg was something of a Holy Grail. It meant an instant tidal wave of traffic, a lot of great publicity and, of course, major bragging rights.

However, Digg’s traffic, since the launch of the “New Digg” in August has waned. Though it is certainly still a traffic powerhouse, it’s no longer end goal for bloggers and webmasters, especially now that the front page of Digg is different for almost every logged in user.

In short, Digg is no longer the guaranteed traffic rush that it once was and, though sites continue to target it, it is no longer a lone champion or clear leader like it once was.

So what site or service could take Digg’s place? It’s a hard question to answer, especially since there may never be another site quite like the old Digg. But there are candidates that could do it or at least create something similar. Consider the following:

1. Reddit

Reddit is the natural choice for most. As a social news site, it’s similar to Digg in many ways, namely that users submit stories and vote them up or down until they reach the front page or fall off, but it’s also very different in many regards as well.

First, where all of Digg’s content links out, much of the content that climbs the charts in Reddit is self posts and image links. Most of the links that do point to other sites go to mainstream media outlets or a small number of high-profile blogs. Very few blogs, especially ones not about technology or politics, reach the default front page of Reddit.

But also like Digg, Reddit is fragmented with the front page being different from user to user and users being further divided into subreddits. Though Reddit can be a huge driver of traffic (according to Alexa it’s been more popular since New Digg was launched), from a webmaster standpoint, it’s a completely different beast than Digg, especially in terms of targeting.

2. Twitter

Many think that the problem is that sites like Digg have become obsolete and the Web has gone from social news to social networking. If that’s the case, Twitter is a logical choice as it certainly has a great deal of traffic, millions of active users and, most importantly, an extremely viral nature.

However, few people read everything in their Twitter stream and nearly everyone sticks to their particular circle, no matter how large or small it is. This means that, for a story to generate an extremely large volume of traffic, it has to either be picked up in a very viral way by hundreds of separate users or simply be tweeted out by a major Twitter user or celebrity.

3. Facebook

Facebook has many of the same advantages of Twitter including an even larger user base, powerful sharing tools and a robust network of tightly-connected individuals. However, Facebook just isn’t nearly as viral as Twitter, though people routinely share links on Facebook, they don’t share links from those they are as following as Twitter, partially because Facebook doesn’t have a “retweet” culture like Twitter.

Facebook, for the most part, works best with sites that already have a large volume of traffic, giving them a good number of people to post their content. Of course, as with Twitter, there is as lot of traffic to be found by targeting power users, however, that’s hardly a substitute for the (slightly) more democratic Digg.

4. StumbleUpon

Like Reddit, StumbleUpon passed Digg in traffic (according to Alexa) around the time of New Digg. It’s also a democratic site and one that a wide variety of sites seem to do well on. Users Stumble posts, users who might be interested in it are shown the article, they then vote up or down and, the more thumbis up a page gets, the more views it gets.

Indeed StumbleUpon can drive a LOT of traffic. But StumbleUpon is not a site as much as it is an extension or a bookmarklet. Also, as great as a StumbleUpon swarm is, the effect tends to be more drawn out, taking, at times, over days.

This means that there is no front page to reach and no way to know how large the swarm was, other than looking at your traffic.

Bottom Line

Of the four above, StumbleUpon is probably the most Digg-like, that is, at least for bloggers. It provides a strong burst of traffic, one that can, at its peak, easily compete with the Digg effect. It also has a good combination of democracy and targeting that gives just about any site a good shot at seeing massive amounts of traffic, so long as it has good content.

But that being said, there’s nothing out there right now, nor likely to be for some time, that’s like what Digg was. There’s no runaway leader is social news, no site that every blogger pines to get their work on the front page of. While there are some great niche alternatives, there’s nothing with the same presence and dominance as old Digg.

However, that might not be such a bad thing. Given that many felt that the traffic from Digg was of such poor quality, the alternatives that are out there may not generate as much traffic, but they may generate higher-quality traffic. This means fewer visitors, but more actual readers.

In short, the direction social news and social networking is taking is one that gets away from a system with one king that serves everyone and provides a tidal wave of traffic to a system that better targets content to the interests of readers, sending fewer visitors, but more engaged ones.

Though bloggers may not feel the high of a Digg effect for some time, they may feel a much greater one, the joy that comes from a steady stream of dedicated traffic built up over a long period of time.

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Are you ready for some Football and helping hand of Social Media?

As a huge football fan, I always look forward to that time of the year when the Super Bowl is what everyone is talking about. But this year there is a new wrinkle, with social media such as Facebook and Twitter taking center stage.  These two social media powerhouses have an estimated 700 million users worldwide, and it’s no surprise that users have been tweeting and posting about the upcoming Super Bowl.

Advertisers, who have historically spent large sums of money on Super Bowl commercials, are trying to link their clever and comical Super Bowl ads with social media.  Estimates predict that 50 percent of ads shown during the Super Bowl will incorporate social media compared to just 25 percent of ads last year.  For example, Visa created “Go Inside the Super Bowl with Visa” (http://sbtwitter.nfl.com/) where one can gain direct access to tweets  by NFL players, executives and sports journalists.  Visa even has a “tweet off” between the Steelers and Packers fans.  Using a graphic of a hundred-yard field colored with the two teams’ colors, Visa is measuring the number of twitter mentions of #Packers and #Steelers at http://sbtwitter.nfl.com/matchup/.  As of February 3, 2011, the Packers fans lead the Steelers fans 57 percent to 43 percent.

Mercedes-Benz is also having a promotion called “Tweet Race” where four teams driving modified 2012 C-Class coupes will compete against each other in making it to the Super Bowl.  However, Mercedes-Benz added a twist by basing the teams’ fuel supplies on their own tweets and tweets from people following them.  Each car will have a celebrity coach who will also help them by tweeting up their followers.  Mercedes-Benz is calling it “The World’s First Twitter-Fueled Race”.  VW took advantage of social media last year when it launched the “Punch Dub” commercial which drew 50,000 Facebook fans  and more than one million views online.

Not to be outdone, Audi will be introducing some social media firsts this Super Bowl Sunday as well.  Audi will be the first brand to display a twitter hashtag in its Super Bowl ad.  The #ProgressIs hashtag will be displayed prominently during its ad.

Fans and players are also using social media by sending tweets on Super Bowl parties. Dallas Cowboy Miles Austin invited over 90,000 fans to join him for pre-Super Bowl party and a chance to win Super Bowl tickets. Other players nationwide are planning similar events closer to Super Bowl kickoff.  It’s a great opportunity for fans to meet their favorite football player.  I’m still holding to my dream that Darrell Green will hold a Super Bowl party at the local Green Turtle.

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Old Fashioned Message Boards Still Get the Job Done

71% of the Inc. 500 companies surveyed said they are using Facebook for marketing, up 61% from last year. It’s the biggest bite of social media pie but according to the same survey that bite is loaded with empty calories. (That’ll teach me to write when I’m hungry.)

The survey was conducted by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research and was presented on eMarketer earlier today. Perfect timing, since I recently put up a piece about the declining click rates of Facebook ads and the high incidence of ad burnout.

According to the survey, 85% of respondents said they had success with Facebook over a measly 54% from last year. That’s pretty good, right? But there were three other kinds of social media marketing that topped Facebook for results. Blogging squeaked ahead at 86% but is actually on the decline from last year and that feels like a trend that’s going to continue. Podcasting also dropped considerably over last year.

On the top? Online video and message boards. Video isn’t surprising at all, but message boards? Bulletin Boards are the original form of social media, dating back to the early 70′s, though they really took off in the mid-90′s. From Fidonet and Usenet to VBulletin, these have always been a place for like-minded people to gather and chat. They may seem old fashioned compared to Facebook, but you shouldn’t be counting these websites out.

As more people grow tired of Facebook’s privacy issues and the noise to signal ratio of Twitter, it’s conceivable that they’ll move back to the tightly monitored, closed-door safety of the message board.

From a marketing standpoint, message boards can be a real gold mine of already qualified users. The only downside is that they’re harder to crack as they have a low tolerance for spam.

Are you still including message boards in your marketing program? I’d like to hear your thoughts on the effectiveness and how you’ve made it work.

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Facebook Clicks Fade as CPC Rises

1,500 Advertising Campaigns

11,200 Individual Ads

2.2 Million Clicks

0 Happy Marketers

“Facebook Advertising Performance Benchmarks & Insights” is the latest whitepaper from Webtrends and it brings some sobering news. In short, Facebook ads aren’t turning out to be the gift to marketing we’d hoped and maybe Eric Schmidt was right, Google has nothing to worry about.

The most telling piece of information is contained in this chart. Basically, it shows that clicks have declined and prices have risen.

A big part of the problem is ad burnout. Because Facebook serves ads based on interest, the same ad is served to the same person multiple times over a few days. The study saw that people began to ignore the ad after only a few viewings. They counter this with Google search ads which only appear when someone is searching for that information, thus reducing the number of times the ad is seen, and thus, ad burnout.

Facebook’s one saving grace is the addition of the friended ad. Ads that have been “liked” by a friend received more clicks and they lasted three times longer before burning out. The problem with this is obvious, as a marketer, you have no control over who “likes” your ad. The best you can do is present a product or ad that is engaging enough to grab the audience — but isn’t that always the goal?

What categories of ads perform best on Facebook? Webtrends has a chart for that and it shows that media, entertainment, tabloids and blogs get the most bang for their buck. Travel and cars also fared well. On the downside, healthcare, financial services and oddly internet and software suppliers would have been better off taking their business elsewhere.

The takeaway from all of this is that Facebook isn’t the miracle marketing vehicle many were hoping for. For those in the entertainment arena, who have compelling ads that people like, it could be more profitable than the same dollars spent on Google.

It seems to me that comparing Facebook to Google ads is something we shouldn’t even be doing. Facebook is a completely different animal, so shouldn’t they have a completely different way of handling advertising? By allowing folks to “like” an ad, they’re on their way to putting the social in social marketing but they still have a ways to go. The future has to hold something more than alphabet soup (CPM, CPC, CPA, CTR, ABC and OMG).

What do you think?

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6 Twitter Handles Every Social Media Professional Should Follow

The social media world moves fast and there’s an insane amount of best practices, latest news, studies, reports, case studies, metrics etc. that go along with it. For those who make social media their profession (or part of it), it’s nearly impossible to stay up-to-date on the latest and greatest. Below, in no particular order, are six resources that help me stay on top of things – or at least help me keep the façade of a social media “specialist” up for one more day.

1. @sysomos
   Leading provider of social media analytics. Enabling Business Intelligence for social media
   I’m a stat freak. I’m still impressed by the number of people on Facebook, the number of tweets that are sent each day, etc. That’s why I like @Sysomos – they blend interesting, useful analytics tweets (“Tweeting from Egypt has increased by 60% in the past week. See some stats here - http://bit.ly/gv9mOh #twitter #egypt”) with straightforward blog post tweets (Is there such thing as too much engagement? - http://awe.sm/5FcYm).
2. @mashable
   Breaking social media, tech and digital news and analysis from Mashable.com, the top resource and guide for all things web. Updates from @mashable staff.
   Yeah, I know, no surprise here. Seriously though, not a day goes by that I don’t “Favorite” a @mashable tweet on my cell to read later. They’re on top of the latest changes to various platforms (“Facebook To Launch Third-Party Commenting Platform - http://on.mash.to/dNNH8I [UPDATED: With Comments from Facebook]”), they alert me to cool things (“10 Incredible Interactive YouTube Videos - http://on.mash.to/eEDayx”), they have useful best practices (“HOW TO: Optimize Your Company’s LinkedIn Profile - http://on.mash.to/ebZrgP”), they provide interesting stats and infographics (“Americans & TV: How Social Media Users Watch Video [INFOGRAPHIC] - http://on.mash.to/gj2HBs”)… they got it all and I’m extremely jealous and grateful.
3. @socialnetdaily
   Our mission is to provide our subscribers with the very best resources for Social Media to help them grow their business!
   @socialnetdaily has clearly done their research and knows that their audience likes and responds well to lists. “5 Ways…,” “8 Tips…,” “20 Facts…” are how the majority of their tweets start. Their tweets may be formulaic, but I fall for them every time. Knowing when I read the tweet, that I’m only have to read 5, 8 or 20 things and that they’re probably going to be in a list, makes me want to click and I almost always do.  Their tweets promise and always deliver practical advice that you can often implement immediately.
4. @socialmedia2day
   World’s best bloggers on Social Media and Web 2.0
   First, I love their logo… I’m pretty sure that color scheme will influence my next interior design project. Second, I love their handle description, “World’s best bloggers…” It’s like all the places in New York that put up a sign, “World’s best bagels…” Aside from that, they are an incredible resource for case studies (“Southwest Airlines Social Media Strategy – Lessons for All Organizations http://goo.gl/fb/XZQ6I #sm”), stats and infograhics (“65 Terrific Social Media Infographics http://goo.gl/fb/5TV6L #sm”), new technology and platforms (“Daniel Kehrar asks… are you using Yammer yet? Well, are you? http://fb.me/zrBbgjeO”), and everything in between.
5. @InsideNetwork
   Inside Network - Focused on the Facebook platform and social gaming ecosystem InsideFacebook.com InsideSocialGames.com InsideVirtualGoods.com
   Although not all of @InsideNetwork’s tweets are of interest to me, they do seem to be the ultimate authority on everything Facebook and I find about 1 in 10 of their tweets really helpful (e.g. “Facebook Confirms Removal of Suggest to Friends Feature from Pages, Reducing Virality http://bit.ly/fdr9oi” and “Facebook’s Redesigned Page Creation Flow Helps Admins Choose a Category http://bit.ly/eQJWye”). I also love what other brands and organizations are doing on Facebook, making their weekly tweet/blog post featuring various Facebook campaigns a “must click.”
6. @Pew_Internet
   The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization. Twitter feed managed by @SusannahFox & @kzickuhr.
   Possibly an odd addition to the list, but @Pew_Internet provides a continuous supply of research and data that I am repeatedly referencing during my work. Although their research covers the much broader issue of everything “online,” they’re a great resource for social media use among various demographics.

So, do tell, what are some of your “must follow” Twitter handles? What resources do you find invaluable in your work every day?

P.S.  You can easily follow all of the Twitter handles listed above with one quick click.

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Facebook Encourages You to Buy with Friends

It can be hard keeping up with the virtual Jonses. First your old roommate gets a new tractor for his farm, then your mom gets a missile launcher and your best friend just got a baby whale. Don’t stress it. Facebook’s new Buy with Friends program is going to help you keep up by offering you a chance to purchase everything your friends bought and you might even get a discount.

Deb Liu of Facebook Commerce Product Marketing announced the roll out of the new program at the Inside Social Apps InFocus 2011 Conference.

Buy with Friends is an attempt to make social commerce more social and it could be both a boon and a bust, depending on which side of the dollar you’re on.

The whole process is one of suggestive selling. Your roommate buys that tractor in Farmville, so you get a notice offering you the same tractor at 40% off. Facebook has now considerably upped the chances of you buying the virtual object and that’s not virtual money that is falling into their pocket.

Early reports say that players will have the option of sending or not sending notifications. Liu remarked that in testing, “more than 50 percent of users elected to share a purchase.” But being on the sharing end isn’t annoying. The trouble comes on the receiving end when you’re bombarded with notices asking you to buy, buy, buy.

In order to facilitate the shopping push, Facebook is working on a feature that will allow you to purchase more credits without leaving the game. This feature, which has been used by poker sites for ages, should lead to higher revenues as it encourages impulse buying.

In addition to the annoyance factor, there’s also the issue of games that don’t use Facebook credits as their base form of currency. As All Things Digital pointed out, having to exchange real money for in-game cash, which has to then be turned into Facebook credits is too cumbersome. For social commerce to truly take off, the majority of developers need to use the same type of currency and that’s exactly what Facebook is counting on.

What do you think of the new Buy with Friends program? Is it a nice feature that will encourage the growth of the virtual goods market, or a blatant marketing push that players will ignore rather than annoy their friends?

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Brand Mascots – Just Memorable Characters, or Social Capital?

They are an undeniable part of our culture. From “The Man in the Hathaway Shirt,” to The Most Interesting Man in the World, to the GEICO Gecko, you can’t deny that - when done right - fictional brand characters can live well beyond a campaign and become a memorable part of our lives.

And with the rise of the social web, we’ve seen a number of these characters try their hand at becoming a part of our online lives as well. The question is…can that be effective?

A brand’s authenticity and transparency are two of the most important characteristics of an effective brand presence in social media. So how do you reconcile that to effectively leverage these brand mascots…and use them right?

I took a look at a number of well known brand mascots being used online with the hope of answering two questions: (1) how are brands using these mascots as part of their social media strategy and (2) what makes it work.

I could go on and on about all kinds of brand mascots and how they are being used in social media, but I chose to look at three of my personal favorites to see how they are being used – specifically on Facebook.

The Most Interesting Man in the World (Dos Equis)

Before I started researching, he already knew he would be on the list.

How he’s being used: When you’re the most interesting man in the world, people want to hear what you have to say – and this guy is never at a loss for words. Dos Equis has taken those memorable quotes and created a sort of ongoing quote-roll where the brand and fans alike can showcase their reasons why he’s so interesting.

What makes it work: The beer industry (mostly due to the 800 lb gorillas in St. Louis and Milwaukee) has historically been a battle of ad budgets and Super Bowl spots with few characters having the attributes necessary to extend into social media. By positioning this character with an endless number of one-liners, Dos Equis has created something for fans to congregate around – what might he say next, and can I do him one better?

Flo the Progressive Girl (Progressive Insurance)

Love her or hate her, you can’t deny the value of this friendly insurance clerk.

How she’s being used: Progressive has set up Flo as a supplemental Facebook presence, having both Progressive and Flo fan pages. By doing so, fans are able to enjoy Flo’s character personality, while not sacrificing the credibility and service necessary for an insurance product.  At the same time, they have integrated Flo visually across both fan pages to provide some semblance of brand consistency.

What makes it work: The most unique element of a service product compared to a CPG is the importance of service for existing customers. Not all Flo fans are going to be Progressive customers, so understanding that are being able to separate the content Flo fans are looking for from those that a customer with a policy issue might be looking has allowed Flo’s page to balloon to over 2.4 million fans.

The Roaming Gnome (Travelocity)

Need a deal? He’s your gnome.

How he’s being used: Travelocity has established the Roaming Gnome as the brand’s social voice and distributor of travel deals to its fan base. He delivers the deals, while also interacting with the community and encouraging fans to share their “Gnome’d selves” for a chance to be the Fan of the Week.

What makes it work: With a recent study showing that the highest percentage of consumers (40%) are motivated to like a brand on Facebook by discounts and promotions, Trevelocity has one of the easier tasks for finding a way to integrate a brand mascot into social media. The integration of the character as the brand’s social voice – coupled with fun sharable content like “Gnoming Yourself” – allows Travelocity to take advantage of the character’s unique attributes, while not sacrificing the ultimate value that it provides…deals.

So what have I learned? You mean other than that I want to hang out with The Most Interesting Man in the World? Here are three key takeaways:

• Understand what you fans “want” from your brand in social media. If your brand involves an element of customer service (e.g., insurance), you will need to develop a strategic approach to leveraging your brand mascot, while not sacrificing the value you can provide to your fan community.
• Be selective about the characteristics you choose to leverage. Dos Equis found an opportunity in the now-famous list of reasons why their character is so darn interesting. Rather than simply recreating an ad on Facebook, look for those unique attributes that make people talk, and use it.
• Brand mascots come and go…but the brand will always be there. Campaigns change. Brands move on. It’s the nature of advertising. You need to keep in mind that these brand mascots might not be there for you to hang your hat on, so look for ways to get the most out of them while also maintaining the integrity of the brand’s ultimate personality.

Stay social, my friends…

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