Sometimes while pondering the meaning of life my mind strays to other matters, namely the state of affairs with social media. It’s in most of our faces every day and keeps many of us captive whether we like it or not. The streams of information whiz by chock full of pics of grumpy cat, words that most of us don’t say in public, news about the latest controversy or a friend in need who’s having a bad day. However, for many of us that get paid for our social media prowess, our minds go a little deeper into what’s happening out there in cyberspace. Social media continues to frazzle and frustrate us as we forge through the muck. So here's just a few frustrations:
Dear Facebook: How come we can edit the text on posts that have photos in them or posts that are text only yet we can’t edit our words when it’s a video? Folks, you are aware of the capabilities to edit, no? Suppose we could say two out of three ain’t bad. Why does Klout only have a Klout score of 85? Mashable’s score is 89; Techcrunch has a score of 95 and CNN 99. One would think Klout’s Klout would be higher! After all, they know all the workings of their algorithm. Ah, perhaps they are holding back so that they don’t look TOO good! Customer Service is an attribute associated with Klout’s K’s, yet they never respond to emails or tweets. Who are those people that give them K’s for this? Would love to know if the folks that gave Klout K’s for this have actually had communication with them and broken through the great wall of silence. Why doesn’t Kred take activity on Google+ into account for calculating your score? Certainly hoping they'll roll in a user’s activity on Google+ soon. And where is Pinterest in regards to both Klout and Kred? Oh, and Klout: Kudos to you for having Instagram included; Kred there’s another one for you to consider. Facebook, why did you change the friend request methodology so that a message can’t be sent with the request? Okay, this is an oldie but goodie that truly annoys me. Seriously, I would like to know who all these people are that send friend requests to me all the time. Could you at least message me too and explain our alleged connection? And to make matters worse, if I hit ignore Facebook is going to penalize you from friending others. There’s got to be a better way to handle introductions, Facebook! Why do Facebook users continue to use personal profiles as their business page? There is NO advantage to this; no stats, no opportunity to advertise, and you’ll run out of the ability to add “friends” eventually. For more on this see my past blog about being friends with a movie theater. Hello, Google+! Didn’t forget about you. Is there really an advantage to having a page? You don’t provide easy to access stats like Facebook does. It would be nice to have some demographics and regional breakdowns to see who is finding the page. Data on participation would be nice too. And the possibility of advertising if one wanted to do so. I suppose you’ll catch up eventually.
Neil Young had pondering on his mind when he came out with this song with rockabilly styling back in 1978 (see below). And if you're wonderin' where to learn more about social media and marketing at large don't forget to visit us at our website, or stop by on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.
Flashback: January 29. I received an email from the head honcho at Kred with this title: Add your Top 1% Kred Elite Badge to your Blog and email signature Wow! Top 1% for @modlandUSA, huh? The email itself said this:
Oh course I took the html provided and immediately displayed my new badge in all of its shiny gold colored glory on both my blog and website! However, it gets even better. I received the same email for my other biz that resides in Twitter as @groovyreflctns. This was interesting since Groovy Reflections' influence points were at least 100 below ModlandUSA’s at the time. This suggests that it's not all that hard to be in the 1% then. Oh, but times have changed. Just today, the shiny gold badge changed to the familiar green/blue combination today; and it's the same, unchanged, html! And the text within it proclaiming my crowning achievements was gone too. Of course I immediately wrote to Kred by replying to that very email. Now, if this were Klout I was contacting, I wouldn’t expect a reply. I’ve written to Klout so many times about issues and only once did I receive a reply which looked a lot like a canned response to me. However, Kred replied in about one hour to let me know they were looking into the issue.
A couple hours later I received a tweep from a Kred staffer that they were working on it. Shortly after she sent another stating the issue was fixed (and it was!)...Yes! The point is that Kred actually communicates with the users while Klout is not engaging in the least. And I have other examples where Kred has gotten back to me in a timely matter. They rock! We’re all waiting for the changes from Facebook to happen. One of my admins for the Groovy Reflections page received a rude awakening. Suddenly, there was more data about the page at the top of the page! And that’s fine; however, Facebook decided at the same time that they would cause him great difficulty if he tried to make any posts on the page!
Thank goodness we have a backup profile; he signed on to it and was able to post; no problem! Just a warning folks…if this example is any indication, we may be heading into some rough seas as Facebook attempts to steer us forward. And last but not least is Google+ and the size increase for the cover art. Bravo! Finally got around to updating all of my accounts today. It took a while because the dimensions are not the same as Facebook’s so it required some major “tweaking” and “trickery”. For example, the solution for the Groovy Reflections artwork was to add a dark blue border behind it, thus shrinking the original art to a more suitable size which allowed a little more "play" with placement:
Change, change, and more change! Somehow we deal with it all and adapt; grumbling and muttering under our breaths! Dylan sang about change in the days before he plugged in his guitar (see below). For change that’s positive and refreshing, visit our website, or on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.
Social Networks. So many of them. Not enough time. When they don’t behave as they should, it’s maddening. Making the social network “rounds” this morning it seems like the powers that be wanted me to have a challenging day. First up was Klout. Hey, I like to give K; it’s a friendly thing to do, giving Klout to those I’ve been tweeting with for a while as well as a few new tweeps. Here's what happened when I tried to tweet a K:
Have I crossed a line somewhere and attempted to venture where no other man has gone (or woman)? Is Klout a "Forbidden Planet"? Next up was StumbleUpon, a site that has never benefited me in any way. Yet, I press on. Wanted to add one of my blog posts (have added 174 of them previously). I selected marketing as the subject matter, added in my 75 characters of key words with high hopes for the slightest chance that my blog may be found by someone on StumbleUpon some day, and hit enter.
Hello! I can't even add ONE from "this site"? Guess it’s going to remain at zero for now. Oh, and Kred has caused Shockwave to crash on my computer yet again. I think there’s a tie-in to YouTube and Chrome that enables this to happen. More research needed. Sigh.
Touchy touchy Facebook! The wrong thumbnail shows up much of the time when posting from my blog or from my Groovy Reflections website. In fact, that happened today too! Mmmmmm….that little social network Facebook? I published my take on the recent changes and someone brought up an interesting point that ties in to what I wrote above. One reader commented “Hope it all works so we are satisfied with promises of a better Facebook.” And that’s a grand thought! Now, with the Facebook changes, it was stated during their presentation that the new features would slowly roll out to users so that they could get feedback from those that receive it earlier. This implies that there will be kinks to work out! More annoyance for us all while they “tweak”. The interesting part is that they never mentioned HOW they will get the feedback. Can we submit our thoughts somewhere directly? Or are they going to search and pull out all of our whines and tales of woe using the new Graph Search feature that most of us haven't received yet? How invasive is that? And they have every right to do so. At least they haven’t penalized my friends who refer to Mr. Z as “Zukerputz”. Mmmmm mmmm mmmm mmmm. The Crash Test Dummies have been reading my thoughts! After you enjoy this classic 90's tune, stop by and hum it when visiting our website, or on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.
