Grow My Law Firm

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

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.

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

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.

 

How to create Facebook Friend Lists and use them for privacy

 

 

By popular demand, here's an update on how to create Facebook Friend Lists. This video takes you through the process and explains why this is important. Christine Pilch, Christine@GrowMyCo.com 413.537.2474

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

 

Facebook Group Admins: Beware spammer loophole

I recently learned the hard way that Facebook has a big loophole through which spammers can crawl within Facebook Groups.

In short, if a spammer joins a group and blocks the Group Admin, the Admin is unaware of the spam activity until it is reported by Group members, because she can't see anything that this person does. But that's only the first challenge. The bigger issue comes in when the Group Admin can no longer even see the spammer within the Group Membership roster because of the banning activity. How can one delete and block a spammer when the Admin can't even see the offender in the member list?

Here's what recently happened within a Facebook Group that I started and administer, called Social Media Brainstormers:

This Group consists of people who generally make their living doing some aspect of social media. Some are speakers, some are trainers, some manage the social media operations of a company, others are consultants, you get the picture. We're all on the higher end of this relatively new communications platform, and we don't want or need to be spammed with sales messages for the very services that most of us provide. This Group is mostly a think-tank. We share ideas, post links to interesting resources, and ask each other for help in resolving issues we encounter.

Once in a while a new member spams the Group with a sales pitch, and that member is quickly politely but firmly reprimanded by many members of the Group.

Well, as the Admin, I can't really screen members who ask to join, as I can only see their public Facebook profiles, and more often than not, there's not much information available to Everyone. A couple weeks ago, someone requested membership, and he seemed to be a legitimate social media entity who could add value to the Group. Within hours, he started spamming the Group with pitches and links to his own social media training webinars. He obviously didn't understand that his audience was as educated and qualified or more so than he was, and he didn't bother to even monitor the unfavorable comments under these posts. I deleted them and sent a private message explaining his misunderstanding and asking that he please not repeat this activity.

He didn't respond, but a couple days later, he posted 2 more spammy messages that drew the increasing wrath of several Group members because he was disrespecting our time and this special space that we had built as a private resource. I deleted his posts again and sent a stern message that this was strike two and at strike three, he was out and banned from the Group.

So what did that snake do? He blocked me personally on Facebook. Suddenly my private message to him was listed as sent to "Facebook User," and I couldn't see him in the Group membership list or any of his subsequent spammy posts to the Group Wall.

He thought he had outsmarted me, but he forgot one key fact, a Facebook block is mutual, so he could also not see my Group activity. I promptly promoted another Group member, whom I trust, to Admin status and asked my friend to block and ban this person. Mission accomplished.

Unfortunately, this loophole displays an example of Facebook not thoroughly thinking through a particular privacy action and its implications over Group operations. I can think of no situation where a Group Admin should be blocked from viewing the activity of any of her Group's members. And no member should become invisible from the Admin's sight within the membership roster.

So, now I wonder, does this occur on Pages as well? Have you encountered this situation? Have you found another solution?

 

 - Christine Pilch

Image credit: This image has been used so many times across the web, that I can't find the original source. However, the creator stated that anyone could use the image, provided that they post a link to it on the creator's site. I fulfilled the owner's original requirement, but I regret not being able to post a link back to him/her now. My apology and thanks!

The danger in using a Facebook Page as your social media hub

As Facebook grows stronger and more relevant each day, it also becomes an attractive and significant marketing tool for businesses. In fact, businesses that neglect Facebook do so at their own peril if their competitors make the effort to craft a positive user experience there.

While Facebook's potential as a marketing platform for a company is hard to ignore, it is also wise to proceed cautiously on a network within which the user has few, if any rights, and little recourse in the event that something goes wrong.

Know that because Facebook is a free platform, it can do essentially whatever it wants. This means that it can, and does remove information for any reason. Unfortunately, such action sometimes seems random, and it becomes a huge problem for the Page owner, who suddenly finds himself adrift in a huge Facebook sea of indifference with no pipeline to a real-live human being who can or will help.

I've had 2 instances where I've experienced Facebook's callous disregard for it's users. In the first, Facebook took down a note on my own Grow My Company page because someone reported it as abusive, which is absurd. I had spent many months developing a list of tips for social media usability. I would tweet them and post them to my Fan Page, and then add them to this note, which linked off  a graphic on my page that portrayed me as a "Tipster." There was absolutely no questionable content included. It was just tips for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, video, and social media in general, but someone reported it as abusive, and Facebook yanked it down.

So, why would Facebook do this? I can't say with certainty, but I can speculate that somebody decided to be spiteful for their own selfish reasons, and they reported the Note just to be mean. Unfortunately, this instance proves that Facebook doesn't bother to review reported content, they just remove it. So beware.

Unfortunately, I neglected to keep a local copy of the list I was developing. I can certainly rebuild it simply by going back in my posts. Will I? Maybe, but it will be a lot of work to duplicate my effort.

In the second Facebook affront, it suddenly, and without warning, took down a client's Fan Page. This was a law firm Page with absolutely no questionable content as well. It contained over a year's worth of blog posts from 4 legal blogs, legal news, and 50+ legal videos.

In both above instances, I tried my best to open a channel to an actual person within the Facebook conglomerate who could listen and help, to no avail. I dug through countless help documents and sent many messages. I worked my social media channels hoping to find someone who knew someone within Facebook. My LinkedIn network gives me access to about 11 million people, and I came up dry. Facebook is a black hole when it comes to customer service.

So, I am very cautious about positioning Facebook at the center of any of my clients' marketing endeavors. I agree that it's an essential component, but I've been reading lately that some companies are actually getting rid of their websites in favor of establishing their Facebook Page as their primary online presence. I believe that is foolish. When you use Facebook, you're playing in a sandbox that you don't own and where you have just fleeting, non-specific rights. Facebook can make any decision it wants at any time, for any reason, and you have no recourse, as you would with something that you pay for, like a website hosting service.

 

 - Christine Pilch

Friday Favorites: 5.20.11

Here are 5 of my favorite or most helpful things I read on the web this week:

1. 10 Best Tips for Creating a Mobile Site:
   Are you thinking about mobile marketing yet? If not, you're a little behind the curve because smartphone use and mobile traffic are growing daily. This article offers a brief, plain English overview of best practice for developing a mobile site.
2. The Most Complete Twitter Application List Available - 2011 Edition:
   No explanation needed here. This list rocks! You might want to bookmark it.
3. 5 LinkedIn 'Must-Haves':
   LinkedIn has developed into a serious business tool, and this article offers solid tips about getting as much as you can out of the application.
4. New Facebook Promotions Guidelines:
   This is certainly not the most exciting item on this list, but it may be the most important. Facebook is serious about reducing their own liability, and a lot of the things people ordinarily do when they run a promotion on their Fan Page is actually against Facebook's terms of service. Read these guidelines and respect them, or you just might find your Page disappear one day. Remember that this is a free platform and Facebook can do whatever it wants, leaving you with little to no recourse.
5. How to Build a Free Social Media Monitoring Dashboard:
   Yes, you can track your social media activity without spending big bucks with expensive monitoring services. Here's a step-by-step guide for all you do-it-yourselfers. 

Well, that's it for this week!

- Christine Pilch

QR code marketing mistakes

I recently received my first two marketing postcards that utilized QR codes. QR, or quick response codes, utilize a 2 dimensional, square barcode that, when scanned with a smartphone barcode reader, takes the user to a webpage. While I applaud these businesses for jumping on the bandwagon and using this hot, new technology, I sure wish they had done it right!

The first piece was from an area hospital, and it was promoting their birthing center. (I'm going to stay on task here and not critique the punctuation or composition of the piece, which were poor.) I'm on Android, and the QR code brought me to the hospital's Facebook Place, which was connected to their Fan Page, but it took me a moment to figure out how to get there. In fact, I had 3 choices in the navigation, Activity, Wall, and Info. There was no landing page telling me anything about why I scanned that QR code in the first place, or how to collect on their free offer, as described in the piece. I was simply dumped onto an irrelevant Fan Page that didn't have the information I wanted.

So how could this hospital have properly utilized that QR code to give them a marketing advantage? Simple; drive traffic to a page that expands upon the information included within the postcard. If that can't happen on Facebook, the landing page should have been built on their website.

Also, the huge missed opportunity here is that even if the mobile user could get to the custom landing tab, there's no information about the birthing center there. The user has to click to another page for that info. This is wasted marketing money because many women will simply like the page as instructed, collect their free gift, and go have their baby elsewhere because they weren't given a compelling reason to consider this particular birthing center.

The second postcard was promoting a seminar for non-profits. It wasn't a bad piece. It explained the benefits, and I clearly understood the advantage of attending. However, unfortunately, they also fell short with the addition of their QR code on the piece.

The code takes the user to a webpage that doesn't include any more information than the postcard and wasn't optimized for mobile use, so the text was tiny. The registration button was so small that it was barely visible, and when I clicked on it, I received a big security warning saying that the certificate was not from a trusted source. That didn't give me much confidence about proceeding.

The moral of this story is that while it's terrific to utilize new technology, traditional marketing principles still apply. You still need to drive people to a place where they can get the info they need. You still need a compelling offer to entice people to take action. You need to always make it easy for your prospects to do business with you. And, in this case, you must test, test, test...on every mobile platform.

 

- Christine Pilch

Friday Favorites: 4.8.11

Here are 5 of my favorite or most helpful things I read on the web this week:

1. 11 Pro Tips for Better Business Blogging: This is a quick, easy read full of good advice.
2. How To Avoid and Prevent Facebook Spam: It's not just beginners who get caught up in these traps. This article provides a great overview and refresher.
3. Drive Traffic to Your Blog With LinkedIn: The info here not only pertains to your blog, but also also your online identity in general.
4. How to Improve Engagement on Your Brand’s Facebook Page: The statistics here are very helpful when considering such things as what day to post for particular industries.
5. Top 5 Slideshare Marketing Tips: In my opinion, Slideshare is a hidden gem of social media. It carries a strong Google ranking and provides another venue for your presentations and videos to get them seen. It also intergates nicely with LinkedIn.

Well, that's it for this week!

- Christine Pilch

How to stop Facebook Questions emails & auto photo tagging suggestions

   

 

If you're annoyed by the emails that you've been getting from Facebook when someone comments on a Facebook Question or Poll after you, this video will show you how to disable that. Also, you'll learn how to disable your friends' ability to auto-tag you in photos. Christine Pilch, Christine@GrowMyCo.com, 413.537.2474

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

Friday Favorites: 3.25.11

Here are 5 of my favorite or most helpful things I read on the web this week:

1. 7 Tools That Monitor Your Children on Facebook - Facebook can be a dangerous place for kids and a great concern for parents, but these tools can help provide piece of mind.
2. QR Codes: Game Changer or Passing Fad? - I believe that QR codes have tremendous potential to be a powerful component of marketing. This article explains what they are and how they can be used.
3. 5 Mobile App Trends You Can’t Ignore - This article is about using mobile apps for enhanced productivity.
4. How to Use Facebook Social Plugins on Your Website - Although I believe it's a bad idea to integrate Facebook and your blog comments because Facebook is too fickle to allow it control over something so important, this article is good for showing you how you can integrate Facebook into your site or blog.
5. Why Women Rule The Internet - This article is full of statistics about the significance of women for eCommerce, social networking sites, and even, surprisingly, gaming. If you're not optimizing your site for women, you just might be sorry.

 Well, that's it for this week!

- Christine Pilch

A lesson in social media power

The following is a true story that was initiated within a private Facebook Group that I started a few years ago for members of my high school class and members of classes close to us. Following is a recount of the events from one of the participants.

"Back in January, I laid out a small rant on FB declaring my dissatisfaction with the FB social media experiment. I iterated how negative most of the end-results had been up to then regarding the SM world and how it had affected my life.

Then, two days ago, a close high school buddy, sends out a blast via FB to the alumni from our school asking for help. His 14-year-old niece, Samantha, had been a part of a student exchange program and had landed in Japan ½ hour before the quake hit. The kid was stranded and he was asking for help.

A friend, Marilyn, linked up with another alumni named, Sun Chul Kim, who had contacts in Korean airlines. He paid for a ticket leaving Hiroshima for Seoul, Korea, but she could not board without someone in Korea to act as a guardian.

I was able to provide a link to SFC Michelle Johnson, who reached back to 8th Army and her boss, a man named Mike Detor.(SP?) He and his wife stepped up and met Sam at the airport, took care of her, and placed her on a plane bound for NY and then home to NC and Mommy.

From nowhere, suddenly, people around the globe are hopping around expending effort to assist a kid none of them know personally. None of it being possible without the rapid access of the SM networking.

I take it all back. I really do. Facebook has proven itself a worthy tool that enables amazing power. Similar to the linking of small rooftop antennas into an array capable of sending and receiving signals out to space, the entwining of relationships and people can create a synergy that changes lives.

I am glad to have had a small part in linking good people together. Thank you, Sean, Sun, Marilyn, Terry & Ana, Michelle, and Mike for doing the right thing just...because... you are wired that way."

~ Roland (Chip) Filiault, Producer-Director for Soldiers Radio and Television based in D.C.

Social media sure is one amazing communications tool, isn't it?

- Christine Pilch

Photo credit: Official US Navy Imagery

 

Friday Favorites - 3.11.11

Here are 5 of my favorite or most helpful things I read on the web this week:

1. The CMO's Guide to the Social Media Landscape - Want to know how each social media application is affecting your SEO? This informative infographic is clear and easy to understand.
2. 9 Ways to Transform Your Website Into a Social Media Hub - Your own website (or blog) is the perfect hub for all your social media activity because, unlike a Facebook Fan Page, you completely control it. There are some great tips here.
3. Look at Your Social Media. You're Seeing the Future of Your Brand - Your brand is entirely about others' perceptions of you, so you can gage the future of your brand by people's reactions to your social media activity today.
4. 8 Simple Ways to Improve Your YouTube Channel - Video is hot, hot, hot! Statistics are showing that many people prefer to watch a quick video than read a post or article online. Here are tips to make your YouTube Channel better than ever.
5. Facebook Insights: Product Guide for Facebook Page owners - Ever wondered what those stats mean in your Facebook Page Insights? This is a must-read for Page Admins.

Well, that's it for this week!

- Christine Pilch

The wonder of social media communications in a disaster

I woke this morning and turned on the news, like every day, to be confronted with the horrible reality of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan. My first thought was for the safety of a very close and dear friend, Kaoru, who I met many years ago in high school. So I grabbed my Droid and checked Facebook for news. Fortunately, she and her family were safe.

My second thought was for another old friend from high school, Mo, who makes her life in the US but still has family in Japan. The news on her Facebook page was distressing. She was unable to reach her parents. A short time later though, her dad called to say that they were safe as well. Whew!

This is a perfect illustration of how social media has greatly enhanced mass communication. Instead of frantic friends and family flooding landline, cell, and email channels, three quick messages from these friends relieved the anxiety of thousands of people who care about their well-being.

Posts with the keyword, "Japan," are flooding Facebook to the tune of dozens/second today. And that's just posts that are publicly available to Everybody. I searched for, "Japan," on Twitter, and the posts are rolling so rapidly that it's impossible to read the live stream, and almost instantly, TweetDeck throttled my stream for too much traffic. All of today's top trending news on Twitter is related to this disaster.

Some people still think that social media is silly, but today's events have certainly demonstrated its power as a communications tool.

- Christine Pilch

 

Photo credit: Smooth_O

 

Why confusing a Facebook profile with a page is a mistake

Now, more than ever, with the new and improved Facebook Pages, it's important to make sure that you've don't confuse a profile and a page. Each has unique advantages over the other for particular purposes.

You can control what your friends see on your profile, whereas all fans have 100% access to page content. You can use friend lists to control access to individual aspects of your profile. For example, you may prefer to keep vacation photos hidden from a "client" list, and restrict people you don't know well from reading certain status updates and personal information. It's impossible to control who sees what content on a fan page.

Profiles are reciprocal, whereas Page admins can't see the Walls of their fans (likers) unless they are also friends. With a personal profile, you can read content on your friends' walls and interact there if your friends' privacy controls allow it. With pages, you have one space to intereact, on your page wall. You don't have the option to initiate a dialog on your fans' walls.

Profiles have friend limits, whereas pages are unlimited. Friends cap off at 5,000, so if you have a popular brand, you will have to insult all the extras by not friending them. You have the potential for millions of page fans, however.

Friends are mutually approved, whereas fans just simply like your page. Imagine the workload of manually accepting the 29M+ fans on the Lady Gaga page! On the other hand, it's nice to make an individual determination about each friend request and place each friend into an appropriate list at the point of connection, for privacy purposes

Pages can see usage statistics, whereas profiles have no statistics available. Since profiles are for personal use, there's really no need other than curiosity satisfaction for profiles to have stats available to them. Pages, on the other hand are for businesses, non-profits, entities, causes, products, etc. Admins have a vested interest in tracking who is coming to their page because the page is an investment intended to produce some result.

Once your friend leaves the buisness, who is managing that "company" profile and accessing your personal info? This one is a little scary when you think about it. You might accept a friend request from a "company" profile because you know the person who created it, for example, if your friend heads up the sales department. But what happens when your friend no longer manages that profile? Who now has access to your personal information on your own profile? Will you even know when/if a transition occurs?

Pages display videos prominently, whereas profiles bury them under photos. Video is one of the most significant marketing tactics available these days, and the latest generation of Facebook profiles not only got rid of the ability to highlight them in your left margin, but they also lumped them under your photos link in your left nav. Thankfully, Facebook retained the videos link in the left nav of the new pages, so they retain their prominence as a marketing tool.

Pages are accessible web-wide, whereas profiles can only be viewed by Facebook members. If you're looking for maximum exposure for your business, why would you want to hide your Facebook presence from people who aren't logged into Facebook? 

Profiles allow elaborate messaging, whereas you can only announce an event via pages. Facebook's messages enhancements made it possible for you to now see a comprehensive trail of all private communications between you and a Facebook friend, including chat. It also allows you to add friends and remove yourself from a thread. On the other hand, pages have extremely limited private communications capabilities.

Profiles and pages have distinct advantages and disadvantages depending upon your intent. Basically, if you're looking to market a business, product, cause, band, public figure, or non-profit, a page is the way to go.

- Christine Pilch

Friday Favorites

Here are 5 of my favorite or most helpful things I read on the web this week:

1. Understanding the Social Media ROI Cycle - I like this because it helps establish realistic expectations. No, you won't see instant returns from your social media investment. It takes time, consistence, perseverance, and diligence. There is no cutting corners.
2. Facebook Promotions: What You Need to Know - Many people run unsanctioned contests on Facebook and get away with it, but what it you're the one who gets caught? Are you willing to risk loosing your Fan Page?
3. 4 Innovative Ways to Use Web Video for Small Business - Video is one of the hottest marketing tactics available these days, and here are 4 solid tips for integrating video into your marketing. 
4. The Reputation Economy is Coming - Are You Prepared? - "The reputation economy is an environment where brands are built based on how they are perceived online and the promise they deliver offline." So, are you ready for this?
5. How Well Is Social Media Fitting into the Marketing Mix? - There are some great statistics here.

Well, that's it for this week.

- Christine Pilch

 

How to change your view of Facebook Pages

 

 

This video shows you how to change your view of Facebook pages from most popular to most recent. It will also show you how to see only posts from the Page administrator. Christine Pilch, www.GrowMyCo.com, 413.537.2474

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

Stop complaining about Facebook privacy and take control on your own

On March 1 there was much ado about Facebook's refusal to stop plans to make users' addresses and phone numbers available to 3rd party application developers. This was shocking to many, but should it have been? Really?

Make no mistake about it, Facebook is in the information collection business. They have made it abundantly clear over and over that they don't consider it an invasion of privacy to share your information. Most every platform upgrade comes with hidden privacy invasions. Even their default, suggested privacy settings make any privacy advocate's head spin.

You volunteer to play in Facebook's sandbox when you join. It's free, which means that they can do what they want. If you choose to share personal, private information without implementing Facebook's very comprehensive privacy controls, you do so at your own risk. They won't feel one bit guilty about that.

Facebook creator, Mark Zuckerberg, has been very forthcoming about his beliefs that social media should be open and transparent, and that's the network they are working to create with Facebook. He makes no apologies for any perceived compromise of privacy. He stops short of actually saying it, but one might conclude that Facebook's philosophy is that if you don't like it, don't join Facebook.

On the other hand, to Facebook's credit, they have developed solid privacy controls that can be fine tuned down to a very detailed level. Unfortunately, most people either 1) don't realize what information they're sacrificing by not implimenting privacy controls, 2) don't care, or 3) are intimidated by the process of implimenting the controls and keeping up to speed on changes.

To a large degree it's human nature to be realtively complacent. Most people trust in what they're told and don't further investigate. Facebook understands this and takes advantage through a suggested setting that many people believe is too open, so they settle on a "Friends Only" setting that provides the illusion that this insulates their personal information against all but their own circle.

Unfortunatley, those people are lulled into a false sense of security. "Friends Only" is a good start, but there are plenty of additional settings that compromise the security of your information, are turned on by default, and are unaffected by "Friends Only."

The best advice is to take control of your own privacy. Read blog posts, watch videos, attend a seminar, and poke around yourself. Hire a speaker to come into your place of business and give a presentation about Facebook privacy, so your employees can all benefit.

Be proactive, but stop complaining, because Facebook owns the game. They make the rules and we're just players. We're not paying for this incredible networking and communications tool, so Facebook is free to do whatever it wants. Impliment the privacy controls available, but also be mindful that there is a possibility that everything loaded onto Facebook may become public one day. There's no guarantee that it won't, so you might want to be discriminate about what you do when you're playing in Facebook's sandbox.

 

- Christine Pilch

 

Why confusing a Facebook profile with a page is a mistake

Now, more than ever, with the new and improved Facebook Pages, it's important to make sure that you've don't confuse a profile and a page. Each has unique advantages over the other for particular purposes.

You can control what your friends see on your profile, whereas all fans have 100% access to page content. You can use friend lists to control access to individual aspects of your profile. For example, you may prefer to keep vacation photos hidden from a "client" list, and restrict people you don't know well from reading certain status updates and personal information. It's impossible to control who sees what content on a fan page.

Profiles are reciprocal, whereas Page admins can't see the Walls of their fans (likers) unless they are also friends. With a personal profile, you can read content on your friends' walls and interact there if your friends' privacy controls allow it. With pages, you have one space to intereact, on your page wall. You don't have the option to initiate a dialog on your fans' walls.

Profiles have friend limits, whereas pages are unlimited. Friends cap off at 5,000, so if you have a popular brand, you will have to insult all the extras by not friending them. You have the potential for millions of page fans, however.

Friends are mutually approved, whereas fans just simply like your page. Imagine the workload of manually accepting the 29M+ fans on the Lady Gaga page! On the other hand, it's nice to make an individual determination about each friend request and place each friend into an appropriate list at the point of connection, for privacy purposes

Pages can see usage statistics, whereas profiles have no statistics available. Since profiles are for personal use, there's really no need other than curiosity satisfaction for profiles to have stats available to them. Pages, on the other hand are for businesses, non-profits, entities, causes, products, etc. Admins have a vested interest in tracking who is coming to their page because the page is an investment intended to produce some result.

Once your friend leaves the buisness, who is managing that "company" profile and accessing your personal info? This one is a little scary when you think about it. You might accept a friend request from a "company" profile because you know the person who created it, for example, if your friend heads up the sales department. But what happens when your friend no longer manages that profile? Who now has access to your personal information on your own profile? Will you even know when/if a transition occurs?

Pages display videos prominently, whereas profiles bury them under photos. Video is one of the most significant marketing tactics available these days, and the latest generation of Facebook profiles not only got rid of the ability to highlight them in your left margin, but they also lumped them under your photos link in your left nav. Thankfully, Facebook retained the videos link in the left nav of the new pages, so they retain their prominence as a marketing tool.

Pages are accessible web-wide, whereas profiles can only be viewed by Facebook members. If you're looking for maximum exposure for your business, why would you want to hide your Facebook presence from people who aren't logged into Facebook? 

Profiles allow elaborate messaging, whereas you can only announce an event via pages. Facebook's messages enhancements made it possible for you to now see a comprehensive trail of all private communications between you and a Facebook friend, including chat. It also allows you to add friends and remove yourself from a thread. On the other hand, pages have extremely limited private communications capabilities.

Profiles and pages have distinct advantages and disadvantages depending upon your intent. Basically, if you're looking to market a business, product, cause, band, public figure, or non-profit, a page is the way to go.

- Christine Pilch