Posts Tagged Facebook
Twitter to FB to website – a practical example of social media at work!
Posted by David Harrison in Facebook, Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter, Useful Stuff on August 27th, 2010
I was looking at my Tweetdeck this sunny (it still exists!) Friday and saw we had been retweeted by someone from Canada, so I went to their site from the link, read their comments on FB pages and instantly changed ours on Morello … I’ll also let you guys know their site address http://bit.ly/8X9dmt … so they get an extra link into their site, you guys get to read something good on Social Media and I feel happy because I have shared something useful.
Everybody wins!
More privacy concerns as Facebook users can now “check-in”
Posted by Paul McSweeney in Facebook, Social Commerce, Social Media, Social Networking on August 23rd, 2010
Facebook users can already poke, post, like and share. Now the social networking website has added another activity to its arsenal of social activities – users can now “check-in”.
With its Places feature, which it launched on Wednesday, users can broadcast their location to the web, track their friends’ movements and see who else has checked-in to a specific location.
Using Facebook’s website via smartphone, users can check-in to locations from offices to bars to parks. The optional service, available initially in the US, will also allow users to tag their friends in posts, flagging their whereabouts as well.
Places might eventually open new financial opportunities for Facebook through partnerships with retailers and restaurants, and location-specific advertising. But the launch will be scrutinised by privacy advocates concerned that the social networking company is increasingly reckless with user data.
“The prospect of it is pretty interesting from a marketer’s perspective, and pretty scary from a consumer’s perspective,” said Ken Johns, digital strategist at advertising agency Brunner.
Places is hardly a breakthrough. Start-ups, including Foursquare and Gowalla, have made location-based social services among the hottest categories of business development on the web this year.
Users, however, have not signed up to these services en masse, and they remain niche offerings, catering to a few million early adopters. With Places, a large chunk of web users will instantly have the opportunity to share their location online.
“This could be the tipping point for location-based services,” said Dave Marsey, senior vice-president of media at Digitas, the advertising agency. “The real question is what value the consumer is going to get from this.”
To reach that tipping point, Facebook will have to convince users to utilise the service. “They’re going to have to convince users this is something that they want to participate in,” said Josh Martin, analyst at Strategy Analytics. “They will need some kind of incentive programme for this to take hold.”
At launch, Facebook did not include any incentives to users. Places does not involve reward programmes with retailers, “mayorships” or “badges” – all common ways that location-based start-ups have attracted users. Instead, Facebook seems to be betting its users will find inherent social value in sharing their real-time location with one another.
That might be the case. However, Facebook will have to tread carefully as it rolls out Places. Adding delicate information such as a user’s location to the mix will add a new layer of complexity to the social network’s already dense privacy settings.
“There are definitely going to be privacy concerns,” said Mr Martin. “There [are] hundreds of millions of people that don’t want to share their location, whether it’s because of privacy concerns or because they are of a different generation and don’t care.”
Simon Davies of Privacy International, a campaign group, said that even sharing location data with approved friends created problems, as the site encourages people to create large networks. “Friends are friends on Facebook and that’s the problem,” he said. “I have 600 Facebook friends but there are only 10 people who I would want to know my comings and goings.”
Facebook has looked to head off the debate by stressing that Places was geared towards existing networks of friends. “Places is not about broadcasting your location to the world but about sharing your location with your friends,” said Michael Sharon, Facebook product manager.
“We have a comprehensive set of safeguards and controls to really let users control their privacy on Places,” said Mr Sharon. The product is launching with granular privacy controls similar to those Facebook launched earlier this year, and the default setting will share a user’s location only with their friends.
Marketers are salivating at the prospect of knowing the real-time location of even a fraction of Facebook’s 500m users.
“From a marketer’s perspective, the Holy Grail is to talk to people on an individual basis,” said Mr Johns. “This gives us another piece of information to connect with people in real time.”
The future of f-commerce being played out..
Posted by Paul McSweeney in Facebook, Online Marketing, Social Commerce, Social Media on August 17th, 2010
So P&G are developing quite a taste for f-commerce – selling on Facebook. In the UK, with their Amazon-powered Facebook store for the makeup of makeup artists brand Max Factor, and in the US, now a Facebook Campaign Store to support and capitalize (literally) on their heavily promoted and much talked about Old Spice Man campaign.
From the Facebook storefront, Old Spice aficionados – yes they now exist – can buy branded merchandise from the Super-Bowl-to-Real-Time-Social-Media ‘Old Spice Man’ campaign featuring shirtless baritone and ex-NFL player Isaiah Mustafa, replete with washboard ads and comedic timing.
As with the UK store, P&G has outsourced all the heavy lifting with the Old Spice Man Campaign Store – the Facebook store is simply a storefront linking through to an external e-store managed by a e-commerce partner in Massachusetts that looks after fulfillment and customer service.
So one of our predictions we make when speaking about the future of social commerce is no longer a prediction – the emergence of Facebook campaign stores to support and monetize marketing campaigns – pop-up f-stores – engage with the promotion; buy the merchandise. The P&G Campaign store is elementary, and no doubt could be improved, but all the elements are there. And it’s there. Welcome to the world of Facebook Campaign Stores.
Why do we think pop-up (temporary) Facebook Campaign Stores are the future of f-commerce? They’re quick, cheap and easy to set up, they help monetize campaigns, and ultimately, because they may help solve the century-plus old problem encapsulated in the famous quote of disputed origin) origin “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half”.
Whilst much advertising, including the digital variety, is and should be focused on building lifetime customer value (AKA ‘Brand building) rather than producing sales bumps, any integrated campaign that creates a digital trace between advertising and buyer behavior can only be a good thing.
So if you manage a brand, why not take a leaf from the book of the biggest advertisers in the world, and throw up a Facebook store for your next campaign? And if you are an agency, why not consider teaming up with the burgeoning number of f-commerce solution providers out there and start proposing campaigns with real ROI?
Social Networks and Gaming on the increase
Posted by Paul McSweeney in Social Media, Social Networking, Thoughts & Opinions on August 4th, 2010
Chances are, you’re here by way of a status update on Facebook, a tweet on Twitter or some other method of sharing on a social network. A study released today by Nielsen – says that people now spend a quarter of all time online on social networking sites and blogs, up from just under 16% a year ago.
The study gives a breakdown of the top 10 online sectors according to how much time people spend using them, with social media and gaming leading the pack.
Among the top 10 sectors, only four have increased over the past year, with five losing ground and one remaining the same. The study shows that both social media and gaming have had the greatest increases over the past year, likely leading to drops in other areas, such as email and instant messaging, although communicating and networking still account for a little more than a third of people’s time online.
When it comes to mobile, the picture changes drastically, with email becoming the dominant sector, followed by portals and then social networking and blogs. The report doesn’t offer much detail in what it means by “mobile”, so we’re left wondering what types of mobile devices respondents are using and what this might mean for the time they spend. Nonetheless, email’s dominance in mobile would seem to indicate that, despite how much we message each other on Facebook, email still has a strong presence. Although email has seen a decline on the desktop, it is still the third heaviest activity online.
Social media marketing is catching on
Posted by Paul McSweeney in Social Commerce, Social Media, Social Networking on July 30th, 2010
Social media is becoming an important marketing tool for businesses, and now that Foursquare is starting to draw a following in the UK, some companies are trying to take advantage.
Foursquare has been around since March 2009, but it wasn’t until recently that it has become available in the UK. The social-networking tool allows people to “check in” at places they visit, whether it’s a local coffee house or bar, to keep friends updated on where they are spending time.
Companies have recently began offering incentives for Foursquare users who check in at their businesses.
They are among a growing number of businesses using social media tools such as Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook. More than half of companies worldwide now use various social networks, and about 40 percent of companies say they’ve had success in finding new customers using them, according to a survey by Regus, which provides workplace solutions to businesses.
The benefit of offering an incentive – a free coffee for every customer who checks in for example – is that it gives customers an incentive for supporting the business. But the power of a site such as Foursquare is limitless because every time a user checks in at a location, a message goes out to his or her friends and followers on Twitter and Facebook, telling them of the user’s location.
It also provides companies analytical information about who is using the site such as when people check in, whether they make a return visit and the demographics of who is checking in.
So Foursquare is another affordable way to market your business, particularly to the younger generation.
Foursquare..a stalker’s dream or genuinely useful?
Posted by Paul McSweeney in Facebook, Social Media, Social Networking, Thoughts & Opinions on July 28th, 2010
Foursquare is the latest social networking tool to generate online buzz. It promises something new. It leads the way in a wave of “geolocative” social networking tools. In addition to offering the communal connectivity of Twitter and Facebook, Foursquare also uses a smartphone’s global positioning system (GPS) to broadcast your precise location to your “friends” and, should you wish, to the wider world.
Companies have been quick to realise the potential of this technology with Starbucks, Debenhams and others offering loyal customers who frequently check in to their stores, rewards such as a free cup of coffee.
It’s potential gives a whole new meaning to the supermarket loyalty card.
But with such power comes responsibility. It might be great for a free latte, but at what price to your privacy? There is a big worry that you don’t know who can read your information, as to where you are. Accept a friend request in Foursquare without due care, and you are potentially opening up your personal diary to a complete stranger.
But many say Foursquare’s primary motivation is growth, and not the privacy of its members. They need a critical mass of users to make the service more useful. Critics point out that a warning of the risks should be prominently displayed to users when they set up their accounts.
Foursquare has recently reached the 2m users landmark, and this figure is growing all the time. The issue with location-based information, is that it exposes a new layer of personal information if you like; our exact physical location at anytime, anywhere.
So the decision is up to you. If you want everyone to know exactly where to find you, then Foursquare is perfect for you. Our advice is this..only accept friend requests from friends. And make yourself fully versed on the what this all entails and the risks that it involves. Participate in online communities of course, but with care.
Dispelling 4 top myths of social media
Posted by Paul McSweeney in Facebook, Social Media, Social Networking, Thoughts & Opinions on July 26th, 2010
As it becomes clear (at last!) that message control is dead, corporations in every industry are scrambling to learn about social media so they can incorporate it into their marketing mix. Fear and misconception abound. Here are the top four issues companies cite:
Employees will waste time with social media:
Many large corporations block their employees from accessing the Internet altogether. Others try to block employees from accessing personal email or social networks like Facebook during work hours.
With the advent of smart phones, internet access is available to workers everywhere – and employers can’t stop them from accessing the Internet.
The value of workers of having internet access – in terms of research, communication, and speed – is far greater than the threat of lost productivity. Companies like Best Buy, Dell and many others have increased not only customer satisfaction, but also sales, by having hundreds, and even thousands, of employees monitoring and resolving complaints and issues in social media.
Companies have a right to make policies and rules about personal use of the internet, but blocking it during work just doesn’t make sense.
What if people say nasty things about our brand?:
Most people exercise common sense, when reading reviews. That is to say, any obviously vindictive and negative comments will simply be ignored.
And besides, complaints may very well mean that there may be things you need to change about your brand. In that case, you should thank them for letting you know what they are. Then you should make changes.
If you have built an online community that includes people who don’t hate you, that community will rise to your defense and they will handle the problem for you.
We’ll lose control of the brand.
Every person with a computer and even a tiny skill level has the tools to make their opinion about your brand heard by other people. They’re already talking about you.
You cannot control the message in the internet Age. You can affect it, but you cannot control it. Your workers are talking about you in closed Facebook groups designed to keep you out so they can talk about you in peace. Your customers are emailing, Tweeting, Facebooking, and that old standby – calling – their friends about their experience with your brand. You don’t have control. You might as well join the conversation. At least that way you can influence what is being said.
Employees will give away corporate secrets on social networks and that will help our competitors and affect the stock price.
If you don’t already have a social media policy, you need to create one.
If you don’t trust your employees to talk to customers, or to represent the brand, you need to look at 1) your hiring practices, 2) your training practices.
The truth is that there are more emerging media success stories than there are failures.
Facebook reaches 500m users milestone
Posted by Paul McSweeney in Facebook, Social Networking on July 23rd, 2010
Facebook reached a major milestone this week with five hundred million users signed up the social networking site.
The internet site was started six years ago by Mark Zuckerberg with only a few hundred users.
But in the last 15 months, the company has exploded, adding around eight new users every second.
According to Facebook each of its users have around 130 ‘friends’, and will share 70 different bits of their life with them each month, from pictures, passions, home movies and more.
This year the US social networking website announced that it was simplifying its privacy controls and applying them retroactively, so users can protect the status updates and photos they have posted in the past.
The announcement came amid growing concerns about privacy on the website – most recently complaints that the site forced Facebook users to share personal details with the rest of the online world or have them removed from Facebook profiles altogether.
Congratulations to Facebook. Over 500m users in 6 years..phenomenal!
Tapping social media for your market research
Posted by Paul McSweeney in Facebook, Social Media, Social Networking, Thoughts & Opinions, Traditional Marketing on July 22nd, 2010
The failings of survey panels are nothing if not well-known to market-researchers and clients alike, but still they remain widely used—albeit expensive and slow—tools for collecting data. Aiming to provide higher-quality results at a lower price, Chicago-based Lab42 conducts its clients’ surveys not in artificially assembled panels but in the social networks where target respondents naturally spend their time.
Clients begin by telling Lab42 about their products and their target consumers. Lab42 then helps to craft a survey, with the option of focusing it based on gender, age, location, lifestyle and interests. Next, Lab42 takes the resulting survey to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and smaller niche social networks, using highly targeted incentives to garner attention and responses while consumers go about their day-to-day activities. Two packages are available from Lab42: a premium one for $ 500, with results in three days or less; and a preliminary one for$ 300, with results in 5 days or less. Custom arrangements are also possible.
It’s always refreshing to see services that have traditionally been performed slowly and expensively rethought and remade to reflect new technologies and new societal shifts. Perhaps this is one to try out when researching your next big thing…? Early feedback suggest that people enjoy giving their opinions and can share these with their friends, thus providing you with potential real-time feedback.
