Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

How Does the New Facebook News Feed Work?

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

Facebook’s recent update to their home page news feed seems to be confusing a lot of people. In a nutshell, here’s how the new news feed works.

“News Feed” is sort of like the old style feed from a year or two ago – basically a list of the most popular of news items. At least what Facebooks deems most popular, based on comments and click throughs. The “View Live Feed” link at the top will give you a true chronological, unfiltered news feed of status updates, new friend and Facebook page updates.

The old Facebook home page use to display items similar to this new New Feed option. Personally I kind of liked it, and was sorry when it disappeared in exchange for a complete real-time feed, a la Twitter. I think having both options is convenient, and after the initial round of inevitable grips, I’m sure most users will agree.

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Measuring social media success by the numbers is the wrong approach

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

InsideFacebook.com posted this list of automakers ‘taking the lead’ on Facebook. You’d think for a minute that the list is an indicator of which auto brands are best leveraging the strength of social media – but you’d be wrong.

The list is very deceiving. Fan ‘growth’ means nothing if these brands are not using the media to engage users. Look at Opel’s fan page – there’s not a single wall post. Compare that to the Prius page which has a LOT fans/drivers more than willing to post their love of the Prius. Playing the numbers game is wrong way to measure Social Media.

While the article does touch on the issue of how automotive companies are using their fan pages, presenting social media success as a measure of pure numbers is no good. I’d rather have 100 rabid, enthusiastic fans spreading the word about my brand, engaging the media, and each other, than 5,000 fans who merely clicked the ‘become a fan’ button and called it a day.

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Explore communities and social media to learn more about your customers

Monday, July 27th, 2009

Do you know where your customers hangout online? One of the first steps into using social media for your company would be to explore existing communities, forums, user groups and fan pages. Get to know your customers online and discover the type of sites that are already activity engaging your target demographic.

Make notes on the types of discussions and activities that generate the most activity. Examine how people are using social media in ways that are relevant to your product or service offerings. Then, think about ways you can jump in and enhance the conversation, or build better tools, to reach users with content they’re thirsty for.

Exploring online communities relevant to your products and services is also an easy way to find competitors – many of whom might already be a few steps ahead in using the latest emerging media.

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How to gain new fans on your Facebook business page

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

fanOne way to gain fans, and more importantly, engage your fans, is through some form of giveaway. Drive your regular web site visitors to your Facebook page and ask them to become a fan, and then leave a comment, share an idea or upload a picture.

Once a week / month give away a product, free trial, t-shirt, etc. to one random fan who has added content to your wall.

Rotate your call to action every so often to encourage previous posters to put up something new.

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CNN Facebook integration for Remembering Michael Jackson event

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

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The integration of popular social media channels into other mainstream media is really the next wave. CNN.com’s Live ‘with Facebook’, is the perfect example. If you’re a Facebook user hopefully you to tried it out during the Jackson memorial ceremony. If not, check out the screenshot above. Directly to the right of the live, streaming video you’ll see live comments streaming in from all Facebook users. You can update your own status right from the page, as well as flip to a tab showing just your own friends. A simple privacy button lets you decide whether or not to share you comments with everyone watching the event, or just your friends.

Simple, and well done, it’s a great example of how social media is extending functionality and community into other forms of popular media.

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