All posts tagged Facebook

Caught My Eye – Jan 4, 2013

by jaywalk1 on January 4, 2013 in Social Media with No comments

As a digital native, I come across tons of articles every day that spark new ideas. A new idea is always a win in my book, so I’ll share the wealth from time to time in a series called “Caught My Eye.”  Here’s the first edition.

Happy Friday and enjoy!

A Photo-Scanning Service Learns How to Get Exposure

10K per month in Google Ads worth every penny according to this service.

Taco Bell Gets VERY Social With A Customer

Taco Bell gets cozy with a customer on their Facebook page and talks speedos.

Pinterest Makes First Acquisition, Punchfork

Palo Alto-based Punchfork marks the newcomer social network’s first acquisition and makes clear that Pinterest is embracing rather than shying away from its reputation for appealing disproportionately to women.

7 Branded Content Campaigns That Got It Right In 2012

Though brand-created content is not novel, the practice fully bloomed in social-media-saturated 2012. Here are seven examples of brands that used content to build awareness in the last year.

 

FB Ad Plans Get a Sideways Thumb

by jaywalk1 on August 15, 2012 in Social Media with No comments
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Whenever people ask about my first job in PR, I jokingly say that it was convincing my mother that it was a good idea for me to go away to a boarding high school six hours away from home. Ultimately, it was an external variable (a scholarship) that helped seal the deal, but it was a great practice run. I learned about a variety of things at that school, including voting with thumbs.

It was a simple system and an effective method for making decisions while minimizing arguments.


Thumbs up –> I support this.

Thumbs down –> I don’t support this.

Sideways thumb –> I can live with this.

 As I read about Facebook’s plans to test promoted news feed posts with “non-fans,” I couldn’t help but think back to those high school days because my feelings are hovering somewhere in the sideways thumb range. I support the idea of Facebook serving ads to users. It’s a good model for them, but I do not support the idea of all sorts of crazy ads appearing in my news feed, particularly if they are not promoting products/organizations I “like.”

There is middle ground in this and room for a sideways thumb, if you will.

Facebook should create an ad rating/preference system that allows users to determine what types of ads they would like to see. You can fill my news feed with ads, if they actually relate to things that I want to know about…like cars, airplane, regional and international trips, music/concerts, etc.

I think a model like this would work because:

  1. Facebook would still get to serve ads.
  2. Users would be able to choose what types of ads they were served (or at least be able to express a preference).
  3. There would ideally be higher click through and conversion rates, ultimately leading to higher rates for Facebook.

Just my 36 cents.

Dark Side of Facebook…or a Company??

by jaywalk1 on April 25, 2010 in Public Relations, Social Media with 1 Comment
Nestle logo

I just picked up the latest issue of PRSA’s Tactics and I have to say that I’m growing tired of the way I see many people discussing this issue.

In the piece titled “Nestle debacle reveals ‘dark side’ of Facebook fan pages,” author Greg Beaubien writes:

“Nestle finds itself embroiled in the latest social media crisis. As CNET reported on March 22, the multinational food giant was recently pelted by a Facebook – and Twitter-based tweetstorm after operators of the Nestle’s Facebook page made hostile responses to critics…Facebook pages are still one of the hottest digital marketing tools out there, but the Nestle debacle demonstrates the downside of operating such a public forum for consumer comments.”

That is definitely a snippet of what was said. If you want the full story, you can get it here or here, but let me ask you this:

Since when does mixing angry consumers and questionably hostile responses **which DO NOT actually address the issue at hand ever lead to anything good?

In what medium would the responses made by those company representatives be acceptable? I’m drawing a blank…

Many are so quick to blame social media, but you can’t really this time around. This was a company issue that could pop up in any forum…like hmm…I don’t know…

  • an interview
  • a press conference
  • a company event
  • 36.5 million other channels

The fact is that this company issue popped up and was not then (and to my knowledge STILL has yet to be) properly addressed. Blame it on many things…just not Facebook or social media in general.

When Social Networks Go Too Far…

by jaywalk1 on September 16, 2009 in Resource, Resources, Social Media, Social Networking with 5 Comments

It all started on twitter…

NishaChittal: Ok, Facebook is really starting to overdo it. RT @danschawbel: NEWS: Voice chat coming to Facebook http://bit.ly/eKOg7

Jaywalk1: @NishaChittal I agree. To get all “theory level,” makes me wonder about our expectations of a social network. Google, sure? FB, ehhh….

Jaywalk1: @NishaChittal Might be interesting topic. Do we expect certain things from certain netwks? what happens when we get more than what we want?

NishaChittal: @Jaywalk1 feature overload is never good. shouldn’t companies specialize in a niche rather than try to be everything to everyone?

 

So Facebook is launching a voice chat system called Vivox. According to Daniel Terdiman of CNET, 

vivox“The service, which is currently in closed beta, will allow Facebook users to have high-fidelity conversations with anyone on their friends list. Each user, however, will have to download Vivox’s plug-in. But once installed, the service works almost seamlessly with Facebook, and is intended for everything from one-to-one chat to large group discussions.”

When I read Nisha’s tweet, I agreed with her. I may be a little old school with my Facebook perspective, but I think I liked it best when it was a smaller, college focused network. It was a great niche (…one I happened to be in when it launched) that made great sense.

When the hail storm of apps pounded my friends’ profiles, the status of my relationship swtiched to “complicated,” and when text chat was launched, I laughed knowing I would never use it (that’s why I have gchat!). Facebook and I have since made up, and we were in a good place until I learned about this Vivox voice chat. 

Due to a fairly busy day (..and my choice to hit the rooftop for sun during lunch), I had most of the dayfacebook_logo to ask myself: Is Facebook going too far? Are they approaching feature overload as Nisha said? 

In an HBS article titled “Understanding Users of Social Networks,” professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski shares his view that “online social networks are most useful when they address real failures in the operation of offline networks.”

As the variety of technology grows in both type and function, so does the number of tools which aim to give you that all-in-one, one-stop-shop solution. Should Facebook serve this role? Do I really want a one-stop-shop social network – phone, email, tweet-like status posts, text chat and now voice chat? 

My answer is yes and no.

No because I don’t really see myself using this to chat with my friends on a 1:1, but yes because of the tremendous ability to connect on the group level. One example where this might work is for group trips.

A group of my friends used Facebook to plan our trip to our high school reunion. We are spread out all over the eastern seaboard, and though we maintained contact with some better than others, we were all still Facebook friends. It made sense to use the network to gather everyone to work out logistics of the trip. No phone numbers needed. No need to track everyone down. We were all connected there.

Chat could be a nice addition here, and with the right strategy, I can also see bold, trendsetting brands benefiting from this as well.

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