criticism of facebook — Lauren MacEwen

Relationship is Everything

04/19/2012 by Joseph Baker

Social media did not start with the invention of Facebook and Twitter. In fact, social media was around prior to the invention of the Internet. The terms emotional connection, engagement and relationships are pillars of success, providing brand value. In order to be a major player in the world of social media, you must realize a strong social media campaign management strategy is not only smart business sense; it is a necessity to maintain your overall Internet relevance. The 5 percent growth of social media spending over the past year seems a very real endorsement.

The trick is to capitalize on your strategies and eventually create your own social media voice—something your customers will hear load and clear. Incorporating a strong social media campaign into your already successful business is not a task to be taken lightly. If you do, you are not true to your brand. So with that said, how do you accomplish an effective social media strategy?

Multiple-channel Integration

Businesses do not just use Facebook and Twitter to embrace social media and interact with your client base. In order to fully enhance a customer experience and promote your brand, companies need to utilize traditional marketing strategies such as mobile technologies and email communication. With multiple-channel integration, you have the ability to track customer trends in one easy format.

Relation-based integration

When you think of relation-based integration, thoughts of growth should cross your mind. Since businesses can’t predict the future of the customer-base, you need to incorporate a strategy that acts as a so-called “roadmap” for success. Learn and manage the communication of your customer. Listen to what they tell you. They’re the ones driving your overall profitability.

Customer-focused Marketing

How do you market your brand? If your business strategy is based upon profitability alone, you are going to undoubtedly fail. The key social media strategy needed is one that solely focuses on your customer. What are your customers likes and dislike? What is the demographic? Moreover, what is your target audience? Knowing and understanding your customer leads, not only to a happy customer, but also to a business that continues to grow.

Automated Services

Social media is a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week machine. When you leave for the day, your social media presence should not clock out. As an online brand, you must pay close attention to trends, habits and communication of your customer. Create a strategy that is not only focused on the needs of your customers, but also to the particular lifestyles they keep. An automated service, similar to cloud computing, allows you to leave the office setting and still promote the brand when you are not in the office.

Real-time Metrics

There isn’t a time throughout the day customers don’t have the ability to check on their favorite brands. If you’re the business in question, how do your check on the satisfaction level of your customer base? You have to rely on real-time metrics. This strategy allows companies to track results of customer/business communication to better serve the customer as well as increase brand value.

When the lights are turned off for the day, your business continues to run, similar to a well-oiled machine. An effective social media strategy involves Multiple-channel Integration, Relation-based Integration, Customer-focused Marketing, Automated Services and Real-time Metrics. Utilizing these pillars of success will ensure success. So at the end of the day, where does your success lie?

Filed Under: Blogging, Contributors, Social Media Tagged With: analytics, business development, criticism of facebook, facebok marketing, marketing, search engine optimization, social media, social networking

Why I have no “Close Friends” on Facebook

02/29/2012 by Lauren MacEwen

Facebook has added a lot of new features to their site over the past 6 months. One of these features is the ability to select “close friends“. This was supposed to be an improvement on the old style of lists FB use to offer. However, this feature became annoying before it became anything else.

The new listing feature s cumbersome at best. I find that where I once used lists, though I know I was one of the 5%’ers that did, I no longer do. Adding friends to lists is not as easy as it once was, unless it is a close friend. For them you just need to click the star on their profile and wahlah! You are done!

Sounds great doesn’t it. Well, it is not. After adding some people to my close friends list, I started noticing that my notifications were filled with their posts. In fact, it was so filled with their posts, I couldn’t find the links to comments people had made to my posts. I was actually losing my notifications to the post notifications of my friends.

I love my friends and I want to know what is going on with them, but isn’t that was the time line is for? Why do I need to get notifications every time they post. I can see where this is handy if you are keeping an eye on a profile. For instance if you are cyber stalking someone like your ex, or doing something more innocent like monitoring your kids online activity. Otherwise, it is annoying and cluttering up my Facebook experience.

There are ways you can turn these off, but that seemed like too much work. So I simply removed all my “close friends”. Now all the notifications I get are when someone has commented on a post or a picture of mine. I actually get to pay attention to the engagement happening on my profile!

So though I have many close friends in real life and on Facebook, I no longer have any official “close friends” on Facebook.

Filed Under: Facebook Tagged With: close friend, criticism of facebook, facebook, facebook features, feature, friend, listing, notification

Facebook Timeline is Everywhere and People are Mad!

01/30/2012 by Lauren MacEwen

The Facebook timeline has been rolling out since November to the general public. Until recently people have been given the option of it they want to upgrade their profile. If they did upgrade and didn’t like it, they could return it to the old style within 7 days. Facebook has announced that there will be no more of these shenanigans and that everyone will be upgraded automatically to the new timeline profile.

Like most updates this has Facebook users up in arms. Many people don’t like the new timeline. They find it confusing and difficult to find things. They like the original layout which just lists activity. In response many people are saying they will leave Facebook for Google+ or just turn off social networks all together.

Lets be real. Maybe a couple people will actually leave Facebook, but most people will not. Facebook knows that they can make these changes, completely ignore feedback, and people will continue to use the network. It has become too ingrained in our online and social culture. Where Facebook will make changes is when it starts to hit their bottom line, ie. affecting businesses.

Of course many of the changes they have made over the past year have greatly affected business on Facebook for the negative but individually they were so small that we couldn’t make a fuss over it. One change that did raise everyone heckles was when FB was deciding what posts should appear on your pages timeline. It resulted in a huge outcry from the business community and prevented the change from ever making it out of the trial phase.

So despite the new roll out, people will yell and complain. You will likely see posts in all caps complaining about how horrible it all it. You will likely hear that you can revert back to the old style (which you can’t), there will be scams that supposedly let you revert your profile (don’t click those links), or apps created claiming the same thing (they are bogus). Like it or don’t like it, the timeline is here to stay.

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: blog software, criticism of facebook, facebook, mad, online social networking, people, profiles, roll, shenanigan, social information processing, social networking, timeline, timeline profile, timelines, upgrades, web 2.0, world wide web

Facebook Updates Become Nodates

09/30/2011 by Lauren MacEwen

Though most of you won’t ever notice, but Facebook is removing yet another feature from Fan Pages. You will no longer have the ability to update your fans via email. I am sure many of you are saying, wait! I had the ability to email my fans? Well, yes you did. It was possible to send an email updating all of your fans about events or happenings on the page. You could even target these updates based on location or gender.

But you are probably asking yourself why you have never received one of these updates? Well, it is likely that you have and did not know it. When Facebook updated their email service, they created their version of a spam box. It is a file on your email called “Other” this is where Facebook puts any email that it thinks is likely spam or unwanted. Of course this means any email from a fan page. They only way around emails not being filtered into this other box was to go into your email, open up a message and then move it to your “messages” box. Of course non of us ever did that. In fact, most of us never even go into the other box. Writing this post promoted me to go into it for the first time in over 6 months.

Since all fan page emails get shoved into other as soon as it is sent, Facebook has decided to remove the option entirely. Often times when a big update goes through, like Facebook email, certain things don’t function the way they were anticipated. Though Facebook wants people to use their network as a primary email address, most people are not. Very few people look at Facebook as a way to communicate with people not on the social network, and they definitely do not view it as a replacement for their primary email address. So the spam filter is under utilized and generally ignored.

They will be removing the update fan option on September 30th. So there is still time to send emails that no one will see.

Filed Under: Facebook, SM3 Tagged With: criticism of facebook, e mail spam, facebook, facebook features, fan page, fans, updates

Learning to streamline

09/29/2011 by Joseph Baker

Many business professionals begin their habits early in college. From the first time they pick up a Franklin Covey planner or buy their first mousepad made of detachable pieces of notepaper, they’ve developed an organizational routine they’ll carry through to the business world.

For many of today’s students, those habits revolve around social media. A smart student has cleared their profile of any drunken photos and chosen a business-appropriate photo by the time they turn 21. However, many business students are going beyond the normal social networking standards and are actively using each of their profiles to network and reach out to leaders in their area. It’s these students that businesses can learn from and utilize in their companies.

Students are juggling profiles on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Monster, Careerbuilder and often a professional network or two. The smart student is also involved in an internship while taking classes. Maintaining a positive, contributive social profile isn’t easy—after all, that’s a job description in itself nowadays. Students maintaining that many platforms on their own are likely utilizing apps and in-browser tools.

If you’re looking to become more social media savvy, take a page out of a college textbook, and look into some social media management apps.
One of the newest of these tools to come out of Beta is Yoono. It works off of the desktop and allows users to quickly switch between profiles and stay logged in to multiple profiles at once. In addition to that, it also posts updates on the bottom right of your screen. Unlike Skype notifications, though, they’re small and rarely in the way. Yoono’s major drawback is that it doesn’t connect with Google+, but it does hit the major players.

HootSuite is designed more with a business in mind, but students still regularly use it. Its main strength is that users can update their networks from their smartphones. You can also use it to set up an RSS feed and access the analytics behind your posts. If you think your business closely follows statistics, you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen a second-semester college student who’s looking for a job. Tweetdeck is another student favorite. It’s designed to handle around five profiles, whether they’re all Twitter or mixed in with Facebook. Tweetdeck is great for a single person managing multiple profiles.

So what can an established business professional get out of all of this? Chances are you’re learning to juggle your networks too. You can take a page out of the nearest college students’ book and try out a couple apps to see what will work best in your life or for your business.

Another takeaway is that it might be worth looking into hiring an intern to take care of your social media. They’re already experienced with juggling them, and they’re likely to know what the younger generations are looking for out of social media. In addition to that, there’s nothing wrong with learning from someone straight out of college. Because the venue for education has changed, many students are getting an online degree, which only add to their social media prowess. Try creating a position for an intern, and then asking them to teach you a few tricks. They’ll be excited to share their knowledge, and you can teach them about more traditional business aspects.

Filed Under: Facebook, SM3, Success, Technology Tagged With: blog, business development, criticism of facebook, facebook, marketing, social media

Help yourself on Facebook: Facebook Support Links

09/07/2011 by Lauren MacEwen

Sometimes we have problems with Facebook that goes beyond a troll on your site or not being able to find your friends profile. Here are a list of links to help you take care of some of the more basic and complex problems.

Typical Problem

I think my account got hacked/phished

Reporting abuse

Keeping your account secure

Warnings and disabled accounts

How you can and cannot use the Facebook logo

My account is blocked or disabled

Page not coming up in search engine

Page unavailable error

Request a Fan Page category change

Unable to upload photos

Password Bugs

Fan Page Bug

Friends Bug

Confirmation account errors

Profile Unavailable

Report a death

Delete your account

Big Problems

Personal Profile got disabled

Facebook Page was disabled

Content lost through deactivation

Trademark Infringement

Trademark Infringement (Non-Copyright)

Notice of Infringement from a third-party app

General Support

Filed Under: Facebook, SM3 Tagged With: criticism of facebook, disabled, facebook, help, social media, support

Should you say no to Social Syndication? How to Link Facebook to Twitter

07/29/2011 by Lauren MacEwen

How do you link a Facebook Page to Twitter? This has been a big question that people ask all the time. This is called syndicating. Web Syndication is when you have one feed that is being distributed over multiple channels or source. This is most commonly seen with blog feeds, also known as RSS. RSS of course stands for “Real Simple Syndication”. Social syndication is when you have a social networking account that is posting on multiple social networking platforms, ie. posting on Facebook and having it also post on Twitter.

Can you link your Facebook to your Twitter? Yes. Should you do it? Probably not.

First I will tell you how to create the link and then I will tell you why it is a bad idea. I will even throw in a couple of reasons why it could be a good idea.

How to Link your Facebook Page to Twitter

Social Syndication: Linking Facebook to Twitter

Now you can share all your posts with your fans & followers from one place!

First things you need to have are 1. a Facebook account and 2. a Twitter account.

Then go to www.facebook.com/twitter

Click the “Link to Twitter” button next to your fan page and you are done.

You can also choose what content is shared from Facebook to twitter. For instance you want to share updates but not events, or photos but not links. You can customize your syndication so not everything you post on Facebook is simultaneously posted on Twitter.

Why you should say no to syndication

Facebook and Twitter are two very different social networks. They are used for different purposes, in different ways. They have different audiences and different voices. What might be a good communication on Facebook that would drive a lot of interaction and engagement might not be good on Twitter.

Twitter is limited to 140 characters and Facebook is not. So when you post on Facebook, and it is longer than 140 characters, you will get a post on Twitter that will be truncated.. The problem with this is that it becomes obvious that you are posting from another account.
This is the original Facebook post. It is much longer than what you saw on Twitter. Though this is a good post of Facebook, it was not one written for Twitter.

This is a tweeted posted by Facebook. You can see that the majority of the update has been cut off and a link has been given for you to be able to read the entire post.
Truncated posts. The problem with having a truncated post is that your tweet is being cut off mid thought or sentence. If the person is interested in reading the rest they will have to click the link and go to another platform to read the rest of the post. Most people will not be interested enough to click the link.
Phoning in your Social Media. No one likes to think that your social media account is not actually you. They want your Twitter to be you tweeting and know that you are there to respond to them if they interact with you. A post coming from Facebook demonstrates that you are not interested in being on this social platform and that you just want to get your information out to the world.
Different strokes for different folks. Facebook and Twitter have very different audiences. Their demographics are different and people use them for different reasons. The type of interaction that you have on Facebook will be very different from the type of interaction you will have on Twitter. What will be good for Facebook will not be great for Twitter, and vice versa. By syndicating you are assuming your audience to be the same across both networks, and though there maybe some cross over, they are likely different.
Duplicate Posts. If you are posting the same thing on both the social networks, the part of your audience that does follow you on both will be bored. The audience that is looking into your and checking out your two profiles will see that they are the same and not find any reason to follow both.

Why you should syndicate

It is only fair that I share some reasons for you to syndicate your posts, as well as tell you why you shouldn’t.

Blog Feeds. There are many tools to syndicate your blog feed on both Facebook and Twitter. By linking the accounts together you are cutting out one extra step. Now you just have to feed your blog to your Facebook and it will tweet it out for you.
Active Tweeter. If you are a really active tweeter, syndicating your Facebook as a way to show your tweeps what you are posting on Facebook is an easy way to share the information. Your followers will still know that you are not phoning in your Twitter because the majority of your posts will not be originating from Facebook. (of course they will have no real reason to like your Facebook page because they will know that all the posts are being filtered through Twitter anyway).

Filed Under: Facebook, Lauren's Recent Guest Posts, SM3 Tagged With: criticism of facebook, facebook, facebook features, real simple syndication, social media, social networking, social syndication, syndication, twitter

Is Big Brother Tagging you on Facebook?

06/15/2011 by Lauren MacEwen

A while ago Facebook released automatic facial recognition in the United States. It caused a bit of a kerfluffle but everyone did go back to their regular existence and pretty much forgot about it. They are now releasing it all over the world so the issue is once again in the forefront of everyones mind.

What is it?

In a nut shell, when you upload pictures to your Facebook it auto-recognizes the faces of people you have previously tagged. It will ask you if it is that person and suggest you tag them in the post.

Why it is good?

The ease of use is what makes this such a great tool. Before facial recognition, tagging pictures was a cumbersome endeavor. Now it is super easy. Facebook not only makes suggestions but it groups the suggestions into categories. So if your friend Susan is a suggested tag, all the pictures it thinks are of Susan will be under one heading. All you have to do is click her name to tag her.

The suggestions are only on the pictures that it recognizes a face. If there is a face and you have not tagged it, it will list them but you have to add the tag yourself.

Not Fool Proof

This is not a fool proof endeavor. The facial recognition will not grab a lot of profile pictures or if people are obscured. Not to mention that recognizing faces is an art not a science, so it will make mistakes. If you are like me and always look like someone else, it will probably suggest people tag you as your cousins friend Sofie.

More Tags

The logic behind facial recognition is not a big brother attempt to dominate and track photos. It is actually to make tagging easier and more prevalent. The thought is, if they make the tagging process easier, you will be more likely to tag more of your photos and this will drive up conversation and engagement.

Remember, everything about Facebook is ultimately to drive conversation and interactions.

The problem

This is another time that Facebook is pushing the limits of peoples privacy. What if you don’t want to be tagged in photos? What if it tags you in a pic that is not you? What if it starts suggesting that people who aren’t your friends tag you in their pics.

These are all very valid concerns. Thankfully they are not eliminating our privacy, you might not have a lock on the bathroom door but you still have a door.

If you do not want to be flagged in the auto tagging feature, you can change your privacy settings to prevent this from happening. It will turn off the suggestions for any where your face appears in a photo. If the person wants to tag you, they will have to do it old school and actually click on your face and tag you.

Just like in the past, if you were tagged in a pic and didn’t want to be, you could remove the tag. This is always an option. I recommend making sure that you receive notices via email letting you know if you were tagged. You can check, or change, this setting in your privacy and notifications settings in your account.

Lastly, only your friends can tag you. You have to be friends with someone on Facebook for them to be able to tag you in a pic. They can still tag you in other peoples pictures, but you can rest easy that some stranger isn’t going to tag your pic in some incriminating photo. You only have to worry about your friends doing that.

The big concern

The biggest concern people have is that this is a gateway drug for photo tagging. First it is suggestions for tagging friends; then fan pages, then Facebook will just auto tag you in pictures all over the world!

This is not going to happen. For one, Facebook would be slammed in the media, and likely go to court for privacy issues if they were to try this. Plus, everyone tends to look like someone else somewhere. Yes, we are all unique flowers but the application that does facial recognition does not always see the intrinsic details that make you so completely different from the person in Seattle who look remarkably like you, but yet is not you.

So until we have some Minority Report type technology that is doing retinal scans, we can all breath easy.

Filed Under: Facebook, SM3 Tagged With: auto tags, big brother, criticism of facebook, facebook, facebook features, facial recognition, people tagging, photo, photo facial, recognition, tag, tag picture, tagging, tags, upload pictures

Facebook: Becoming a Blog?

06/01/2011 by Lauren MacEwen

Facebook is always trying to find new and interesting ways to promote content and make it more easily accessible. Social share features have increased the reach of Facebook, by integrating them with websites and encouraging people to share sites on their wall and on their friends’ walls. To further increase their reach, Facebook has announced that they are adding a new feature: RSS feeds for fan pages.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is usually reserved for blog posts. It’s what allows you to receive updates in blog readers like Google Reader, where you can easily see all posts by their headlines. Many people use RSS readers for their favorite blogs, so they can keep up with them without having to go to the blogsites. Some readers allow you to receive blog posts in your email, sending you the contents of the posts. But why does Facebook want to add an RSS feed to fan pages?

In theory this will let someone essentially subscribe to a fan page. Not only will you be able to see updates in your news feed, you will also be able to receive posts in your RSS reader. This is good for people who need to monitor certain pages, like politicians or large corporations. If you are closely watching what a competitor is doing with their social media, this creates an easy venue in which to do it. However, the RSS feature is not likely to be valuable to people who are not using Facebook for professional reasons.

Some of you may be thinking: Facebook had an RSS feed for pages already, so why is this news? You are right, they did. But recently Twitter and Facebook quietly removed their RSS feeds. Now Facebook has added it back in, along with a link on fan pages to subscribe. Will Twitter follow suit and bring their feed back? Good question. I think they will. An RSS feed provides another way for people to consume content, and ultimately that is key to social media social media success.

Filed Under: Facebook, SM3 Tagged With: blog, blog post, criticism of facebook, facebook features, fan page, google reader, rss, rss feeds, rss readers

New Facebook Profile brings YOU to the forefront

12/09/2010 by Lauren MacEwen

Facebook is bringing YOU to the forefront. The new profile layout is already being criticized, of course, but like every Facebook change we will all adjust and then wonder why we ever liked it the other way.

The most noticeable shift is that your tagged pictures are right at the top of your profile. This makes it easy for your friends to see the newest pictures of you.

Directly above that is your info, which was previously on the info tab. Now where you work, your school, where you live, where you are from, your birthday and your relationship listing is right at the very top of your profile like an elevator pitch summary of who you are.

Don’t worry, your privacy settings have not been affected. Whatever they were before, they are now.

The nav bar on the left is easier and more straightforward. It is simply Wall, Info, Photos, Notes and Friends. This nav bar is replacing the tabs.

Oh yeah…no tabs! I personally think eliminating them is a good idea. Many people do not like them, and more often than not they get ignored. Unless a photo or a piece of information is on your wall, people won’t click the tab and therefore don’t see it.

The Wall

The wall hasn’t changed much. The status update interface is a little different. It is not as obvious as it was before, but it is actually a cleaner interface.

Info

The info tab is much more graphically oriented. Every piece of information has a picture or a placeholder photo.

Your contact information is still on the very bottom. Unfortunately, if you are trying to drive traffic to your website from your info area, that has not been made any easier. FB did not give prominent placement to web addresses.

Photos

I like the change in this interface. It is cleaner and seems to load faster. Your albums are prominently featured on top and then photos of you are like an endless sea flowing beneath the albums.

One thing I don’t like is that it is not immediately clear about how to add new photos. But once I oriented myself to the new layout I saw the “upload photos” button in the upper right corner.

Friends

Friends never had an info tab. I have spoken with many people who did not know how to find their friends, unless it was from the news feed. The addition of a friends category on the nav bar is a big improvement.

Another change is that your friends no longer come up in a pop-up window, now they are listed on the page with a prominent search box at the top. This makes finding friends much easier and seemingly more accessible.

No more boxes!

All those little boxes that ran down the left side bar of your profile are gone! FB has been threatening to remove them for a long time and has been phasing them out for quite a while. But in this new profile they are gone. The side bar is now reserved for your nav bar and a listing of your friends and family.

I actually prefer this to the boxes. They always seemed clumsy to me. Now your nav bar is easy to find; if you have a relationship listed, your status and their profile link and thumbnail are prominent, and then your friends and family stream down in a big column. It is as though the sidebar has changed its focus to your relationships.

Here is the promo video from Facebook.

If you don’t have the new Facebook profile yet, you can get it by going to www.facebook.com/about/profile/

What do you think about the new profile layout?

Filed Under: Facebook, On the DL (down-low), SM3 Tagged With: criticism of facebook, facebook, facebook features, facebook profile, new profiles, online social networking, profiles, relationship, social media