How Businesses Should Respond to the New Facebook Platform

September 22, 2011 by Leave a Comment

President Obama and Mark Zuckerberg talk before a private meeting with technology business leaders in Woodside, CA Feb.17, 2011. (Also pictured, from left: Art Levinson of Genentech, Steve Westly of The Westly Group, and Eric Schmidt of Google.)

Today set in motion a game changer in the world of social networking as we know it. In its F8 news conference, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other key players announced some significant changes to the platform that we see as revolutionizing the concept of social networking and will greatly impact the role of Facebook in user’s lives.

Change #1: The Timeline

Up until now a Facebook profile has been used to share updates, photos, links, etc. that go into a stream that goes back as far as anyone has the energy to click deeper into. It has been simply a stream of content you have shared since the time you began participating on Facebook.

Today Facebook announced the “Timeline”. The Timeline puts order to the shared content in a way that chronicles your life. For example, you can click on a link to a particular year where you will see the photos you shared, status updates describing what you were doing or where you went.

The Timeline is a game changer because the Timeline changes what Facebook is. Facebook has grown from being a social sharing service to a service that chronicles your life for you and anyone else who wants to get to know you.

Change #2:  Heavy Emphasis on Social Apps

Facebook’s social graph has fostered a mentality where we look to the content we see from our friends and trust their recommendations more than advertising or algorithms. Expect to see a volume of apps that are designed to enable consumers to share what they are reading, listening to, cooking, buying, etc. so that friends can be introduced from a trusted source.

What this Means for Businesses

There has been no mention of business pages in the last 48 hours since Facebook began unveiling the new platform, yet our instincts are tied to the implications that Facebook is becoming a more personally meaningful platform in the user’s eye.

We have always seen that Facebook fans are not very different than fans of fan clubs from back in the day. While fans may like your products or services, they are probably more interested in learning about the people that make it all happen. As the Timeline becomes a chronicle for your fans’ lives, consider adjusting your page content to align with that vision. Increase the content you share about your key players and team, activities and missions you’re involved with.

To succeed in this revolution, you’ll need to think of Facebook not as a place to focus on your products and services, but rather a focus on who the people are that make it all happen. What do you see that I have missed?

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ReTweet Thank You’s: Increase Clicks and Viral Sharing of Your Content on Twitter

September 6, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The viral benefits of social media networking for brands today place a premium on a marketing team’s ability to deliver the right message, at the right time, to the right audience, within the right social network. Combine these essential needs with the correct testing procedures for each campaign, and brands begin to realize and uncover the ROI of their social media networking. One of the most powerful social networks for viral marketing is the micro-blogging platform Twitter. One of the easiest and most effective methods for brands to gain more click throughs and viral sharing on Twitter is through the Retweet.

4 Steps to More Viral Sharing of Your Content

When consumers and companies begin to recognize your brand’s content via the Retweet,  try the following steps:

  • Curate Content: write a solid article and showcase it with a succinct tweet:

  • Thank You Tweet: write a tweet thanking the person-brand that RT’d your content. Do not cobble your thank you at the end of their RT of your content. Instead, honor their kindness by thanking the person-brand first:

  • Copywriting: after completing your thank you copy, describe (“adoption & measurement”) the post you are referencing. By referencing and describing your post, you help your RTing partner to remember their RT of your content easily. More important is the fact that this description may be viewed by Twitter users who may have missed your article when it was originally tweeted and subsequently RT’d

  • Link: remember to add the original shortened link at the end of your Thank You tweet. This completes the strategy by giving those Twitter users who missed your original tweet or the subsequent RT the opportunity to click through to your content

 

Filed Under: social media and resources, twitter Tagged With: , ,