Holding Back Posts? Facebook?

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Have you ever created an event in Facebook? Sure, I've been invited to events hundreds of times, however, this was something new for me and I couldn't wait to finally test out that feature! Case in point:

For my other endeavor, Groovy Reflections Radio I've been creating events for the first original show rolled out, My Front Porch. It's a show about folk music that has lots of humor (and song of course!). Since there are 16,000+ fans on the Groovy Reflections Facebook page, I thought that having an "event" for the radio program would make sense since there's an instant audience with fans who would be interested in the show!

Boy, was I wrong. While a page can create an event, a page cannot directly invite people to the event! Interesting huh? It has to do with spammers taking advantage of that feature. Well, okay. So I need to "join" and then invite my friends! That feels spammy to me so I try not to invite the same people all the time. The show is broadcast three times a week, thus three events a week.

However, over the past few weeks of observing the response to the events, I noticed something interesting. Very few people actually SEE the posts made on the page about the event. Facebook is holding out on us; they want us to pay! For the most part, I've been including the URL to the event in those posts to make it easy for people to join the event which could be the trigger for Facebook to "slam on the brakes" as far as sharing the post goes. 

Here's a recent invite. The snip is from about one hour after the post. A total of 249 people saw the post (out of 16,500 fans on the page). That's not many eyeballs!

About 45 minutes later I made another post. No URL, no invite. Just copy. In a very short time frame (in this case under a half hour), the post was seen by well over 1,000 people, more than four times as many that saw the previous post!

What's up with THAT, Facebook?

For the record: This little experiment has been conducted several times, all with the same results. And what have we learned?

• DO post about your events without links as well as with them to get the word out. 

• Post about your events several times! Only a small percentage of fans will see the information about your event at any given time; they may be offline when you post and/or Facebook is sharing your post to just a few of your fans via the newsfeed. Post during different times of the day as well.

• Don't be discouraged if only a handful of people reply. We're all getting bombarded with information nowadays; and you may get tuned out. 

• Facebook should not be your only source for announcing events. Utilize other social networks such as Twitter and Google+.

Create eye catching artwork for your event and a great name for your event! In my example above I used the theme of the show rather than the actual name of the show: "Viagra, Bananas, and Knees" sounds more intriguing compared to "My Front Porch"!

Speaking of that fine fruit, Harry Belafonte sang about bananas long ago. Peel back those social media layers and create a smooth, tasty strategy! No need to go bananas! Stop by our website, or say hello on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. 

Data, Social Media, and You.

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How do YOU pronounce it? Day-ta or Dat-a?

What actually IS it? Encarta defines it as information, often in the form of facts or figures obtained from experiments or surveys, used as a basis for making calculations or drawing conclusions.

Surveys? Experiments? How does this apply to social media? And, you thought I was going to talk about ROI, didn’t you?

Ah, questionnaires. Good old fashioned quantitative market research; an excellent way to get some insight from your fans, followers or circlers. And plenty of free sources to use. But beware of bias and improper wording; I’ve seen lots of poorly written surveys in my time!
Find a market research professional, tell them what it is you’d like to learn from your clients, and let them do the rest. Great data starts from the best preparation, from defining the issue, including determining the possible actions that will be taken as a result of the findings, creating the questionnaire, testing, fielding, processing, analyzing and reporting.

What do you want to learn from your fans on Facebook for example? Some ideas include:

• Demographics, beyond the location, age group and gender that Facebook provides to page owners
• Gather ideas on what they’d like to see on your page
• Test out a new product concept
• Their opinions on a particular subject; perhaps something that you’d like to blog about at a later date
• Greater detail on their interests (psychographics in market research speak)
• How they feel about some of your current products and likelihood to buy
• What charity they’d like to see you make a donation to

And the other half of that definition, experiment?  How about trying something new with your posts? For example, my other endeavor, Groovy Reflections, offers products, namely hand tie-dyed t-shirts sporting the brand logo. Personally, I don’t enjoy getting in people’s faces touting these offerings.

So, instead, I’ll post something that’s more on the “softer side”, such as giving away a shirt instead (have been doing this every 500 new fans).  Discussion about the free shirt will be lively and some of the more curious folks may inquire more about the products while others will explore quietly on the website. It's both engaging and creating awareness.

Not exactly a focus group facility!

It’s not as good as having a focus group, but you’ll get some qualitative feedback. DO remember that this is a very informal way to gather information and it’s not representative of the population at large that has an interest in your brand or business.

Focus Groups, either in person or on-line would provide some concrete data on the respondents as well as their individual responses in conversation based on a well-planned out guide contain the question you’d like to have the respondents discuss.

Data is powerful if gathered wisely! Do learn from it to make your social media efforts even more successful!

For more data (ha!) on data, say hello on my Facebook or Google+ pages or tweet me.

This is "D" of the Blogging A to Z Challenge. Don't forget your A, B, C's!

Can Blogs Become Habit Forming? An Experiment. Part 1.

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Recently read an article that had some great ideas on how to be a better blogger. Of course, I forgot to bookmark it. And you know how you never recall everything you read. Luckily, one of the ideas discussed in the article stuck in my head. The author noted that in a mere thirty days, one can improve their writing skills by writing 1,000 words a day. When all is said and done, look back at what you’ve written after a month and marvel at your own self improvement.

Sounds simple enough, right? Okay, I’ll bite.

So, on August 12, I began. Started out writing two articles with pretty darn snappy titles: “Corned Beef Hashtag*” and “Pardon me, YOUR’E Grammar is Showing*” (yes, I know this is the incorrect use of your/you’re here; it’s on purpose). The writing didn’t commence until late in the day; a pesky little thing called procrastination continued to wreak havoc with my good intentions. Pounded out about 500 words in about 30 minutes. Yes! Certainly deserved a break after all that. Snack time! Stood up. Walked away. Came back a short time later. 259 more words tumbled out.

Then I took a look at both articles. The grammar piece was downright horrible. It was almost boiling in tone, nearly telling people to go out and purchase Grammar for Dummies (if there IS such a thing). If there’s a tasteful way to approach the subject of horrendous misuses of grammar with out being preachy, then perhaps that article will someday come to light. But not without a complete redo.

Now, the other entry related to hashtags has some potential. The writing there was much more informative. And, it appears to be a subject that deserves to be explained and poked fun at a bit too. After all, how many times have you seen hashtags on Facebook postings? You do know that there is no such animal on Facebook?

Okay, so maybe half of what I wrote on the first 1,000 words day is usable. Will I be able to say that what I write is of higher quality, has the level of meaning and touches of humor that I strive to inject into each and every offering, and is interesting enough to be read by the masses at the end of this thirty day experiment? Sure hope so.

And now for the bad news. Day two. And how many words were written? Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Oops. Well, they do say it takes thirty days to develop a habit, right? But wait; it’s supposed to be continuous, no? Can I have a mulligan? Thank you. So now, officially, August 14 becomes day one. A new beginning!

For the record, the new day one = 1,037 words. And, according to my rules, it’s okay to go over.

* The author reserves the right to the use of “Corned Beef Hashtag” and “Pardon me, YOU’RE Grammar is Showing”. Those WILL be completed and posted here on this blog. Soon.