Author Archive

Fan Pages Are Getting An Upgrade

The official upgrade day is tomorrow, March 10th. But, if you received a notification then you are able to upgrade earlier. Here are the changes:

Now you will be notified when fans interact with your page or posts.

You are also given a place to showcase your photos along the top of the page. This area will not include pictures posted by your fans. If you want to remove a picture, all you have to do is roll over it and click the “X”.

Navigation links are now going to be on the left hand side of the screen. This is like the profiles of people. It will be consistent with what users are looking for.

Now we are able to determine which posts will show at the top. Viewers will be able to choose in chronological order or by those that have recieved the most response. This would list the more interesting posts first.

And we are also given some options on which pages appear in the left column. To make these changes go to Edit Page, then Your Settings or Featured.

Facebook continues to improve! What other changes would you like to see?

Popularity: 4% [?]

A social media marketing company, Syncapse, surveyed 4,000 people who have “Liked” 20 of the top marketing brands.

Companies are recognizing their need to understand the value of their fans, people who “Like” their products. A key question is “What do fans do for the company?”

• Fans spend money on the top marketing brands themselves.
• They also show a level of loyalty – they will buy again and again.
• They recommend the product by “word-of-mouth”, which includes their voice for talking and their fingers for social media.

Each of these factors adds to the value of a someone who “Likes” a product.

Social Channels Impact Marketing

The Syncapse report explains the importance of monitoring social media conversations:

Brands need to understand the causal relationship between their social programs and its effect on key performance indicators. Understanding Earned Media Value generated by a social base is a direct indicator of the amount of word-of-mouth conversation about a brand. Understanding Community Health is a leading indicator of the future sustainability of a community and the ability to nurture high value customers. Mining the conversation and understanding the tone and focus provide insights into the association fans have with a brand and how marketers can use such allegiance to their advantage.

While understanding the value of a fan is very complicated, many companies are developing ways to do it. Over time these measurements will be tested and their analysis will improve.

Click here to see the Syncapse report.

Popularity: 62% [?]

The Big Number

The big number that was played up this year was the number of users of Facebook surpassing 500 million users. That surpasses the population of the United States.

Keeping The Other Numbers Understandable

Some of the other numbers on Facebook were so mind boggling in 2010 that Facebook decided to put them in a context that displayed numbers we can understand. To do this they reported the activity as it took place every 20 minutes.

Every 20 Minutes on Facebook:

2.7 million photographs were uploaded
1 million links were shared
7.6 million pages were “liked”
1.3 million photos were tagged
1.4 million invites were sent out
1.5 million wall posts were made
1.9 million friend requests were accepted
10.2 million comments were made
4.6 million messages were sent

Facebook continues to explode. And more businesses are using it to communicate with their employees, their customers and their prospects. What are your business’s plans for using Facebook in 2011?

Popularity: 43% [?]

Facebook is making a significant change to the Internet. They are doing it with their “Like” button. Participating websites are able to put a “Like” button on a piece of content. If site users want to share the content with their Facebook friends then all they have to do is click on the Like button, post a comment in the Facebook entry box that pops up, and click “Post to Facebook.” The comment and a link back to the article will be posted on their Facebook page.

The Like Button Announcement

The “Like” Button

The image below is the end of a Wall Street Journal article. At the bottom of the article is Facebook’s Like button:

The Facebook "Like" Button

Post A Facebook Comment Without Visiting Facebook

Once you click on the Like button a Facebook text box opens up for you to place a comment in. Type in your comment, click “Post to Facebook” and you are done.

Post to Facebook

Your Facebook friends are now able to see the post. If they are interested in the article then they can click the link that is placed on your posting and it will take them to it.

Popularity: 8% [?]

“There’s Just Too Much Junk On My Wall!”

This is a common line I get from people who have become frustrated with Facebook after they have acquired a large number of friends. The perfect example was a customer of mine who was overwhelmed by what he considered worthless content. He had several business contacts on Facebook and he was interested in seeing the posts they made and communicating with them. But, he also had a large following of grand kids, nieces and nephews that were kids and posted kids’ stuff. And that “stuff” was worthless to him.

Don’t Filter Your Friends, Filter Your News Feed

Too often, people will turn down a friend request because they don’t want to hear what that person wants to say. If you are using Facebook to stay in contact with customers and to promote your business, then you don’t want to turn away many requests from people who want to be friends. They want to hear what you have to say or they wouldn’t be sending you a friend request. So, accept it. That doesn’t mean you have to read their posts. You can filter out that “kids stuff”.

The way to filter all that “stuff” on you news feed is to create Friends Lists. You can create as many as you want. Once you have created your lists you can view posts on your news feed from people on your lists. I have set up lists for “website customers,” “social media customers,” “dance friends,” and “golf friends.” With these lists created I can filter my news feeds. If I only want to see what my dance friends are talking about then I go to my news feed, click on “Most Recent” (to the right of ‘Top News’). Then select “Dance Friends”. That shows the posts of only my dance friends. No “kids stuff”!

When you exit the News Feed page and then come back your page will go back to the default setting. But, once you get into the habit using your lists you’ll see that it can save you a lot of time.

Setting Up The Friends Lists

Alex Martinez has created a great video that shows you how to set up your friends lists. Take a look at this:

Now, start creating your Friends Lists. This will save you a lot of time and it will make you time spent on Facebook much more valuable. If you need more help then contact me.

What lists are you going to create?

Popularity: 10% [?]

Showing Connections

Paul Butler is an intern with a data engineering team at Facebook. He came up with a brilliant idea to create a map of the world that shows the connections of friends on Facebook. The project began with a random group of 10 million pairs of friends. As he adjusted the design of the site, continents and individual countries began to appear.

The lines on the map represent connections of people on Facebook. The brighter portions of the graphic represent multiple connections of people between those areas. There are no graphics other than the lines that map friend connections. No boarders, no markings of cities. All of the lines represent interaction.

This interaction is taking place for both individuals and businesses. International commerce is easier than it ever has been. I have done businesses with firms in Africa, Europe and Australia through my Internet connections. And a lot of my communication with these people is through Facebook.

A Map Of The Free World

This is a map of the Social Media revolution. And that revolution has taken place primarily in the free world. The United States and Canada nearly run together. Eastern Europe and India are well defined. Indonesia, the Philippines, New Zealand and the populated portions of Australia showing the connections between the cities around Perth and cities of the country’s east coast. South Korea and Japan look like a pair of islands in the middle of nowhere.

The Missing Communist Nations

Take note of the lack of connections in China. The lines that pass this area are connecting individuals from neighboring nations. Russia is nearly vacant with some faint lines coming out of Moscow.

Facebook Connections:

Click on the image for a larger view.

Who do you connect with around the world?

Popularity: 43% [?]

Got My New Facebook Page Today

Facebook is in the middle of switching to a new page layout!

The first thing a visitor to your page sees is info about you. Where you work, where you went to school, who you are in a relationship with, all of these items are on the top of your wall. This is a very appropriate introduction. The next thing your friends see are your tagged photos. If you don’t like one of the photos then you just roll over it and click the “x” in the upper right corner. Keep eliminating the photos from the top line until you get the combination you want.

Navigation has moved to the left column and everything is together. This is a lot more simple than tabs across the top and some links on the side.

You can now add more detail on your education and work.  Add projects, classes and other educational pieces. So if you are one of my Social Media students then my sure you list the classes you have been to!

Facebook also includes more information on your interests.

Do you like the new layout? Why or why not?

Popularity: 6% [?]

Who’s #1?

Depending on where you get (and how you look at) your statistics, Facebook has become, or is about to become, the most popular website in the United States.

comScore.com has placed Facebook in the number 2 position behind google. They say that Facebook got 151 million unique views in October vs. 173 million unique views that Google received. Hitwise.com says the market share of visits surpassed Googel in March, 2oo9. Either way Facebook is, or will be the most visited website very soon.

Hitwise goes on to mention that Facebook accounted for hearly 1 in every 4 pages viewed in the US for the week that ended on November 13th, 2010.

Facebook’s Growth

The primary reason for the growth that Facebook is experiencing is the fact that they continue to enhance and add to the services they provide. A few months ago they brought on “Facebook Places” that works on smartphones. It incorporates geo-location tools that, with your permission, tells your friends where you are. If you aren’t using it, I strongly advise you to put it on your smart phone.

What Next?

Vadin Lavrusik’s article on Mashable a couple of days ago says Facebook is about to add Skype Video Chat to the Facebook services. And you know they won’t stop there.

What services would you like to add to Facebook?

Popularity: 43% [?]

Many owners and managers are quick to say “Yes, lets get our business on Facebook!” when they don’t have much concept as to what it’s all about. So let me suggest that you do first things first. Created an honest personal page before you worry about your business page.

Create your profile

Join Facebook. It’s free. Then create your own personal profile. The more complete your profile, the more likely your are to connect with compatible Facebook “friends”.

Facebook will step you through the process. Upload a photo to your profile. Those who don’t post their photos are in the minority these days. They look like the odd balls. Post your education, business and contact info.

“Like” a page

Next learn how businesses and groups use Facebook. For example, if you are interested in golf you may want to type in “golf” in the search box in the upper section of your Facebook page. As I am writing this I come up on list of “Pages” and a list of “groups” that I can join. Click on one of those items. Then a list of similar “Like” pages shows up. Click on one of them and see if their wall and other content interests you. If it does click the “Like” button. Now their posts will show up on your news feed.

Nike Golf is the on the list of pages. I look over their wall and it appears to have some interesting info on their equipment. So I become a fan of their page.

Do this in a field you are interested in. See how Fans participate. See how businesses interact with their Fans.

Create a “Like” pages for your business

Once you have a feel for how the Facebook business “Page” concept works, create a page for your business. Invite people to join and start to interact with your fans. Who knows, they may be your future customers.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Facebook can now be integrated into your web presence with incredible ease. As a result, more businesses are integrating their websites and Facebook with the “Like” button.

The Like Button

With the use of the “Like” button businesses can enable their website visitors to share their findings with their Facebook contacts. The button is very simple to install (click here to learn how). Now websites become a part of Facebook and Facebook becomes a part of websites.

By reducing the cost and time it takes for websites to become a part of the Facebook platform, Facebook has created a win-win proposition for many companies hoping to market on the network. Websites will be able to provide a constant flow of content to the people who “like” what they publish online, while Facebook becomes one of the primary aggregators of social data across the web — not a bad deal.

http://mashable.com/2010/05/05/facebook-open-graph-business/

So more businesses are going to get in.

Facebook Is Reaching For The Top Spot

With 450 million users Facebook dominates social media. And they are not about to rest any time soon. Facebook is significantly impacting search engine rankings, connections between users, and Internet communication in general.

Social optimization is to 2010 as SEO was to 2005. Facebook, along with other important social platforms are now giving you the tools to optimize your social media presence based on the quality of social engagement you create. As Mark Zuckerberg said, the web is defaulting to social. It’s time to act accordingly.

http://mashable.com/2010/05/05/facebook-open-graph-business/

Wow, what a fascinating time we work in!

Popularity: 19% [?]