Archive for the ‘facebook’ Category

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Why Facebook’s Community Pages Could Give Brands Headaches

10.05.10

A couple of weeks ago I received a worried call from a friend working in PR for a large company. Her opening question went something like:

“What the heck are Community Pages on Facebook, and why is there one for my company?”

Community Pages 101

Facebook’s Community Pages are an initiative from Facebook to create “the best collection of shared knowledge” on a wide variety topics. Right now the content from the pages is pulled from Wikipedia (if available) and from your friends’ updates, so they’re often pretty bare but apparently Facebook plans to enable users to add content in the future. The social network launched roughly 6.5 million of these when they first launched.

In theory these pages should be a good thing for companies. The intent, according to All Facebook, was to take generic topics that aren’t necessarily brand-focused and to create Community Pages for them. Facebook states:

“Generate support for your favorite cause or topic by creating a Community Page. If it become very popular (attracting thousands of fans), it will be adopted and maintained by the Facebook community.”

So, if your Facebook Page falls into “owned media” in our social media ecosystem, Community Pages would fit more into “earned media.”

Over time, Community Pages would reduce the number of errant brand-related pages set up by individuals – a good move from a brand’s perspective. As Christopher Heine at ClickZ wrote, “Big brands that have seen their official Facebook fan numbers hindered by third-party fan pages will likely welcome the move.” The piece also noted that “community pages will indeed help make official brand pages more distinct from third-party pages and groups on the site.”

Causing Headaches for Brands

Here’s the problem, though – alongside generic causes and topics, Facebook has also created Community Pages for many well-known brands. As my friend put it:

“But we already have a Facebook page! What do we do with this?”

Right now, she can’t do anything.

As Facebook states in its FAQs:

“At this time, there is no way for people who choose to connect with a Community Page to add their own pictures or edit the information.”

Many companies have spent time and money building sizeable communities on Facebook through their curated fan pages. Now they’re seeing Facebook roll out yet another form of pages which undermine their efforts. As it it weren’t confusing enough already, we now have:

  • Pages – representing an organization or person
  • Groups – for communities of interest
  • Community pages – theoretically about topics, causes or experiences but seemingly also about brands

These Community Pages also create an additional challenge for companies – they’re a monitoring nightmare. Community Pages are pretty much impossible to monitor effectively, as right now each user only seems to see content posted from their own network. That means everyone sees a unique page driven by their friends.

As if there isn’t enough noise on Facebook already, companies now have to deal with a third wave of pages about their brands – and this time they have absolutely no control over them.

Let’s take Roots, for example (not where my friend works). They’ve created a reasonable-sized community of roughly 14,000 people through their Roots Canada page, and they maintain it regularly. They run contests and promotions, and have a solid level of engagement from “fans” (or whatever we’re calling them now – “likers”?).

However, that page now has to compete with other Community Pages including Roots Canada and Roots. These pages are effectively off-limits for the company, and compete directly with the community the company has already invested in developing.

This isn’t unique to Roots – do the same for Microsoft, for example. When I searched for Microsoft, for example, four of the eight results shown in the drop-down were Community Pages, at the expense of Microsoft’s own pages for students and for Windows 7.

On Control…

Now, I’m of the view that companies don’t “own” their brand – that brands are really the sum total of peoples’ perceptions about the entity in question. This isn’t about that.

I also get that companies don’t “control” their online presence – I work in social media; I actually appreciate the fact that people talk about things that interest or are important to them .  This isn’t about that either.

This is about the world’s largest social network encouraging companies to set up shop on their network and to invest in their presence there, then pulling the rug out from under their feet and launching a new aspect to the network that dilutes the investment for those companies.

It’s funny if you think about it – in the past Facebook would hand over control of fan pages to companies; now they’ve launched a new type of page that’s designed specifically so that brands can’t control them. It’s quite ironic given Facebook’s repeated moves toward enabling businesses to interact more and more with its users.

Managing Risk For Your Community Page

As for my friend and her concern about her company’s new, unsolicited Community Page, I had limited advice to offer. Most of the content, at least initially, is pulled from sources out of the company’s control, so I really only had two recommendations:

  1. Keep a close eye on your Wikipedia page – your company’s information is pulled from there, so brand-jacking efforts may shift there even more if Community Pages take off.
  2. Enter your company’s official website if it isn’t already included on the page – Facebook lets you enter that, at least.
  3. Pay even closer attention to monitoring other social sites. Facebook still offers no effective way to monitor your brand; however as more and more Facebook content is made available on the wider web, you may see more spill-over if an issue does bubble up, and these pages make it more important than ever to catch those issues when they do.
  4. Prepare in advance for how you’ll react if a crisis does emerge. How will you decide whether to respond? Where will you respond? How? Who will do it? Picture Nestle’s recent Facebook issues but in a forum where, even if you wanted to respond, you couldn’t.

What do you think? Is this move good or bad for marketers, and what other tips would you offer to help organizations manage their Community Pages?

Posted in: facebook, issues management

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Social Gaming Hitting A New Level

09.11.24

Xbox LiveLast week, Microsoft rolled out a new update to its Xbox 360 dashboard. Among other changes, the update added Twitter and Facebook functionality to “Gold” users of its service. CNET tells us that “millions” are already using these new services.

The new add-ons allow users to do the usual things that you would expect to do with Twitter and Facebook – browse profiles, tweet, etc, but they also do one very important and very powerful thing, too:

They allow you to see which of your friends on these services are using Xbox Live.

Why is this a big deal? Because, if you’re anything like me, you’re tired of logging on to spend a few minutes playing your favourite game online and being confronted with a bunch of kids yelling vile insults at you. Thanks to those types, I rarely (read: never) play online with people I don’t know.

The problem with that philosophy, though, is that it can be hard to find which of your friends uses the Xbox Live service, leaving the online experience feeling somewhat empty. With these new features, you can scan your Twitter follower and Facebook friends lists to find your fellow gamers, and quickly and easily connect to them.

It’s another step in the merging of social media and social networking into the things we already do online.

  • Mass media websites have incorporated social media tools such as RSS and commenting for a while;
  • Movie producers have used social media features during movie and DVD launches (Fight Club is a great example);
  • Now, social media is further encroaching on one of the largest entertainment industries around – computer gaming.

My bet: in a couple of years, this kind of feature will be so ingrained that people won’t think of it as a “social media” feature – it’ll just be a given when they turn on their console.

What do you think?

Posted in: facebook, social media, social networks, Twitter

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Don’t Like What You See? Fix It

09.03.25

Over the last little while I’ve seen numerous people complaining about how some social media tools are becoming “too mainstream” for their liking. For them, as more and more people join services like Facebook and Twitter, they lose their relevance and usefulness.

My response: Social media tools are opt-in, so if you don’t like what you see, fix it.

Recently, I mentioned that I wasn’t a fan of the high volume of automated Alltop tweets in Guy Kawasaki’s Twitter stream… so I don’t follow him. It’s nothing personal; just me controlling what I want to see in my stream. You can apply a similar principle across your social media toolkit. You don’t need to bail completely out of using these tools just because of the way people are using them.

  • If you don’t like the large number of new people signing up for Twitter, don’t follow them.
  • If your Twitter stream is too populated for your liking, cull it.
  • If you don’t want to connect to that long-lost high-school boyfriend/girlfriend on Facebook, don’t.
  • If someone’s blog has shifted focus and you no longer like it, don’t subscribe.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t give feedback to others, or that other people should disregard that feedback. That’s still important.

It does mean that you have the power to control your online experience… so quit complaining and do it.

Posted in: facebook, social media, tools, Twitter

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Key Points From FacebookCamp Toronto 5

09.02.25

Over the last couple of years, Facebook has developed from an interesting, promising social network startup to a true powerhouse. Interest in the site has grown exponentially and every move it makes is closely scrutinized. Given this, I was excited to attend FacebookCamp Toronto 5 on February 24.

First up on the night was Facebook representative Matt Wyndowe. His presentation focused on an update on Facebook’s overall status, then a quick overview of the benefits of Facebook Connect.

Facebook Stats

  • Facebook’s rate of growth is increasing exponentially;
  • 175 million people logged-in to Facebook in the last 30 days;
  • The average Facebook user has 120 friends; in Canada that is higher – 150-200;
  • One in two Canadians are now on Facebook;
  • Half of those Canadians are on Facebook every day;
  • Canadian users average 2.7 visits per user per day;
  • 70 per cent of Torontonians using the Internet are on Facebook

Facebook Connect

  • Facebook Connect, according to Matt, has three key benefits:
    • Sharing identity/login with one click;
    • “Social filtering”;
    • Rapid, widespread distribution of content.
  • Instead of the time consuming process of creating new accounts on sites, users can sign-in to Facebook Connect-enabled sites by connecting with their Facebook accounts. 
  • Users’ profiles will then be populated with their personal information and, where applicable, their Facebook friends and their key public activity can be shown to the new user. This prevents the frustrating process of building a new profile and network on each site.
  • Users’ activities on websites can be pushed back to Facebook and displayed in their news feeds. In the example given, a clear opt-out was offered for this.
  • Stories that are published on news feeds get an average of 1-3 clicks per story, and are also commented-on (which spreads the content further).

Facebook Connect Results

  • In three months since its launch, 6,000 sites adopted Facebook Connect;
  • On average, registrations to websites using Facebook Connect rose by 20-100 per cent. Sites such as Gawker and Valleywag saw increases of 45 per cent;
  • People registered using Facebook Connect create 15-60 per cent more content;
  • Each story published to Facebook is seen by 30-40 people, and receives 1-3 clicks back to the site.

Whopper Sacrifice – Notes from a Case Study

Widely covered back in early 2009, Whopper Sacrifice encouraged Facebook users to “sacrifice” ten Facebook “friends” in exchange for a free Whopper sandwich. A few key points from the case study presented, which I found fascinating:

  • Unlike many initiatives, the Whopper Sacrifice micro-site drove traffic to the Facebook application rather than the other way around.
  • 60,000 people installed the Facebook application in the first ten days before it was shut down.
  • There is no way to delete friends through the Facebook API; the developers had to find a way to seamlessly take people outside the app and back  into Facebook in order to delete friends.
  • Facebook users sacrificed 233,906 friends in ten days. Burger King issued 24,000 coupons for free Whoppers.
  • The application was truly viral – each new user brought in 1.96 others, so it quickly spiralled.
  • According to Roy Pereira, the presenter (who I also spoke to after the event), Facebook asked the developers to remove the functionality that alerted users that their friends had deleted them. 
  • Just 10 days after its launch, Burger Kind shut down the application. Facebook did not shut down the application. The developers made that call as they had almost reached their maximum number of free Whopper coupons.
  • The shut-down page encouraged visitors to send an “angry burger” (see image above) to people who had “sacrificed” them. This was a straight digital marketing ploy – there was no Facebook application for this.
  •  The mainstream media attention around the app created an exponential cycle that drove attention. Pereira credits mainstream attention for the success of the application.
  • After I requested clarification after the session, Pereira confirmed there was no PR budget for the initiative, and no ad buy. The maintream media coverage was generated by the application and controversy.
  • Witty text copy is important (e.g. “XYZ likes you but likes Whoppers more”). The team experimented with different copy and discovered that, down even to the Facebook news feed level, wording changes mattered.

Those are my key points from FacebookCamp Toronto 5. There were two other speakers, but those were less relevant for me.

Were you there? Does this match what you thought of the sessions?

Posted in: facebook, facebookcamp

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Which Sites Are You Deeply Engaged With?

08.10.30

Last month, Yahoo and ComScore released the results of a joint research project which showed that our of an average of 85 websites that people visit each month, people are really only “deeply engaged” with about 1.5 of them.

Stopwatch The article got me thinking about the sites that I am really engaged with; the sites which I visit almost every day and on which I spend most of my online time.

I’m a little more active online than the ‘average’ person – I can think of five sites with which I consider myself “deeply engaged”:

  1. Google – without doubt, this is one of the sites I use the most. If Google didn’t function properly one day… well, I’d use another search engine… but aside from that I’d be quite put out.
  2. Twitter – whether I’m on the site itself (which I do with increasing frequency as I continue to have problems with Twitter’s API limits) or accessing the service through a desktop or mobile application, I probably use Twitter more frequently than any web service other than Google.
  3. Google Reader – usually the first website I check each day – I do still scan mainstream newspaper sites, but I pull most of my reading material into Google Reader. I spend more time actively using this site than any other.
  4. Facebook – I’m getting back into Facebook as time goes on and I increasingly look to use social media tools to keep in touch with my non-techy friends. Most of them use Facebook so I can still be a geek while staying in touch with them.
  5. Delicious – as with Twitter, I often interact with delicious in irregular ways (usually via the Firefox extension). However, I use it multiple times every day, whether I’m adding to my 1,000+ bookmarks or pulling resources out of them. I use it to track media coverage, to compile my reading lists, to save resources… the list goes on.

Does this resonate with you? Which sites are you really, deeply, engaged with?

(Image credit: Daino_16)

Posted in: facebook, Google, social media, tools, Twitter

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If you want to reach younger voters, you have to… use the tools they’re using.

08.10.12

The title of this post is a quote. Not from a social media evangelist, but from Peterborough riding NDP campaign communications director Jeff Bergeron.

Canadian political parties are still a little wary of social media tools (the Conservative Party of Canada, in particular, was criticized for the lack of interactivity on its Facebook group, although that seems to have been rectified now). They’re a long way behind the US parties in using these two-way tools to communicate with citizens.

However, as the Peterborough Examiner noted recently, "From blogs, You Tube [sic], to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, this federal election is being battled out in the media and increasingly in cyberspace."

The ongoing cynicism is revealed shortly thereafter in the same article, as the local Green Party candidate Emily Berrigan states, "I value reality more than fictitious numbers."

What exactly do you think polls are, Ms. Berrigan? Certified?

She does have a point, to an extent. While there have been successes such as Michael Geist’s Fair Copyright for Canada group, there are many others that have failed to stir up support beyond people simply clicking to sign-up initially.

Untapped Potential

Facebook’s stats say over nine million Canadian residents have a Facebook account. That’s just under a third of Canadians.

We need to remember that these nine million people didn’t sign up to Facebook so that organizations could market to them, so any use of the site as a communications tool needs to be carefully thought-out. However, if you’re looking to start a conversation with Canadians, there are few tactics with this much potential.

You can be sure that less than nine million Canadians watch CBC News each night, or read the Toronto Star (of course, they don’t all go searching for your organization on Facebook, either)

Facebook also offers a wide variety of ways to reach people. Among those to consider (for a more comprehensive list check out Inside Facebook):

  • Facebook groups and pages for building communities (Jason Falls has a great guide to Facebook group and page best practices, which lays out the differences between the two)
  • Facebook applications to add interactivity (if you have something interesting or useful to offer)
  • Facebook polls offer a quick, targeted way to conduct research
  • Facebook advertisements offer one of the most targeted ways available to advertise
  • Facebook events are, I believe, the most-used event-planning application on the Internet

Of course, the effectiveness of Facebook as a communications medium will depend on the demographics you are targeting. If you’re looking towards the 50-plus age group, there may be better approaches (and they are quite likely offline). Bear in mind, though, that the 30-plus demographic is the fastest-growing group on Facebook.

Still, the very fact that a third of Canadians are on this one site shows that, if done in a way that doesn’t alienate people, there is a lot of untapped communications potential on Facebook.

Related articles:

Posted in: facebook

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Did Facebook Traffic Outgrow MySpace Last Year?

08.06.21

The web has been buzzing over the last few days about Facebook passing MySpace in worldwide traffic recently after the release of new Comscore figures, but did Facebook pass MySpace a while ago?

Google just announced Google Trends for Websites – a new feature of Google Trends that, rather than just looking at search trends, lets you view visitor trends for your favourite websites.

Here’s what the new service shows for Facebook.com and MySpace.com

Facebook v MySpace

(Source: Google Trends for Websites)

According to this chart, Facebook passed MySpace for unique visitors in November 2007.

This raises an interesting question – which of these services should we trust? What’s the difference between comScore, Google Trends, Alexa and Compete? How accurate are they?

Posted in: facebook, Google, MySpace, trends

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Facebook Applications Aren’t Always Your Friends

08.01.11

Facebook I came across a worrying article today at online security site Fortinet.

The post (also picked up by Help Net Security) details how a rogue Facebook application allegedly dupes users into installing the infamous "Zango" adware/spyware and inviting friends to do the same.

Facebook screenshot 1 Zango disputed the claim, saying the application was nothing to do with them. The company insisted that the screenshots showed an ad they placed legitimately through Facebook, and that the application seemed to show random ads to users.

Facebook screenshot 2That may be true, as the widget was ultimately disabled by its makers once they realized people were being redirected to Zango’s site. By this point, the application had been installed by 4% of Facebook’s 60 million users (or 2.4 million people).

Facebook screenshot 3

Wider Issues?

This one case notwithstanding, this is an important reminder to be careful online. It’s also a good illustration of some of how Facebook conditions its users to give away their information and some of the risks associated with that.

In a nutshell, malicious applications can get access to your computer in three steps.

Step 1: Get users to share their information with the application

As with all Facebook applications, the first step of the process involved getting users to share their information with the application.

This doesn’t scare many Facebook users – they’re used to giving access to applications. This particular application informed people that someone had a secret crush on them. The resulting curiosity, combined with this conditioning, meant over 2 million people shared their information.

Step 2: Get users to invite others

The application then informs users that before they can proceed, they need to invite at least five friends to join too.

In a way, this is genius – people willingly spread the application causing the problem.

As Fortinet notes:

Since users have freely chosen to install the widget at the cost of disclosing their personal information, psychologically speaking it is difficult for them to stop the process at that point. Therefore, most of them will invite at least 5 friends to complete the process.

Step 3: Redirect users to the malicious site

In this case, the page redirected to an ad from Zango that redirected users to a page within their own site.

As applications can redirect a page frame to a third-party site, it would be easy to direct users to a well-designed site that cons people into installing malicious software.

Bottom line: Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security just because you’re on Facebook. Be careful with what you install on your computer. Everything isn’t always what it seems.

Posted in: facebook, social networks

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Facebook Beacon – A Debate

07.11.30

I had a great email conversation with a couple of colleagues at work today about the furor over Facebook’s Beacon application. With their permission, I’m posting the conversation here (with their names removed) for your thoughts:

Subject: Facebook Beacon

ME: The latest in a loooong series of stories this week about Facebook’s Beacon system:
http://valleywag.com/tech/your-privacy-is-an-illusion/does-facebook-hate-christmas-327664.php

Typing emailCOLLEAGUE A: Yep had read that – amazing how old people haven’t realized young people don’t see it the same way anymore. The whole concept of privacy is changing, inevitably, due to technology.

ME: I think they’ve made a mistake not forcing companies to let people opt in rather than the reverse, though. The story about a guy who bought an engagement ring & whose girlfriend found out about it through that system is particularly compelling (although… seriously…. who buys an engagement ring on Overstock.com???)

COLLEAGUE A: They forced News updates about all our friends and everyone complained – now its become the core value of FB everyone loves…

ME: Very true & I agree that young people have a different view of things, but when it comes to things done outside Facebook I think that crosses the line if there’s no option to opt-out. If I bought [my girlfriend] a Christmas present from Company A, I’d be pretty pissed if it showed up in my news feed & she found out about it.

They should at least force companies to flash up a "We’re posting this to your Facebook profile – are you ok with that?" message.

(on a separate note, remember that most new users are over 35 on Facebook now…. they’re not just dealing with youngsters any more)

COLLEAGUE A: Is it up to Facebook or Company A? :)

COLLEAGUE B: I’d say Company A. (I give my personal & financial info for the sole purpose of making a purchase, and nothing else — and they do say something like this before you get to the "secure access" pages). :P

As for Facebook, they’ve got this bit of legalese on their privacy page:

"Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience."

ME: Company A, for sure, but Facebook should have a terms of service for companies that mandates it.

—————

Interestingly, it appears Facebook has actually listened to user concerns this time. As reported late today (see here and here):

Stories about actions users take on external websites will continue to be presented to users at the top of their News Feed the next time they return to Facebook. These stories will now always be expanded on their home page so they can see and read them clearly.

Users must click on “OK” in a new initial notification on their Facebook home page before the first Beacon story is published to their friends from each participating site. We recognize that users need to clearly understand Beacon before they first have a story published, and we will continue to refine this approach to give users choice.

If a user does nothing with the initial notification on Facebook, it will hide after some duration without a story being published. When a user takes a future action on a Beacon site, it will reappear and display all the potential stories along with the opportunity to click “OK” to publish or click “remove” to not publish.

Users will have clear options in ongoing notifications to either delete or publish. No stories will be published if users navigate away from their home page. If they delay in making this decision, the notification will hide and they can make a decision at a later time.

Clicking the “Help” link next to the story will take users to a full tutorial that explains exactly how Beacon works, with screenshots showing each step in the process.

Thank goodness. I applaud this move by Facebook, despite how late in the game it came. I was beginning to think I’d have to ‘opt out’ of the whole site.

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Posted in: facebook

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Wetpaint: Merging Wikis With Discussion Forums

07.11.11

I just discovered Wetpaint – a free wiki-hosting site that fully integrates a discussion forum into every wiki.

This site is very cool – it produces great-looking sites and has already attracted big names like CSI: NY, Food & Wine magazine, fuse.tv and Mythbusters as clients. According to a recent release, Wetpaint currently hosts almost 600,000 wikis.

The company announced last week that discussion forums are now integrated into every page of each wiki. As Techcrunch put it:

Posts can be tagged, the view expanded/contracted, there are email notifications of new messages, and the search feature works well. Any forum thread can also be turned into a wiki with a couple of clicks.

On top of that, all of each site’s posts (from every page) are also pulled together in one central forum, where you can view them by keyword tag.

Alongside the simple, easy-to-use interface and neat discussion forums, Wetpaint has a few other cool features:

  • Facebook Application: Lets users create wikis on their Facebook page
  • OpenID: Users can use their OpenID to sign in to any Wetpaint site
  • Google Analytics: Wetpaint helps users understand how their site is performing by tracking use through Google Analytics.

Ad-free wikis for educators are another nice touch. Wetpaint supports most of its wikis through ads on each site. However, they’ve introduced ad-free sites for teachers to let them use wikis in the classroom.

(One other thing – it looks like Wetpoint has a top-notch support team – a few people noted concerns through the comments on Techcruch’s coverage, and Wetpoint responded to each of them within a couple of hours.)

Why is this useful for marketers? Because it further reduces the barriers to consumer participation. By introducing a user-friendly, attractive interface and multiple ways to get involved, Wetpaint makes it easier to encourage contributions and start conversations.

Posted in: facebook, Google, social media, web 2.0, wikis

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