Category Archives: social media (general)

enhanced facebook page post targeting is huge

Today Facebook announced that they will be doing something that I’ve wanted for a long time now.  If you guessed that they will now be allowing brand pages to target posts based on fans’ Likes, gender, age and other demographics – then you are correct.  Yes, that is exactly what they are doing.  For now, of course, the new functionality is only available to a few extra-special partners.  In the coming weeks it should apparently roll out to everyone.

This is huge.

Previously we could only geo-target or language-target.  That’s good when you need to talk to one specific geographic location, but then you still run into spewing content about one subject to tons of people who could not care less.  Content is the key nowadays to a successful social presence, especially on Facebook, so the ability to now spew content to people that actually like that content is very powerful stuff.

For example, you have fans that “liked” your Facebook page for multiple reasons.  And these people themselves have other “likes.”  And they are made up of different age groups.  When you post about a wine event involving painting and what not, you realize that the younger crowd that follows you would rather chew glass.  Now, you will be able to target that  content specifically to your older fan base – whatever you deem “older.”   And if you want to get even deeper, you could target folks that specifically are interested in wine, or painting, or both.  The younger crowd that enjoys a trusty Keystone Light doesn’t have to know the post would’ve ever existed.

This should help with engagement on certain topics that otherwise just fell into a black hole.

One question from me would be regarding that engagement piece.  We know that a typical post sent to everyone that follows you gets seen on average by 18% of your fans.  Now, will it still be around that percentage within the interest or age targeted group?  Or will it be better?

This could make Facebook ads’ future quite interesting, since the specific targeting is one element that made ads so powerful.

We can be sure there will be post booster promotions available.  Gotta make money on this somehow.  Gotta make those shareholders happy.  Is that possible right now?

UPDATE as of 8/1: I learned today that apparently you won’t yet be able to target based on LIKES.  Not yet, at least.  Bummer.  However, the new demographic targeting will be huge.

my Twitter geek-out moment of the week

Every once in a while, we in social media have geek-out moments.  OK, actually probably much more than every once in a while.  This happens quite a bit.  Whether it is a new gadget, app or platform – we who “do” social media for a living are passionate about this stuff.

I had a geek-out moment last night.

I tweeted a photo that I took at the Denver Broncos training camp that day.  Simple enough, right?  I had already done some fancy editing to it in Instagram to make me think I’m a really good/cool photographer.  I wanted to share this image with the official @Denver_Broncos Twitter handle, since, you know, every once in a while big name Twitter handles spread the love.  I really thought the picture was pretty sweet.

I didn’t want to share my actual Instagram link with the Broncos community manager, as I figured that has much less chance of being re-shared to some extent.  That is more along the lines of self promoting my Instagram handle by way of my Twitter handle, and asking a big-name Twitter account to do that for me.  Too many steps and gateways.  They just want to a share a picture right there.  They have 165,000 followers and always appear to be pretty selective with what they RT and post.  Slim chance.

So, I just took the Instagram-edited photo from my phone’s memory card and shared that on Twitpic as a free-standing image.  No tie-in to Instagram.

Sure enough, about twenty minutes later, the Broncos official Twitter handle Re-Tweeted my original tweet to their large follower-base.  Granted, many of which did not see the post, but it’s still cool.   They replied to my tweet and kept my handle in their post.  This is when I geeked out.  About 10 minutes later the tweet had been RT by others 83 times and ‘favorited’ by another 34.  My Twitter handle was mentioned each time.  OMG!!!

I know, this really shouldn’t be that exciting.  Behind even the Broncos’ account is a community manager (who was totally on it after 9 PM by the way), or social manager of some kind.  A human.  Doing a similar job that I do.  However, for some reason it’s still exciting to see your Twitter handle out there mentioned by a “big deal.”  I geeked out.  I know, beat it nerd.

As of this afternoon the tweet has 126 RT, 49 Favorites, 9 other mentions and my Twitpic has been viewed over 1,200 times.

Without the Broncos boost, I guarantee I probably would have 1, maybe 2 RTs and potentially 100 views.

So with a few clicks and one post, boom.  Another quick example of the the power of social media.

And I’m a geek.

should your brand be social?

The answer to this question has been forever changing over the last several years.  Brands are fickle.  Some hop on social media right away and ride it out for a while and then get darn right sick of it.  Some think they aren’t seeing any ROI so they peace out.  Some have no idea what ROI means with social media so they pretty much have no strategy, fail, and peace out.  Some partake in social media simply because they think that’s what you are supposed to do in 2012.  Other brands love social media and are locked in for sticking it out.  The latter are typically the brands that know what they’re doing, or, have a community manager that knows what they’re doing.

So, should your brand be social?

This is kind of a trick question because I believe that any brand can utilize social media to their benefit in some way, shape, or form.  So, the answer is yes.

There are a few things brands need to remember when building out a social strategy to make sure this works for their brand:

  • What platform(s) make the most sense? Brands don’t need to be on 14 different social media channels simply because they think that makes them look cooler or more “with it” or whatever their reasoning might be.  Different platforms have different fan-bases, tools, resources, conversations, and methods for connecting with fans.  Some are all visual, some are information-based, some do several different things.  Take a look at the socialsphere and determine that for your brand, with who you are trying to talk to and connect with, what are the best ways to do this?
  • What is your goal for social media? Over the last few years the main version of ROI has always been “how much revenue are you producing through your social channels?”  Not anymore.  That is still definitely a component to some social ROI strategies, but it’s not the only one by any means.  Maybe you are really going after connecting with new demographics and fan-bases, or you just want to build brand awareness.  Or, the engagement piece driven through conversations is #1 on your list.  Figure out by prioritizing – what are your goals?  Revenue?  Engagement?  Brand awareness?  Put your pieces in order and build out from there.
  • What kind of content will you be putting out there? Have an idea in place for what kind of awesome stuff you want your fans to see.  And make sure these aren’t the same across all social platforms.  Again, different platforms have different fans, conversations and uses – don’t be lazy and auto post from one account to all of your accounts.  That is the opposite of social media.  That is robot media.  Do you have great photos to put out there?  Funny videos making your brand and products look more human?  Will you do some contests or sweepstakes?  Embrace your community and you’ll gradually find out what they like as you go.
  • Know your voice. This is an element that perfects over time.  You don’t just kick off a new social media presence and have an amazing voice that everyone loves, however, you can know certain elements.  Short and sweet?  Witty but friendly?  Robotic and sales-pitchy (hope not!)? Helpful and approachable?  Quick to respond?  And probably the most important: human.  You’ll get a feel for how to respond, how to deal with negative posts, and how to put new content out there as you go.  Voice can be tricky, but finding it and sticking to it is huge.  Fans will come to expect the voice you land on, they’ll get to know it, and this will become and extension of your brand and public relations arm.

These four items above are  key components and very important when building out a social strategy, however, they are the tip of the iceberg.  Social community management and strategy can get very, very deep.  Anything beyond what I say above needs to be discussed over beers, however.

so happy about Facebook comment editing

Facebook announced that now you can edit your comments.  This is great news for those of us responding to people via fat-fingered phones, hard-to-type on tablets, or just from our grammatically challenged selves.  And perhaps most importantly, as a business page we can respond to people and feel confident that if we screwed up we can go fix it.

I’ve seen comments on photos and other types of content be editable by brand pages for a few months now.  I’m not sure why or what it was, but certain outgoing posts wouldn’t allow for edited comments.  Hopefully, now, it will all be able to be manipulated.

Let’s face it – sometimes you quickly respond with something that you regret 10 seconds later, or really wish you could just tweak, without completely removing it.

Where brand pages used to get called out for deleting comments in the past, will we now get called out for editing comments?

Probably.

The change is very welcome.

a vacation from social can be good for you

My family and I went on a vacation last week.  Not the tropical, I’m just going to lay on the beach and sip terribly fruity drinks I hate just because of the fact that I’m on a beach type of vacation… but rather the we’re going back home to the Midwest for a wedding and want to see old friends and family type of vacation.  Both have their pluses and minuses.

I shut myself completely out of social media for 5 days.   Well, almost completely.

I checked my own personal feeds a few times, and maybe posted 1 or 2 updates.  But, I did not look at the business accounts that I manage….once.  Seriously.  My fabulous team was covering for me and making sure nothing hit the fan.  It was not easy for me. I am so programmed to click on the brand pages I manage before even looking at my personal feeds – sometimes I don’t even look at my own for a day or two at a time.  I am so deep into the business accounts that they have become my own; in a way.  If you manage business accounts from the client side or an agency side, either one, you know what I’m talking about.

This was the first time in a year that I took more than 1 day off at a time.  So, not looking at social media as “work” for 5 days was ground breaking for me.  It was weird.  I was so curious.  I wanted to know.  But, I realized I didn’t HAVE to know.  I forced myself to stay away and it was…healthy.  When social media is your job, it is a much different beast than people using it for personal reasons.  I wasn’t going to look at my email for 5 days, so, why would I look at the Facebook page?

People who mow lawns for their job aren’t going to sneak in a few quick yards while on vacation.

In the time that I was away from the social business world, Mashable kindly posted around 100 articles of “social media news.”  I typically read several different online social news sources to keep up on what’s new, updates, changes, and beyond.  But, I usually check Mashable first.  Just because.  Not necessarily because it is the best.  Personally I think they blow stories out of proportion most of the time to qualify it as news, but that’s just me.  I still read it.

Why am I telling you this?

100ish social media articles.  Pile that on top of the many emails waiting for me in my inbox and you have an exploded head.  Keeping up with all that is constantly changing, growing, improving, sucking, disappearing, coming back, and working with social media is impossible.  Even if you sit and read articles ALL day you would still miss something.  You can take snippets of all of the “big” news and at least be aware, but to completely be on top of absolutely everything new in the social online world is just silly.  When I got back I skimmed a few of the articles, took away some key headlines and basically chalked up the time from June 6 – 11, 2012 as the week that I had no idea what was going on in social media.

And it feels good.

I like to stay on top of as much of it as I can, so, if I am unaware of something down the road I will just blame these 5 days and hope this “news” dropped while I was on a break.  That might work, right?

Now I am back at it.  But to those of you who also live in social media for your job – make sure to give yourself some breaks, even if just for a few days.  After the 2nd or 3rd day it gets easier.  Do it.  You’ll keep your sanity and want to dive back in that much more when you return.

Facebook phone? Trying not to suck?

Facebook phone? Trying not to suck?

I saw this article on TechCrunch and just thought it was funny.  Facebook is talking about developing a smartphone, for the 3rd time.  I know people love to make fun of ideas like this, but Google made a phone, and a laptop.  Why can’t Facebook?  They can.  And they probably will.  And I think it will probably be pretty sweet.  But that’s just me.

engagement vs fan count, the Facebook brand page dilemma

For the last few years, brands have had the opportunity to showcase themselves on Facebook by way of a page.  The businesses with any amount of foresight jumped aboard, some waited a bit but eventually joined the party, and amazingly enough – there are still some companies that haven’t yet made the social leap.  The brands that have been in the Facebook game for more than two years have seen several different versions of business pages and should be seasoned veterans by now.

Everyone had to start over to some extent when Timeline hit the scene a few months ago, on February 29.  And when I say start over I am referring to the new layout and aesthetics, the new functionality like highlighting and pinning posts, the admin panel, and the ability for brand pages to respond to fans through private messages.  However, the original ole’ concepts and theories remain strong, based on your brand’s Facebook strategy.

There has been the argument that timeline hopes to cause fans to spend more time on the actual brand page, thus, increasing engagement.  But, this original thought has proved to not necessarily be the case.  In many brands’ experiences it has actually been the opposite.  On the flip side, there has been data showing that it has in fact increased page engagement.  So, who the hell knows?  Let’s give it some more time…especially if Mashable is going to put these two conflicting articles out only a month apart.

Anyway, what’s the big dilemma?  If you manage a brand page you know what I’m talking about.  It’s the age old (not really very old at all) argument of engagement with fans versus the number of fans that you have.  What’s the right way to go?

The correct answer: both.  Totally depends on your business, what your strategy is, and why you are doing it.  Maybe you want to build the crap out of your fan base right now so that you can roll out a huge engagement plan in 6 months.  Being completely honest, growing a large fan base organically is hard.  Great content definitely helps, but sometimes you need a boost.  And, like Major League Baseball over the last twenty years, if everyone’s doing it you kind of have to play along, too, if you want to stay in the competition.  That was a steroids joke.  It’s really not that different.  It’s all cheating.  The difference, buying Facebook fans is legal and is now to some extent the norm.  Steroids land you in an empty house hanging out with Jose Canseco.

There was a bomb dropped on Facebook a few weeks ago when General Motors announced they’re pulling $10 Million of Facebook advertising due to ineffectiveness.  That’s a perfect example of Facebook paid products being part of an overall strategy for an end goal as it affects their business.  They weren’t seeing results in that end goal from the Facebook ads; people buying more cars.  They knew what they were doing and didn’t see it working.  Pull the plug.

Some brands get bashed for spending a lot of money on fans, but you know what?  If they’re spending a lot of money then they probably know what they are doing, or at least their agency does.  They more than likely have an “after we buy all the fans” plan.  If they don’t and really are just buying fans strictly for a big number, well, then, that is just kind of silly.  That is not technically a strategy.  That is just doing it to look good.  But you know what else?  Even just looking good with a huge number could be considered a strategy.  Brand awareness.

I am personally not a huge fan of ruthlessly acquiring fans, as I think the actual number should not be the goal.  A big number is great, but it doesn’t matter if those fans don’t engage with your content and connect with your brand.  That is the whole point of being on Facebook, to connect people with your brand, socially; humanizing your brand by way of completely new kinds of interactions and content.  There are brands on Facebook that literally don’t spend any money and have a very solid fan base with very engaging fans.  More power to them.

It should all stem from content, first and foremost.

Using paid acquisition Facebook products to gain new fans is fine and can be part of a very successful social strategy and/or campaign, but it shouldn’t be the strategy.  Disclaimer: unless you fall into the category I mention above and truly are out to just be #1.

To sum it up, engagement is huge and should really be the end goal, and fan acquisition can play a vital role in following through with part of a social strategy or campaign.  So, both sides of the argument can be the correct answer – it depends on your business, and what you are doing with your presence on Facebook (voice, content, strategy and beyond).

Everyone has a different social strategy, and everyone has an argument.  That’s the fun – at this point there really isn’t a “right” or “wrong” answer, only right and wrong ways to go about doing it.   But even those could be argued.  Ah, this is a blast.

****Note: I wrote this in about 15 minutes.  I write what comes to mind and hit “post.”  This could be WAY longer if I wanted to get into TAT scores, engagement rates (depending on which analytics tool you are using), all the other non-acquisition-driving Facebook paid products that are now available, and probably a slew of other things that would be relevant to what I wrote about above.  But, I am tired and don’t want to dive that deep today.  My kid got me up at 5:15 AM.  Done.

What Should We Call Social Media

 

 

 

 

What Should We Call Social Media

If you work in social media, you will find this hilarious.  If you don’t work in social media, you will find this hilarious.  I absolutely love this and laugh every single time I scroll through these.  I am just mad I didn’t think of this first.  Just kidding.  But not really.  Anyway, this is amazing and is the first link I’ve posted on here.  Big honor, I know.  I just wanted to “re-blog” this so others could enjoy it. You’re welcome.

shut up about Facebook failing. please.

The Facebook IPO is this week.  Big whoop.  We all know that.  This is not about that.  There have already been thousands of millions of hundreds of trillions of blogs and articles written about it.

Facebook is supposed to be valued at around 100 Instagrams.  

Anyway, what I am sick of, are all of the articles and blogs about how Facebook could fail.  Ya think?  It’s a multi-billion dollar company.  Of course it could fail.  Any business has a chance to fail.

What annoys me is that all of the chatter about Facebook failing was pretty quiet up until IPO week.  Some people could say I sound like an idiot because obviously that’s the week that this subject matter would come to light.  I understand that.  But why all the crushing negativity?  This is one of the most innovative companies in the world with some of the brightest people on the planet working for it.  If Facebook runs into problems with some facet of their business, they will adapt and continue cruising.  It’s Facebook.

The company did release their 35 reasons that they could end up in the toilet as part of their SEC filing.  Every company filing for an IPO has to do that.  They were honest and many on the countdown are pretty obvious.  My opinion is that people are blowing these way out proportion in order to make a big story.  The biggest and most successful tech company in history is going public this week, the media (professional and social) definitely wants to try to bring Facebook down.  Oh, they put a list together for us?  Perfect!

Facebook will be fine.

Their biggest risk right now might be the fact that they haven’t found a way to make money on mobile platforms due to the lack of ads.  At least that’s what they’re telling us.  Do you really think Facebook can’t figure it out?  If it’s not from ads they’ll come up with something else.  They probably already have something else.  Whatever it is will probably piss a lot of people off, but that’s what Facebook does.  They come out with innovative new things, like Timeline, piss off a ton of people who complain about their use of a free product, but then those people continue to use the platform.  Of course they do.  It’s Facebook.

And that’s my rant.

Facebook is going public and is worth a ton of money.  They will continue to adapt and be successful.  They’ll continue to acquire new companies.  They are not AOL.  Or Groupon.  Please shut up about Facebook failing.

Thanks.

some social brands doing it well, in my opinion

Social media as we know it is still very young.  And by “as we know it,” I am referring to the daily connections with our favorite brands, companies and organizations.  Personal use of the socialsphere is also still pretty young, hovering around a decade or so if you are looking at Friendster and Myspace.  And if there was anything “social” before 2002, I’m sorry, I missed it.  Social media as it now sits, has taken over our online worlds.  Sure you can still find out if your younger cousin Toby got his wisdom teeth out, but you can also communicate directly with your favorite beer, sports team, or celebrity.

You might not always get a response, which is unfortunate, but you can feel like you are part of their daily operations or lives.  And, believe it or not there is a human behind the brand’s voice.  (I know from first hand experience as I am one of those humans.)  Hopefully the company or brand you follow knows how to use that voice to their advantage and to connect with fans.  Even the ones that sound like a robot still have a human somewhere in the process, as hard as that  may be to believe.

But I digress.

I follow a ton of brands across the social web.  I want to point out some of my favorites (keeping this list to Facebook and Twitter).  In my mind, these brands are doing a great job of being human, reaching their fans, keeping the content interesting and fresh, and making you want more.  Here’s my current short list, in no particular order….

 

Skittles

  • (Facebook) Hilarious, ridiculous one-liners that you read and immediately just say “WTF?”  But then you laugh, sometimes out loud.  Their voice is consistent and doesn’t waiver much if at all.  Very witty and entertaining.  I love that the vast majority of their content has nothing to do with their product, proving the point that just selling, promoting, and marketing by way of social media is not a winning strategy.  Being interesting wins. (facebook.com/skittles)

 

ESPN

  • (Twitter) An extremely human voice that sounds like your friend you are watching the game with, smashing beers with.  It’s a very witty line-up of tweets that work sports into the heart of the content.  They don’t stray away from their lifeblood, but they do find a way to make that straightforward content interesting, different.  It doesn’t just sound like news. (twtter.com/espn)

 

Keystone Light

  • (Facebook) Keith Stone and his always smoothness has taken to Facebook and it’s fantastic.  This lower budget and/or college beer definitely knows who they are targeting and they do it well.  Their posts are geared towards dude who like to drink a ton of beer.  They’re witty, in the same voice as their TV commercials and on brand.  I love when brands know what they are and go for it. (facebook.com/keystonelight)

 

Foursquare

  • (Facebook) This one is interesting because it is another prominent social platform, with a presence on another prominent social platform.  That in itself isn’t that odd, but to do it well is another thing.  Foursquare doesn’t really go for humor but they talk about their new pins, locations, tips, specials, new partnerships and what not.  It’s interesting.  Lucky for them their business is interesting, so the content follows suit.  They do talk about themselves a lot but it doesn’t come off annoying.  At least not to me. (facebook.com/foursquare)

 

Red Bull

  • (Twitter) Not only is this one of the coolest brands around right now, and they have one of the best overall marketing campaigns in the country, but they are very human on Twitter.  They aren’t necessarily funny or overly interesting, but they are human.  Go look at their Twitter feed – they respond to pretty much everybody who tweets at them.  Not a big deal for a smaller company, but this is impressive for a brand presence like Red Bull who has over 600K followers on Twitter.  (twitter.com/redbull)

 

Cheerios

  • (Facebook) First and foremost, I’ve loved Cheerios since I have been alive.  My son loves Cheerios.  So, with a biased approach I loved this brand already.  But, their Facebook presence isn’t half bad.  They use fans’ photos as part of their cover image which immediately brings the brand to a human level, they have interesting tips for healthy living and speak directly to people like me that just plain love Cheerios.  (facebook.com/cheerios)

 

The Today Show

  • (Facebook) Making news reach beyond news is a strength of social media.  While this concept isn’t earth shattering, I think the Today Show does a good job with their Facebook timeline.  The stories we see every morning become interactive discussions, and they pull in trending topics from Twitter as newsworthy discussions on air.   I know that many other news entities do the same thing.  Fine.  This is my list.  (facebook.com/today)

 

Lowe’s

  • (Twitter) Doing a house project and need help?  Lowe’s on Twitter is there for you.  They even lead their profile description with “Got a complaint, compliment, or question?  Let us know!”  This is customer service done right using a social tool that is so perfect for it.  There responses are very human, and helpful.  A great way to connect with customers. (twitter.com/lowes)

 

Creative Recreation

  • (Facebook) I’ve been rockin’ a pair of hybrid boat shoes from CR for the last 8 years.  Yeah, they definitely don’t look like new, but I still love them.  This is a cool brand that has grown a ton in the last decade and has a cool social presence to go with it.  Good content is the key to any good social channel, and their vivid imagery, sweet products, and conversational posts seem to connect well with their fans.  (facebook.com/creativerecreation)