Grow My Company

Opinion: How will Facebook make money?

Facebook went public last week, and I watched the ticker all day long. It did what I and many others suspected, climbed and fell as the day went by. It made me think though...what exactly were those people buying? How solid is this investment? What is Facebook's plan to make money? 

Let's start with the fact that social media is in essence a communications platform. People use it to connect. They share information, solicit assistance, are entertained. However, for the most part, people are not there to be solicited, and they consider ads to be an unwelcome interruption. So how can Facebook make money if its users reject its business model?

First, you must understand the difference between users and customers. You and I are users. We use the platform for free. Facebook's customers are the people and businesses that it makes money from: its application and game developers and its advertisers. There is a very big difference in the status of a user and a customer, as is evidenced by Facebook's continuous rejection of user outcry when Facebook does something that users find offensive, such as open their personal information to developers.

Hindsight is 20-20, but if I sat in the big chair at Facebook, I would have been developing premium content that users could pay to use, like chat and video capabilities. I would have maintained a basic, free platform available to all users, but introduced enhanced premium content that was so appealing and inexpensive that many users would want it. Let's face it, if Facebook had introduced chat several years ago as a paid upgrade, with a prominently stated 90-day free trial for all existing and new users, many people would have been hooked on it and just might have been willing to pay $1/month for this feature. $12 per year wouldn't really break anybody's bank, but it would have brought a lot of income to Facebook.

Let's not confuse this with LinkedIn's flawed business model that consistently strips away favorite functionality from it's free model, without notifying its users, and requires a paid, premium subscription to access this content and functionality that users had relied on for free in the past.

How about businesses? As Facebook exploded, and businesses wanted to cash in the huge database of users by developing pages there, why didn't Facebook charge them to build a business page? Again, many, if not most businesses could and would have afforded a nominal fee to establish a presence there. But then again, if Facebook charged for this service, users would have had some rights, and Facebook wouldn't have been able to do things like employ customer service reps overseas who "review" and seem to randomly delete content reported as offensive, despite there being no problem with it at all. And they wouldn't be able to randomly take down pages and ignore users' customers' requests for help.

But I digress.

Facebook has already come close to reaching critical mass. With the exception of kids who age in annually, most of the people who aren't on already, don't want to be there, and it will take a lot of convincing to make them actually become engaged users if you were able to get them to sign up in the first place. So where is the growth potential? China?

As far as I can tell, Facebook's business model includes income from app developers and advertisers only. Now that it is public, there will be no more angel invertors. So when was the last time you clicked on a Facebook ad? How often do you do so? Do you pay for game upgrades? Have you even associated a credit card with our Facebook account? No? Neither have I.

It seems to me that the only people making money are the ones who had huge bundles of stock that they unloaded last week to people who wanted to own a piece of Facebook.

I'd love to hear how you think Facebook will make money and turn out to be a good investment for all those stockholders down the road.

 - Christine Pilch Mancini

How to clean up your Facebook news feed of game spam

If you're tired of seeing all your friends' game activity posts and constantly ignoring friends' requests to play games, you're in luck. Watch this video to learn how to block game invitations and delete friends' game activity from your news feed. Christine@GrowMyCo.com 413.537.2474

 

 

© 2012, Christine Pilch, Grow My Company. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

Are you a social media connector or a collector?

Social media is a set of communications techniques. It helps you to reconnect, strengthen, and establish relationships. To some, however, social media seems to be one big competition for who can establish the most connections.

Let's be clear though, in most cases, volume and quality are not necessarily congruent.

Connecting without engagement has little value. How many collectors are you connected to? You know the ones; they sent an invitation and then ignored your attempts to engage with them. They may or may not post content on their Facebook or Twitter accounts, but they certainly aren't interested in communicating with you. They're silent or they're preachers.

Social media is one of the most powerful networking tools at your disposal today. It allows you to meet people virtually that would have likely never crossed your path just 5 years ago. It can help you to educate your friends and family about what you do professionally. It provides venues for online collaboration that can speed up business processes. It helps you find a job or qualified people to fill an opening within your organization.

Collectors don't seem to care about this though. They just want more connections than the next guy. Or they just want to snoop on their old friends and acquaintances.

Don't be a collector, be a connector. Make an effort, and it will pay off with enhanced social media relationships that can help you fulfil your goals. Here are a few tips about how to be a connector rather than a collector:

1. Personal invitation:
   Personalize your LinkedIn invitation. Sending the stock invitation says that you're lazy and you don't care enough about the person to bother taking the time to address them personally. Facebook used to allow personalized invitations, but, sadly, they removed that ability, preventing you from reminding an old friend about who you are.
2. Follow up:
   Message the person after connecting. Thank them for the invitation or for accepting yours. 
3. Start a conversation:
   Or at least make an effort to get to know your new connection. Even it it's someone you've known all your life, the new social media connection may add an entirely new dimension and lead to opportunities down the road for each of you.
4. Read updates:
   Keep up to date on your connections' promotions, job changes, and new company affiliations. That IT specialist whose trust you earned with one company could be your next big account in his new capacity as IT manager at another company.
5. Respond:
   When someone takes the time to post or comment on your profile, Tweet @ or message you, respond. Unless you're a celebrity, there is no excuse for not responding. It's just plain rude.
6. Read about them:
   Read the information that people put in their About sections. When you connect with someone new on LinkedIn, they know if you've looked at their profile or not. Show some interest and possibly learn something new about that person on Facebook too. This prevents you from messaging someone from your past with the stock, "So what have you been up to for the last 20 years?," when it's all right there for you to read, had you only taken the time. This helps to demonstrate that you actually respected them enough to read their info and allows you to comment on something substantive that may open a meaningful dialog.

People who have accounts on social media, but don't bother engaging, miss opportunities. Don't be a collector, be a connector and start being a more valuable member of your social media circles.

 

 - Christine Pilch Mancini

Image credit: Public-Domain-Image.com

What's in a name? The name change conundrum in social media.

This may be more interesting to female readers than male ones.

When your whole identity is your maiden name, at what cost can you change your name? Will that brand be sacrificed when you get married and want to take your husband's name? That is the dilemma I encountered when I married last year.

I'm not in my 20s, or even my 30 for that matter. As a result,  I have a lot of equity in my name personally and professionally, especially since a lot of my income is generated by the recommendations and referrals that come via the social media sphere.

So when I married, I stressed over what to do with my last name, and thus, my identity.

I ended up adding my husband's name after mine, without a hyphen. That was the best solution for me, and most social media platforms made it pretty easy as well. Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Slideshare, YouTube, and Google+ gave me no hassle at all. It was easy to find and configure the change on their respective sites. (Note: I am referring to display names only, not platform usernames. I see no reason to jump through those hoops.)

Twitter, however, was a whole other story. Twitter actually has a character limit on display names, and "Christine Pilch Mancini" exceeds it, so I am unable to change my name there. Yes, it is ridiculous.

Anyway, making the right name decision for me was a whole lot harder than the actual process of changing my name in the social media world. If only it was so easy to do everywhere else...passport, driver's license, bank paperwork, insurance, utilities...

 

 - Christine Pilch Mancini

Social Media 101: covering the basics in early 2012

I can't tell you how often people ask me what they really should be doing to cover their bases these days from a social media perspective. Often these conversations start something like this:

"Should someone like me really be on Facebook?" with a wrinkled nose," That's not really my thing."

"Not really your thing?" I counter, "What do you mean? Marketing yourself and your company isn't your thing?"

"Oh, then what should I be doing?" is a common follow-up question.

Social media is constantly evolving, and there is no mix that is right in every situation and every company, but what was once the essential 3: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, has expanded to include YouTube, Google+, and Pinterest these days, depending upon what you are selling.

There are plenty of others too, but let's go through the current recommended basic social marketing hexagon, one-by-one.

Facebook:

Everybody should have a personal Facebook account, if for no other reason, to educate your friends and family about what you do. Sure, your cousin and college roommate likely know that you're a lawyer, but can they tell a friend what kind of law you practice and possibly refer business to you? Believe me, all my Facebook connections know exactly what I do, and yes, they do refer business my way.

It's a common and legitimate concern to worry about mixing personal and professional connections and have clients see vacation and family photos, but Facebook has extensive privacy controls that utilize lists, and a single account can satisfy an infinite variety of people in your life by simply controlling what they can and cannot see. If you need assistance setting this up and understanding how to use these controls, I would be happy to help you.

A Facebook Page for your firm is another no-brainer. Anybody can do create one. Facebook offers step-by-step instructions. Just fill out all the requested information completely, upload your logo or photo, post some content, and invite your personal friends to like the page. That's all you have to do to get started, and there are lots of ways you can use that page to market your firm later.

You might also find use for a Facebook Group within your business. This space could be used to collaborate and share information with specific people. Unlike Pages, Groups can be private, where non-members can't see content, or secret, where nobody outside of members even know that the Group exists.

Facebook ads are another possibility. Since Facebook collects lots of information about its users, it is capable of extreme targeting with its advertising. This is not a no-cost option, but it is worth exploring at the right time.

Twitter:

Twitter seems odd and uncomfortable for most users when they first check it out. How can anybody market in 140 character bursts? Well, Twitter is very much about developing relationships, which are likely the lifeblood of your firm, so sign up and start talking to others in your geographic area. Yes, you can discuss your field of expertise a bit, but don't preach, and above all, just be friendly. If you need help getting a feel for Twitter, give me a shout.

LinkedIn:

You're a professional right? Well, a LinkedIn presence is expected for all professionals these days. In fact, LinkedIn is so powerful that often your LinkedIn profile tops your own web profile in search results. Let me also assure you that LinkedIn makes it really easy to find your competitors, so if you're not there when a prospect searches for you, you just might lose business to competitors who do take this platform seriously. Can you afford that risk?

Sign up and go thorough the process of building a 100% complete profile. Be prepared to spend a couple of hours gathering and inputting all of your information, and go way back throughout your entire career and school days. Most everybody in your past is a potential referral source, aren't they? The best way for them to find you is to identify yourself with all of your past jobs and education. Don't skip sections, but do use action words and proper grammar and spelling. This 24/7 web-based resume is not the place for typos and tense issues. If you don't have the time, patience, or inclination to write a proper bio for yourself, I would be happy to help you. In fact, one of my clients currently hears from at least 2 recruiters per week because of the profile that I created for him.

YouTube:

YouTube is a no-brainer for professional service firms that want to position their lawyers, accountants, etc., as qualified and knowledgeable experts in their fields. Grab your iPhone, Andriod phone, Flip, Kodak Zi8, etc, light yourself, get an inexpensive lavaliere microphone, and start talking. Do a few takes if you need to and edit to whatever degree you are able. Or hire someone to do this for you. It may be a bit pricey to hire a professional videographer, but there are also plenty of multimedia college grads who are unemployed and/or need to build a resume. They would likely work very reasonably. Have them come in and shoot a dozen videos at a time that they can take back to their studio and edit for you. Then use your videos on your blog and website in addition to YouTube.

Google+:

I must admit that I am still not a big G+ fan. I find it somewhat redundant and can't break the feeling that it's just another social media that I have to check, so I neglect my account. There is one feature that I use regularly though, Hangouts. Hangouts allow up to 10 people to videoconference, unlike Skype, which only allows multiple parties to videoconference within the paid model. I am currently working with a group of 4 others planning PodCamp Western MA 4, and we haven't had a single in-person meeting. All planning is being conducted within a private Facebook Group and weekly Hangouts.

There are a couple additional nice features that are worth mentioning. On Google+, updates are editable. How many times have you posted on Facebook and wished you could change something retroactively? Google + is also integrated with many of Google's other products. I especially like its integration with its Picassa free photo app. And I love that all of the photos I take on my Android phone are automatically uploaded to my G+ account. That's free automatic photo backup! If you have additional favorite features of Google+, please add them in the comments below.

Pinterest:

This blog covers marketing for essentially professional service firms, but I do plenty of marketing for other kinds of companies that have products to sell. And, let's face it, your service is your product. The true marketing potential of Pinterest is still being discovered and tested, and its core strength is in its visual advantage, so its value to you may not be as readily apparent as the above tactics, however; I like Pinterest because it displays the human side of me and helps people get to know me, so they feel better about reaching out to me. Remember too that Pinterest will climb in search engine rankings as it becomes more popular, so it will help you to populate that critical first page of search results with your own content.

In closing, it is important for you to understand that there is no cookie cutter social media strategy that suits everybody. However, the above includes what I am finding especially useful in my own and my clients' social media toolbox lately. What are you using that I haven't mentioned?

 

 - Christine Pilch Mancini

 

Photo credit: Best Design Options

Facebook compromised your privacy this week, and you probably didn't even notice it

In the way of a great illusionist, this week Facebook got so many users worked up about the loss of easy access to recent posts that they were able to slide in much more significant changes that altered the privacy control that every Facebook user had over his own information. 

Yes, you can establish the privacy of photos and status updates on the fly now, but if your friends choose to share your information on their own profiles, your friends' friends and the apps they use have access to it.

See here:

In the past, your privacy settings controlled who could see your posts, but the above statement leads me to wonder if that remains the case if friends can freely share your updates, photos and information with their friends.

However, you can still stop apps from accessing your info. So it is more important than ever to restrict which of your personal information your friends' apps can access. See here:

If any of the above boxes are checked, your friends are sharing that information with the apps they use. And yes, they are checked by default. Pretty slick, don't you think? 

Access this screen here:

Home > Privacy > Apps and Websites > How people bring your info to apps they use.

Keep in mind that Facebook makes money from those apps, and those apps are only free because they benefit from collecting users' information.

So, did Facebook deliberately compromise user experience to take attention off a significant and deliberate privacy reduction? We'll never know for sure. But users world-wide sure took their eye off the ball and focused on usability instead of privacy issues this week. 

Few users realize that Facebook doesn't give a hoot about our privacy, despite their claims to the contrary. Facebook is in business to make money. If they're not charging you to use the service, the money has to come from somewhere. Bottom line: the more info Facebook can get you to provide, the more valuable its database is to advertisers and apps. Remember, you are a user; advertisers and app developers are its customers. That's a very important distinction.

- Christine Pilch

Cross-promoting your content: working smarter instead of harder

My clients would probably tell you that I'm a bit of a broken record when it comes to re-purposing content. I'm always saying things like, "Cut some blog posts out of that article," or, "Let me see where else I can get that published for you." To me, re-utilizing content is working smart.

If you've done the work and created a great piece, why not post it everywhere you can and repackage it for cross-promotion? If you've retained the copyright on your work, there is nothing stopping you from having the piece republished within another venue, chopping it up for multiple blog posts, and producing a video about the topic.

But don't stop there. Publish a link to your work on your Facebook Page and personal profile, on your LinkedIn profile, on Twitter, and within appropriate LinkedIn groups. Upload your presentations to SlideShare and LinkedIn, and upload your videos to YouTube and LinkedIn. If you find all of this too cumbersome, utilize a free, multi-platform posting tool, like Shareaholic, TweetDeck or Hootsuite, where you can post to multiple destinations with a single action. But be careful though, as it is not necessarily appropriate to post all content everywhere.

I also caution you to carefully consider using article farm sites, as I'm reading lately that these sites actually work against your search rank because links from them are considered bad.

So, the next time you create a great piece of content, add it to your blog or website, and then make sure you spread it around the web. Over the following few days, carefully review the statistics of where your inbound traffic is coming from. The results just might surprise you.

- Christine Pilch

Photo credit: Mac Users Guide

How to secure your Facebook Photos from strangers and specific friends

 

 

Are you aware that Facebook's default setting for all your photos is Everyone? This means that everybody on Facebook can see them. If you want to restrict who can see your photos, this video will walk you through the process step by step. Christine Pilch, Grow My Company, 413.537.2474, Christine@GrowMyCo.com

© 2011, Christine Pilch, Grow My Company. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

LinkedIn privacy threat and Facebook notifications: changes you should make

 

 

LinkedIn recently opted you into letting them use your name and photo in advertising, but you can change that. This video will show you how. In addition, Facebook recently changed their account settings infrastructure. In this video you'll hear a few tips about key settings you should pay attention to. Christine Pilch, Grow My Company, 413.537.2474, Christine@GrowMyCo.com

© 2011, Christine Pilch, Grow My Company. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

 

Netflix: An exercise in social media backlash over business decision

A 2:21PM on July 12 I received an email from Netflix informing me that my $9.99/month subscription for 1 DVD out at a time + unlimited streaming is going up to $16.99. That's about a 60% price hike!

My stomach started to churn. I'm a long-time customer. I signed up before they even had local distribution channels. It used to take about 10 days from the date I mailed back a DVD to when I got a new one, but I stuck with Netflix because I believed it was an overall great value.

My opinion never wavered when they eventually dropped the price of my 3-DVD out at a time plan, when I realized that I wasn't watching enough movies and dropped down to the 1-DVD out at a time plan, and when they added a rather sad assortment of B and C level movies for streaming.

But this...a 60% price hike...made my blood boil. And I've only streamed a handful of titles in the last several years.

So I tweeted it, and followers retweeted it. And other Netflix subscribers tweeted it. And Facebook members posted complaints in their status updates. And the Netflix Facebook Page lit up like a Christmas tree with 41,000+ comments on the announcement from angry members, plus countless Page posts raging against Netflix's move. And the Netflix blog received 5000+ comments on its post about the fee hike. "Dear Netflix" is trending at #5 in the top 10 on Twitter. Several of my social media friends have shared a link to a blog post called, "Mad About Netflix Prices? Here Are Some Alternative Services."

This is all within the just last 26 hours.

So, what did Netflix do to quell the social media storm? Nothing. Not a peep from them in response to their angry customers. 

Netflix has been known for its exemplary customer service and brilliant business planning for many years, so they likely anticipated the backlash. But did they expect the volume and the venom? Only Netflix can answer that, but they're not talking. 

Perhaps they're attempting to wait out the storm and hope that everything just goes back to status quo. Maybe they're waiting to gage just how bad things get, as in how many people quit Netflix. Maybe they just don't care. They've made a business decision, and the heck with customer backlash.

In any event, it seems bad business to have not anticipated the storm thundering over Netflix right now. And the past has proven that brands are made and broken in social media. Time will tell if this is one of the all-time-great examples of social media failure or a brilliant move by a company running one of the largest-scale research projects of all time.

 

 - Christine Pilch