Buzz Marketing Daily

I Heart Empire Ave

2010-06-05T23:10:00.000-04:00

Join me @ http://empireavenue.com

EAVB_BBCJBNQTYV

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Living the Crazy Start Up Life

2009-05-18T18:58:00.000-04:00

Today I was reminded that my job is not for everyone.

Whenever we interview for potential new hires, the rest of the full-time staff do our best to make time to meet with them, answer any other biting questions they have about "what it's really like to work at theKbuzz," and of course try to see for ourselves how comfortable we think they'd be in our environment. One of the most common questions I am asked by inquiring friends and prospective hires alike is if I can describe my average day, to which my response is usually, "...no, not really." The truth is that as much as I might try to plan out my day, it can completely change in a split second. Just this afternoon I was rescheduling calls and running out the door to record video for one of my clients as a result of being unexpectedly short-staffed. And staff or no staff, there really is no task that is ever "outside my job description" - so while one day I'll be sitting in the office banging out Facebook page layouts, another day I could be interviewing event participants for a press release, fetching waters for Reality TV stars, driving to pick up a client, or sprinting to the UPS store at 6:45pm to get in an emergency overnight shipment to California.

I've had weeks where I've worked until 9PM on most nights, answered client e-mails while on vacation, and driven for 3 hours on a Saturday for a 1 hour event gig, and always accepted this as pretty normal. We don't punch in and out from 9-5 or 9:30-5:30 here - we host private webinars with clients while our buzz builders partake in "Wii Wednesdays", and then take a few turns ourselves before returning to our assembly line of people stuffing 500 promotional bags with T-shirts and hats to ship out. I've never once heard anybody here refuse to do something because it wasn't "their job" and I don't expect to hear it too much during my future at theKbuzz.

But the crazy start up life is definitely not for everyone. You have to love what you do and just love knowing the effect you have on your company. Eventually I might want a job that's just a job, know that I can leave at 5:30 on the dot to go home to my family, and never send an e-mail on a weekend. But from the day I started at theKbuzz, my favorite thing about it was knowing that I could make significant contributions to its growth. That's why I know this is the right place for me to be. I hope our readers can say the same about their own place of work!

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7 Great Teachers & Lessons From WOMM-University

2009-05-15T11:37:00.004-04:00

The last 2 days, I went back to school. The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (disclosure: theKbuzz is a proud member of WOMMA) held WOMM-U, an intensive 48 hour experience with presentations, breakout sessions, and parties galore. And I learned, a lot. Here are 7 great teachers and some of the great lessons I learned from them: (feel free to tweet these lessons to the world, just please, give the sources credit :)

1) Geoff Donaker, Chief Operating Officer, Yelp:
Your customers are talking about you anyway, why not set up a free business owner account at Yelp? (Or Twitter, or Facebook, etc.)

2) Sarah Hofstetter, Vice President, Emerging Media & Client Strategy, 360i:
In social media, automation is a recipe for failure.

3) Chas Edwards, Chairman, CEO, Federated Media: Social media is not a niche anymore.
All digital media is now word of mouth.

4) Jeben Berg, Creative Director of Cross Platforms Solutions, YouTube, Google:
There is no formula that works, including lots of $$$, to be successful on YouTube.

5) Chris Pan, Head of Brand Solutions, Facebook:
Use engaging content to allow interactions (likes, comments), 90% of interactivity will come from the WALL.

6) Duncan Wardle, Vice President, Global PR Integration & WDW PR, Disney Destinations:
Brands who don't change from marketing to engaging will soon become nostalgia brands.

7) John Andrews, Mars Digital Managing Partner:
The field of dreams is dead. Building a microsite expecting massive traffic just
doesn't work anymore. Build where people are.

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Watch Us Wed-- I mean, Thursday: It's More Than Just Watch What You Post...It's Watch What You Do!

2009-05-14T13:07:00.000-04:00

You can be the most conscientious social mediaphyte in the whole wide world. You can be hyper-aware of your personal branding. But remember, it's not just about what you do on here-- it's about what you do EVERYWHERE. Who is reading this that DOESN'T have the ability to record video or take pictures from you phone? Well, guess what? So does everyone else. Watch your statuses, your tweets, and all that jazz...but also, don't forget that OTHER people can post about you too! It's important to also watch what you "do" in real life, or next thing you'll know, there will be photos of you on all of your favorite websites! With social media, we all live life in the public eye. :)
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BREAKING NEWS: Facebook Adds "Suggested Keywords" to Ads

2009-05-14T11:06:00.003-04:00

I've been running Facebook ads on behalf of my clients for a while now, and one of the more annoying parts of it has always been entering keywords just because it requires you to think of every single possible combination your keywords might have. For example, if I wanted to target an ad to teachers on Facebook, I couldn't just stop at "teachers," I'd have to individually add "high school teachers," "teacher," english teacher," "math teacher," "special education teacher," and so on and so forth. At least with these keywords, they all contain the word "teacher," so as soon as I type it in, I see all other possible options containing the word "teacher" in Facebook's handy drop-down suggestions. But what about for keywords outside of the "teacher" family that might still be relevant?

Booyah! Suggested keywords!

Now I'm not sure if "preaching" is exactly what I'm looking for, but as far as I know this is brand new so I'm sure the program will improve with time and I'm excited to play around with it more and see how it does!

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When Technology Fails You...

2009-05-13T15:27:00.000-04:00

I'm about 5 minutes from a Webinar on Facebook for the HealthCare Industry. I'm preparing to promote it on Twitter, and what do I see? It's that damn ice cream cone, friend of the Fail Whale-- telling me that "Twitter is down". It actually asked me to "chill"! This little tiny problem begs a bigger question-- we build our businesses on these giant platforms and become dependent on them. What happens when the network has a "FAIL WHALE"! What if that fail whale lasted a week? A month? What if, all of a sudden, all of your contacts left the said network, and it was no longer the darling of yesteryear (um...cough cough..Myspace!).

Today, I'm reminding you of the following important answers to this question:
1. Don't be one network deep. Get involved, online and off, in communities that interest you.
2. Don't be surface level with important contacts. Develop relationships. If twitter died tomorrow, how many of your "tweeps" would you be able to contact?
3. Don't SOLELY depend on social sites to get your word out. Keep backups. You should still have your own site, you should still have something that..when it DOES crash,, you can call a tech person and scream. (Not always effective, but sometimes good to get the scream out). DON'T spend thousands to develop crazy infastructure on your own. DO have a resource of information for your fans/followers/friends to seek out should platform Armageddon occur!

Twitter, I miss you! Come back in time for my webinar!

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Why the New Facebook Chat Changes The Way We All Can Look At Facebook.

2009-05-12T16:50:00.001-04:00

Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to Social Networking. For me, I've always used Twitter as my complete open network, and for Facebook, well, I used to be really strict about only friending people I knew well-- or had met in person. The reason is that my Facebook profile contains pictures of my kids, my personal life, etc. The advent of Facebook lists allowed me to open my network a little more. I simply created a list of "Random Connections" who were able to friend me, but not actually see my personal photos. However, I still felt uneasy, especially when I got random chat popups from people who wanted me to "buy their product", or share a link.

Now, Facebook has revamped their chat feature, enabling you to appear on or offline to different friend lists. And this change, as far as I'm concerned, is the final straw in converting Facebook to a network that allows you to be friends with just about anybody.

I have now started hypertargeting my lists to segment them for chat purposes. Sometimes, I want to talk to clients online. Sometimes, I don't. The ability to change my preferences quickly and easily is one of Facebook's smallest yet most significant assets yet.

Look forward to more great changes!

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Marketing Tip of the Day: Employ Brevity

2009-05-07T17:00:00.005-04:00

William Shakespeare said that "Brevity is the soul of wit." Twitter with its 140 character limitation is the epitome of brevity in this exciting time in the social web. Along with other social network and bookmarking sites, like Digg and Facebook, Twitter is also very indicative of the consumption of information. Consumers want messaging that's short and sweet. If a tweet, status update or link is relevant or of particular interest, people will click-through and read more in-depth about the subject.

Brevity should also be applied across marketing efforts and social platforms. For your marketing tip of the day, keep in mind how the consumption of information is among your customers when formulating marketing content. Make sure that the message you're trying to convey can be understood in seconds. For example, create a brief one-line summary to open a blog post or newsletter article. Consider using a picture to convey a thought. In keeping with the theme of this post, simply get to the point.

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Target Hits a Bullseye: Loving Target's Newest Facebook Campaign

2009-05-11T17:52:00.000-04:00

Special thanks to Mashable for pointing me to Target's newest Facebook campaign that asks users to vote on their favorite charities to receive Target's donations. Target gives 5% of its income to charity each year, and over the next few weeks, they are going to be allocating these funds based on Facebook users' votes through the application on their page here. The voting system is designed so that all charities will receive a percentage of the contributions based on how many users cast their votes for each.

Additionally, whenever a Facebook user casts their vote (which you can do once a day through May 25th), they'll be given the option to post a story about it to their feed for their friends to see. Overall, it's a really smart campaign from Target because it encourages daily participation with the brand in addition to having built-in virality, and it's a rare example of a worthwhile custom Facebook application. My one problem with it is that it in no way requires or even encourages participants to become fans of the page. On the one hand, it certainly makes it easy to participate - but that being said, it isn't exactly asking much for a user to become a fan in order to vote when all it takes is a click on the "Become A Fan" link at the top of the page. Why wouldn't Target want to draw in as many new fans as possible to make it easier to reach them in the future? I'd be interested to see a study on the extent to which requiring users to fan a page turns them away from participating in something like this. What do you think? Was Target right to leave the application open to fans and non-fans alike, or was this a somewhat wasted opportunity?

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Breaking News: Facebook Adds New Insights Features to All Public Profiles

2009-05-08T11:44:00.006-04:00

Facebook has just added a much deeper, better insights/analytics dashboard to all of its Public Profiles. Inside Facebook first reported earlier in the week that this was coming, but the insights just went live to all Public Profiles a few minutes ago. I just took a first look at some of theKbuzz client's Pages insights, and the new insights are much better! Here are a few highlights:

1) Post Quality: Each public profile is assigned a post quality rating which is determined by the percentage of your fans who engage (like/comment) with each of your shared items over the past 7 days. At first glance, we saw post quality ratings ranging from 5 to 51.7 (Go Verizon FiOS!) Full disclosure, they are a client of theKbuzz)
It's all about engagement! Let us know if you have a Public Profile with a higher Post Quality!

2) Much deeper info on the geographic locations of your fans: This is great because you can see where your fans are coming from if you're a national brand or organization.

3) Number of Unsubscribed Fans: This is a useful figure because it tells who how many people have not defanned you, but they've taken you out of their Stream of updates.

We're still waiting and hoping Facebook will add features that allow you to track fans as a result of Facebook ads vs natural virality - but this upgrade to insights is a major improvement and Page Administrators and marketers alike will be thrilled to jump into the new analytics dashboard. Way to go, Facebook!

***If you're the administrator of a Public Profile on Facebook, take a look at the new insights and let us know what you think!
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Watch Me Wednesday: The Importance of Having a Facebook Presence

2009-05-06T12:09:00.006-04:00

Dave Kerpen, Chief Buzz Officer of theKBuzz speaks on why it is important to have a Facebook presence with a Public Profile (here's ours) and why one is needed now, whether you're a sole proprietor, a small business, a huge corporation, a brand, a non-profit organization, and/or government agency.

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Ethics in Social Media Marketing: Why I'm Going to WOMMU, and Why You Should Too

2009-05-05T13:00:00.003-04:00

I am a proud member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), the leading trade organization for the rapidly-growing word of mouth marketing / social media marketing sector that our firm theKbuzz most closely fits into. So I've been to WOMMA conferences and events, enjoy the networking, education, webinars, and general good times that go along with being a member of WOMMA.

But the element of WOMMA that I'm most proud of, and the number one reason that I'm going to WOMMA's WOMM-U conference next week in Miami, is its ethics code and its constant drive (and insistence) to discuss best practices in ethical word of mouth and social media marketing. At the last WOMMA conference, in November, we worked in their ethics code in live sessions, an important practice, since things move so rapidly in this quickly-growing industry.

There are so many ethical considerations when engaging in word of mouth and social media marketing, but the basic concepts are simple: Be honest and disclose relationships. We've written about ethics in social media marketing before, and I'm sure we'll write about it again. In fact, just yesterday, our friend Mari Smith posted a great piece about Retweet Hijacking - an unarguably unethical practice through which people retweet an influencer but insert their own links in place of the original links.

It is because of unethical practices such as this that we all need a constant education and re-education about ethics in the space. I'll be joining in the conversation and education next week at WOMMU- and I hope to see you there too.

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Will the Real Public Profile Please Stand Up?

2009-05-04T18:33:00.000-04:00

Nick O'Neill over at AllFacebook posted this morning about the latest in unofficial public profile pulls: the fan-made page for Christiano Ronaldo, which was disabled after acquiring more than 2.85 million fans. Though Facebook did not give any official explanation, we'd agree with Nick's suggestion that this was most likely as a result of Facebook's policy regarding Public Profiles which prohibits the creation of such unofficial pages not associated with or administered by an appropriate brand representative. The owner of the now-disabled Public Profile received a letter from a representative at Ronaldo's agency, but the letter doesn't necessarily declare the page to be of major concern for them or that it should be removed.

This isn't the first major unofficial fan page that Facebook has removed, but it was a pretty popular one. What confuses me the most is that this page was removed outright instead of taken over by the appropriate agency when they clearly knew of the page's existence beforehand. It doesn't even sound like the agency requested administrative rights, but it seems silly to me to let more than 2.85 million fans go to waste. My favorite example of a popular fan-made Public Profile that was properly transitioned to the brand's rightful owners is of course the Coca-Cola page, administrated by both representatives of Coca-Cola and the page's original fan owners.

The more I read stories about unofficial pages that have been disabled, the more I wonder about what Facebook's selection process. While Facebook's terms are clear, there are still untold numbers of unofficial pages out there in addition to non-branded pages such as those for a generic good (like "bagels" or "movies") or even "sleeping" (of which about 15 of my friends became fans over the weekend). So what's the actual criteria for deletion? Is it even worth it after a certain point (ex: when a page has amassed millions of friends without causing offense or damaging the brand in any way)? Right now anybody can create a fan page, so maybe the answer is just to restrict access to the option entirely. Facebook's current verification process is no more than a check box that promises that the creator has every right to create the page, but what if Facebook asked for a valid work e-mail address or phone number and took a day or so to verify the users' authenticity? While Facebook may be monitoring these pages to an extent, it's clear that users are creating and building them faster than Facebook can catch them and will either have to resort to stricter requirements for creating a page or opening up the Public Profile platform entirely.

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Facebook changes yet again.

2009-05-01T17:09:00.004-04:00

Did you wake up this morning, log on to Facebook and click on your friends tab to see a completely new layout to the page? I definitely did and below is a list of things I like and dislike about the new layout.

The Good

1.It is way easier to find friends.

Facebook offers many different ways to find people who are on the site that you can become friends with. I love the Facebook suggestions, where the site lists a group of individuals I may know and fan pages I may want to become a fan of. You can allow Facebook to search your email account for people who you can connect with or upload a contact file and find friends that way. You can also import your AIM Buddy List and automatically search for classmates of yours from the schools that you listed on your profile. What makes it so great is that all of these resources are located on one page and I do not have to click through a ton of links to get to this information.

2.Facebook makes it very easy to create friend lists.

What is great about the friends list is you can very easily limit areas of your profile to certain lists. For example, if I want to have my photos hidden from my office colleagues, I can easily put them all into their own separate “Kbuzz Staff” list and then change my privacy settings all from my Friend page.

The Bad:

1.Facebook did not make any mention of a change prior to revamping the Friend lists.

Facebook has changed multiple times over the course of the last few months (ex: homepage changes, fan page layout changes, status update changes etc.) Each time a change occurred, Facebook gave us sufficient notice about it. This time, there was no such notice; so many people were caught off guard.

2.You can no longer click the Friend tab to view your friend’s status updates.

Those status updates only come through in your news feed or if you click on the respective friend’s profile page. No more stalking your friend's every move, which I guess is a good thing.

Overall, I think Facebook made this change to try to make their site even more user-friendly but it seems like these changes appease those individuals who are trying to remain private and select the information they want to be visible, which goes against what Facebook is truly all about.

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Tip of the Day: Hang Out With High Schoolers

2009-05-01T13:20:00.001-04:00

No Marketing on Facebook tip today for you guys...today, I'm telling you to go out and talk to some High School kids. You know why? Because they tell it like it is, and they really get it.

I was invited to speak at the Academy of Innovative Technology High School's Career Day today. After passing through metal detectors (things have changed since I was in an NYC public high school, I guess) I went to speak with the students about social media and word of mouth marketing.

Kids are so honest. If they think something sucks, they say it. (In fact, I was presenting with a woman who creates a sort of school intranet, and they called out right to her fact that it's "too slow" for them to utilize) If they think something makes sense, they say it. And, they say it in a language that, at a certain point, as grown ups, we are all removed from. Reconnecting with that age group allows you to learn.

Have a new product, service, or idea? Ask a teenager what they think. Chances are, they'll be dead on.

P.S. Worthy to note: 100% of the room had a myspace profile. Only about 30% of the room had a facebook. Think that'll change soon?
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Beware of SPAM on Facebook!

2009-04-30T17:06:00.005-04:00

Over the past couple of days on AllFacebook, Mashable and Inside Facebook there's been posts about the latest Facebook scam where phishing sites are asking for visitors to login with their Facebook account information to steal Facebook user passwords. Over the course of two days two different phishing websites have been identified. Victims to this scam are either locked out of their accounts or all of their friends are spammed with a message. Messages include "Check this out" or "Look at this."

If you receive any questionable message, do not answer it and do not click on links to "FBstarter.com". As Mashable points out: don't enter your Facebook password if the URL is not Facebook.com, and contact Facebook if you're no longer able to access your account.

Facebook has a link on its security page to help users who are victims or have friends that have been victimized; you can find it here: http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=797

We don't know how many users have been a victim of this latest scam but it's estimated to be in the millions. It won't be the last time Facebook users are targeted with over 200 million users worldwide. Clara Shih points out in her book, The Facebook Era, that one of the crucial success factors of Facebook is the trusted identity established with its users. Spam threatens this. Myspace and Bebo are prime examples of spam penetrating a social network and turning users off of their sites.

These spam attacks have been fast and aggressive. Yesterday's phishing site has already been taken down. More information about today's spam isn't known. It's obvious that Facebook has to be even more aggressive with blocking such malicious acts. These past two days indicate it's a real problem that's only going to resurface as Facebook continues to grow. If you or someone you know has been affected by the latest spam, please report it and do your part to stopping and preventing future spam.

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Tip of the Day: Trust Your Gut

2009-04-29T14:24:00.001-04:00

This tip of the day is totally unrelated to marketing on Facebook, or other social media sites. Today's tip of the day is about trusting your gut.

3 years ago, I worked about 50 minutes away from my home in a high-paying, high-stress job as a radio Station Manager. My daughter Charlotte was three at the time, and was having a really hard time adjusting to my work schedule, daycare, the whole thing. We got through it, but it was tough on me, on her, and on the job. One day, I was dropping her off at daycare, and she was hooked on to my leg-- screaming. In a hurry, I shook her off of my leg, and ran out the door.

That day, my gut told me to quit my six figure job. And that's exactly what I did. I walked in and quit. I knew I had a few clients that would take a chance on me for some basic consulting-- that it would be enough to get by, and that all would be okay. I never felt more scared, and more positive that my decision was right.

That night, Dave and I discussed it, and the name "theKbuzz" was born. The K is for Kerpen-- our family name-- because, for us, family would always be the core of our lives, our business, our world.

And so, today, as my tip, I'm telling you to trust your gut instincts. If something doesn't feel right, it's not. That's what gut is for, after all. Trust it and the rest will follow. Ignore it and your path will be longer, harder, and frought with poor decisions.

When have you trusted (or not trusted) your gut?
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Tip of the Day: Remember the Marketing

2009-04-28T19:20:00.000-04:00

Many of us get so caught up on Marketing on Facebook and other social media sites, that we forget about the overall goals. It all gets so damn tactical. Today, I spoke to a client. We were building her twitter, her facebook, you name it. But something felt wrong. I asked her what she was doing for her current client base to reach out and connect. Turns out, it wasn't much.

These tools, well, they're just tools. Remember the basics of marketing-- remember why you are extraordinary, and the tools will help you. Forget about the basics and the tools will distract you.

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Everyone's a Power Player on Facebook

2009-04-28T18:21:00.000-04:00

While I was trying to think of a good topic for today's blog post, Dave linked me to Search Engine Land's post about social media power users. The article links to a ton of sites that highlight top contributors and on sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, and Twitter so that you can get to know these incredibly influential social media users and find any that might share your interests in promoting your brand. It's a pretty straight-forward list, so naturally the most interesting bit of the article for me is at the end of the article where the author switches from "power players" to "power communities" on Facebook.

The emphasis on communities (i.e. Facebook groups and pages) on Facebook over the individual should be very indicative to companies looking to get started on social media because this is a function of the platform as a whole. Sites like Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg are all about link-sharing, and though Twitter is certainly more conversational in nature, it still can't compare to Facebook's overall community feel. Facebook users tend to be more careful about the users they confirm as "friends" and are more likely to have a real-life connection, because to become Facebook friends is a mutual two-way agreement rather than a one-way subscription to someone's updates. Rather than securing a one-shot link sharing deal from a few select Twitter users, companies with fewer Facebook fans who are looking to build their presence on Facebook need to have very engaging content that users will be prompted to share or interact with naturally. We post tips on fun ways to engage your Facebook fans regularly over here at Buzz Marketing Daily, so if you're interested, run a search for "Tip of the Day" in our search bar on the right column!

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Status Plug Ad Network for Facebook Public Profiles: Why It's Bad for Facebook, and Ultimately Bad For You

2009-04-27T18:30:00.007-04:00

This afternoon, I was alerted by AllFacebook.com's blog post about Status Plug, which bills itself as an "ad network for Facebook", though its' site notes it is "not affiliated with or endorsed by Facebook." The basic premise is that advertisers pay Status Plug to distribute ads through its network of Facebook Public Profiles, and shares the revenue with the admins of those Public Profiles. Ads then get served up to fans of those public profiles in the form of status updates - ie "video, audio, images, text and links".

Last week, Ad Age reported that US Weekly had become the first company to sell a sponsorship of their Facebook Page (currently at fewer than 4,000 fans) to a major brand in a deal they made with State Farm. Since this is an official page and there is a disclosure, I don't object to this type of advertising, although:
a) I don't believe for a minute that this is an effective spend for State Farm, compared to them actually having their own Facebook Page, engaging in their own conversation, and building their own fan base.
b) This sponsorship alone is technically a violation of Facebook's Terms of Service, namely that on Public Profiles "Application tabs cannot contain advertising of any kind."

No, on the contrary, I believe the only way content providers such as US Weekly can stay in business long term is to build fan bases through social media, continue to provide top-notch content, and build partnerships & sponsorships with brands who want to affiliate themselves.

So what's wrong with Status Plug? First, 6 of the 9 Pages currently listed on their Page directory are American cities, and unofficial Pages. The other 3 are also unofficial Pages. These unofficial Facebook Pages definitely violate Facebook's Terms of Service and if Facebook is smart, they will take down these Pages or migrate them to the proper administrators (for cities, the Mayor's office, for instance). So advertisers in effect are paying for entrance onto unofficial pages posing as official ones, that could be taken down at any point. (Note- this is an issue we've noticed and written about before.)

Worse yet, this sort of in-update-advertising-without-full-disclosure is definitely a violation of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA)'s ethics code. Lines between paid advertising and authentic content are often too blurry online, and and fans of Facebook public profiles should know they're getting paid advertising as updates instead of real content.

Finally, there's the practical consideration: If I'm getting advertising from a Page I'm a fan of, I'm going to de-fan that Page, just like if I'm constantly getting event invites and group invites from a "friend" on Facebook, I'm going to de-friend that person. Thus, an advertiser through Status Plug might not only be ineffective and unethical, they might actually create resentment for their company by turning a Fan Page into an ad platform.

The net effect for users if this did ever take off would be that Facebook Fan Pages would become Spam Pages. Status Plug is in the same category as the clearly unethical Magpie for Twitter.

Look, I admire the entrepreneurial spirit of this group. But that doesn't make it right.

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Facebook Opens Up It's Stream API to Compete With Twitter / What This Means For You the Marketer

2009-04-27T14:21:00.004-04:00

As reported in the Facebook blog here, and in Tech Crunch here and AllFacebook here, Facebook has opened up its stream API to developers. What this means in plain english is that you will be able to access the "stream" from other sites besides Facebook, e.g. your friends' shared updates as well as updates from Public Profiles you are a fan of.

Up until now, this feature was available for Twitter users on sites such as Tweetdeck and Seesmic but not Facebook users. This move definitely makes Facebook more open and helps to compete with Twitter, whose user base has been growing at an unprecedented pace even for social media standards.

So what does this mean for you? For you, the user, it means you'll have more options for accessing Facebook and be able to coordinate your Facebook status updates with Twitter and other social sites. For you, the marketer, it means you'll be able to reach your fans via update when they're not on Facebook.com, which means you'll probably want to update your Public Profile's status more, share links more, share your blog through notes more, etc. Fans will be able to interact with your Public Profile via comments and likes without even going to your page on Facebook.

Of course, when you "overshare", you run the risk of upsetting your fans and even potentially losing some fans, but given Twitter's rapid rise and Facebook's continual move towards doing what Twitter's doing and then some, in most cases, sharing more is better than sharing less.

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Social Media Kicking Other Interactive Channels Collective Asses.

2009-04-24T21:14:00.000-04:00

So says Forrester: Social media spending in the US will increase from $716 million this year to more than $3.1 billion in 2014, increasing at an unprecedented 34% compound annual growth rate. For those of us who have been doing this for a while, this is not surprising. However, here's a thought to consider:

If this stat is right, and spending will increase for social media dramatically, then we might want to take into account the words of Adam Samer, an analyst with the Market Research firm Gartner. Of the 75% of Fortune 1000 companies that will invest in Social Media...50% will fail.

Can social media avoid the .com crash? Are brands intoxicated with social media, simply because Oprah is tweeting away, and Facebook is mentioned at every CEOs dinner table? Can businesses successfully create integrated conversational social media campaigns? What do you think?

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Top 6 Facebook Public Profile Resources by Facebook

2009-04-23T17:10:00.007-04:00

Facebook has put its attention towards public profiles for brands, celebrities, non-profits, sports teams, etc. to leverage the virality of the Facebook eco-system. Facebook is also exercising public profile pages itself to help you out. Here's the Top 6 Facebook Public Profile Resources by Facebook:

Facebook for Influencers: For the Actor, Athlete, Band, Blogger, Celebrity, Journalist, Musician, Politician, or other Public Figure. This public profile page is a resource for how to build your presence on Facebook and engage your audience.
Facebook Security: This Page is for information on how to keep your Facebook account secure.
Facebook for Non-profits: This Page is a resource for non-profits and other organizations for social good. Facebook built it to help you harness the power of Facebook and bring positive change to the world.
Facebook Pages/Public Profiles: This Page shares news, best practices, and examples for admins of Facebook Pages. (one of my favorite pages)
Facebook Marketing Solutions: Facebook helps (brand) marketers share with users and create movements on Facebook. Facebook asks fans to contribute things here related to marketing on Facebook.
Facebook Ads: Whether your goal is to drive traffic to your site, advertise a product or service, promote your Facebook Page or encourage users to add your application, Facebook Ads allow you to reach your exact audience with relevant messages and this page is an addition resource on Facebook ads.

Are you fans of these Facebook public profile pages? Did I miss an important one? What resource from Facebook do you find most useful? Let us know!

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Breaking News: Facebook Adds Full Mobile Update Capabilities for Public Profiles

2009-04-23T01:44:00.005-04:00

Facebook tonight added the ability for fans of public profiles to opt-in to receive updates via text message to their mobile phones. Facebook Public Profiles, formerly known as Fan Pages, are designed to be the official Facebook presence for companies, brands, politicians, celebrities, and organizations, and now, for the first time, fans will be able to receive texts with updates from their favorite "Pages".

This is not unexpected and is clearly a response to Twitter's incredible growth over the past few months, as Facebook continues to make changes to give businesses, organizations and celebrities more reasons to value their site and tools over Twitter's.

The new feature has great implications for companies marketing to and interacting with communities of fans or even hypertargeted sub-groups of its fans. A store can instantly update fans via text of a sale. A non-profit can text all of its fans with a call to raise money or volunteer. A politician can text a reminder to vote. A concert venue or artist can alert fans when last-minute tickets become available. These are just a few of the ways companies and organizations can use mobile features to reach their Facebook fans. What ideas do you have to incorporate text messages into Public Profiles?

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Tip of the Day: Marketing on Facebook: The Importance of Friend Lists

2009-04-22T19:57:00.000-04:00

We may have mentioned (okay, we DEFINITELY have mentioned) the importance of using friend lists for maintaining your privacy on Facebook, but I'm not sure that we've mentioned that it can actually help you when marketing on Facebook.

By creating different friend lists, you can target who sees what information. We always talk about ways to keep business contacts from viewing your personal stuff. Now, we ask you to consider creating content that is only viewable by your business contact list. Why? Because this way, you can create lots of great content, provide tons of great information, and not innondate your favorite aunt, your nursery school buddies, and your best friends with industry info. Privacy settings get better every day. Have you visited your privacy settings lately? If not, go do it. Like, right now. :)

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