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Don’t be That Company on Facebook

May 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment

When you receive a new follower on Facebook, you’re being allowed into someone’s social space. You have, in essence, been invited to the party. How you behave will dictate whether you are invited back next time, which in Facebook currency means whether your followers will stay followers, and whether they will interact with you and share your content with others.

Just like no one wants to invite “That Guy” to the party, no one wants to interact with “That Company” on Facebook.

Marketing on social media – and on Facebook in particular – sits more in the realm of public relations, truth be told. You’re there to get to know people, and to let people know the personal side of your business. There are tons of personalities out there to choose from when creating your company’s Facebook persona, but we’d recommend you steer clear of these . . .

facebookscumbagThe Facebook Self-Promoter

It’s called social media marketing, right? Well, this guy is definitely here to market . . . exactly the way he has always marketed before.

We all know how to recognize this particular That Guy at the party. He can’t seem to talk about anything but himself. He doesn’t want to carry on real conversations, and he’s convinced that nothing anyone else has to say could possibly be interesting, so he keeps talking about the one topic he does find interesting: himself.

If every link on your Facebook page is self-promotional, you’re That Guy. Facebook isn’t about shoving your message down people’s throats. They already like your company or they wouldn’t have followed your page in the first place. Instead, it’s about building relationships and having conversations, so treat it like a conversation. Don’t be that jerk who talks about nothing but himself. Nobody likes that guy.

The Loud Drunk

The ability to interact with your customers through Facebook is as dangerous as it is powerful. We were recently treated to a view of the downside of these interactions thanks to a business that appeared on Gordon Ramsay’s show Kitchen Nightmares.

Of course, telling you to keep your cool and avoid going ALL CAPS on your customers is kind of a no-brainer, but the loud drunk commits another social faux pas: he talks at people rather than to them.

The Facebook equivalent here is posts with no context. Title of article > link to article > done. Let’s wait for the likes to roll in!

. . . Except they don’t, because you didn’t walk up to people and start a conversation. You shoved a newspaper in their face, bellowed the headlines at them, and then walked away.

The Socially Awkward Facebooker

What this version of That Guy lacks in knowledge, he makes up for in enthusiasm, with cringe-inducing results. He pastes a url in the status window, sees Facebook use that information to create an attractive visual link, and it never occurs to him to delete the url. Sometimes he even uses a service to shorten the url that doesn’t have to be there in the first place.

He also likes his own status updates. Every. Single. One.

Listen, I’m all for socially awkward dorks. I’ve even been known to be one on occasion, myself. That still doesn’t make it a valid marketing strategy. Enthusiasm is wonderful so long as it’s tempered with a willingness to slow down, pay attention and learn something. So look around at the companies and entertainers you follow on Facebook. If the page is popular and successful, chances are you won’t be seeing a lot of urls in statuses, nor will that company like its own posts.

Just be a human

It really is as simple as all that. On Facebook, you’re relating to human beings as human beings. Social media isn’t advertising, and it’s not direct mail. In the often-impersonal world of the internet, Facebook is the most human interaction available to marketers. So just . . . be a human.

Filed Under: Online Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

Friday Trivia: Saying Goodbye to Google Reader

March 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Welcome to SEO Advantage’s Friday Trivia feature, where we discuss, dissect and comment on the internet and marketing, and how the two intertwine.

We recently learned that Google Reader will be going dark on July 1st, but do you know what year it was created?

  1. 2001
  2. 2003
  3. 2005

Answer: C

Although Google Reader has gained prominence in the RSS world, it’s actually among the newer feed readers. The service was first launched in 2005, and will have been in operation for not quite eight years when it goes away this July. In those years it became one of the top RSS readers in existence, offering a clean, easy-to-organize method for viewing news and blogs.

Google Reader and the Online Marketing Connection

Arguably, even as a relative late-comer, Google Reader can be given at least some of the credit for the popularity of RSS, and hence the popularity of blogs, which have become a mainstay of online marketing. Gmail is one of the top free e-mail services on the web, and many Gmail users became Google Reader users by default because of the connected service. For a fair portion of users, Google Reader offered their first experience with an RSS aggregator.

As more people began to use RSS as part of their daily lives, blogs became even more popular. They shifted from a method primarily used for personal expression to a near-requirement for businesses looking to grow customer engagement. Some blogs themselves became businesses, garnering deals for books and television shows.

While personal blogging still exists, the blog has now become a powerful business platform. With the loss of Google Reader, however, some users are moving away from RSS altogether, and instead continuing a trend that had already begun to gain traction. As online marketers, we need to be aware of this shift and account for it. That means realizing that consumers who are leaving traditional RSS readers behind aren’t leaving blogs behind. They still want the kind of engaging content and conversation that springs from blogging platforms, and businesses need to provide an easy way to track that content.

Social Media: the New RSS?

The reason so many are finding it easy to move away from RSS is that forward-thinking businesses are already providing an alternative method of tracking updates to favorite blogs: social media.

At SEOA, for example, every blog post we publish is immediately shared on our Facebook page. Chances are that’s how you ended up here reading this. This practice gives you a way to track us without an RSS reader, not to mention an easy method for sharing posts you might find interesting, and multiple options for joining the conversation.

This type of change is part and parcel for the online marketing experience. The dynamic landscape of the internet is what attracted so many of us to the field in the first place. From the perspective of an internet user the loss of Google Reader may be a disappointment, but from the perspective of an online marketer, it’s an opportunity to move forward, adapt, and develop new approaches.

Filed Under: Friday Trivia, Online Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

Study Declares LinkedIn the King – or Does it?

February 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Thanks to a new study released by the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, blogs around the internet are declaring LinkedIn the new king of the social media mountain. Not only does this draw some unrealistic conclusions from the data, but it also ignores some of the more potent, useful information found in the study.

Most articles are citing the data visualized in the image to the left, which would seem to indicate LinkedIn is rapidly overtaking other social networks for business use, but with any study of this nature you have to look at the sample. In this case, the data came from a survey performed on business listed in the Inc. 500, an index of the 500 fastest-growing private businesses. It’s a small sample, and the companies listed here would seem to share a specific characteristic – a strong focus on growth.

 

Stop Trying to Pigeonhole Businesses into a Specific Social Media Venue

It would have been great to see some information about the specific industries of the companies surveyed. It seems likely that what looks like an overall shift in preferred social network is actually evidence of how the specific types of companies surveyed best use social media, and not a directive for all businesses.

As marketers in the social media arena, we need to be extra careful not to fall into this sort of trap. For example, were I to recommend that a client at a B to C that sells a physical product focus the bulk of their efforts on LinkedIn, I’d be doing them a great disservice. People don’t shop or window shop on LinkedIn. It doesn’t even begin to have the same consumer power as more visual venues like Pinterest, YouTube or even Facebook.

In fact, if you take a quick look at the full list of 5000 Inc. published in 2012, you’ll find certain types of industries filling pages and pages of data: Business Products and Services, Advertising and Marketing, and IT Services are among the top performers. Even companies in the top 500 who list themselves as providing Consumer Products and Services tend to be in fields like investing and event planning.

Take this report and others like it with a grain of salt, and realize that there hasn’t been one social network to rule them all for many, many years. You have to understand who your customers are and what motivates them, and develop your social media strategies based on that information. Reaching the largest audience of people who aren’t looking for your products or services generates the wrong kind of leads, if you get any leads at all.

What the Study Does Tell Us

Looking beyond the catchy headline, you can actually dig down and find some really useful information from this study. Once you understand that the survey respondents were from growth-focused businesses, you can learn a lot about how they accomplish that growth.

63% of respondents stated that their CEO is active in their content creation and social media, and blogs are far more popular among the Inc. 500 companies than among the Forbes 500 – a list that tends to include more established businesses. This tells us that businesses using social media avenues to increase growth are finding success with those methods, and that their growth is also due in part to humanizing their upper management, thereby giving a level of transparency to their corporate culture.

This information is the real take away from the study. Concepts like blogging and increased visibility for upper management span every industry, and these methods seem to have proven successful for the businesses on the list.

Filed Under: Online Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

Friday Trivia: Social Network Usage

February 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Welcome to SEO Advantage’s Friday Trivia feature, where we discuss, dissect and comment on the internet and marketing, and how the two intertwine.

PEW Internet has just released their 2012 statistics for social network usage. You should definitely check out the expanded demographics, but first, see if you can guess which networks are used the most among adults. Some of the answers may surprise you.

Instagram is new, but growing.

Lunch is just one of many photo opportunities for Instagram users.

Question:Can you put these social networks in order based on overall usage?

Instagram
Tumblr
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
LinkedIn

Answer:

Facebook – Unsurprisingly, Facebook is the biggest social network there is. A whopping 67% of adults surveyed reported using Facebook. That usage is 47% higher than the next network on the list.

Facebook appeals to consumers and businesses of all sizes. There’s not a person or organization in the world that can’t get some sort of benefit from Facebook , and for businesses, the opportunities to build real relationships with consumers are countless.

LinkedIn – At the number two spot – with 20% usage among adults surveyed – we find LinkedIn. This placement might be surprising to some, but when you think about it, business connections often overlap with social and friend connections.

Additionally, LinkedIn is useful for building business and career contacts in just about any industry. It serves as an online resume for job seekers and a way to share knowledge among peers in a given field. While LinkedIn is certainly a niche network, that niche is larger than many realize.

Twitter – The main surprise here is probably that Twitter – with 16% usage among adults – didn’t beat out LinkedIn for the number two spot. There are likely a few reasons for this, but I suspect the growing number of businesspeople who are discovering the benefits of online professional networks plays a part.

Pinterest – That’s right! Pinterest, which has only been around since March of 2010, is a relative newcomer to the social networking scene, yet it is already used by 15% of adults. It may only be a matter of time before Pinterest eclipses Twitter. The lesson here for online marketers? Bite-sized, visual content absolutely must be part of your strategy.

Instagram – Another newcomer, Instagram launched in October of 2010 and made an immediate beeline for social media prevalence. Pew’s reported usage is 13%. What does this tell us?

For one, we are in a mobile age, and Instagram is a mobile platform. Secondly, Instagram is the epitome of visual content sharing, and thirdly . . . people really love sharing photos of their cats, their meals, and themselves in front of mirrors.

Tumblr – Tumblr has been around since April of 2007, and can probably take at least partial credit for the move to more snackable content. Even with that being the case, only 6% of adults surveyed report using Tumblr.

So, how did you do?

Did you guess that LinkedIn was more popular with adults than Twitter? How about Pinterest coming so close to the number three spot? Did you see that one coming? Let us know in the comments!

*Above photo by Ari Helminen (Flickr: Instagram, Tokyo Japan) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
 

Filed Under: Friday Trivia, Online Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,

Instagram TOS Debacle Spawns a New Website

February 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Docracy's new Terms of Service TrackerRemember back in December when Instagram changed their terms of service and gained the ire of the internet at large? For a while there it looked like that particular storm had passed.  However, The Verge is reporting that in the aftermath of Instagram’s PR misstep, a new website has emerged, and it looks like one that will provide a powerful service to the online community.

Docracy has launched it’s new Terms of Service Tracker. This easy-to-use website has already started tracking changes in TOS text across the internet. At present,  the site has noted changes to 996 website terms of service documents.

The Verge article brings to light something Instagram users may not have considered: the only reason anyone even knew about these new changes was because they were announced. Meanwhile, other sites have made far more concerning TOS adjustments, such as Facebook removing the option to opt out of search before rolling out their new Graph Search feature.

It’s easy to see how useful this website could be for the end user. If it gets popular enough, it may also serve to keep online services in check, as well. Sites may be more inclined to transparency if they realize that they are being monitored, and if they are aware that users will know immediately when changes occur.

Instagram almost got it right

Instagram certainly made some missteps in the way they announced their TOS changes, but they should be lauded for at least announcing them in the first place. That’s more than can be said for other websites. Instagram users had every right to be upset, but at least the online photo-sharing app had enough respect for users to let them know changes were being made to the TOS they agreed to.

The changing face of the internet

These types of controversies serve to highlight the fact that when you work in the online arena, you are dealing with a smarter breed of consumer than you might expect. They know the score, and increasingly have access to services that reinforce the need for transparency.

Have you had a chance to look around Docracy’s Terms of Service Tracker yet? Find anything interesting?

Filed Under: Online Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , ,
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