Sharing Content vs Sharing Activity

If you've been anywhere near a social platform, you've seen messages like this: "Friend A likes this update" or "Friend B" has read this article" (and, clicking on the article title seems to always require you to hand all your information to the publisher before you can see the content.)

Facebook, in particular is very keen on you seeing your friends' activity. LinkedIn, too, wants you to know that a connection has followed a company, connected with someone else, answered a question, joined a group.

The problem with that is exactly the same problem as talking to a friend who walks you through every step of their day, without degree or distinction; waking up, brushing teeth, eating breakfast, commute, meetings at work, home, etc... no one wants every single detail of your day. What we'd like to hear is the juicy bits, the good stuff. ^_^

Each social platform is a different conversation. Even when you have the same people talking about the same thing in the same place, there's subtle differences in audience, tone, attention, and acceptable length. Posting Twitter conversations on LI is meaningless to anyone not already in that conversation.

Be mindful of the difference between "activity" and "content." 


Facebook wants us to know all our friends' activities. What they read, what they commented on, what games they played, etc.

If your Twitter feed is automatically sent to LinkedIn, all your contacts are getting all of your activity, your RTs, your @s, your replies. The only thing that will be meaningful to many of those people in all of that is any content you share. And how patient do you think your contacts will be when they have to wade through 3 dozen chatty posts to get to a brilliant piece of content?

Quora, a platform I adore, yesterday launched a new feature that shared your Quora activity on your Facebook Timeline. I enabled it and ten minutes later, disabled it. I have no doubt my friends on FB would be interested in some of the answers I post to questions there, but equally, I have no doubt at all that no one not already on Quora cares which other answers I upvote. While the content I generate there may be of interest, my activity on Quora is entirely irrelevant to the folks on FB.

Small and medium sized businesses on Twitter, and individuals whose expertise is their business, often have only one Twitter account. To be authentic and real, these people tend to chat as well as share good content from this same account. This works really well on Twitter, where each tweet is viewed individually but, when it becomes a stream of half the conversation on a Twitter feed embedded on a web page, it simply makes no sense at all. Like sitting next to a person on the train who talks loudly enough that you can't not listen, you're getting an intrusive half a conversation you don't really want to hear.

Worse, when companies keep their Twitter account for purely professional contacts, that embedded stream becomes an obsessively narcissistic stream of "me me me." Again - it works fine on Twitter, but watch where else it gets shared or you can seem like you are incapable of listening to others.

So, by all means, share content! Just be mindful that your not drowning it out with all of your activity.

Get Bigger (Better) Impact from Your Facebook Status Updates

Facebook is easy. Too easy. It takes very little effort to craft a status that gets Likes from friends, family or folks who want you to think kindly of them. But for your Business Page, just any old status update isn't likely to get the response you're really looking for. Here are a few simple tactics you can use to increase the impact of your Facebook status updates.

Know What Action You Want People To Do - Then Tell Them To Do It

I was speaking to someone recently who expressed a concern that people were not "Like"ing or commenting on their status updates. There was nothing at all wrong with their posts, but nowhere did they indicate the desired action. It wasn't surprising then that people didn't know what they were supposed to do.

"Like" now to express interest in this new design

"Leave a comment" to let us know if you want this flavor

"Share" this article with your network

Each of these seems a bit demanding, but remember, on Facebook, people are being bombarded constantly by multiple media, and a steady stream of requests, news, opinions and miscellany. Make your desired action simple and state it plainly to help your readers know what you expect.


Draw Attention to the Media

Not everyone likes words as much as I do. Many people prefer visual or audio cues, Facebook makes it extremely simple to share many kinds of media. So how do you get yours noticed?

When you post an update with an attached picture, sound clip or video, you want people to look (or listen) to it. Small things, like gobbledygook URLS or generic commentary about the host site will make readers' eyes glaze over with confusion.

But don't worry, Facebook now lets you edit metadata for all media. Let's say I want to upload a simple picture to my personal FB page. I could grab it from my Flickr account.

Notice the URL and the title. They aren't terribly meaningful to anyone. And Facebook isn't picking up the image as a thumbnail.

To edit information like the image title, or the metadata, scroll your mouse over the words you want to edit:

The editable data will turn yellow to indicate that you can edit it. Click those words and a text box will appear:

Then edit the title. You can do the same with the description. Instead of generic metadata from Flickr, you can customize the content for that update.

However, we're still left with the issue of  the missing thumbnail and the gobbledygook URL.

Uploading links to photosharing sites on the fly is fine, but to ensure your post has a thumbnail, upload the picture directly to a Facebook Photo Album.

Write a meaningful status update, indicating what you'd like people to do, and what they are looking at.

With customized information and a clear status update, the end result is worth it. (Keep in mind that this is a personal page, with appreciably less viewers than a business page.)

Don't Confuse the Issue

Now that you have a chance to make greater impact, don't get too enthusiastic. If you ask your followers to do too much at once, your message will get muddled.

Above, I asked people to "look" at the picture and "Like" it. If I then added, "and can I get your opinion on the shade of purple? Do you think it's too dark? Or should I go with a lighter color?" some people will comment, some will "like" and others will get tired before they get to the end of the status.


Don't Forget the Basics

Of course, with this, you still need to engage and respond to comments when you receive them. Don't forget to reward them with  - at the very least - thanks and acknowledgement for their contributions to your page, their questions and comments. These power of Facebook is that you get to see names of your customers so there's less chance of them becoming faceless numbers. They are not "The Consumer," they are the people you interact with every day.

Be descriptive and clear, remember to engage and thank and you will be on the road to much higher impact on your FB status updates.

Sticking Your Landing on Facebook

Your Landing Page on Facebook is a person's first impression of your business. Is it well-dressed, personable, does it, in fact make a good impression?

I ran into some discussion on LinkedIn about the nature of the Landing Page on Facebook. A person wanted to have people enter their group on a tab that was not the Wall tab. The replies were universally against it. Why? Because a Facebook Wall provides instant insight into the true nature of the company. When a potential Fan comes to your Facebook Page they will instantly see several important things:


Are You Posting Fresh Content?

This is immediately apparent, even to someone who knows nothing at all about "Social Media."

Is the content on your Wall linking to news, perspectives and commentary of interest to your audience, or are you recycling company announcements and using rhetorical questions to stimulate conversation?

When the Wall is full of press releases, it's an indication to a visitor that communication is all about you. Asking better questions than "what can I do to help you?" will stimulate real conversation and gain genuine engagement from your Fans.


Are You Getting Responses?

Because of the visual nature of Facebook, a visitor does not have to actually look at the content of your Wall to see if a conversation is happening.

It's instantly apparent that this link has 13 likes and 6 responses. And that a conversation has occurred. Even without knowing a single thing about the topic, anyone visiting this page can see that there has been a response by the community and, even more importantly...


Are Your Responsive to your Fans?

Equally as instantly obvious to anyone visiting your Wall, is whether you are responding to the people who are writing to you.

When you look at most company Facebook pages, you see a neverending stream of company propaganda, Likes, and perhaps, even, a comment by a fan...but rarely a response by the company to those responses. On very large company sights, those responses are disappeared, leaving nothing but the propaganda.

When your Fans comment, are they seeing a response from you?

Famously, when a company I'm interested in joined Facebook some years ago, they asked their followers what they wanted to see. I replied that I wanted to see them respond to us when we commented on their posts.

"Like this?" the company replied to my comment.

"Yes," I posted, "but with content."

They have since been very responsive to the posts on the Wall.


Social Media is never about you, it's always about the members of your community and network.


Your Wall is the best Landing Page you'll ever have. It indicates communication skills, responsiveness, and how much you value your community. Stick your Landing, and you'll get top scores from your community.

Facebook's Social Media Makeover - The Good and the Bad and the Not So Ugly

How often do you redecorate your living room? Once a decade? Maybe a little more? The reasons why you don't are self-evident - makeovers cost money, they are a pain, they take up time.

It's not hard to imagine, although we are not those people, that there are people who constantly tweak and move their furniture to give the room a new look, to keep it fresh and exciting.

Now imagine if those people were your parents. Every time you drop by, they seem to have moved stuff around. Sometimes you like the changes better than others, but it does make things hard to find - and it unsetttles you. This is the real problem of course - it's not that you don't like the new furniture, it's just that these are your parents and they aren't supposed to change!

Welcome to Facebook, the comfy chair of Social Media. Facebook is Social Media your Mom can use. You smile at it, you use it, but you don't respect it because, well, your Mom can use it. Even so, when Facebook switches the furniture around, it's unsettling.

Today we'll cover a very few points of some good and bad things Facebook did with their site switcheroo and the one or two things that are most up for debate as "that goddamn" feature.

The BAD

1) They changed our settings, again.

This is tantamount to your parents changing the lock, leaving the new key under the mat with a note that they've given a bunch of other people the keys, too, so if you're in the shower and hear noise, it's probably just one of those other people.  Wait, what?

Facebook has an appalling habit of "helping" you with your notifications and privacy settings. This time they turned all notifications OFF, except the ones that they turned ON.

How to Handle This: Don't wait for Facebook to change - make it a habit of visiting your Notifications, Privacy and App settings every three months. Clean out Apps you don't know, don't use, don't want. Make sure the Privacy is set the way you want it, that you can share with the people you want. Turn off or on notifications. Do this as a regular course of matter, so you remain in as much control of your account as possible.


2) They rolled all the changes out all at once.

Go back to the your parent's house metaphor. When they get a new chair, it's a nice change. If they had the entire house stripped and redecorated, it would be jarring. And, yes, the Facebook makeover was jarring.

How to Handle This: Don't Panic. Take a look at the popups and read them, so you know what you're looking at. Find a Social Media person on Facebook such as myself, (yes, I know I don't have an account name, all the sensible versions of my name were taken and I would just rather have a random character set that EricaFriedman1897. That sounds horribly AOL to me) or Christine Pilch who can talk you through fixing and changing settings.


The last and worst Bad thing is an ongoing problem with Facebook.

3) They made changes to our accounts without our permission.


Facebook does this continually and for me, it's the single biggest problem with Facebook security and privacy. I did not want to make Lists, so they made them for me! Um, no, see, I did not want to make any Lists. (See Below for more Lists comments.)

How to Handle This: Tell Facebook. We all must make it clear that, while we understand change is inevitable, we would very much prefer to be asked if we want a new feature, rather than having it thrust upon us. Some parents never change their living rooms, ever. And that's really all right. Our Mom's Facebook and ours don't have to look the same.


The Good

Now for the one really Good thing they did.

1) The biggest and best new thing they did was force Business Pages to let people post on their Wall, even if they have not "Liked" the page. There truly was nothing more galling than having to "like" a page before telling them they suck.


The (Not-So) Ugly

This leaves us with some of the new features, which are liked and disliked in equal measure.

Lists

Lists are an attempt to be more like Google+. This is misguided thinking. Facebook's market is you and your Mom. Not immersed Social Media users who are going to have a number of profiles on sites around the Internet. For most Facebook users, sharing with friends and family is one and the same.

I also call into question the premise that Segmentation = Privacy. Keeping your Friends in separate rooms is not the same thing as Privacy.

Worse, they did a terrible job of it. (^_^); My Family List had my wife's niece on it, but not my wife. Or any of my immediate family.

How to Handle This: Luckily Lists are easily removable. Scroll to the left of the List name until you see the pencil icon. Click "Hide." (I find, however, that my Lists have reappeared this AM, despite removing them yesterday. That could be very annoying.) Once Lists were removed, I found my Feed returning to a format I was more comfortable with.


The Update Ticker

I like this, although this wins as the number one "Turn this damn thing off!" that I see in comments. In the right sidebar, the top now is a ticker of comments by friends or on friends' posts.

How to Handle This: Lifehacker has posted an article on how to kill the Update ticker.

Scrolling Top Toolbar

A colleague of mine and long-time friend, Bonnie Wasilewski, pointed out the neat new feature of the top Toolbar scrolling down the page with you. Now you don't have to scroll back to the top to see notifications or get back to your home. I hadn't even noticed this, until she pointed it out, but dang! it's useful!

How to Handle This: Use it. No matter where you are on the site, you'll see what's going on in your world, without having to jump up and down the page.


Subscribe Button

For those of us with public lives, this is a welcome feature. Now people can read our posts, without us having to "Friend" them.

You can read status updates, see links and feel part of the life of your favorite celebrities and thinkiner, without having the right to communicate with them. Think of Subscribe like reading a newspaper in your home used to be. You get to read, but there's no real way to comment in real-time.

How to Handle This: Each post you make can be marked Friends, Public or Custom. You default to Friends, but if you don't mind your Subscribers reading something, mark it Public.


Conclusion 

The biggest problem in all these changes is Facebook's misunderstanding of their audience. In their desperate attempt to stay relevant and cutting edge, they are losing people from both edges of their usage curve.

People who wanted Google+-like features are already on Google+. I see many comments to the effect that people are "done" with Facebook and can be found exclusively at G+ now. (This is an issue I want to write about at length later, because in Social Media, you can't take your ball and go home.)

On the other end of the curve, are Mom and Pop users who really only wanted to see their kids and grandkids and share some pictures. The new changes will alienate and confuse these people, and over-complicate the site needlessly for them.

In the end, when the kerfuffle has settled, and everyone has gotten used to the Good, Bad and Ugly of the new format, Facebook will change it all around again. (Update: Facebook has already announced more changes to come, starting off with Facebook Timelines. Stay tuned!)

This is what happens when Facebook changes its layout - The Oatmeal

Three Things I Won't Share On Social Media (Unless I Want To)

It's pretty obvious to anyone on any Social Media platform that advertising is still the main business model. And it's pretty obvious to advertisers that the more they know about me, the better a job they can do at predicting what I might want to buy next.

To that end, most Social Media networks ask me to share a lot of my personal information with them. Of course they want me to find people like myself, past work colleagues, alumuni of my college, people with similar interests - and so they tell me how much easier it would be to find these people if only I were part of that network.

In fact, when I first joined Facebook, you had to pick a geographic network. Whether you liked it or not, you were lumped in with people in your relative geographic location. As soon as I was able to remove a geographic network from my FB account, I did.

There are many reasons I might want to share a piece of information with a Social Media platform and there are even more reasons why I might not. When you're asking for personal information, contact information and other market research data, consider that what is best for you, is not always best for your customer.

Here are three things I won't share with you, unless you make me...or unless I want to.

1) My Past Locations
This includes former addresses, places of employment and education.

Maybe it's just me, but I really have very little incentive to speak with the folks I knew in high school. Or college. Or grad school. We were in the same place at the same time, and we did share some experiences but that doesn't mean we're "friends." And if we are, there's a good chance I'll know how to find them without your help. The same is true for former colleagues and neighbors. These are situational relationships and once we're no longer dealing with the same boss, we may in fact have nothing in common.

Before you ask us where we went to school, consider that, for many people, school was *not* the greatest time of their lives and that things that happened in that (perhaps distant) past are not really worth revisiting. And what, really, value is that to you as a social platform or as a business? Consider the analogue version of this question, "Oh, you're from Ohio? My nephew lives there....do you know him?" When you ask me where I went to school, so I can "connect" with other people who went to that school, that's exactly what I hear in my head.

2) My Present Location
I'm not going to propose a scenario here about women, and the consequences of telling perfect strangers where to find them, but let's be realistic here - for ages, companies have asked us to provide our names, addresses, phone numbers and emails if we so much as want to mention that their coupon had a spelling mistake.  WHY? You are not going to call us - we don't want you to call us, it would be intrusive and weird.

Foursquare is a system designed around the idea that reporting our location could be of benefit to us. Check in and get a discount. Check in a lot and get a bigger discount. But...take a step back and tell me that this wouldn't be the most useful tool for a stalker in the known universe. Because it would. And if you have ever written an article, blog post, book or done an interview and had a mailbox full of hate, there is no way this tool is going to look like something you want to participate in.

3) My Future Location
I might be planning a trip. I might even want to share it with my Twitter pals. Does that mean that I want ads telling me about great deals in that location? Maybe...but not unless you ask me first.

Again, imagine an analogue scenario. You're talking to friends on the phone about a trip. Then your local travel agency calls, "We hear you're going to Las Vegas. Call us about a special deal on hotels!" "Targeted advertising" feels remarkably similar to "creepy eavesdropping" for the average person. The fact that you're parsing my status updates doesn't make your business clever....it makes your business a stalker.

Before you ask questions about your consumers, consider the possibility that being intrusive has less value than you think in a building a relationship with them.

It Takes a Community to Build a Community on Facebook

We have a vision.

Our stores will be full of people, cheerfully exchanging greetings with the salespeople who know them by name.

Our gigs will be full of fans.

Our products will fly off the shelf.

Our events will be full of entertained, educated attendees.

We have a vision of our company, our organization, our band our cause.

The question is - how do we get there? How do we fill our stores, our gigs, our events with people?

One of the most common things you read about Social Media is that it helps build a community. While this can be true, it's not a simple prospect. As many businesses have found, Facebook Pages often lead to - at best - a few "Likes" per post and, often, dead silence even when direct questions are asked.

The truth is - it takes a community to build a community.

Let's take my friend's band as an example. I know, it's a friend, so you're gonna roll your eyes when you read this but - they really are very, very good. Like so many bands, they have a unique sound that appeals to an adult sensibility. If you know anything about music, you know that the sharing of music has made it easier - and harder than ever before - for bands to be heard.

The band has a Facebook Page, but gets almost no response from posts - a clear indication that the band was "liked" by friends and friends of friends, then hidden. Or folks who aren't terribly active on FB are making up a big part of the "Likes." Very typical problems for a small audience on Facebook. With few people paying attention, then only a few people are listening, liking, sharing or commenting.

Before they can build a community around their music - or become part of an existing community for independent musicians - there are some questions they have to be able to answer. All of us have to answer these questions before we can effectively create a community of any kind:

Who are we?

What do we want to say?

Who are we talking to?

and, Who is doing the talking?

Facebook is a terrible place to build an audience or a community. Successful Pages on Facebook are almost always Pages by already-popular brands, companies or people who are using Facebook as another way to touch base with people who already know about - and care about - them.

When we envision our communities on Facebook, we have visions of a busy Wall, full of encouragement and conversation. What many companies often see is a series of announcements, requests for "Likes" and finally, pleas for a response of any kind.

Before you put your eggs in the Facebook basket, build yourself a community elsewhere. Keep it lively, full of conversation and contests, questions and answers. When you've built those conversations up in other places, you can feed those folk who already make up your audience a new way to communicate with you - on Facebook. Instead of using Facebook to build an audience from scratch, you'll want to control the space yourself. Your forums, your mailing list, your website, your terms of engagement. It's much easier to know who you are when you're on home turf. Develop your identity in a space you control - then take it on the road. Building an audience through Facebook is hard, expanding upon an audience already built using Facebook is easy.

The folks who engage with you elsewhere can help you grow your Facebook presence. Then you'll have a community to help you build that Facebook community.

***

Postscript: My friend's band is Eminence Grey (he's given me permission to mention their name and link to them) and if you do visit their Facebook page, you can listen to their song "Mourning Coffee" on the Facebook music player. It's a pretty terrific track, so I hope you'll drop by for a listen!

Facebook Fan Pages - The Newsletters of the 21st Century

"We need to have a Facebook Fan Page, so we can communicate with our customers."

Some years ago, I was working at a company which had been acquired. Our department was shaved thinner, person by person. Until one day, I was approached to write a departmental newsletter. I knew instantly that I was next. There were four people left in the department - my supervisor, a supervisor to whom I reported with a dotted line and their supervisor. And me. I asked politely which *one* of them would be the editor and they replied that they all would. What would the point of the newsletter be? "Communicating with our clients and other departments," I was told. I began a new job search the next day.

Now I see departments, companies and colleges all racing to build Facebook  Fan Pages to "communicate with our customers." And every time I hear that, I can hear my old manager saying, "We're going to do a departmental newsletter."

Are the people you want to reach on Facebook?

If yes, great!

Do they want to connect their personal lives on Facebook with their professional or academic lives?

The first question is a McGuffin. If you are a university department, plenty of your students will be on Facebook. How many of those want to be on your Fan Page? The same goes for employees. They use Facebook to communicate with friends and family. Do they want to have their professional lives intersect that?

If yes, then we can move on to:

What reason do you have for them to join?

This is a huge hurdle. "Communicating with them" doesn't actually have much meaning.
Communicating what? To whom? Why? These are not just irritating questions - they are critical pieces of information you need to be able to answer in order to shape your new Fan Page into something useful.

Communications to employees are not the same as to customers. What might interest one audience is likely to be entirely irrelevant to another. For a university, communications going out to students, staff and faculty all are - or should be - different. Students won't care about faculty or administrative procedures, unless they affect them.


What reason is there for them to ever come back?

You can make it mandatory for every employee to sign up on your new Facebook Fan Page, but you cannot make them read and comment on every post. (Ideally, they would, but that's not a realistic assumption.) As we've discussed before, it's easy to "Like" a Page and just as easy to "Hide" it.

Customers can be drawn back by special deals, new services or contests. If your goal is to communicate with employees or students - what do you have to draw them back? Of course, it is reasonably simple to proclaim that this is the main form of inter-office communication now, but there will always be someone who didn't get that memo. In order to draw people's attention to the site, there needs to be something to make them look. And what drives a customer is not going to be the same thing that will drive an employee. What drives alumni to check in is not the same thing that interests current students.

How often are you going to publish and curate?

One of the least fun aspects of putting together the departmental newsletter was chasing down stories. Most newsletters only survive a short period of time, because there's not *that* much to say about a department and resources get shifted to more important work at some point. Facebook Fan Pages are no different. It's not simple to maintain content over a long period of time - especially if you have multiple audiences, with different agendas.

I recently visited the Fan Page for the school I attended for my Masters degree and was amazed - the entire page was filled to the brim with spam, and most of the "People Who Liked This Page" were fake, spammer's profiles. Clearly this had been set up with good intentions, but left unresourced. I declined to "Like" a school I love, because the page was toxic.

It's a nice idea to have a departmental newsletter Facebook Fan Page, but until you can honestly answer who its for - and why they should care- it'll end up being a white elephant.

How to Beat the Click-and-Ignore of Facebook

For most businesses on Facebook, there is an unnamed, but obvious barrier to true engagement. The ease of Facebook makes it a challenge to actually get past the single click-and-ignore interaction most people have with the pages they "like."

What is "click-and-ignore?"

Click-and-ignore is when a user gives you the absolute least they can do - a single click on a  button - and you give them the absolute least you can do - a coupon or freebie or even just overexcited promotional copy. There's no incentive to do more, as most of the "like"rs have already hidden your feed before you even send the first status update. As Nicholas Carr says in  The Like Bribe, this very simplicity of the action potentially erodes actual likability. Users will "Like" something for reasons other than wanting to keep in touch with a business. Showing support is a common reason I hear for clicking "Like" - a behavior that is almost always paired with immediately hiding that Page's feed. Bribes in the form of freebies and discounts are another.

I've talked about the ease of Facebook and why it discourages actual engagement on the part of user or business. The facade of being popular hides the lack of meaningful interaction.

True stories: A company I do work for from time to time has a Facebook page on which they breathlessly post exciting news! all the time. If you read their feed, they have a gazillion things going on. But when it comes to engaging with the fans of that feed - nothing. Not a single question gets answered. It's a classic case of talking at the fans - not with them.

Another company I follow opened up a Facebook page and started to ask the fans what they wanted to see on the feed. I commented "Responses to us when we respond to you," to which they replied, "Like this?" Not quite satisfied, I posted, "Yes, but with actual content." Overall, they still focus on themselves, but when straightfoward questions are asked, they will answer.

It's not at all complicated to break past the "click-and-ignore" barrier.

1) Forget "likes" altogether. It's a meaningless number that measures just about nothing.

Look at the number of comments, questions and responses you get on a given update, not the "likes." Even things like "great news!" or "alright!" provide you a clearer picture of the people who *want* to engage with you.


2) Respond to the people who respond to you.

When you ask, "so, which one of our products do you like best," some of your fans will reply. If you do not thank them, talk to them about their experience - what is good and bad about that thing - you're being a jerk. Just imagine someone walking up to you, asking you if you think that sweater looks good on them and when you reply, they turn around without a word and walk away from you. What would your reaction be? If you want actual engagement beyond just a "like," you need to reply to those answers given in good faith. Those people responded to you, how hard is it to respond back?


3)  Reach deeper, give more than a bribe

Giving to charity is always a good feeling. But which feels better - mailing off a check, or spending the day actually giving your time and effort to a cause that's important to you?

Sure, it costs you almost nothing to tell folks of the great sale you're having. They know that. It's not like that's actually giving them anything - we all know that sales are to get rid of things you don't want in inventory anyway.

It costs a little more to give up a discount code, but that's all opportunity cost - the more they spend, sure they save more, but they've also spent more - and we all know how that works too.

Special deals for members of this group are a little better - we know that the non-effort of clicking that "Like" button is being equally rewarded with the non-effort of a special discount code.

There's more to a relationship than quid pro quo. Good customers should be rewarded well - your best customers should be rewarded with something that makes them feel truly special. Find the first person to Like you or person who "likes" everything and comments all the time, enters every contest.That person is your advocate. Let them know that you notice their effort. Next time you're going to be near their area, tell them to drop by and just, y'know, treat them nice. That person is part of your team, not for money, but for love. Shower them with love and attention. Go beyond the bribe, and actually be their friend.


Invest a little time and emotion and you can push past the "click-and-ignore" barrier to build strong, productive relationships on Facebook.

Twitter is not Facebook is not Email is not FourSquare

Remember that birthday? You had friends over for a party, but your parents also invited a few family members, with the result that grandma told that story about you to your school friends and the next day you had the nickname "Monkey Boy?" I'm joking of course. Today we're talking about the awkwardness that occurs when you mix and match your networks.

Whether you are a company trying to grasp how to use Social Media, or you are an individual balancing you time with friends, colleagues and clients, it's important to remember that networks often don't (and shouldn't) mix.

Fellow blogger Sean Gaffney and I were discussing a company we both follow. This was on a day when the company had some fairly big news. They had clearly sent out press releases, because industry news sites were buzzing. But on Twitter? The last post had been almost a week ago, and it was one of those "hey, which of our products do you like best?" kind of tweets.

Which prompted Sean to comment, "Yes, Press releases are good, but really, Twitter is not meant to be composed of your 'buddies' the way Facebook is. You don't friend a company to be their pal. Or if you do, you aren't worth it."

Twitter is not Facebook. Nor is Facebook a Press Release. LinkedIn is not your Mailing List, Foursquare is personal, not public.

Here's a few ways companies mis-use the most popular Social Networking platforms:

Twitter - Twitter is not, as Sean points out, the same as a press release, nor is it a bulletin board for your press releases. Twitter is a place where people who follow you expect a mix of news, conversation, customer service and insight. The best Twitter accounts supply all this and mix in a good dollop of contests and fun things on top. Making everything you say pithy and retweetable may not be possible, but keeping yourself open for communications is. Don't become the company ticker, unless you don't care about the people who take time to follow you on Twitter.

Facebook - I've said it before, Facebook is easy. Too easy. Facebook gives you a false sense of engagement when your "Fans" have only to click a button to show how much they "like" you, your news, your newest promotional campaign or product. Even if they are your friends, are you really reaching folks on Facebook? "Likes" are the least effective way to tell. Do your fans/friends respond when you post - if not many, there's a good chance that a large number of those "fans" have hidden your posts. Do they see your page as a place to hold a conversation, or jump in with a comment? Or is it all about you, you, you? Facebook can become a mirror filled with nothing but yourself quite easily. Be careful that you're not adding to the delusion of popularity.

Email - Email is a privileged position. You have personal access to your audience. You have time and space to attract their interest. This is your best opportunity to make your point. How many emails do you delete a day? Why? Think about how many ways email marketing fails to be relevant to you. When you have a chance to send that message - make it count.

FourSquare - Publicly posting Foursquare check-ins is the equivalent of having an intimate conversation with a romantic partner in public. It's all well and good for you and your customer, but those of us who remain uninvolved in that relationship are left feeling awkward, maybe embarrassed. Nuzzling your partner in public is not necessarily the right way to show what a great lover you are and having people check in with you for freebies and discounts doesn't really express how great you are to do business with.

LinkedIn - LinkedIn was designed as a professional networking space. Unless your business is truly Business to Business, the chances of you finding your audience, much less your market, on LinkedIn is small. These are your peers, perhaps your vendors or contractors - not your audience. Treat the people there as you might coworkers, or prospective clients. But don't assume that every Answer is an open invitation for a pitch.


Each platform you choose is different - each network you build is different. It's not impossible to mix and match, but being aware when you're doing so. Treating your Facebook Fans like they are your email list, or your Twitter followers like they are your "Fans," is likely to cause conflict and defection.

Enjoy time with your relatives and enjoy time with your friends, but think carefully before you invite them to the same party.

The Pros and Cons of Being a TwitterFace

You've been asked by your company or a client to do their Tweeting or Facebooking for them and, for better or for worse, you've said yes.

Here are some really good - and really bad - things to know about being someone else's Social Media mouthpiece.

Pro

Direct Interaction - You get to be the one who makes a difference. You get to set the tone, talk with people the way you want others to talk to you. Set the bar high, be the example other people use - this is your chance to shine and make a Social Media presence you'd want to engage with.

Influence - Everyone knows the adage "the squeaky wheel gets the grease." When your squeak has the weight of customers' opinion behind it, grease is sure to follow. Do the customers love the color green, want larger sizes, need more information? As the Twitterface of the company, you get to hear it first. Conversely, when the company shares good news, it's you who shares it. The customers will come to see you as their go-to, you as their voice and their inside man. The company will see you as being in touch with their market.

Promotion/Messaging - You know how it is. A company comes up with an idea that everyone kind of wonders..."yeah, but who is it for?" or "why?" You can be the person who shapes the messaging on both sides - let the company know what their customer base wants and let the customer know that the company is listening. If there's a promotional campaign, you get to make sure that it's relevant to the consumers and totally authentic from beginning to end. Every message and every campaign is a chance to show the consumers that the company "gets it."


Con

Decision Making - The biggest downside to being someone else's mouthpiece is that you don't get to chose what you say. Or when. If you're an outside consultant, you may even have to scratch at doors to find something *to* say.

When the decision-making is out of your hands, you have to hope that you've got critical support at the company, or you may inadvertently say the wrong thing at the wrong time or have nothing to say at the right time.

Reporting Facts - There is nothing more truly awful than being the person to deliver bad news. The higher-ups want you to tell them that you got 10,000 followers in a week for their high-end watch business Facebook page and they don't want to hear that the people who buy custom watches in the 6-figure range aren't *on* Facebook. Likewise the fans of that popular kids series of novels don't want to hear that the author is ending it with her next novel. The truth hurts, and unfortunately, you may be doing the hurting.

Customer Service - Putting a company out there means that that company becomes visible, perhaps vulnerable. Reasonable or not, there will be complaints. And those people will expect - perhaps demand - attention. There *has* to be a policy in place or you will be fielding angry fastballs with no help. Make sure you have a contact or a customer service number to direct people to - and hope that they can handle the pressure, or you'll be getting the rebounds.

Being the Twitterface of a company means that you can build great relationships from the ground up....as long as the company has got its own priorities straight.

Social Media - the Eternal Cold Call

Cold calling is the most feared activity in business. Before Social Media, everyone struggled to find the golden ticket that would transform the sword-bridge of cold-calling into a stairway to heaven.

And here we are in 2010. Every day, I see the same questions over and over - how does Social Media convert leads to sales, what's the ROI on Social Media...in other words, how do we transform this new sword-bridge into a carpeted stairway?

Every moment in the world of Social Media is a cold call. Someone comes to your blog - can they tell *instantly* who you are and what you do? Can they identify the point of your post? On Twitter, do you have consistent messaging? Or are you all about professionalism in one update, and talking about beer and pickles for lunch that day in the next?

The basics of Cold Calling are the basics of Social Media. Your profile must answer questions any visitor might ask:

Who are you?

Why should I visit your profile?

What makes you better or more interesting than everyone else?

Why should I care what you have to say?

Go hop on over to Facebook and check out one of the pages you've "Liked." If you were pitching this page, could you answer these questions for that company? You know why you "liked" them - but was it something they've communicated through their page, or did you have prior knowledge or experience with them that motivated you?

Now take a look at your own company's profile. Ask the same questions of yourself. Are people coming here because they have heard of you from somewhere else, or because they are seeking you out here? Do you give them compelling content or are your drawing them in through offers of discounts and contests?

Every time someone takes a look at your profile on LinkedIn, are they getting a good cold call pitch; the who you are, what you can do for them and why they should care?

Cold calls are really a misnomer. Few calls are genuinely cold. You have an industry in common, or an interest, or a need, or a mutual contact. Emphasize the mutual, the fact that there is a reason that the two of you need to be in contact.

Tweak your Social Media to do your cold calling for you and you'll have one less step towards carpeting that stairway.

Follow Me! Follow Me!

I've noted before the problem with "easy" numbers. Easy numbers are any quantitative measurement that can be gleaned without difficulty from a basic analysis of a marketing strategy. These numbers provide little to no real value, but are simple to measure. For instance, the number of people who registered on your website, or how many downloads of the online coupon there were, are easy numbers.

How many fans or followers your company has on your Social Media platforms are easy numbers.

Social Media is in right now and your business looks cooler if you have a lot of fans or followers - or so many businesses think. And it is so easy to say, "Our biggest competitior has 1000 fans, but we have 2000!"

A Twitter pal who shall remain anonymous points out that, "It's a battle to explain to higher ups that our dedicated fans are more valuable than XXXXX random followers."

Traditional marketing dictates that more numbers equals more audience. As a result, I see a lot of companies who spend their Twitter time telling me to follow them on Facebook. As rpguy_ad says, "It's like being told "hear what we have to say, but drive to our office across town first!" There's only one point in asking Twitter followers to fan you on Facebook - to bump your numbers up and make you look cooler.

Don't waste your precious time and your tenuous connection to your audience by talking about somewhere else they need to be. You have their attention, right now, wherever they and you are, in that very moment. Don't ask them to contact you by email with the details, or join you somewhere else.

Your audience is not a tool.

Your business is probably not the Pied Piper. (Exceptions to this do exist, but aren't as common as ou might believe.)

Social Media is not a flute to be played across the Internet to create a line of followers that drag behind you wherever you go.

Social Media should be used to connect to the market you have and the audience you'd like to reach. Don't make "Follow Me! Follow me!" your message. In fact, forget your message altogether, and just talk to your audience.

Talk to people where you and they already are.

Make the interaction on each Social Media site authentic and unique.

If you make that your primary strategy, then you won't just look cool - you'll be cool. And then you might even have that string of followers after all.

Repeat After Me: It's a Tool, It's a Tool, It's a Tool

"Which Social Media Network is better?"

When advertising was merely about maximizing eyeballs that saw a message, this question made perfect sense.

One network would be getting more eyeballs pointed towards it at any given time. If two popular shows were on at the same time slot, one show might get more of one gender or age group than the other. It was easy to choose.

The Internet is not easy. Social Networks are easy for users, but for marketers, comparing social networks is like trying to compare apples and buffalo. Which is better? Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn or Orkut or....?

Social Media has never been about the technology - it has always been about the relationships.

Social Networks and sites that provide advertising are both tools. Sadly, the one tool they are not is a magic wand. Even in an incredibly niche space, when the only eyeballs likely to see your ad are inherently totally interested in what you have to sell, conversion to a sale is as difficult as it might be to a general market.

Social Media has never been about the technology - it has always been about the relationships.

When people discover a new tool, they buy into it with an almost religious fervor. Flash, for instance, was once a new, exciting tool and every website in the universe felt it incumbent to devlop a Flash landing page - a phenomenon that lasted until...well, it's still going on, actually.

Tools are tools. Where you talk isn't as important as the message itself, but it behooves you to take that message to the right space and the right people. The question should never be, "which is better, tool a or tool b?" the correct question is, "Which is the most appropriate tool for *my* business?" I make this somewhat obvious distinction, because the answer might very well be - *none* of the most popular tools are the best choice for you. An old tool (email) or an obscure tool (IRC) might be exactly what you need to get your message in front of the eyeballs most likely to actually care.

Social Media has never been about the technology - it has always been about the relationships.

Facebook is a great tool to easily reach and potentially engage people on Facebook. How can you know if the people you want to reach are there? Search a few of your keywords. Are people building groups around those topics? Are they discussing those topics, listing them in their profiles? If the answer is yes, then provided you have a strategy to actually Engage those people, then Facebook might be a great place for you. But remember - it's just a tool. If you use it incorrectly, don't be surprised if you get nowhere.

Social Media has never been about the technology - it has always been about the relationships.

But, here's the catch. Using a tool designed for people to connect with one another to market your business is always using the tool slightly incorrectly. LinkedIn is a tool designed to help professionals make professional connections. Any marketing of your product or service looks spammy, because that's not what LI is for - it's a tool to increase your network...not your sales.

If your service is creating custom Twitter backgrounds, then yes, Twitter is a great tool to use. But use it wisely, because if all you post on Twitter is pitches for custom backgrounds, you'll soon be ignored like the other spammers, because Twitter too is more than just a tool to get your marketing message out - it's a tool to communicate and share with other people.

So, before you use a Social Media hammer to try and screw in a marketing brad on the network of your choice, take a deep breath and repeat after me: It's Just a Tool.

Because Social Media has never been about the technology - it has always been about the relationships.

Facebook FanPages Make You Lazy

Facebook is easy.

With one click people can show that they are a "Fan" of you, your business, your brand. That click allows their friends to see that they are a Fan of you, your business, your brand.

Facebook is too easy.

"That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly. It is dearness only which gives everything its value." said Thomas Paine. And he was exactly right. Something given freely becomes a trifle, something fought for becomes a treasure. People are like that. We only value what we have strived - or paid - for.

Facebook Fan pages are easy to set up. They are easy to advertise and they are easy to join. If you already have a nice-sized following elsewhere, many of those people will be glad to click that button and Fan you on Facebook. Why not? It's easy...and it doesn't mean a darn thing. As I wrote in an essay for my other blog, there are only two real measurements of commitment, and therefore value - Time or Money. Facebook removes the strain of either from your audience leaving you with...what?

Take a look at the businesses you've become a Fan of on Facebook. How many of them have actual conversations with someone from the company? Chances are that many of the posts on the wall are news from the company (with some percentage of folks who "like" those) and the few and far between comments, mostly composed of "Fans" talking to one another.

A Facebook Fanpage encourages lazy, one-way, no-committment communications on the company's side, and no involvement at all on the "Fan's" side. The organization posts an article and Fans "like" it...or not.

Worse is when your Wall becomes a complaints board. It's unlikely that you have the plans or the resources to handle every complaint your see on the Wall, so the natural tendency is to either limit it to one-way communications, so the Wall becomes that tried-and-true press release service or close it altogether, so your Fan Page is now nothing more than an ad.

The ease of setup and use is actually a significant barrier to engagement - there's hardly any opt-in for your audience; just a single button click and then hiding that page is just as easy, effectively creating a dead mailing list with valueless numbers of "Fans.".

The other problem is that corporate communications are actually quite difficult on Facebook. It was designed to be about an individual. For a company, that presents multiple problems. It's not as cute as it sounds to create a mascot and have them update the status. Most small companies have very little to share and almost no exciting topics to talk about. Mid-size to large companies really can' talk about themselves, since "themselves" is a multitude of various people doing various things. What's left? Publicly released news.

Even on a topic that people have interest in, it takes a lot to move people to communicate about their interest on the page itself. Conversations on Mailing Lists, Forums and other communities may be lively, but the Facebook Fanpage will be moribund - because it's too easy.

When crafting your Social Media Strategy, be mindful that Facebook is the bottom of the river - water has fallen elsewhere, from Twitter, from your website, your other communities, and it's likely to settle into a calm pool of "likes" and "shares" on Facebook. Plan for the occasional ripple, and plan to offer something unique for your Facebook fans to stimulate them into action. Or, get used to a quiet page full of overexcited company hype and press releases that your Fans "like."