social media « Counterintuity

Archive for the ‘social media’ Category

Goodbye, dear friends

Friday, April 15th, 2011

I have spent the better part of the morning UNFOLLOWING people on Twitter and Facebook. Why? Because they serve no purpose in my life. Social media is called “social” for a reason. It’s about conversation and engagement; about you keeping up-to-date on my life and you on yours because we no longer have the time or energy to call or write each other. I accepted your friend request (or vice-versa) because I thought you wanted to connect. If you’re not willing to play along, then slowly step away from my social media.

Who are these people I cast aside?

1. It’s All About Me’s: You know the type. Their kid got accepted early decision to Harvard, they were awarded top agent in the nation, they’re in the celebrity green room at the Super Bowl (and posting everything from a photo of the Packers-colored rice on their dinner plate to pictures with sports stars way past their prime). Along the way, you’ve liked most of their posts, congratulated their kids, and even let them know how jealous you are that they got to pose next to 90′s superstars. Yet they have NEVER commented on your posts or re-tweeted you. It’s like being at a cocktail party with someone that talks and talks and never asks about you. So I did what I’d do at a party. Excused myself and walked away.

2. Lurkers: These are the followers that hide in the shadow, catching you at the market with a “That was a great photo of you at the Chamber meeting last week. Oh, and hope your mom is feeling better after her surgery.” What? I actually friended this person? Why doesn’t he make his online presence known? Why doesn’t he ever comment about himself or his family? Why doesn’t he tell me he reads my posts and looks at my photos? Isn’t this supposed to be about engagement and two-way streets? To me, these people are creepy; not self-sacrificing. Truly altruistic people wouldn’t join Facebook. Lurkers are the ones you really have to watch out for. They’re watching your every move stealthy. What are they afraid of? Why don’t they interact? All I know is I’m afraid of them, so buh-bye!

3. Door-to-Door Salesmen:I’ve been pitched everything from slippers to rap dance lessons online. And the answer is still NO. If I wanted high quality Botox/mattress pads/insect repellent or any of the myriad of over-priced clothes, shoes, jewelry and/or purses you hock incessantly, I promise, you would be the first one I’d call. In the meantime, how about telling me what you’ve been up to since we last saw each other in eighth grade? Posting a few pics of your family instead of your “exclusive” spring product line? I actually care a lot more about where you’re gong on vacation than I do about the hostess points I could get for inviting my friends to your Tupperware party. If you want to join the conversation, jump in. But for now, I’m done hearing about your purses that match my eyes and also make dinner for five as well. Ta-ta!

4. Eeyore’s: Your kid has a 103 fever for the third time this year, your mother had emergency surgery, your car broke down and you don’t have the money to fix it, and your husband lost his job. Guess what? Me, too. I have no problem hearing about the bumps in your road once in awhile, nor do I have a problem posting mine. But honestly, did you miss the half-full glass over there? I generally have a high tolerance for pain, but not for your daily woe-is-me epic. Go find me three positive things to say about your day, and I might let you back in.

5. TMI’s: These used to come yearly in Christmas letters; now we get them daily, and some recent ones have been doozies. How do I say this delicately? I DO NOT CARE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR HUSBAND’S COLONOSCOPY OR WHAT HE HAD TO DRINK BEFOREHAND. NOR DO I CARE HOW LONG HIS SURGICAL SCAR IS OR WHAT IS COMING OUT OF IT. Enough said. Hasta la vista, baby.

I am the first to admit I’m not perfect. I’ve posted a few items that I later deleted; I’ve embarrassed my kids; I even had a local store owner send me hate mail for a post I wrote about his poor business practices. But one thing I know I am is a good social citizen. I’m in this to learn as much about you as I can; to celebrate your joys and cry along with you if needed. I friended or followed you for the same reason. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I expect too much out of this “social” media stuff. But until I get back from you what I put into it, I’m done with you. I hate to say this, but it’s likely for your own good.

Posted in Culture, Facebook, Fun, social media, Twitter | 6 Comments »

Don’t buy into the Facebook iframes hype–YET

Thursday, March 10th, 2011

Courtesy of blog.madarco.net

We have been diligently researching the Facebook switch on Friday from FBML to iframes. Our advice? Don’t panic. Static FBML will be around for awhile.

All this move changes is that developers and designers now need to know HTML and have access to a hosted site in order to make custom applications and graphics for your Facebook page. Most page owners don’t realize that this is simply a change in how the coding of a Facebook app (i.e. a custom page) works. It’s a slow phasing out of Static FBML, Facebook’s proprietary application that allows users with little coding experience create custom tabs Facebook Pages.

With an iframe application, the main difference is that content must now be located within an HTML document that is hosted outside of Facebook’s servers—usually, your own website (although they can and should be hidden). An iframe is simply HTML code or “inline frame.” Basically, customs apps will now be a hosted “web page” layered on top of your Facebook Page. And your designer will need to know HTML.

There is already a lot of hype surrounding this change, and a lot of companies are trying to make money off of it, such as Wildfire and Involver, to name a few. Don’t buy into the propaganda. Remember that “Free for 3 months” is not ultimately free.

In fact, there’s even a possible SEO downside to switching to iframes. At present, search engines do not crawl content within iframes, so anchor text links on your existing FBML tabs will not be crawlable. Unless something changes, iframes have absolutely no search engine value, and FBML does.

Your existing Static FBML tabs (like welcome pages and contests) will be fully supported by Facebook for a while. They can still be edited or replaced with new FBML code. No page owner with FBML-based apps needs to panic. When your current FBML apps no longer serve your audience, that’s the time to look into iframes. Right now, the cost of recoding into HTML and adding monthly hosting fees are too high to justify a switch.

For the near future, there is no reason we can see to upgrade existing static FBML tabs to iframes. Rest easy for now, Facebook friends.

Tags: Facebook, FBML, iframes, static fbml
Posted in Change, Design, Facebook, News, Social Marketing, social media, Technology | No Comments »

Tracking your reputation online for free

Friday, September 3rd, 2010

My favorite line (which our social media clients will attest to) is: “The conversation about your brand is happening online whether you want it to or not. The only thing sticking your head in the sand does for you is breed ignorance and cede the floor to the naysayers.”

With the advent of services such as Yelp, Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms, customers no longer have to wait to get out the door to write a letter of complaint or praise via snail mail. They can–and will– do it right there under your nose. Anyone at any time can generate a social media post that describes you inaccurately or criticizes your performance, service or product. Social media sites make it easy to to trash everything from bad food to slow service, and that is not what you want potential clients to find online. If you’ve spent any time making a good name for yourself, keeping it so online is a priority.

We recommend you track what people are saying about you online at least once a week. Here are our favorite free tools (there are many good paid services, as well):

Social Mention This real-time Internet tracking aggregates mentions about your brand from across the web (and the universe, they proclaim) to give you a snapshot of who is talking about you and what they are saying. While it’s not 100% accurate (we find it sometimes pulls in other accounts if you have a common Twitter or Facebook name), it does a great job of finding blog forum and Twitter mentions. While it dishes out some questionable metrics (Passion? Sentiment?), the lists of top keywords, top hastags and top users it returns is invaluable information for your social media monitoring.

MonitorThis is another easy search tool that feeds mentions from 26 various search engines like Google Blogsearch, delicious, MSN, Yahoo News, Flickr and many others. What’s particularly nice here is that it features a ‘Get as RSS’ button that lets you directly subscribe to a list of feeds it pulls up.

Board Tracker watches conversation in discussion forums and keeps you up to speed on mentions. Just set alerts based on your specific keywords and you’ll be notified any time your brand’s name is mentioned in a forum.

TweetBeep is a Twitter tracker that keeps track of conversations that mention you, your products, your company, your brand–and gives you frequent e-mailed updates.

Google Alerts are regular email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of keyword or topic.

The real answer to online reputation lies in constantly building, updating and maintaining your online brand. This way, any negative commentary is automatically countered by positive news and information you’ve already put out.

Tags: Facebook, Google Alerts, online, reputation, reputation monitoring, social media, Twitter
Posted in branding, Facebook, News, Social Marketing, social media, Twitter | No Comments »

Social media marketing is no business for teens

Friday, May 7th, 2010

Seems logical. When you can’t set your TIVO, you call your kid into the room. Twelve or twenty-two, he’ll have you watching last Sunday’s episode of Desperate Housewives in no-time. Can’t add a contact or download an application to your iPhone? Ditto. The younger generation just “gets it.” But do they?

We’ve encountered many firms that boast about their “genius” nineteen year-old social media hires. “They get this Facebook stuff,” we’ve heard. “They understand how to network through the Internet.” True. My older teen has hundreds of friends on social networks. He can easily find out the questions on the history test and where the best Saturday night party will be. He can connect girls to boys, not unlike traditional networking.

But what he can’t do—because he doesn’t have business training—is strategize, monitor and analyze a social media campaign. Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and other social media platform use is a skill most teens and college grads have. But putting a tech-savvy teen in charge of your $30,000 website redesign and social media campaign is like asking my husband to do the laundry. He’ll gladly wash clothes, but they won’t be sorted, he’ll forget the fabric softener, and assuming they get folded, they’ll end up in the wrong person’s drawer.

A social media expert is much more than someone who knows how to use Facebook. We are like custom builders, creating a blueprint for your entire campaign. From audience analysis and content goals to editorial calendars and professional monitoring with ROI tracking, firms that specialize in social media have both the knowledge and expertise to make your online campaign successful.

Anyone can get your business pages followers and likes. The question is: Do they know how to attract the right people, and do they know what to do with them? Can they track real-time and trending results—and do they even know what that is?

Nothing against teens. I have a few myself. And they are experts at socializing. But please, for the sake of your online reputation and your hard-earned dollars, leave your all-important social media marketing to the experts.

Tags: business, Facebook, Fousquare, Social Marketing, social media, teens, Twitter
Posted in branding, Facebook, Marketing, Social Marketing, social media, Strategy, Twitter | 1 Comment »

Social media impressions score big

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

We all knew that social media was important and our friends and fans sharing and liking our posts was fabulous.

A report was released today from Nielsen and Facebook that confirms that social impressions are more than fabulous, they increase someone’s intent to purchase.

“The Value of Social Media Ad Impressions” study measured the impact of 3 types of Facebook ads and how their coordinated usage affects ad recall, awareness and purchase intent. They “analyzed survey data from more than 800,000 Facebook users in response to more than 125 Facebook ad campaigns from 70 brand advertisers.”

Here are the three Facebook ads they looked at:

The study results showed how the combination of paid media (ads) and earned media (wall posts, likes, shares) significantly increased all three measurements (ad recall, awareness and purchase intent) than paid ads alone.

Combining paid media with earned media created:

9% increase in awareness

6% increase in purchase intent

These numbers are compelling. But what does it mean for your business?

People are influenced much more by their friends than our ads alone. Engaging in social media is your way to bridge the gap to share directly with your customers and, in turn, your customers’ network will grow your business.

Use ads in the right places to reach the right audience but be sure to engage with your customers where they are already (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Create conversations and share relevant information that makes it impossible for your customers to not talk about you, like you and share your links.

Are you taking advantage of social media impressions?

Tags: Facebook, Nielson, research, social media, study
Posted in Facebook, News, Social Marketing, social media, Technology | No Comments »

Don’t stop playing in the middle of the game

Friday, March 19th, 2010

While working on Counterintuity’s Facebook page yesterday, I happened upon a page we set up for a client. Sadly, it hasn’t been touched since the day we finished a detailed marketing plan last summer.

This company is far from alone. Though Facebook doesn’t release stats on inactive business (or personal) pages, I come across them daily.

To me, this is akin to training all season for the championship game and then dropping out in the first quarter. Why would you spend all that (insert: time, money, effort, frustration) building a social media network and not use it? Would you build a custom home and not move into it?

Facebook is free. It’s easy. And it tells people more about your business than you may realize. A stale Facebook page says a) you’re no longer in business; b) you’re too busy to care about your fans or c) you don’t keep up with technology trends. All three scenarios are troubling and lead me straight to your competitor(s).

Even if you’re not the cool kid on block-al la Victoria’s Secret PINK, consumers today expect you to be a player. You don’t need a pimped-out Facebook or Twitter page just to stay in the game.

Social media “housekeeping” should take small companies no more than 30 minutes a day, tops. It can be done by anyone with knowledge of your company or products. Toss the excuses. If you don’t have time, your secretary or intern does (and they’re probably young enough to understand the process). Make a commitment now to spending time daily to keep your fans updated and engaged.

After all, if your online pages are slowly rotting away, then so is your reputation.

Tags: Facebook, reputation, social media, Twitter
Posted in Facebook, Social Marketing, social media, Technology, Twitter | No Comments »

Blog

Archive for the ‘social media’ Category

Archives

Categories

Tag Cloud

Meta