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Friday Freak Out – Stop The Desperation to Blog About Facebook

April 26, 2013 By 1 Comment

Did you hear the major news about Facebook during the week? No, Mark Zuckerberg’s perpetual smug look on his face hasn’t waned, they’ve not reached 100 million uses on Mars and they haven’t managed to find a way to stop people whinging about their utterly miserable lives via status updates. No, this news is much much bigger.

They made a change to the admin panel

No, your eyes are not deceiving you! This revolutionary change will make your Facebook Page experience so much better. No, it actually won’t. A small change, but one that a number of blogs deemed it necessary to report. Do we really need digital column inches devoted to such tiny things? I don’t think so. If you use Pages, you would notice the change as soon as you log in. Talk about being desperate to publish something, anything about Facebook. It doesn’t stop there, we see numerous blog posts about little changes to the multitude of other social media platforms. We use them and we notice these things. I think I’ll start blogging about the weather changing as it happens. Oh wait, people can just look out the window. Same thing.

Image via thoughtcatalogue.com. Text by me.

Image via thoughtcatalogue.com. Text by me.

While I’m at it…

Removing the focus away from new notifications in the admin panel and replacing it with post reach figures and the option to promote those posts is does not have the user’s best interests in mind. Ah wait, it’s Facebook, I forgot, they don’t give a wham ban thank-you mam about their users. I want to be able to load up on one of my Pages and immediately see the user activity, no be urged to give Zuck and co more millions. Desperate attempt for further monetisation? You bet. Now, that angle may have been worth reporting.

Just one more thing

I think the digital marketing blogging world needs to up its game in general. That’s another rant for another day though.

Am I wrong? Do we actually need to hear about these changes via a blog other than find them out for ourselves? Tell me! Don’t hold back!


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Great Social Tools for Social Causes

April 4, 2013 By 3 Comments

Photo Credit – Flickr infomatique

Using social media to reach out to the masses clearly isn’t a new concept so it makes perfect sense that social causes would also make use of social platforms to amplify their message. Social media is inexpensive, it has a further reach than most traditional media options and you never know, your heartfelt efforts may even go viral. Hello, KONY.

The concept might be old hat but there are some interesting applications and networks that are making it easier than ever to activate your would-be support base.

Thunderclap

This recent campaign for March for Innovation is a great example of the power this application. Find a message, add your voice, Thunderclap together. It’s basically a recipe for becoming a social army and in this case the army is fighting for smart immigration reform. What would your Thunderclap be about?

Change.org

Change.org makes it incredibly easy to rally folks around your cause. You sign up, start a petition and write a compelling argument for why it should be signed. Change.org has a great email marketing program to help support your petition and introduce it to new, previously unknown allies. It’s also a very share-friendly site which is always handy.

Causes

Causes provides a few more tools to package up your message. You create a custom page that integrates with Facebook, set up your own email campaigns and can even receive donations. Pretty much everything you need to find people to help you save the world.

Good Ol’ Facebook

Facebook really does give you one of the best platforms for drawing an audience around your cause. Setting up a page to coincide with your other efforts will help you find new supporters and stay in touch with them. Check out how some of these pages, big and small, use Facebook:

Stick it to Fast Food
Upworthy

If you have a digital media budget you can also increase your Facebook impressions and page views with “promoted page” paid campaigns. However, from my own experience, this needs to be done with caution as you can just as easily attract a boatload of haters who are happy to spam your wall with the opposite of you want it to say. My tip is to refine your target audience as much as you can and keep a close eye on the page notifications.

Well, there you have it. Now go forth and make your world a better place to live!

Have you used social media for, or to support, a social cause? Do you think social media helps win the battles? Tell us about your experience!

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Filed Under: Digital Marketing, Facebook Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Buffer – A Perfect Example of Great Customer Communication

July 31, 2012 By 2 Comments

I’ve been using Buffer for months now and it’s value to me as a content curation and scheduling tool is huge. This post is however not about the product itself, but about the superb standard of customer communication the Buffer team show on a daily basis.

Rapid Response

The Twitter account for Buffer (@bufferapp) is run by many of the founders of the service, giving it a real sense of authenticity while displaying a will for the life-blood of the start-up to interact with its community. If a question from a user is posed via the account, the response is slick and indeed quick. No problem seems to be too much for the team to look in to. They don’t just respond to direct interactions either, they are clearly actively listening and seeking opportunities to communicate with their customer base. I recently bigged them up in a tweet and within minutes received a thank you from co-founder Leo Widrich. They are really unleashing the power of Twitter as a customer service channel.

Aside from communicating directly, the Buffer guys make good use of content by regularly tweeting links to interesting articles and news stories. They also produce their own content over on their pretty nifty blog. All in all, a best practice use of Twitter.

Not Just about Twitter

When Buffer releases a new update or adds a new feature, its users receive an email explaining the change. That’s nothing staggering, however it is a nice touch (Facebook take note!). The real wow factor comes at the end of the email. The founders make it clear that they are available for the next three hours to answer any questions via email. I tested this recently, suggesting that they try to integrate Buffer with Flipboard (who, incidentally are also awesome at customer comms). Within 5 minutes I had a response from Leo, thanking me for the suggestion and telling me that he would get on the case immediately. Impressive stuff.

They are also active on Facebook and appear to be growing a nice little community over there, the Page hosts a variety of content that attract strong interactions.

Benchmark

Your business should be striving for this level of quality. Especially in the case of start-ups like Buffer – if you serve and respect your customers from day one, you will quickly build trust and lay down the foundations of success and of course, learn a lot about your product and customer base at the same time.

I’m in the process of setting up my digital marketing and communications consultancy and can help you to communicate effectively using the abundance of digital tools available today. See here for more info.

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Filed Under: Social Media Customer Service Tagged With: ,

Friday Freak Out – Facebook’s Freaking ‘Top Friends’ Updates

July 13, 2012 By 4 Comments

After my freak out last week about the flaming awful Facebook mobile app experience, I thought my ire towards Facebook may have been buried for a while. How I was wrong…

Pain in the Ass ‘Top Friends’ Notifications

Last Monday my iPhone started receiving push notifications via Facebook along the lines of:

  • John Smith added a new photo
  • Dave McDave made a new comment
  • Joe Bloggs liked a post

These notifications had a stupid little star icon beside them. They were new and about as welcome as a vindaloo powered fart in a space suit. I only have notifications firing through to my phone if one of my Facebook pals does something that is directly related to me. Other than that, I don’t need to stalk their every move.

The Typical Facebook Lack of Choice

Perhaps I’m being over-sensitive, but it really annoyed me that Facebook had decided that these notifications would just randomly start to be sent, with no opt-in or prior warning. I decided to try and turn them off. Within iOS, the setting for many apps are accessed via the ‘general settings’ menu on the phone itself, not within the actual app. This is indeed the case with Facebook, however, there is no option for turning this particular type of push notification off within this swathe of settings. No, you need to go into the app, to a second set of settings (main menu>settings>Facebook notifications>Push notifications) and untick ‘Top Friend Activity’

That will stop them coming through to your phone. It all just pangs (again) of Facebook’s disregard for the wishes of users. It really wouldn’t be that difficult for Facebook to improve its user communications and make grumpy folks like me a little bit happier. Google are doing this very well with Plus. Shame none of my friends are on it…

You may wish to tell me I am being a little over-sensitive, let off some Facebook related steam, or even just say hello and tell me to calm down and reduce my amount of grey hairs. Whatever you wish to do, the comments section below is yours to play with…

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5 Facebook Metrics You Must Track

January 25, 2012 By 4 Comments

As more businesses dive into social media, one challenge that resonates among many is how to achieve a return on their investment. As a business owner, you will be measuring how social media contributes to your overall business objectives. However, as a fan page administrator, you should also be monitoring key performance indicators (also known as KPI’s) in Facebook Insights as a measure of your page’s success.

The intention of this post isn’t to discuss how to meet your business goals (such as sales, leads or website traffic), but to highlight five KPI’s that you should be monitoring and to show why they contribute to your Facebook marketing success.

image credit - http://www.physorg.com/news174057519.html


Number of Likes

Yes, I know – it’s quality, not quantity, when it comes to Facebook fans, but keeping an eye on this number helps you spot any anomalies. If you can attribute an unusual fan increase to a specific post, ad campaign or promotion, you can learn from that and adapt your strategy accordingly.

Number of Unlikes

In the same way that irregular fan increases can indicate great fan page strategy, an unusual jump in your ‘Unlikes’ can point toward the opposite. If you notice such a jump, take a look at your page and question why. Perhaps you’re posting too much, being unresponsive or sharing content not relevant to your audience? If you can’t manage to keep fans from sticking around, you’re unlikely to turn them into customers either.

Reach

Prior to the new insights platform, admins were only able to see the number of impressions their content received. While this was useful, it didn’t specify how many unique users were actually being reached. For example, did 100 post impressions mean that 100 users were seeing a post once, or ten users were each seeing it ten times?

Now, not only can you see how many unique users your content is reaching, but also whether this reach is organic (viewed in a fans news-feed), paid (via advertising) or viral (users sharing your content). The higher your reach, the more visible your brand

Engaged Users

Exporting your data will allow you to find ‘Engaged Users’, defined by Facebook as “the number of people who clicked anywhere in your posts”. This is important as it goes beyond public engagement (‘Likes’, ‘Comments’ and ‘Shares’) to also include silent contributions, such as clicks on links and photo views.

Considering that 90% of users in online communities do not publicly contribute, this number provides a better insight into how well your content is being received than the engagement figures that are visible on your page

Talking About This

This metric is perhaps the most significant of all – partly because it is so prominent on fan pages and also because of how it measures your page’s performance. Rise Interactive describe it as “one singular rating intended to tell users how compelling and interesting a page’s content is”. I agree, and believe it is the most useful Facebook metric available in terms of measuring a page’s true value. A high number here indicates an engaging page that shares valuable and relevant content.

With an abundance of data available, it can be tricky to make sense of it all. Hopefully this post gives you a better idea of what data indicates performance, how you can monitor this and why the results should influence your strategy.

What do you think of Will’s list? Are there any other KPI’s you would recommend monitoring?

Will Russell is an online marketing freelancer from San Francisco, CA. Author of the blog Social Cycle, Will provides consultancy in social media marketing, SEO and content creation. 

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Filed Under: Online Measurement, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Stats Tagged With: , , ,

Friday Freak Out – Facebook Update Overkill by Businesses

December 16, 2011 By 9 Comments

So, I visited a little coffee place not far from my house. The food was great, the coffee strong and fortifying and the service delectable. I see that they are displaying the Facebook logo on their menu, so later that day I ‘Like’ them…

Fast forward three days and they’ve updated their page 34 times. Are they offering 34 pieces of fantastic content that make me deliriously happy that I decided to show my commitment? Nope. 29 of the 34 updates were in relation to the weather, what their staff had chosen to wear that day, and a story about their delivery driver being late. Now, these types of updates can go a long way to adding some personality to a business, but they need to be well thought out and balanced with content that provides true value.

It’s my life…

I use Facebook to keep up to date with my friends and family. I don’t have any business associates on there and I certainly don’t have anyone that I would cross the street to avoid. When I make the decision to allow a brand to enter that space, it’s because I feel a strong enough affinity with it and want to receive a valuable experience. All businesses should be aware that when a person allows you in to their Facebook life (and it is a big chunk of life for many), you better be ready to make it worthwhile. I’d even go as far as to say it is a matter of respect. Something that is incredibly disrespectful to your audience is regularly updating your page, but not taking the time to respond when a question is asked or a complaint grumbled. If you have the time to push messages their way, you better have to time to help them when they ask you to.

Make a plan…

Sit back, take stock of the things you believe your fans (hell you could even ask them) may want to hear about and work it in to a plan. Try to make every update valuable, but take care no to overdo it, ever! Spend some time in Facebook Insights and work out what is really resonating with your fans and focus on that. I would stick to a rule of thumb – no more than 10 updates in a week. The latest round of Facebook changes means that your updates will live or die by the response from your fans. Spend some think time and you will work it out!

Do you struggle to know when and what to update on a Facebook page? Is a brand driving you nuts with too many updates? Do tell!

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Offerpop Enables Non-Profits to Fundraise via Facebook

December 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

This is a guest post by Melissa Crossman

As you may know, Facebook allows users to install various custom apps on the platform, with wide ranging uses. One such application is Offerpop, a marketing platform that allows Facebook account holders to engage their followers and even raise money for a good cause.

Launched in 2010, Offerpop offers a subset of applications guaranteed to reach a variety of users on Facebook or Twitter, including the self-explanatory Fundraise. In the case of Fundraise, a group in need can raise money for items they might not otherwise be able to afford, such as a daycare that requires new toys or books. The daycare could establish a presence on Facebook and launch its campaign, perhaps using Fundraise to encourage site visitors to donate.

Does it work?

One example of a successful Offerpop campaign was organized by the Cesar Millan Foundation, a nonprofit that rescues and rehabilitates abandoned dogs. Led by Millan, a canine behavioral specialist and television personality, the “Top Dog” fundraiser aimed to raise $10,000 over a six-week period and brought in more than twice that amount. The campaign was successful in part because the foundation updated contest entrants on Facebook, the foundation’s website, and by sending emails to contacts in their database, but also because the viral campaign brought in nearly half its donations overnight. “Top Dog” was buoyed by a “cutest dog” photo contest, which brought worldwide attention to Millan’s work and foundation.

Benefits of using Offerpop include:

• A campaign can be launched in mere minutes
• Groups can “fan-gate” their campaigns, which means site visitors must ‘like’ an organization’s page before entering a contest or claiming deals
• Campaigns can easily go viral, given the ease of using Facebook, Twitter, and email for promotional efforts
• Donations are handled through PayPal, a well-known and easy-to-use service
• Scores of people are already on Facebook for social networking purposes, making it easier to reach them with marketing efforts
• Users can change the Offerpop template according to their specifications, making the campaign as individualized and personal as possible
• Once a campaign is launched, reports are automatically generated so that users can keep track of their campaigns

Using Offerpop to fundraise or promote a product is a great way to rally fans around a cause, find out where support is greatest, or even how popular an organization and its products are. In the case of “Top Dog,” donations trickled in on the foundation’s Facebook page but skyrocketed when the Fundraise effort was moved to Cesar Millan’s personal page. The success of the campaign let organizers know that Millan is a household name with great influence.

Melissa is a writer who blogs on behalf of Sears and other prestigious brands. In her free time she enjoys volunteering at her local animal shelter and reading up on the latest news for non-profits.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , ,

Interview with Trevor Johnson from Facebook [VIDEO]

November 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

At the recent Social Media Strategies Summit in London, I managed to grab an interview with Trevor Johnson, a key member of the European Facebook team. Some great insight in the short video below. Thanks to  Jo Barnes from Social Networking Academy for putting the questions to Trevor.

Stay tuned for more great video content from Social Media Strategies Summit including interviews with YouTube and Dunkin’ Donuts. Mmmmmmm donuts.



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How Globally Connected are UK Based Facebook Users? (INFOGRAPHIC)

		
		
October 20, 2011  By  Leave a Comment 
		

			
Western Union have recently been running a Facebook app called ‘Your World’. The purpose of this exercise was to map the global connections of  Facebook users and give them a score based on the global perspective. What country is the UK Facebook brood most connected to? Take a look at the infographic below and find out! (click twice to expand).




Interesting stuff huh? So who are you most connected to?


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Dear Facebook & Co – Please Keep it Simple, Stupid.

		
		
September 23, 2011  By  4 Comments 
		

			
Facebook has changed. By now you know this and if you don’t, then read all about it here. I’m not going to go through the changes, I’m just going to offer my thoughts on a strong feeling I have. If you ask me, the changes that Facebook are rolling out and the impending war between them and Google+ are in danger of making this whole shebang a lot less social. Facebook allows us all to keep in touch with people and it has done this very well for years now. Then f8 comes along and starts talking about ‘open graphs’ and all of a sudden Facebook becomes an all- web consuming beast. Zuck and co don’t want you to leave their environement, and when you do, the extended plug-ins will ensure FB is still in your face. The ‘social bar’ for external sites? Come on! There will now be so much content flying around Facebook that the actual human interactions will become lost. The Timeline approach means that many will be over-sharing without even realising. Not to mention that it now looks like someone barfed on the old interface. Confused? You will be. It’s an age-old Facebook problem, they simply do not communicate major changes well enough, leading to user backlash and a bunch of Facebook addicts stoating about lost like social network zombies. Those who use Facebook as a marketing outlet are likely to be chomping their nails off at the prospect of yet more learning and changes to the way they operate.


(image - http://joseflakes.blogspot.com)


Is Zuckerburg and his army crapping themselves at the prospect of a successful Google +? Are these moves designed to stomp on G+ momentum? Well, if I was on the G+ team, I’d be working to one mantra right now – keep it simple stupid. The basic set-up is right, circles allow direct and relevant sharing, it’s easy to share various media types, it’s nicely integrated with search and other Google products. Google + has foundations that lie in a well thought-out social entity. The opportunity is there to catch the people that will find Facebook a little too much to swallow. Please G+, keep it simple and offer us a socially smart haven.


Keeping it simple can be a very good approach to social media marketing. Often the most successful content and even strategies are the simplest. Us humans are pretty simple really. Over-complicating things can turn us off and make us move on. Make sure you take a step back and look at your marketing through the eyes of a human. Afterall, you are human yourself. Right?


Time will tell and heck, after a period of adjustment, the Facebook masses may well embrace the changes and fall in love again. I just hope Facebook and G+ don’t spoil the fun for us all by trying to be each other.


What are your thoughts on the Facebook interface changes? Do you wish they would keep it simple? Are you embracing Google Plus? Please do tell us in the comments below!


Mike




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