Archive for 'Facebook'
What the New Facebook Like Really Means.
April 27th, 2010. Published under Facebook. 1 Comment.
Neil Sarkar from Vaynermedia couldn’t have explained why the New Facebook Like that allows us to bring everything we like on the web in our Facebook any better.
A shallower API learning curve and better integration with existing tools may seem convenient for developers and irrelevant to non-developers, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Look at Twitter — despite a miniscule and skewed user base as compared to Facebook, they joined the conversation when CNN et. al. noticed their explosive growth. This growth was primarily a function of two factors: rapid innovation and low barriers to entry for new user interaction (one-click follows etc).
For the full article you can read here : How Facebook’s f8 changes will affect you in 600 words or less.
I think that everybody, even from a non-marketing background, understood that the new Like Anything, Anywhere of Facebook is huge. However, I believe that Sarkar shed light on something that most of us didn’t even think about and I have already seen the new services using this API that popped up every seconds. A great example is Like Button.
The scary thing is that Facebook just destroyed one of Twitter’s main advantage. In the next months or so, expect to have a lot of services based on the Facebook API. This new Facebook ecosystem will probably overpower a lot of the noise that Twitter makes in the news.
If you have no idea what the hell I am talking about, here is a screen capture of IMDB integrating the New Facebook Like (In less than 24 hours might I add).
Reporting a web page that you like straight into your friend’s News Feed or on your profile page’s wall is nothing. The true power of the Facebook Social Open Graph is this: Take a look at the information that Facebook publish about you and your friends.
You might want to take a 5 minutes to change your Facebook settings and protect your privacy! 
If you set your pictures as public, somebody can easily make a mash up of your pictures and post it on YouTube… Others could make a song based on your Status updates! I would love to have a service that reports back to me the jobs available in my Facebook network, tells me who I need to contact and the friends I need to speak to in order to get to that contact (disclaimer : I am not insinuating that I am looking for a new job. I am very happy where I am right now 
) . The same could be done for generating business leads!
With that in mind and without having to think about any coding. What kind of service would you want developers to create?
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The Death of Facebook
March 2nd, 2010. Published under Facebook. 4 Comments.
No, I am not talking about Google Buzz. Nor another “Facebook Killer” that will appear anytime soon. Truth is, the only Facebook Killer is Facebook itself. The mainstream social networking website is so big that at this point, the only way for it to die is by committing suicide and right now, … The tanto is already drawn and the Hara Kiri isn’t far.
I am bored with Facebook and all the blog posts about how Facebook is slowly becoming MySpace are true. Facebook became dull for the very same reason it was exciting:
because of its News Feed.
Lately, I do not get the right news from my News Feed anymore. I don’t know what it is in its algorithm but I just keep getting news from people that I don’t care much about and the people that I do care about, well they can’t seem to crack into my feed. Don’t come and talk to me about the “hide” function. I might not care much for a certain person but that does not mean that I want to shut that person away completely. There is also another function that allows you to get more news from certain people… guess what, that does not work either.
The reason for this problem is because Facebook is no longer about Friends but about acquaintances. That is not necessarily a problem. The problem is in the vomit of impertinent information. What I liked most about Facebook was the ability to view pictures of my friends and acquaintances and of course the small window in their life once in a while. I don’t know what happened but pictures are almost devoid from my News Feed now. In fact, I get more news about Mafia Wars than photos. I already hid all the applications in my feed, yet the information I get is still boring.
Facebook needs to step up the editing of their News Feed or people will drop it for another service that can deliver the news from their social network more efficiently. The interesting thing is that Facebook was recently granted a patent for its News Feed. It will be interesting to see if that means Facebook will become lazy and stop innovating or it will keep improving it. The strength of Google is also the weakness of Facebook. Google’s popularity is directly linked to its ability to return relevant information as opposed to the other search engines at the time.
Facebook needs to do the same.
Facebook needs to return relevant information in its News Feed. Either by providing better control to their users or by doing a better job at tracking the activities of their users. If it doesn’t…
Hara-Kiri.
What do you think? Are you bored with Facebook too?
Photo from Wikipedia.
Google Buzz: Facebook Killer?
February 10th, 2010. Published under Facebook, Video. 2 Comments.
Google has been making multiple moves under the radar aiming directly at Facebook for over a year now. I already discussed how Google opened Facebook Events to the world with Google Events and how that can benefit your business better in spring 2009. In fact, Google announced their version of Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect, as early as 2008.
With Facebook attacking Google’s search market with their improved search within social networks conversations. The war between the two eGiants is surprisingly quiet. With Google Buzz, this war just got more interesting:
Will Google Buzz kill Facebook or Twitter? I don’t think so – not anytime soon anyway. Not because of Google Buzz but because Facebook and Twitter are powerhouses and it takes a long time to bring them down. I think the service is quite interesting and offers great features but Facebook users will keep using Facebook for now.
Unlike Twitter, the service of Google Buzz does not differentiate itself enough from existing popular social networks right now. Moreover, the key word here is social networks. Twitter’s social network differ’s from Facebook. That is why it is working and will continue to work.
The relationships you have on Twitter are not the same as on Facebook.
I have yet to see how my relationships will be different on Google Buzz. We will just have to wait and see. For now, Google Buzz just seems to offer more of the same thing. I don’t believe that is the best way to attract people away from Facebook or Twitter.
As for how can marketers take advantage of Google Buzz? It is simple, successful social media marketers must focus on developing relationships. The key is to develop trust from communities (disclaimer: very technical article drawing links between SEO and SMM).
In order to be trusted in these communities, you have to invest a lot of time and contribute a lot. Therefore, it is important for social media marketers to gain authority in communities because in the near future, I wouldn’t be surprised to see social media sites a la Wikipedia and YouTube to allow some dofollow links.
Once trust is developed, it doesn’t really matter what social network you are using. In the case of Google Buzz, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of the same people from other social networks.
Picture by: invisiblegaijin
Obama: Be Careful on Facebook
September 10th, 2009. Published under Facebook, Thumbs Up, Video. 1 Comment.
President Barack Obama met with high school and advised them to “be careful what you post on Facebook. Whatever you do, it will be pulled up again later somewhere in your life.”
I like his message because he is not saying to shut down social media or any other fear based propaganda. Rather, Obama advices us to be smart about it.
photo by: Steve Rhodes
Google Quietly Bites Facebook’s Ass
August 28th, 2009. Published under Facebook. No Comments.
Facebook claim that they have 250 millions active users. I think Google has nearly a billion active users”. Their biggest challenge is to shift their users into members. I would be very interested to know how many people have Google as their homepage vs Facebook as their homepage. With iGoogle quietly making moves to connect people together I can see Facebook finally getting a worthy opponent. Perhaps it will be an ICQ vs MSN messenger part deux?
Google is launching their Chrome OS, an operating system for PCs. Google can cut Facebook off before the user even opens the browser. I am keeping a close eye on what Google is doing with their “social” campaign. I believe that Google has much better talent and engineers, thus they can deliver better products but Facebook is the expert on socializing on the web by a landslide.
photo by: Geek&Poke
Facebook Hacked
August 27th, 2009. Published under Facebook. No Comments.
Ok, so it isn’t Facebook that got hacked per se. Rather, it is Ann Cousins’ Facebook that got hacked (I have no idea who she is). My mother e-mailed me a Yahoo article and it got my attention:
Wed Aug 26, 3:36 PM
ST..JOHNS (CBC) – The online message sent from Ann Cousins’s Facebook account said the Newfoundland woman had been robbed of all her money at gunpoint while vacationing in London, England, and was desperate for help from her friends.In fact, Cousins was at work in Port Aux Basques, on Newfoundland’s southwest coast, at the time, unaware that her account had been hacked and someone was trying to con her friends and family.
Once again, I call this a typical media scare tactics. In the end of the article, Ann Cousins (Who the hell is she???) states that she plans on permantently shut down Facebook and never get back on there. Riiiight, well, there is a good chance she won’t but I think she will most likely get back on there. My call is within a year or max 2.
Something like this can easily be fixed if you diversify your social media presence. If your Facebook got hacked, then you can still post on Twitter, LinkedIn, Seesmic, YouTube, you name it.
Creating a new account after being hacked is not a good idea because you have nobody to update. On the flipside, if you have multiple followers on multiple accounts, it is no big deal. So your Facebook got hacked, ok just announce it on Twitter, ask people to notify others on Facebook if they have it and to RT. The same can be said with YouTube and any other social media channels.
The world is getting more connected thanks to social media. The answer is not to hide but to increase our visibility and presence.
Just don’t have the same password across different platforms. I’m going to go change mine now… 
photo by copyfighting
Yeh! Yogourt & Café – SMM Done Right.
August 24th, 2009. Published under 101, Facebook, Social Media Marketing. 4 Comments.
Great example of Social Media Marketing done right by Yeh! Yogourt & Café.
- Twitter account: http://twitter.com/YehYogourt
- Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Yeh-Yogourt-Cafe/76407342683?ref=nf
- Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/yehyogourt/
It is important to note that one of the key reasons why it is done right is because they are active in their social media presence. They did not only put up a page and leave it there.
The Good
The Twitter account brings the visitor to their website’s homepage which has great branding. They also have a call to action front and center inviting people to join their Facebook Fan Page.
They communicate with their audience in the language of the media: “We will now be open on Saturday until midnight Yeh!“.
They reply to the feedback on their Facebook Page when a customer post on their wall
Please, please bring back strawberry.
I beg of you
Their Facebook page has customer/user engagement. People are posting photos of them enjoying their product on their wall. They are even uploading videos of their children!
The Bad
There aren’t much I would do differently. Just keep your communication strategy updated. The website states that it will be open in June (we are in August) and get your Facebook username. It is better for link building and SEO. You are allowed to get yours after you have more than 100 fans.
The Ugly
Nothing really to say `
2 social full-of-yogourt thumbs up!
Photo taken from Facebook Fan page.
Facebook Search? Watch Out Twitter and Google!
August 11th, 2009. Published under Facebook, Social Media Marketing. 2 Comments.
Facebook made an announcement yesterday that they improved search for everyone:
You now will be able to search the last 30 days of your News Feed for status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages of which you’re a fan. If people have chosen to make their content available to everyone, you also will be able to search for their status updates, links and notes, regardless of whether or not you are friends. Search results will continue to include people’s profiles as well as relevant Facebook Pages, groups and applications.
This is a big threat to Google because Facebook owns a lot of data. After acquiring FriendFeed, Facebook is also looking Twitter right in the eye because the talent acquisition will help Facebook position themselves in real time search and compete with Twitter. Like I have discussed previously, this is a huge step for search or, more specifically, social search because Facebook owns a lot more data than Twitter.
What does this mean for Social Media Marketing
Well, I couldn’t have said it better than Gary Vaynerchuk:
For the purpose of Social Media Marketing, Twitter allows brands to engage with new customers, fans, prospects. This was limited with Facebook because the only way to interact with them was through the fan page. Now that Facebook gives us access to 250 million active users, it is a lot easier to engage new clients, new customers, new prospects, new fans just like Gary showed in his video.
I guess this is how it feels to have the world in the palm of your hand? Thank you Facebook!
photo by: jaycameron
Facebook – SMS Service for Pages
March 27th, 2009. Published under Facebook. 1 Comment.
Great Facebook news for both online and offline marketers today. People can now become a Facebook fan without even having a smart phone or be on their computer. You can do it while standing in the mall! Inside Facebook reports:
“Imagine the scenarios- you can ask 10 people in a Board room to take their phone out and become Fans, or 100 people at a rally to become political supporters, or 30,000 people at a concert or ballpark to become fans via mobile device,” wrote Dave Kerpen at theKbuzz, who discovered the new feature earlier today.
Very powerful tool. Unfortunately, I can’t see how it applies to the employment field yet. The tool is there and it is great. The challenge and creative part, which can be both fun and frustrating, is to figure out how I can use it in my industry: employement. I can definately see how it can be used for bands and multinational corporations in any of their promotional events though.
Facebook Likes This
March 23rd, 2009. Published under Facebook. No Comments.
I am dedicating a whole blog post to the simple Facebook feature “Like“. It isn’t an innovative feature, it has been done by many websites in many context (such as Friendfeed for instance) but I think Facebook hits it on the head when it introduced this social action and I think there is a future in Facebook marketing with this feature.
Let’s face it, we are lazy. Or in good marketing terms, we need to make everything as easy as possible for the users.
The easier we make things for the users, the higher engagement level we will get out of them.
I have to admit that I catch myself surfing the web and tell myself, I like this but only to not see a “like” social action to fulfill my need to give approval to the content creator. I think the brilliance of this Facebook feature is in its simplicity. I will not dive into my sociological, psychological and/or critical communication studies analysis of why this social action is a success.
What I want to discuss is what I think Facebook can or should do with this feature. The Facebook Like feature is no different from tagging. In fact, it is a specific type of tag that we attribute to information. I think Facebook needs to go further than “Alphonse Hà likes this” and reporting this information in the News Feed. If the word “Digg.com” popped in your head, you know where I am going.
Facebook should allow Facebook users to find out what content is popular within their Networks. I would be very interested to know what is the most “liked” content created by my friends whether it be status updates, photos, shared links, videos, you name it. This report can also get categorized by who “liked” the content. Do I want to know what was liked by everybody or perhaps filter it by only the amount of people within my Facebook friends who liked it? X number of people “like this” versus X number of your friends “like this”. I will most likely be more interested in knowing what my circle of friends are enjoying rather than their circle of friends or in the case of Fan pages, what strangers are enjoying. However, it does not mean that I wouldn’t be curious to see what is popular on Facebook today or in the past week or all time (hint, hint, Facebook – Youtube might be able to give you a few tips here).
I believe aggregating or reporting “Most Liked” will become a great viral marketing tool and will push marketers and the corporate world to produce quality content for people to enjoy. This should also apply to Facebook ads. While we are there looking at what our Facebook friends like the most, why don’t you take this opportunity to show us what Facebook ads were liked the most by our friends? This gives more exposure to your clients and increases the chances of the ads going viral. Great way to give a viral marketing boost to the corporations’ advertising.
Do you have Facebook? I welcome you to add me as a friend!
Photo by: 365mayhem
