A few weeks ago I attend a SEMPO AZ event where Phillip Rather from Facebook presented. Phillip is Facebooks agency partner. His presentation had some interesting nuggets from both a social engagement and media presence perspective:

I enjoy social networking. However, social networking the Facebook way is not as enjoyable as it used to be. I’m more concerned about who’s seeing my updates and as a result carefully watch what I say. As a result I post less frequently and when I do post I’m very selective about what I post. For me the megaphone broadcast method of the news feed on Facebook is a major negative.  But I’ve also made this decision to become less social because I want to be polite to those I follow and those that follow me. I don’t want to clutter my relatives news feed with boring Internet marketing related articles and I don’t want to clutter my associates news feed with pictures of my little children.

This problem bothered me from the very early days. Thinking that Facebook woudl one day take care of this I started grouping my contacts. When ever I make a connection I add them to a particular group. However, Facebook doesn’t allow me to easily leverage this work I’ve done (I know there is a very cumbersome way to accomplish this). Plus I’m one of the few doing this and I can’t expect the content I post to select groups to remain within that circle. So, even though I’ve done the work of grouping my contacts I’m frustrated that I can’t do anything with it.

It is for this exact reason that I like the circles offered by Google+. It solves the social noise problem and allows me to socialize online the way I socialize offline within distinct groups.  This is one of the reasons I like Google+ but in short order here are other benefits I see:

1. Cleans up the newsfeeds
2. Addresses privacy concerns
3. Consolidates social networking
4. Impressive ancillary features

Not all of Googles recent projects have been successful, however I do think that Google+ offers a series of improvements to social networking that will make it a strong com

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Many brands are now well into the social media world. It’s no longer a new thing for them and for some social media is an integral part of their overall marketing strategy.  Brands in the restaurant industry seem to be of the latter category and are  making some great strides in leveraging social media to impact the bottom line.

According to the National Restaurant News the nations largest restaurant brands are using social media very effectively. Their social media strategy is to engage prospects on social media as means to driving traffic to their local restaurants. Traffic in this sense is foot traffic and for a restaurant that is critical. The article also discusses the 25 most social restaurant brands. This ranking of brands is provided by a company called Virtue. It uses social media mentions, check-in’s, photo-sharing and inclusion on blogs to determine the most prominent brands on social media.

The main takeaway from this article is not that brands are active on social media but that they are using it to drive foot traffic and subsequently have a direct impact on their bottom-line (ROI anyone). And here is how they are doing it:

“These guys are figuring out how to harness this platform and drive content and communications consistent with what their fans are looking for,” he said. “In that news feed on Facebook and Twitter, brands need to ask their followers questions, create poll questions and basically give them an opportunity to give the restaurant relevant feedback.”

Vitrue has worked with several restaurant brands like McDonald’s, Buffalo Wild Wings and Chick-fil-A to create plug-ins for their Facebook pages and offers that show up in followers’ news feeds through its Wall Apps and Social Relationship Management platforms.

Bradford said the next social-media move for major brands and their software providers is to increase the chains’ local-advertising capabilities with features meant to connect Facebook and Twitter followers to the nearest individual location of a restaurant brand.

Read more.

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I finally got around to seeing the movie The Social Network. I had heard a lot of good things about it but hadn’t had a chance to see it yet.  After watching it last night I must say it was relatively a well made movie. The acting is good and the story is told at a brisk pace. However, there are apparently quite a lot of dramatizations which are flat out not true. In fact many characters said they wished their lives were as dramatic and exciting as portrayed in the movie. Even with all these embellishments there are some interesting true facts. For instance, I was surprised to learn of the influence Sean Parker, the founder of Napster, had on the direction of the company in the early days.

I’m not sure how accurate the portrayal of the main character Mark Zuckerberg is, but if he’s really that nerdy and that anti-social it would be tough to be around him. So, when he almost back stabs Eduardo Saverin, the only person in the world that cared about him, I was about to go home and rally friends to get off Facebook. However, the end notes pointed out that he reconciled with him and things have been made right. It was also good to see that things with Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Harvard Connection (later ConnectU), founders were patched up as well.

While I would recommend the movie, I will say I was very disappointed in the way young women were portrayed in the movie. It was disturbing to me to see how the two Asian girls were shown as simply throwing themselves at the young entrepreneurs. I guess this kind of sexism is to be expected in a Hollywood movie, but it was not needed in this particular movie. It added no value to the story and it was all exaggerated anyways! It left a bad taste in my mouth even though the main course was decent.

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As a passionate fan of world cup soccer I’m pretty excited that the World Cup is finally here. The fact that it is being hosted in South Africa makes it an extra special event in my mind. While winning the cup is the main goal, there are many ways in which you can measure the success of your team in the World Cup.  Facebook recently launched a Goal Leaderboard to track the top teams in the competition.

The Goal Leaderboard doesn’t rank teams based on their performance in a game, that would be pretty boring. Instead it ranks teams by the most passionate fans. So, here is your chance to put your team over the top. Check it out and get y our team up there.

Here is a snapshot as of the writing of this post (Chile is on top):

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Facebook is becoming a scary place. It used to be fun place to share photos, links, ideas etc. and connect with long lost friends. Now, as the social networking giant seeks to monetize their platform they’re using your data to do it. And while I can understand the business side, it doesn’t mean I don’t have a choice. I could choose to just shut down my profile on Facebook and move on.

If you’re not familiar with the changes on Facebook and how it impacts your privacy, take a look at this article on Wired magazine.  Below is an excerpt:

This spring Facebook took that even further. All the items you list as things you like must become public and linked to public profile pages. If you don’t want them linked and made public, then you don’t get them — though Facebook nicely hangs onto them in its database in order to let advertisers target you.

This includes your music preferences, employment information, reading preferences, schools, etc. All the things that make up your profile. They all must be public — and linked to public pages for each of those bits of info — or you don’t get them at all. That’s hardly a choice, and the whole system is maddeningly complex.

Simultaneously, the company began shipping your profile information off pre-emptively to Yelp, Pandora and Microsoft — so that if you show up there while already logged into Facebook, the sites can “personalize” your experience when you show up. You can try to opt out after the fact, but you’ll need a master’s in Facebook bureaucracy to stop it permanently.

Care to write a status update to your friends? Facebook sets the default for those messages to be published to the entire internet through direct funnels to the net’s top search engines. You can use a dropdown field to restrict your publishing, but it’s seemingly too hard for Facebook to actually remember that’s what you do. (Google Buzz, for all the criticism it has taken, remembers your setting from your last post and uses that as the new default.)

Now, say you you write a public update, saying, “My boss had a crazy great idea for a new product!” Now, you might not know it, but there is a Facebook page for “My Crazy Boss” and because your post had all the right words, your post now shows up on that page. Include the words “FBI” or “CIA,” and you show up on the FBI or CIA page.

Read More

Now if this doesn’t get your attention, here is a visual chart that helps you understand how much of your private information is being shared across the Internet. Things you thought were just between friends is now in the open. Photos and networks you thought only your college buddies could see are now in plain sight of your employer, your associates and your business partners.

What do you think? Take the poll below:

photo credit: Zawezome

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Social Media is everywhere these days and your kids are on it. Whether they’re on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare or any other social media utility, chances are your kids are interacting with all kinds of people on the web. And the truth of the matter is your kids know more about social networking and social media than you do. To top it off you feel pretty powerless when it comes to helping them be safe. Like anything online and in life there is the good, the bad and the ugly.

Don’t worry though the Social Media Club Phoenix is partnering with Raising Arizona Kids magazine to provide parents with information to help keep kids safe on social media. Here are the details:

Date & Time:
Thursday, April 22, 2010 at 6pm

Location:
The MadCap Theater on Mill Avenue in Downtown Tempe.

Parking:
1 hour of parking FREE at these Mill Avenue District parking structures:

• Brickyard Garage on 6th & 7th Street
• Centerpoint Surface Lot on Maple Street
• City Parking Garage on 5th Street
• Hayden Square Garage on 3rd Street

FREE PARKING ALL DAY AT Ash & Farmer Surface Lots
FREE PARKING AFTER 6pm at City Parking Garage on 5th Street

Panelists:

• Sheila Unwin – Educational professional with an 18-year-old son.
• NJ Unwin – University student and son of Sheila Unwin.
• Calie Waterhouse – Skateland Internet Community Manager and mother of 3
• Devon Adams – High school teacher and Online Community College professor, as
• well as the father of a 5-year-old

And pass this information along too by the way. So, if you know parents at your childs school, your neighbors,  your friends who could benefit please forward them this information. Help spread the word about this valuable resource!  Keep in mind more information is available on their Facebook event page, where you can also RSVP.

photo credit: notahandbag

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Recently, Lauren,  a student from Western Kentucky University contacted me about social media. She is doing a research brief for a class on Research in Advertising and Public Relations. Her assignment for this brief was to email bloggers with questions about their particular blog topic. Her topic was social media. She sent me a whole bunch of questions and I happily answered them. I wish I had the time to go into more detail with each question but she was under a time crunch and I did what I could.

Here are the questions she asked me and my answers:

1. How does social media change advertising for businesses?

Social media offers a much more dynamic and interactive method of communication. While traditional advertising is akin to shouting a message to a wide audience, social media is more like whispering to one select group at a time. This allows the opportunity to solicit relevant feedback and also to customize the message to the target market.

2. Do companies benefit more by advertising through social media? Why, or why not?

I wouldn’t necessarily call it advertising when dealing with social media. Engaging a market is a better way to understand the mechanism. In terms of cost social media can be a lot more inexpensive and offers a way to communicate specific messages to a select audience. The instantaneous feedback from the market can be very useful as well.

3. How have social media changed in the past five years?

There has been a sea change in the way social media is being used. While five years ago there were blogs, podcasts, chat rooms and review sites these were mostly isolated. With the explosion in different aggregation tools there has been an integration in the way social media is used. Also don’t forget the emergence of the mobile web, which feeds directly into social media and enriches the experience a lot more.

4. Can you predict the way social media will change in the next ten years?

I wish I could. I can’t. I do know that it will be much more mobile and ever present. I also think it will be much more segmented with markets, age groups, professions, interests coalescing in different pockets.

5. How have social media empowered consumers, and given them a voice?

Yes it has. This empowered feeling is really what keeps things moving. People can voice their opinion on websites, social networking sites and brands for the most part will take notice. This sense of being heard can really be used to the companies advantage if they can use it effectively too.

6. How does social media change the way people now communicate?

Well for one more young people are communicating through social networking sites than they are through email. that shows you that even email is evolving and communication through IM, text messaging and social networking sites is being more and more embraced.

7. Has social media become overly addicting? Why or why not?

It can be addicting because people want to connect with others. Its’ not that people are necessarily addicted to websites and tools, its that people are seeking connections to others and this medium offers an efficiency way of doing so.

8. Do social media change consumers’ purchasing decisions? Why or why not?

I think this does. Think of what a bad product review can do to your sales. Or, what a positive blog post can do to your sales. People believe what complete strangers say about a brand before they believe what the company says about it brand. That is just the way people are. So, yes social media does change the purchase decision of the consumer.

9. Twitter grew a lot faster than expected. Why is Twitter beneficial and effective?

Twitter is a great way to meet new people. I use it to connect and network with local business people in my field. These connections have been extremely useful and so I continue to use them. I know Twitter has also been used for customer support and driving revenue, so it all depends on how people use it. But it is a very beneficial tool if you embrace it and learn how to use it.

10. Can you predict that social media will always be free like most of it is now? Why or why not?

I think it will have to stay free. Companies will need to figure out a advertising model that works but consumers will certainly not pay too much since they’re so used to receiving things for free. Unless of course there is an advanced feature of functionality that can add significant value and people might be willing to pay for that.

11. What are some disadvantages of social media?

You certainly need to be conscious of your personal brand as you engage in social media. It might be for fun and games while you’re still young, but if you want to have a career than you need to keep that mind as you use these tools. You need to use common sense on what you say, what you say about others and the kind of reputation you develop online. Its not the wild west where you can do whatever you want to do. People take note of what you say and do on social media. So, everyone needs to keep that in mind.

12. What are the main advantages of social media?

The main advantage is that you can communicate to a wide audience at a relatively lower cost. Questions 1 and 2 answer this.

13. Is LinkedIn the best social network to communicate professionally? Why or why not? How does LinkedIn help consumers find jobs?

It’s one of the tools for professional communication. It has helped people network and find jobs – yes. You need to spend a lot of time on it engaging others, participating and connecting. But yes it is a very good tool.

Thanks Lauren. Good luck with your research project.

photo credit: anolobb

photo credit: waltercolor

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