“Facebook is Boring” (Part 2)

Tweet

Note: Click here for Part one.

Randy’s still not having a good time on Facebook; he can’t find his friends! 

Facebook uses an algorithm called “Edge Rank” where they decide what you will see from your friends. Is it fair? Certainly not. However, there’s ways you can get around it before your friends start thinking you are ignoring them.

If you want to see a particular friend's posts there's a few ways to do it:

• Go to your BFF’s wall and hover over "friends", then select "close friend". They’ve now earned a gold star from you (however they won’t know that). You will receive notifications when they post and they’ll also be part of a group of friends that you can custom post too (like a list).

Hovering over “friends” again you’ll see lots of other options as well:

• Click on “Get Notifications”. Then you’ll know when that friend posts via a notification. Note: If you don't click on the notifications for a friend for a while, Facebook may send you a message to let you know they're shutting off those notifications!

Who needs the newsfeed, anyway? Well some folks do rely on newsfeed, so here’s how you can make changes to reflect what you want to see from your friends. DO keep in mind that you'll have to go to each friend’s wall to make the changes. If you have a lot of friends, maybe just make changes for a few per day.

And if you don’t want to go crazy with notifications; just below “Get Notifications” there’s “Show in Newsfeed”.  That can be clicked on or off. More importantly is what’s below it, “Settings”. Click on that and choose the options for what you’d like to see from that friend in your newsfeed; the level of posts you want to see as well as the type of posts you’d like to see.

Of course, emphasizing some people means that Facebook will show you less from your other friends. Choose wisely and don’t forget anyone! 

One has to wonder: Why can’t Facebook just let us see ALL the posts from all our friends? 

Anyway, Randy’s happier on Facebook now. He put himself in control of his Facebook experience and is now busy engaging with all his friends that he missed!

Conclusion: Facebook does not have to be boring!

Long before Randy lamented about where his friends might have gone, Chicago was searching for something as well in this hit from the 1970’s (see below). Search no more for your marketing needs! Visit us on our website, or stop by on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.   

3 Social Media Tips on Sharing

Tweet

Enough of the sharing posts “directly” on Google+! Sometimes it’s utter nonsense, other times it’s a blog post, however, most of it is solicitation!

#1 Posts shared directly: Here’s a post that was recent shared directly with me on Google+. He is indeed a “new comer” just like he says, with 56 followers: 

Good Morning....I'm a new comer to this space. I've recently been contracted to solicit business for a media company. "XXXX XXXX" is a 2D and 3D motion graphics specialist. Please check out the demo reel and advise as to market opportunities. (link)

I wrote back and informed him that this was not the way to get my attention. He wrote back and asked “How would you do it then?” Still stumped as to why a company hired him! 

Let’s face it. Sharing posts directly can be very rude and may result in getting blocked! Alternative: Get to know some people on Google+ instead and see if they are a fit for the product or service you are offering. Then invite them to join the page for that product or service. Yes, much gentler and it takes longer. Again and again, I tell folks that social media is not a sales tool!

And just now, as I am writing this, a gent shared a post! It has a URL and nothing more. Sigh.

#2 Sharing a post. When sharing a friend’s post on Facebook or Google+, be aware of how they posted it originally: Publicly, to friends of friends, or friends only. Google+ will warn you about this; very nice of them! Facebook will not. 

There have been numerous times when I’ve shared a photo on Facebook just for my friends where a friend has shared that post publicly! Now, the photo may not have been so personal, however, what I say about it is. I don’t care to let 1 billion plus folks know that I was recently away from home and the specifics about where I was. 

Please DO pay attention to those little symbols on Facebook when you share!

#3 Like, share! If you share something, at least LIKE it first! This shows the poster that you enjoy what they are posting and it reassures them that they are posting great stuff. Sharing and not liking is borderline rudeness. This seems to be more common on Google+ than Facebook. On my MODern Marketing 4 U Facebook page, there was one fan that was notorious for this practice. I never said anything though at the risk of ruffling feathers. Someone must have said something to her, perhaps from another page and she now likes a post when she shares. Thank you very much! 

We have certain behaviors when we meet folks in person and there are certain courtesies that should be followed in the world of social media as well. For a business, it’s important to maintain a level of professionalism. And there’s not a lot written on this subject…yet. Hmmm….

The Guess Who sang about sharing back in 1970; little did they know that how we share and where we share would evolve in the 40+ years since this song was a hit. Speaking of "hits" ...we'd be pleased as punch if you place your cursor on one of the links below and hit enter, then say hello to us at our website, or hi on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. 

Fans, Facebook, and You.

Tweet

Once upon a time, a fan was simply a way to catch a cool breeze. You held it in one hand and fluttered it up and down by your face. Paper, bamboo, plastic, a fashion accessory. 


Spectator sports brought about a whole different kind of fan; loud at times, loyal, swelling with pride and perhaps swigging a brew.


And then there are those “fans” in Social Media, namely Facebook. Remember “fanning” a page? Despite the changeover of terminology, we’re stilling referring to them as our fans (at least I am). “Likers” just sounds too awkward.


Who ARE these people who have indeed “fanned”, oops, “liked” your page? They include: 
Your friends (admit it; you may have strong armed a few however they generally have an interest for your page else they wouldn’t be there in the first place)

• Your friend’s friends (since they may see activity for your page)
• People who searched on Facebook and happened to find you 
• Tweeps or users of other social networks (if you are promoting your page on Twitter or elsewhere)
• Enthusiasts (who will share and promote you if they really dig you.)
• Friends of enthusiasts who are enthusiasts (who found your page via their friends)
• Spammers (they’ll post spam soon after liking your page so they’re not there for long unless you've been ignoring the upkeep of your page)
• Fans who are “Talking About This”: They consist of new fans “liking” the page, clicking like on a post, commenting on, tagging, mentioning or sharing a page, checking in (if you have a location) and those who are coming to an event (if your page offers events). These are important fans!

Note that a fan can fall into more than one of these categories.


Where do YOUR new fans come from? Are they mostly your friends? If so, concentrate on growing that fan base since your friends may not be typical enthusiasts of your product or service, thus skewing the demographic information that Facebook provides. Not a breeze to do but they may catch wind of you via a Facebook ad or via your blog if you have one.


And why did Facebook make the change in the first place? They state: To improve your experience and promote consistency across the site, we've changed the language for Pages from "Fan" to "Like." We believe this change offers you a more light-weight and standard way to connect with people, things and topics in which you are interested.


Hello Facebook, this rationale is rather broad in scope. Would have been nice to have asked US first. Or are you planning to use a 1 to 10 scale at some point (see my thoughts on that issue here). 


It’s been over a year and half since the change, Are you stilling calling them “fans”?
Donovan “caught the wind” early on his career. Click here to enjoy his folky sounds.


This blog is part of the Blogging A to Z Challenge. Here's E, D and C.

What's Up With Timeline, Facebook?

Tweet

When Robert Plant sang about being Dazed and Confused, he wasn't talking about Facebook. However, Timeline is causing just that.

First things first. I embrace change. Let’s make that clear.

Switched over to Timeline for my personal profile not too long after the announcement; why not? It seemed okay; it’s cool if you post a lot of photos like I do, except that it does crop them so your friends need to open them up to enjoy the complete picture. The left, right, left, right style works, but since everything is larger, you need to scroll more. Can live with that.

More recently I switched my MODern Marketing 4 U page on Facebook to Timeline. Since Facebook really isn’t central to my overall business and I only post three to four times a day there, it’s just fine and dandy with me.

Then, my other page, Groovy Reflections, made the giant leap. That’s when all heck broke loose. A drop-off in fans like there’s never been before; not a lot mind you, but for this page, it was more than usual. But that’s not the issue. Neither is the fact that the page takes forever to load up; we’ll let that slide for now.

Seems something is causing Facebook to selectively choose which posts show up in fan’s new feeds. And interestingly enough, it happens mainly when I include a link to the Groovy Reflections website.

You’re thinking…how do I know this? The page usually gets 5 to 50+ likes on any given post, so when you’re getting ZERO likes on a post, one can safely assume something is wrong.

Threw a question out twice about a half hour after no likes on a post to the 4400+ fans and asked them what was the last post they saw. Their responses clinched it; some were not seeing the last post, while others weren’t seeing the last TWO posts.

Businesses, beware. Facebook’s Timeline just made more challenging to have a successful Facebook page.

After a Google search and exploring Facebook’s help for a solution, I come up empty handed.  Then I reported a bug to Facebook. This auto reply installed showed up in my mailbox:

Thank you for submitting this bug report and taking time to help us improve the site. Unfortunately, we are unable to respond to every bug report individually, but we are reading them.

Great. Sounds like I won't be hearing from them. So, Facebook, tell me, as a business, how do I continue to create awareness for my brand? I have no control over the algorithm that picks and chooses what my fans can see. Is that fair to my business? Google+ doesn’t do this. Each post should bear the same weight and same opportunity to be seen.

Should I not post at certain times of the day? Should I not use certain words that you may deem as spammy? Would appreciate some clues here so that I can continue to connect with and engage my fans.  Sounds reasonable, no?

In turn, you, Facebook, will be privileged with my on-going presence on your social network. Oh, and if someone knows the solution, please DO share it.

I dedicate this tune to all the fans on my Facebook pages that are Dazed and Confused. Click here.

Two Nifty Little Tricks, Facebook, and You.

Tweet

Some things are so easy, provided we know about them. We all want to “clean up” our busy social lives on Facebook sometimes, right? Here are two ways to accomplish just that; both are optional of course.

Too many pages? There, there now, we all get carried away sometimes. Sure, you can like both Aerosmith and Robotic Dancer’s Monthly, but oh, “Things My Awfully Cute Terrier Says” has got to go and most of those other pages too. But what if you wanted to get rid of ALL of them with little more than a wave of your magic wand?

In Timeline, start off on your wall (click on your name on the top to get there).
Just under your cover picture, click on the box where it says Likes. Once you’re on the page where your likes are, click on edit in the top right. You’ll see the names of ALL your likes by category. The first thing I see is “Music”; you probably see that too.

For each category, simply click on the first page where you’d like to start deleting and hold down the Delete Key and the pages will delete one by one. You can stop at any time and start the process over elsewhere in the category; maybe there’s a few you’d like to keep after all? When done, click on the big blue button that says Save Changes just below that section. You DO have to do this for each category.

We've certainly cleaned up our stream now, haven’t we? Ready to clean it up a little more? Are there people that annoy you to tears to the point where you’d like to cast a spell on them or people you really, really, really want to hear from more often? You can easily make modifications in regards to both of these situations and customize your stream a bit more to your liking.

Too many posts from Ned Painintherear? If you’re using Timeline, go to his wall and click on Subscribe, just under their cover photo, and directly to the right of Friends. A pull down gives you lots of options. The default is “Most Updates”, with the other choices being “All Updates” and the one you’d likely choose for Ned, “Only Important”.  There’s also a list of the types of posts as well. Here’s where you can shut off your friend’s Farmville posts or those friends that post music videos non-stop. Plenty of options for customizing what you see!

You DO have to go to each of your friend’s walls and make the changes for each individual friend. Unfortunately, there’s no time saving tactics here.
Ah, but the results! See what YOU want to see instead of having Facebook pick those posts that THEY feel are important enough to be “most updates”.

Prest-o change-o! Did that make your day just a little bit better?

Social Media “Think”

Tweet

We've seen so many celebrities get into hot water with their babbling, or is it blabbing? Our fingers can react, type and swipe faster than our brains sometimes, or so it seems. And while many folks in the entertainment industry use social media for sounding off, us folks with small businesses really have to put a little planning into what we’re projecting.

Yes, you’re a brand just like they are and that’s whether you’re on a social network just chatting with friends, networking, or representing a business. However, those celebrities are established brands. The adoring public will forgive them; how many times have we said “yeah, it’s okay; we still love you” to Alec Baldwin?

Remember, social networks are public forums.

Twitter is the most notorious of all of course, it’s 100% public (except for DMs) LinkedIn is public as well. You DO have flexibility with Facebook and Google+ regarding how widespread your posts are. When I say public, I’m referring to the millions who are members of a particular network.

And how many IS that*? For Twitter, 300 million +, LinkedIn 135 million, 800 million + for Facebook and Google+ is at 62 million and rising fast!
Here’s a little example of something that made me cringe. It’s no longer on my Facebook wall and could only be seen by my friends (thankfully). Chances are that 100 people may have read it before I deleted it (we’ll call my friend Ginger for this exercise):

GINGER:
Hi there!
So are you here in town? If so could you drop over?
GL


ME: Hi Ginger, not there at the moment. I'll message you with my plans! (Soon after I responded, lost track of time while nursing a headache. Yes, my bad!)


...sometime later...


GINGER: So where r u ? No one keeps keeps their word anymore. Just put my books in mailbox


ME (ZING! Now realizing my mistake): On my way now…

Dropping by, I learned that my friend had recently been ripped off by a car dealer and was not a happy camper! I explained that I wasn’t feeling well and had curled up into a ball (true). She gave me instant coffee which helped my headache. We’re okay now!

What’s the point here? Our words can be misunderstood. Our words ARE coming from somewhere; there’s usually a reason for them. However, despite our rationale, speaking in a public forum requires thought. Just like when we are speaking to someone vocally.

My reaction could have been negative towards her words. I may have become angry and possibly unfriended her (I’m not like that).

Though this example is more of a personal nature, imagine that you’re posting as a representative of a business. A few suggestions:

• Always remain cheerful and positive, even when responding to negativity.

• Reread your post or tweet before sharing it; read it out loud if you can.

• Try not to respond or post when you’re in a bad mood.

• When responding to an extremely negative post, don’t reply right away. Let it cool.

• Stay within your brand’s culture.

Sure, it sounds like common sense; however, you do need to remind yourself from time to time that whatever you say will be seen. We all tend to get a little lax and let things slip and slide a bit. Let this advice serve as a friendly, positive reinforcement.

Think before you post.

Alec, are you reading this?

References for stats: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+

Join modlandUSA on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+

Why I Won’t Be Friends With You On Facebook.

Tweet

Got a friend request yesterday. Have no clue who this fellow is, but we had 18 friends in common. Is that a good enough reason to accept the request? Not for me. I thought I’d message this gent and see why he wanted to friend me. That option was not available, but I had a partial view into his profile and the wall had this:

• Changed profile pic seven times in last two months
• Posted a link to his blog on someone’s wall in October
• Posted an article about music teachers on October 19
• Overhead pics included a young boy, Steve Jobs, himself, and a basketball player

The info page reviewed little except that he has a media company.
Strike One. Nothing happening here. I now noticed that we had 22 friends in common.

Moved on to the website; it boasted many clients and all the stunning social media work they’ve done. I didn’t find a link to a Facebook page. A quick search revealed that this company that helps folks with social media for a living doesn’t HAVE a Facebook page.

Strike Two. Sorry, but if you’re in the social media business, how can you NOT have a Facebook page?

Moved on to Twitter and found an account.  Close to 3,700 following, but only following about 1,300 back. Tweets were okay and made sense, averaging about six a day. Some days had zero tweets. I noticed I was following him. NOW I could contact this fellow. We’re now at 25 people in common.

I sent two direct messages:

Hi Sam*, thx for the FB friend request. I don't connect with people unless I actually know them. 


You are welcome to like my pages on FB...
... http://t.co/2V881Pv and http://t.co/lwiNDoJ ...nice to meet you! 

Got this reply: No worries!

Then I thought, let me take a look at LinkedIn. He had a few recommendations and his profile could have been filled out a bit more, but I thought, eh, he’s local, I’ll hold out the olive branch.

So I sent another DM:
LinkedIn is groovy is you want to connect there. But I have certain rules for Facebook that work well there.

Got this back:

yeah I totally get it I have changed up my Facebook policy and opened it up a bit more but was same way forever no sweat

My conclusion: Another person who is going to use a personal profile for business and is more interested in people collecting. This is just plain wrong! Get a room; oops I mean, get a page!

Here’s a few reasons why you shouldn’t be conducting business on a personal profile:
• No limitation on a business page. Personal profiles cap at 5,000.
• Who wants to be “friends” with a personal profile masquerading as a business and possibly let them see all that personal stuff of yours? Not me.
• Do the “friends” on your personal profile match who your target audience is? Probably not.
• Demographic and usage information is available for your business page; and personal profiles? NO stats. Nothing. Nada.
• Business pages have the advantage of advertising on Facebook

As of this writing, we now have 27 people in common. He has not “liked” either of my pages, nor have I received a LinkedIn request. And I haven’t accepted the friend request.

Couldn't find a song on people collection, but click here for one on star collecting.

Find me on Google+ and Facebook

* not his real name.

Poke ‘em or Stalk ‘em? Facebook’s New Subscribe Feature.

Tweet

Don’t know about you, but my head is getting dizzy from all the recent changes to Facebook. And they’ve all happened not long after the launch of Google+. Hmmm…

The very first blog post I wrote for this blog was an essay on the fine art of poking. Those were the days of innocence. We tenderly gave each reminders that “we’re still out there” or perhaps "HEY YOU!". Heck, I still get poked liked crazy, and I continue to return them.

But time has marched on. Now Facebook has added another feature that yet again follows what Google+ is doing. And Twitter too this time. Hello...it’s a subscription service!

What does this mean for you? Well, if you need to know the precise moment Kirstie Alley lost another pound or where Kim Kardashian is strutting in her bikini today, or perhaps the results of Sarah Palin’s latest shooting spree, now it’s easier than ever. You don’t have to go to their Facebook pages (assuming they HAVE these; I’m not checking); now you can have everything they’re posting come directly to your news feed by simply subscribing to them. From what I understand, this appears to bypass the “like” feature. But then it ceases to become social, if you’re not participating on their page and just reading feed, no?

When subscribing, there are options. All updates, of course are available, however, you can filter down to what type of updates you are interested in. Skip the games? Just see updates with photos? These are just two of the options.

You’ll also see suggestions on the right side of the screen “people to subscribe to”.

Here's what it looks like

Well great, now I can keep my baby blues on the pulse of my favorite celebrities and politicians, much like following them on Twitter. But wait, it gets creepier. Suppose I’m not friends with an “old flame”? Simply go to his/her profile page and on the upper right, there are options: Message, Add Friend or Subscribe. Nope, you don’t have to be friends with someone to subscribe. Sounds like stalking to me!

It could be stalking. However, there is some good news. Subscribe  encompasses only those posts that are deemed PUBLIC. If you’re set to “friends only”, for example, someone who is not friends with you will not be able to see your posts. In addition, Facebook has built in a lot of flexibility here. If you don’t want to participate in this new feature, you don’t have to! 

Thankfully, it’s a feature that you need to OPT IN to.

The subscribe service is rolling out right now; if you haven’t spotted it yet, you soon will. If you’re mostly private like me, remember that you can shut this feature off. I’ll be doing just that. In the meantime, I’ll welcome a friendly poke from anyone.

For more recent news on changes to Facebook, click here

Nobody is a Square on Google+

Tweet

Circles are similar to lists in Facebook, however it’s much easier to add and remove people from them, simply by dragging and dropping. I gave up on lists for the most part in Facebook because I just don’t have the time to type all those names until they pop up to create one list at a time. That’s already a bygone era.

With circles, it easy to share the more personal items with just your “friends” and exclude your “acquaintances” and “followers”. When sharing, just add the circles and with the folks that you want included; it’s all right there, no learning curve required. You can also add a circle with folks not on Google+ but with Gmail accounts; they’ll get the info you’re sharing too.

Circles take seconds to create. I have six right now, but will really think through how I want to divvy things up going forward. Still haven’t decided how personal or how public I want to be, and I’m still waiting to see how Google+ will treat businesses.  Obviously in Facebook, there are advantages to having a page for your business vs. a personal profile (see my recent post on that), but Google+ may go an entirely different route. Who knows?

Creating new circles is simple and you can even change the names of the four given to you at the start. In one article I recently read, there was mention of a circle named “people I hate”…why anyone would have people who fit THAT category in a circle is beyond me, but to each his own. But the point here is you get to name them whatever you want…

…and no one knows what you’ve named your circles, nor do they know which circle they’ve been placed in. So I may think Joe is an acquaintance and he might consider me a friend. But neither of us will ever know how we’ve been categorized. Unless Google+ decides to add an option to make circle names and who is in them public at some point.

And, you may add people to as many of your circles as you like, again, simply by dropping and dragging them again and again. And again, I have to stress that Google+ is light years ahead of Facebook here.

My big question is: Regarding circles, I’d like to know why on my profile there are fewer people who have added me to their circles compared to the higher number on my circles page.  Apparently there is a delay of sorts; a long delay. My initial observation tells me that the lag time can be half a day or more. What’s up with that? Shouldn’t it be “instant” much like follows on Twitter or friending on Facebook? Still curious about this one, but it’s certainly something I can live with.

On a rating scale of 1 to 10, with 10 the highest and 1 the lowest, I’m giving circles a 9. Sorry, but I’m a hard rater! I suspect many of you will go ahead and give that 10.

I’m Facebook Friends with a Movie Theater!

Tweet

A local, independent movie theater sent a friend request to me on Facebook. It happened to be a theater that I frequent, so I accepted. But who did I really friend? Is it an employee of the theater? The owner? No clue. And I was surprised when the theater “liked” a photo I posted recently. And a little spooked too. Who IS this person?

For the record, I’ve also been friends with a car brand, a restaurant, and a dairy product. The car brand wisely switched to a business page after realizing that there are limitations to acting like a business page while masquerading as a personal profile.


Why DO businesses take the friend profile route? My number one guess is that they don’t know what all their options are. Some of these businesses have run their businesses through a personal profile for a long time, and perhaps there just wasn’t good information available at the time.

But there’s no excuse now.

Seriously people, using a personal profile as your business page is limiting. Well, okay, the ceiling is 5,000 which sounds like a lot, but remember, only a small percentage of “friends” will ever see any of your posts. With a business page, you can grow to 10, 20, 30K if you like. And people can search in Facebook on key words and find you and easily like you without begging to be your friend, thus creating work on your part and theirs. Those folks are likely apprehensive when it comes to requesting becoming friends with you; they may not want you to have access to their personal lives. Of course, they can play with privacy settings, but isn’t this becoming rather confusing at this point?

And there you are, posting away about your business on your personal page. How many of your friends are really your target audience and would actually need your services? A business page would open you up to thousands of people who are indeed interested in what you do. But who ARE these people? You'll never know unless you have a business page and have access to all the stats, including demographics, that Facebook business pages provide.

Another advantage to Facebook business pages is the ability to create and place ads. I've had great success with those for my clients; why wouldn't you want to utilize this feature?


So, where’s the line between business and pleasure? Here’s my recommendations, and no, it’s not a solution for everyone. Consider it a practical approach.

Your personal profile should be for friends, family and networking. It can be for all three, or just some of those. Your choice. But it’s a place for you to share and let people know about YOU, as a person. If your passion is running on the beach, archery, or teaching your dog new tricks, I want to know and enjoy those passions with you.

I do not post about my consulting business on my personal page. I don’t even post links to my blog posts there! I have messaged a few folks that I thought would be interested, but that’s it. IF they want to know more about what I do for a living, the addresses for my sites, blogs, and LinkedIn profile are on my info page. When I land a fabulous new client, yes, I DO post about it. Not to promote my business, but because I feel joyous and want to celebrate!

Okay, now you’re saying…great Gerry, but what about my business? Now that you’ve discouraged me from running a business on my personal profile, what do I do now?

Stay tuned for my next post and find out.