Understanding Social Networks: Delivery

The three major social networks or as a Pakistani gentleman who repurposed my presentation calls them "The Three Amigos" Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter should be considered the essential social networks for most users. Niche Social Networks are a different beast altogether. I want to discuss the differences in 'Delivery' for the Three Amigos.

Linking together different social media profiles is all the rage these days and it does save time, but it may do damage to people's networks that they may not consider. Consider how you felt the last time you read something you didn't understand. This may be how your network on LinkedIn or Facebook feel seeing RT, @ or # in a message you post. They may not understand what it is.

Today we are talking delivery. Twitter is different from Facebook and LinkedIn in that it has symbols and key strings you wouldn't normally see when using the other networks. If you are someone who has only heard of Twitter but hasn't come to understand these words and symbols it can be challenging to understand and off putting. Remember what it was like the last time you read something that you didn't understand completely.

I recently linked my Youtube with Twitter and Facebook. The problem was when I favourited things or added videos to a playlist I do it a whole bunch at once flooding the stream. Once I saw it I changed the settings which had a lot of good options, like it would only update my networks when i uploaded a new video. Let's look at a few examples of messages across social networks.

This is an example of what a Facebook post looks like from April Smith. Notice the logo and the meta description pulled from the page automatically by Facebook. April has also posted this to the DNC Fan Page wall by using Facebook's mention function neither the graphic, the meta description nor the mention appear when cross posting as below:

I don't mean to call out my friend Jeremy Lim he is a busy professional in high demand so I understand him using cross posting to save time and get out his message but one just has to read the comments section of his post to understand the reaction of users who didn't know what a hashtag (#) was. 

This post could have appeared on Facebook in this way:

The big difference about the social networks is the different audiences. We can't treat them all the same. On Twitter the hashtags become links to searches about the topic (EX). This is what Jeremy's post looked like on Twitter:

On Twitter the message looks perfect and fits in the Twitter ecosystem, but on Facebook it looks out of place and makes at least one person feel like they 'haven't learned the tricks'. Jeremy reveals that in fact he is cross posting to almost a dozen different social networking sites with the same message. I believe doing so is taking a risk.

Lastly, one of my favourite independent local marketing people, Rosa Meyers. Rosa cross posts from Twitter to LinkedIn. Rosa is starting out in marketing and LinkedIn is one the best places for her to find and connect with current and future clients some of whom may have never seen an RT or a # because they don't use Twitter. This is what her cross posted tweet looked  like on LinkedIn:

Cross posting from Twitter to LinkedIn is a problem due to the differences in frequency for people using each platform as well. The biggest risk here is that the audience and potential audience on LinkedIn don't appreciate the 'cryptic' and very frequent updates as much as the audience on Twitter does. We only get one chance to make a first impression and when someone sees a status update on LinkedIn that they don't understand they may be less likely to connect with us.

In conclusion, as more and more people start using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn it's important that they feel like these ecosystems are easy to understand and I believe cross posting makes that more difficult. This post started out as one but will now be made into two: Delivery and Frequency, which I will cover in a later post.

For people who talk regularly these different messages are not a problem, they talk about it and someone learns something. It's when you don't speak to someone who only sees you on LinkedIn or Facebook, that the sight of these characters and symbols, which they don't understand, can put them off of communications and as the poster we may never know as they hide our updates on Facebook or LinkedIn. What are your thoughts on cross posting? What social networks do you use? Do you notice these differences in symbols and language? What are your feelings about it?

VANOC's greatest oversight at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics

Rick Hansen and Wayne Gretzky

I had a lovely dinner last night with a few good friends and of course we discussed the Olympics. Everyone had a great time, a really great time. It was how a certain part of the opening ceremonies played out and how most of us didn't even notice that was offputting. It comes not from a technical glitch, but from what happened after the torch was lit and what it meant in the lives of those who lit the torch inside BC Place. It was no fault of the two individuals involved but an oversight by the planning group.

By: David Byrd

Rick Hansen and Wayne Gretzky are both national heros, without a doubt. Does anyone remember how Rick Hansen ended up in a wheel chair? "He was paralyzed at the age of 15 from being in the back of a pickup truck when it crashed into another car." -Wikipedia. So there's Rick Hansen inside BC Place where he finished his 26-month trek of over 40,000 km through 34 countries almost 23 years before and he sits there as Wayne jumps into the back of a pickup truck to take the torch down to the cauldron in Coal Harbour and light it.

The parallel of being in the back of a pickup truck while Rick's message is to always wear a seat belt, don't drink and drive and be safe while driving seemed to me to be the largest oversight of VANOC and no one noticed.What do you think of this? What was the greatest oversight in your opinion?

Crowd Sourced Olympic Montage Videos UPDATED

I have been troubled about what to write about the Olympics while basking in the short afterglow. I have a few things planned for next week in terms of intellectual discussion and the Olympic movement in general but this week I thought I would leave it to the people who created loved and enjoyed the Olympics to it's fullest. Under each video is a short description of and link to the creator.





Stephen Brunt of the Globe and Mail created this tear jerker of a photo essay of the games.


John Biehler a local citizen journalist and all-round awesome guy made this.


This video was created by AHA MEDIA's Richard Czaban. AHA MEDIA is about exploring mobile media production through New Media cameras. For a better quality version of this video, contact April Smith on Twitter or Facebook.


A tribute to the Canadian Gold Medal hockey team! Lyrics by Ray Blackmore & Produced by Kevin Lambert

 This video was taken from inside Yaletown LiveCity as Canada wins Ice Hockey Gold. Wow.

This video was posted on Vancity Buzz and is a static video shot of downtown with audio as Canada wins Gold in Men's Ice Hockey. The sound you are hearing in this video is mostly from the LiveCity Yaletown venue in the lower middle of the shot. Check out the video above to experience the noise from inside the venue.

 This is the promo video made pre-games but still inspires.

Free Toolkit for Small Business Online

Free tools are vital to the success of any small business. The current growth in free applications and software continues to benefit all businesses. Choosing a few of these tools was a real challenge. These applications assist small business owners with common issues such as web publishing, storage, document creation and editing, communications, marketing and scheduling.

Wordpress and Blogger are the top two online blogging tools which can also be used to create and manage fully funcitoning websites rather easily. If you are looking for an external solution your costs will increase exponentially. Use Google to find great walk-throughs for these free straightforward website solutions.

Dropbox is a storage system (2GB free) for storing files across multiple computers with ease. It allows the user to drop a file in to an internet folder which can be accessed by other computers or even your iPhone/ Blackberry. Dropbox also allows you to invite people to view private files or host files in a public folder accessible to anyone who knows the address. This is great for working with clients or transferring files among a group of people.

Google Docs is a free, web-based word processor, spreadsheet, presentation and form application offered by Google. Google Docs allows free storage of up to 1GB of data. Google Docs is also a collaborative tool for editing in real time. Documents can be shared, opened, and edited by multiple users at the same time.

Open Office is an offline alternative to Google Docs or Microsoft Office. It is available for Mac OS X, Windows, Linux and most other operating systems. Open Office is free to download and easy to install.

Hootsuite allows a user to measure, monitor and post to social media like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn all from one easy to use dashboard. There is a learning curve when using this incredible free dashboard so watch the short tutorial videos. Social media can be utilized to enhance customer engagement and communications, both internally and externally.

Mail Chimp allows the user to send out 3000 electronic mail outs per month or free for up to 500 subscribers. For a small business an email list is essential but keeping those people engaged and up-to-date with your business is even more important.

Doodle is an easy to use scheduling software. It's great for scheduling meetings. It's hard to explain how easy it makes things until you try it so just click the link above and test out Doodle.

It is important to consider free tools when managing your business.

Originally published in the Vancouver Board of Trade's Sounding Board Magazine.