Tag Archives: Facebook

Path, Twitter Cards and Instagram, and Facebook apps

I am cramming three topics into this quick blog.  I wanted to write about all three but didn’t want to spam out three posts back to back.  And, as it goes in the social media world – If I waited a week to post one of these it might not be relevant any longer.

Thus, here is your jam-packed threesome of social media topics on my mind for this fine Sunday morning in early May.

Path users can no longer “find friends” using Facebook within the app

I saw this article this morning while doing my very early morning “what’s going on out there?” twitter surf.   I am not surprised by any means.  Facebook hates things that they deem spam, or anything that comes off unclean to their users.path  They probably felt a little taken advantage of that they allowed Path to have this functionality and then family and friends of Path users were bombarded with invites, thanks to Facebook giving the “OK.”  Or so it seemed.  Facebook likes blocking things (see: Vine).  The social media war continues to get weird.

Instagram’s lack of Twitter Cards really sucks

I find this so annoying as a constant user of both Twitter and Instagram, and as one who has used Instagram for several brands from a business angle as well.   Instagram is to get that very visual content out there as a beautiful, pleasing connection with your fans.  You don’t want to just put the same photos in there that you put on other social platforms.  instagram However, you utilize other social platforms to basically ‘promote’ your Instagram posts and presence.  Now, Facebook does own it, so it obviously fully integrates on there pretty seamlessly.  I understand that Instagram was hoping this would drive more visitation to their Instagram site itself.  I get why they’re doing it.  All it did was annoy me and cause me to take in less Instagram content.

Again, the social media war drags on.

But when I am scanning my Twitter feed and see an Instagram link now, I honestly don’t even want to look at it.  I don’t want to click out and go to another website/app to see your picture.  I want to see it right there, and quickly consume it, like we used to.  I previously got most of my Instagram content from Twitter.  That all being said, I find myself using Instagram less and less.  Brands as we move forward might need to find new ways to get that content out there and not just rely on Twitter, just in case there are other people out there that hate those two extra steps now to get to your photo.  From first hand experience, once Twitter Cards went away, the brands I had on Instagram saw less activity from putting an Instagram photo out there on Twitter.  So…

The other side of this argument is from the people that use Instagram a TON, even more than Twitter.  They couldn’t care less about any of this.  For those people, this is no big deal at all.  For the Twitter-first user like me, this is a nuisance.

Are Facebook apps dying?  Or are they already dead?

I am only speaking from first hand experience managing and creating several Facebook apps for a couple different brands over the last few years.  I am not going off any article or stats that might have ‘made my mind up for me.’  So, these are just my thoughts as I’ve seen them evolve over the last 2 years.

People are really straying away from clicking on Facebook apps.  Users barely ever go to a brand’s actual page/timeline.  They consume from the newsfeed.  So, a post here and there or a sponsored story or marketplace ad will see a spike in traffic to the app, but overall it will most likely be pretty stale.

The apps themselves are more or less web pages that live within Facebook, on your brand’s page.  That just doesn’t seem that cool anymore.  People want things right there in front of them, seamless.  Not a page within a page that sometimes (God forbid) are even like-gated just to get in and see what the hell it is. Facebook-like-gate Like-gating.  So I seriously have to “sign-up” to get your status updates just so I can see this one Facebook app, or enter to win this one thing?  Real cool.

The new timeline changes will be altering the way they’re displaying anyway.  So, Facebook might already be on to this.  There will no longer be big boxes to click on.   Waiting on the verdict on that one…

Apps just aren’t cool anymore.  I said it a few sentences ago.  They are sooo 2011.

Agree with me?  Think I’m nuts?  I love to hear it.  Holler.

Facebook – my quick take on the newer news feed

facebook screenshot

I watched the livestream of the big Facebook announcement today, and I must say, I was really surprised that the last guy that spoke was not wearing a hoodie.

That being said, everything else was very Facebooky.  A relatively informal presentation, but with big hitting information.

I am absolutely not reporting on what changes were discussed.  I leave that to the Mashable and TechCrunch’s of the world.  However, I did want to share some of my very quick takeaways.  These are my initial thoughts before ever actually using the new newsfeed, so take it for what it’s worth.

  • It’s all about evolving, and doing that with stories.   The most prominent way to tell these stories on Facebook?  Photos.  Other media like videos.  Third party shares from sites like Pinterest…and a slew of others excluding Vine.   Facebook recognizes what people are doing on Facebook.  I can tell you with complete confidence that nothing kills it on Facebook (in my industry) like an awesome photo.  Nothing else comes close.   This is good news for those that want more visually pleasing stories from friends, but it’s also good news for brands.  Bigger, richer media is a big positive.   Of course, this means that brands will have to be even more creative to compete for that precious real estate.  As always but possibly even more now than ever – the best/highest virality content wins.
  • That precious real estate… from the sounds of it not a lot will change for brands immediately with the changes.  There will still be a main “Most Recent” newsfeed that includes everything under the sun, with all of the Facebook algorithms we all know and love to hate.  The curve ball here are the new separate newsfeeds that users can “switch” to.   Friends only.  Brands only.  Games only.  Whatever else only.  Will people use them?  If they do, and use them a lot, this will hurt brands and make it even moreso pay to play.  And even your ads will have to be more strategic to end up in the right feeds, correct targeting, you name it.  If people are lazy and still just use their main landing feed, things will probably stay pretty much the same.  That’s my guess.  I could be wrong – we’ll know as we use it, but that’s how it appears right now.  And I do think people will use the friends only feed.  Why not?  It’s very cool and gets rid of terrible brand posts telling you to “like this post if you love cats.”
  • Facebook is really obsessed with newspapers.
  • Ads will continue to play in the convergence arena, meaning that even though you’re paying for the reach, you still have to earn maximum reach with quality content within your ad.  The whole owned, earned, paid world on Facebook comes together and is eventually going to be what brands have to do be seen at all….  Apparently ads will be much bigger within the newsfeed which is great news.  But, while this works in brands’ favor, it also works against them.  People might get annoyed with the huge ads and start using those new feeds more and more, and inadvertently cut out brand content.   Catch 22 for brands in a way.  They’ll be chasing people around from feed to feed.
  • The overall concept with “everything is bigger” is very cool.  As a Facebook user it’s awesome and I’m really looking forward to it.  As a social marketer I’m kind of making the Jim Halpert face.   I think there are some really good things and some new challenges to overcome.  As always, keep feeding your communities real, great content that will keep them coming back.  That’s how you’ll win.   Brands will adapt.  We always do.  It’s how marketing is now.tumblr_mdaldqkTck1qgy27g

Graph Search – helping you creep even more

Facebook Graph Search is explained like this, from the book of face themselves:

“Graph Search will help you instantly find others, learn more about them and make connections, explore photos, quickly find places like local attractions and restaurants, and learn about common interests like music, movies, books and more. All results are unique based on the strength of relationships and connections.” (source: Facebook Graph Search)

Here is is how I read it:

“Graph search will help make it easier to creep on people you once knew, learn things about them you otherwise would have never noticed or cared about, scan all of their personal photos, and take common interests from these people you may or may not know and think that you suddenly have a connection.”

I understand that it is apparently supposed to give you results based on your existing connections and relationships and how strong those are, but let’s be honest, we are all ‘friends’ with probably hundreds (in some cases thousands) of people on Facebook that we knew 10 years ago, and haven’t given a second of thought towards since accepting that friends request.   I have friends that I knew when I was 6-years-old and know absolutely nothing about now.  But, since they are a connection to me, will they pop up in my Graph Search results?  And, my friends that I do know really well, I wouldn’t need them to pop up in a search to learn something about them.

What I’m trying to say here, is that it seems like it will just give new life to creeping, within your already existing friend base.  I normally don’t go looking for new people to connect with on Facebook.  I already have a good deal of connections on there that I barely know, or once knew, or will probably never know again.  Graph Search opens a new opportunity to quickly learn about these people, find common interests and make it seem like we should chat or something?

If Graph Search expands to brand pages and allows people to find businesses they might like that they otherwise didn’t know existed, that makes more sense to me.  Then it really starts to become a Google competitor, all within the Facebook world.

The functionality does seem cool, don’t get me wrong.  And I’m looking forward to seeing how it works.  They are always innovating and trying to make the free product better, more engaging, and interesting.  But, personally, I don’t need help creeping on my Facebook friends.  The news feed is in-your-face enough with the content Facebook chooses to show me.

 

(The opinions are only those of Jeff Werkheiser)

Begging for Likes and Retweets: Don’t be sleezy

“LIKE our page!”

“RT this if you LIKE us!”

“Do you LIKE awesome photos?”

“If you RT us, we’ll RT you!”

“Help us get to 1,000 followers.  Please RT this!”

“We need to get to 5,000 likes by Saturday – share this with your friends and help us out!”

—————————————————————————————————————–

I just threw up a little bit out of sheer annoyance after typing all of those out.  Unfortunately, those are actual examples that I’ve pulled straight from a couple different brand Facebook pages and Twitter handles.   What’s even more crazy are the countless articles, blogs, and “best practices” floating about that claim this is a solid strategy for your social media presence and engagement success.

All I have to say is this – if your brand social strategy is centered around either a number goal of fans/followers or begging people to engage with your content…you’re doing it wrong.

In the current social sphere, people want to talk to real people, hear from real people, and interact with real people.  They don’t want to be talked at by a brand.  So, if you are acting as a brand, you might as well start by talking like a real person with an authentic voice.  Social media isn’t your old fashioned marketing strategy, so your voice and tactics shouldn’t pretend to be.  It just won’t work.

And even the huge focus on fans and followers is a thing of the past.  If you are a start-up that has 57 fans then sure, you might want to set a reasonable number goal to get off the ground.  That’s a different situation.  If you aren’t talking with anyone, then what’s the point?  However, if you are an established brand, why do you care so much about a number?  You can go buy that number and then what?  Have them unfollow you a month later or never engage with your content?  Most won’t even see your content in their newsfeed now.  Yeah, thanks for that, Facebook.

I still do think there are situations or strategies where promoting certain pieces of content or messages can serve a valid purpose.  You will most likely gain fans along with this promotion, but they’re joining you based on the content your promoted.   They were attracted and took an action.  That’s an effect of the promoted content, but fan growth wasn’t the goal.  My problem is with a straight-up fan gaining spend.  No content.  Just buying fans.  That just feels a bit dirty to me.

And yes, I have done the whole incorporating the word “Like” into a post thing to make it clear that I wanted likes on the piece of content.   I felt sleezy.   It just felt fake.  I did this roughly a year ago as a “let’s see how this works” trial.  Nothing wrong with trial and error.  That’s a HUGE part of social media.  But, if it just doesn’t feel right, and you would hate it if you were a fan seeing it from a brand, then it’s probably not the right way to go.  Go with your gut.  Don’t be sleezy.  Don’t beg.

If you are begging for engagement or numbers, you’re doing it wrong.  Let your content do that for you organically, naturally, from people that actually do enjoy what you’re putting out there.  That’s where your true engagement should come from.   And I know it’s easier said than done.  You don’t just have great content overnight.  It can take a while with a lot of planning, strategy, resources, and distribution.  But, when you do get there, that’s when you and your fan-base will click.

Seriously, that wasn’t a “click” pun.

$7 to brag even harder on Facebook

This week Facebook finally started rolling out the not-very-anticipated promoted posts for normal people.  You read that correctly; these are not for brand pages, businesses, or any other revenue-generating organization.  These are for your personal accounts.  Say wha????

After hearing about these a few months ago, I kind of wanted to wait and see if this was real.  And it turns out, it’s real.

For the people out there that have never managed a brand page or acted as an advertiser on Facebook before, the ability to promote something on the platform will be completely new, and completely weird.  But for those that do this for a living or for a business, this is just getting kind of ridiculous.

As community and social managers, we deal with this stuff day in and day out, optimizing our promotions and social marketing strategies.  And now, everybody else has the ability to optimize their own damn self-marketing strategy.  Seriously, how vain do you have to be to feel the need to promote a post about yourself to make sure more people see it?  If you have compelling content, just like a brand, it will naturally pick up a higher level of vitality and more people will see it – the right way.    Brands promote.  They have ROI requirements, revenue measures and goals, and other specific engagement objectives riding on content strategies and campaigns.    Me and you?  We do not.   I don’t have a goal riding on how many people see the video of my kid diving off the couch.

What the hell is Facebook doing?

I recently saw someone comment on another post about this claiming that Facebook is now just turning into classified ads.  So true.  Are people just going to start posting about their couch for sale and promoting it?  Apparently it starts at $7 a pop.  If that’s seriously the case, then it’s going to spiral out of control.  Allowing regular people to promote their own posts could be the beginning of a dark, desperate path for Facebook.  Gotta keep the shareholders happy, gotta keep making money.  But like this?  Figure out mobile first.  Please.

It’s getting weird.

What’s next, a video about how Facebook is like chairs?  Oh.

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.

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.