Facebook | Aqua Vita

2.05.2010
TGIF

TGIF – Week’s End Links – Happy Birthday, Facebook!

Published by Michelle Pierce under TGIF

The social juggernaut turned six on Thursday, which makes them squarely middle-aged online. I started my own Facebook account in 2005, back when they were only open to colleges and you had to have a university email address to open an account. (In fact, I didn’t delete my “ou.edu” address from my Facebook account until late 2009, after said address had been defunct for about two and a half years.)

And while Facebook and I have had our differences over the years, I have to say “thank you.”

Thank you for letting me keep in touch with friends I haven’t seen since elementary school.
Thank you for giving me a place where my college roommates and I can reminisce over old pictures.
And thank you for allowing me to do in one status update what would have once required multiple phone calls.

It may not be the same as seeing somebody face-to-face, or talking to them on the phone. But thanks to Facebook, you don’t have to say, “Gee, I wonder what happened to so-and-so?” Just check their status updates.

And now, some other stuff that has made me think or made me smile this week:

Modern procrastination – This post by Seth Godin has a conversation in it that couldn’t ring any truer if it was the Liberty Bell:

“Honey, how was your day?”
“Oh, I was busy, incredibly busy.”
“I get that you were busy. But did you do anything important?”

Busy is deceptive. You can find ways to procrastinate that make you look terribly busy. But at the end of the day, what have you accomplished for your company or for your own personal goals?

Why RedBox New Release DVDs May Vanish from Kiosks – DVD sales of new releases have gone down, and in an effort to combat the problem, movie studios are cutting deals with distributors like Wal-Mart, Target, Netflix, and Blockbuster to delay the rental availability of new release titles for about a month. For some reason, movie studios think that this will force consumers to buy the DVDs. RedBox is the only one who’s standing up to the studios and suing them.

This story illustrates a growing problem in the entertainment sector: Major companies are trying desperately to keep things at the status quo when the reality is that the times, they are a-changing. It’s happened with music, with books and publishing, and now we’re seeing it with movies. And undoubtedly, it’s happening elsewhere.

Consumers have said, “This is what we want,” and instead of working with them, companies try to cling to their previous business model, which is likely only going to become more outdated as technology marches forward.

How to Use a Semicolon – What, you didn’t think I was going to get through a whole post without a grammar-related link, did you? The Oatmeal has a fantastic illustrated guide to the semicolon that sums it up better than I ever could.

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2.02.2010
Marketing Alchemy

Get the Facts on Facebook: 22 Tips & Statistics

Published by Jessica Cox under Marketing Alchemy

Facebook has become a powerhouse platform for businesses looking to connect with their customers and prospects online. With over 350 million users interacting online, it’s easy to see the appeal of getting face time on this popular social network.

Facebook user statistics:

Facebook claims more than 350 million active users.
Fifty percent of active users log on to Facebook in any given day.
The average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook.

That’s a lot of people spending quite a bit of time in one place online. Do you have a stake in that game?

What about Facebook for businesses?

More than 700,000 local businesses have active Pages on Facebook.
There are more than 1.6 million active Pages on Facebook.
Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans.

If your target market is spending time on Facebook, you should start thinking about how to reach them.

Think tribal:

“Dunbar postulated that the typical human being can only have 150 friends… You might be able to stretch to 200 or 400, but no, you can’t effectively engage at a tribal level with a thousand people. You get the politician’s glassy-eyed gaze or the celebrity’s empty stare. And then the nature of the relationship is changed.”
– Seth Godin

Who are your 150 people? Who are the influencers you REALLY need to pay attention to?

This is important because you can’t be all things to all people. You can’t reach everyone intimately. You probably don’t want to. But you can be relevant, engaging, and useful to a small group of people. Get some traction going there and build momentum.

Facebook friend stats:

Average user has 130 friends on the site
Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
Average user is a member of 12 groups

Eternal welcome mode:

“Every day, new people show up at your blog, on Facebook, everywhere.”
– Seth Godin

Thousands of people are still learning the ropes of social media and Facebook. And even if they’ve been around the block a time or two, they may still be new to your blog, your Facebook page, or your Twitter feed.

Make it easy for new users to interact with you. Lay out the welcome mat and show them around. Help them get to know you. Be sure to integrate your social profiles on your website and in your email campaigns, and use every opportunity to invite people to follow you.

Facebook stats:

Average user becomes a fan of 2 pages each month
Average user is invited to 3 events per month

It’s all about interaction:

“Now Facebook mostly displays items that got engagement. You know, comments. Likes. Tagging. Etc. …you only see the items that your friends have found important enough to comment on or ‘touch’ in some way.

“Overnight my news feed went from something that looked pretty cold and lame to something that has tons of ‘warmth.’”
- Robert Scoble

Social media users delight in connection, interaction, sharing. Your goals should be to stimulate conversations, comments, and life on your pages. Because if your content is worthy of comment, you could be showing up on radar screens for not only your fans, but their friends as well. Look for ways to create these opportunities, and keep the conversation rolling when they happen.

Facebook Interaction Stats:

Average Facebook user clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month.
Average Facebook user writes 25 comments on Facebook content each month.

Create worthy contributions:

“One of the keys to success in building a fan base with your Facebook efforts is to consistently add great content and engagement.”
- Robert Scoble

More than 3.5 billion pieces of content are shared each week on Facebook. What are you contributing? Links, articles, blogs, how-to’s, news, profiles, photos, podcasts, videos: you can find a hundred different ways to dazzle your audience on Facebook. What are their burning questions? What is it they truly desire? Is anything confusing or worrying them?

You can be the voice they turn to for guidance, hope, inspiration, or a good laugh. Above all you must be worthy of their time and attention.

Facebook content creation stats:

More than 35 million users update their status each day
More than 55 million status updates posted each day
More than 2.5 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
More than 3.5 million events created each month

Deliver the goods:

“Social media only accelerates the inevitable”
- Bryan Eisenberg

Social media can form connections with clients and prospects. After that, it’s up to you to keep them satisfied, and build long-lasting relationships. The best social media campaign in the world won’t make up for bad service. But engaging your customers and prospects online can open the door for them to do business with you.

1.05.2010
Naked Writing

Four Unbreakable Social Media Rules

Published by Michelle Pierce under Naked Writing

1. Thou shalt be active.

In social media, you have to establish yourself as part of the community. Don’t just set up an account, make a couple of status updates or send a couple of tweets, and then decide that it’s not working. Social media marketing is not a magic bullet (nothing is). It takes time, and the most popular people online have been doing it for years.

Look at it as an investment. You’re investing in a community that will give you more informal access to your customers, to their hopes and dreams and disappointments. You can find out what they love and what they hate about you. It is easier than EVER to get feedback from people on how you’re doing, so that you can make your company into everything that your ideal customer would want.

Once you’re doing that, you can transform casual customers into hardcore fans. And hardcore fans are the ones who pimp you out to everybody they know.

2. Thou shalt be transparent—but not too transparent.

If you’re balancing work and personal stuff on sites like Twitter and Facebook, go for the 80/20 rule: 80 percent professional, 20 percent personal. That’s just enough to make people feel like they “know” you without giving up a ton of your privacy. And remember: people are more likely to buy from people they know than from people they don’t know.

Also, unless you’re plugging the awesome deli on the corner where you just had lunch, nobody cares about what kind of sandwich you’re eating. Even your personal posts need to have some guidelines.

3. Thou shalt not worry about making somebody angry.

Participating in any kind of back-and-forth with dozens—or hundreds—of anonymous people will eventually result in somebody getting ticked off. People don’t agree on everything. Heck, I can’t even get three people to agree on a radio station in my car. Just accept that sometimes, especially when you’re expressing an opinion, somebody’s going to take offense.

The only way to stop it is to make everything you write so utterly bland and flavorless that nobody would read it long enough to agree with you. And in social media, that’s more often worse than making people angry.

I’m not saying that you need to be deliberately antagonistic when you’re writing a post, or a Twitter update, or a bulletin. Just don’t completely neuter your point of view.

4. Thou shalt not post when angry.

And when somebody does get angry, as we discussed above, remember this rule. Never post when you’re angry. Don’t comment, don’t send an email, don’t interact with anybody. It’s so easy to spout off online when you’re angry, and engaging in a flame war will have very real, detrimental effects to both you and your business if you’re not careful.

Take some time to cool off before you post. Step away from the computer. Take a walk. Get some other work done. Eat some chocolate. Just make sure that you have to have control of yourself before you sit back down at the keyboard.

The thing to remember about the online world is that nobody has the benefit of hearing the tone or seeing the body language behind the words, and everything you do reflects on your company. Everything.

A poor reaction could cost you business. However, if you handle negative posts properly, you’ll earn a lot of esteem and respect in your community for doing so.

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Picture by dullhunk

12.18.2009
Marketing Alchemy

Social Media Showdown: Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Email

Published by Jessica Cox under Marketing Alchemy

E-mail continues to dominate emerging social channels such as Twitter and Facebook. E-mail remains the favorite way to share information with colleagues and friends, according to the latest social media study by ShareThis, a popular social content sharing widget.

Shared content breakdown:

Email: 46%
Facebook: 33%
Twitter: 6%

The remaining 14.4 percent split out between various other platforms like Digg, del.icio.us, and LinkedIn.

Also interesting: how people used the content after it was shared. Twitter came out on top for interaction: their links drew the most click-throughs. Maybe the shiny new retweet button is working its magic.

Click-throughs:

Twitter: 40%
E-mail: 35%
Facebook: 25%

However, the high-speed Twitter visitors ricocheted off the page in short order: Twitter visitors looked at 1.66 pages before exiting. Email on the other hand, delivered much more steady engagement at 2.95 pages.

Engagement:

Email: 2.95 pages
Facebook: 2.76 pages
Twitter: 1.66 pages

Twitter & Email: Speed vs. Depth

Thus far, Twitter is the fastest of the social mediums, much like telegraph or ticker tape messages. Users can access information at the speed of light, and let it go just as quickly.

With speed comes impermanence. This makes Twitter the “quick fix” medium with the least staying power for messages. Once a tweet appears, it can float away in an instant, or get a boost on wave after wave of retweets. Twitter visitors click the links, and click back just as quickly.

It’s interesting to see how the virtual opening of Twitter borders with new technology integration will affect the development of the system and expand this ripple effect.

Takeaway:
While Twitter usage has soared, email is still the top social media sharing mechanism. Integrated campaigns will have deeper, more lasting effects.

At 40 percent, Twitter seems to have the highest “click-it!” factor. The fast pace encourages you to click links before they sail out into the global stream of consciousness. However, the numbers show email still has much more popular acceptance, and email visitors tend to stay longer.

“Of course this varies by vertical and site, but if you think about your own habits, it makes sense. Getting an emailed link from a friend may cause you to pay more attention than the more random discovery that you get on Twitter as you consume quick opinions.” – Tim Schigel (@schigel)

Playing to the strengths of both mediums

Some people also argue that a “closed system” like Twitter or Facebook can never hope to replace or approach an “open system” like email as a universal communication medium. Personally, I don’t think it’s a question of replacing; both mediums have their functions.

Twitter offers a different scope of information and multimedia than email. You have to consider the amount of data you can communicate in 140 characters. Enough to intrigue, not enough to educate or persuade. On the other hand, you can’t beat Twitter for immediate message gratification.

With email, you can get more creative with multimedia and use HTML templates and engagement tracking. You can deliver a more complex message, offer more options for interaction, and create a more complete experience. Email also provides the comforting idea you can save something to read later. It’s very easy to organize and archive information. Facebook falls somewhere in between.

Your thoughts?

It’s a safe bet that the capabilities of both platforms will continue to evolve and entwine. Your thoughts? Where are email, Twitter, and Facebook headed?