Marketing Director

Showing posts with label facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label facebook. Show all posts

Social Media in Law: A 2011 Report

This is part one of a multi-part series about the crossroads of technology and the law.

Messages we write down have been an integral part of the law since the beginning. The value of our digital trail is increasing daily. How we manage our online communications is key to steering clear of the newly formed legal pitfalls of the web.

This series of posts will focus on North America and will draw mostly on existing case law, some anecdotes and a few cases that cannot be discussed in detail due to existing NDAs. For the most part I will reference cases I have been following and how they are slowly drawing the lines in the sand around labour law, privacy and rights.

As the year progresses I will continue to keep you updated on the effects of social media on litigation both civil and criminal. I am currently working with some people who are experiencing the heavy cost of divorce in the age of digital connections by ghost writing their story. I will also explore existing intellectual property cases, discuss defamation and cover labour law in detail. I'll  root out where the lines are and where they are moving by drawing on cases that are happening now.

Today I'll be giving an overview of Defamation, Uttering Threats, Insurance, Divorce and Labour.


Defamation: Anonymity Unveiled

In August of 2009 Google was ordered by a New York court to hand over the identity of anonymous blogger accused of libel* a type of defamation* for comments they made on a website called NYC Skanks, that was hosted on Blogger, which is owned by Google. The judge in the case quoted a ruling by a Virginia court stating that "anonymous online taunters should be held accountable when their derision goes too far." -Full Story

In Vancouver in late 2010 a case regarding a beauty salon where they had to file court orders with both Craigslist and Shaw, an ISP, to find out who their anonymous online defamers were. Both Craigslist (handed over the IP addresses) and Shaw (handed over the customers names associated with those IP addresses) have complied with those court orders. -Anecdotal at this time.

Whether it's magicians in Vancouver, Courtney Love or two organizations trying to help dogs the age of internet defamation and the resulting lawsuits is upon us. Here's a great overview from a lawyer about how defamation works in the law. Remember legal claims of online defamation are on the rise.


Uttering Threats, Digitally


In January of 2010 Paul Chambers, 26, was supposed to fly out of Robin Hood Airport in the UK when his flight was canceled. He went to Twitter to vent his frustration about the closure of the local airport. He was headed to see his internet girlfriend in a tropical location when ash from a volcano in Iceland postponed his trip.
The tweet that cost $6000
His Twitter account was public so anyone could search it and a savvy airport personnel member spotted the tweet threatening to bomb the place and reported it to authorities who were obligated to act on this threat as if it had been phoned in. He was quickly arrested. Paul received some internet celebrity status and a $6000 bill for his indiscretion. He also lost his appeal.

Uttering threats on Facebook is dangerous business as one Montreal man found out in the Fall of 2010. He also showed that when uttering threats online it's best not to be doing other illegal things. In 2008 a Canadian student was charged with uttering threats for posts he made on an internet forum threatening violence against his school.

The lesson? Threats on social networks must be treated as legitimate by authorities. Hide your tweets by making them private or don't tweet threats. Most of the answers to how to avoid the pitfalls above is 'common sense'. The challenge is that many people aren't aware of those things. Worth studying.




Insurance Fraud?


Insurance lawyers are accessing Facebook photos more tenaciously than is imaginable and have been since before 2008. One of the most famous cases in Canada started in November 2009 and involves Nathalie Blanchard who had been out for a year-and-a-half on paid long-term sick leave (disability) following a diagnosis of severe depression. Then her insurance company, Manulife, got their hands on some photos she had posted to Facebook. The photos show her smiling while at a birthday party in a strip club and on a vacation on the beach. 

Manulife took these photos to mean that she was no longer depressed and able to work. Blanchard responded by saying that she was 'happy in the moment, but before and after I have the same problems'. The video below runs through the whole story if you'd like more details and some honest opinion.







A video of the same story with some opinion.

How did they see those photos when her profile settings were totally private? She had made them her profile pictures something that Facebook lets anyone on the internet see. More information: Depressed woman loses benefits -November 2009. Depressed woman fails first try to recoup benefits -December 2009. Related: Manulife posted $1.8 billion in profits for 2010.

According to the Telegraph using social networks could eventually raise your home insurance premiums in the UK by as much as 10%. This is because people who use these networks are seen as 'more at risk' to be broken into due to their posts. For example, if you checkin to FourSquare you most likely aren't at home.

I have searched for more stories about insurance, law and social media but haven't found much more. Although there is even more cases like this out there. Where are they? Please Tweet @KempEdmonds or leave the links in the comments, thanks!

Divorce in the Social Age

The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers responded in a recent survey that 81% of them have seen an increase in the number of cases where social networks are referenced in the last five years. This statistic has been widely misreported as 4 in 5 divorce lawyers say that their cases involve social networks by many major networks including MSNBC. I found this out after using the stat myself and then wondering if it was totally accurate. This misuse of statistics is a major pet peeve of mine, but that's for another time or another blog.

Facebook is a divorce lawyer's new best friend
Facebook doesn't cause divorce- spouses do
Divorce attorneys catching cheaters
Wife betrayed on Facebook: "Terrible beyond belief."
Facebook and divorce airing the dirty laundry








Most of the existing stories about the use of Facebook in divorce is around catching cheaters. This is a strong investigative use for lawyers in a bitter divorce battle. Divorce and separation online is a touchy and challenging new dynamic in our social structure. I can't begin to imagine factoring in children. When I dig more into divorce I am going to try and talk about it from a few different angles.

While I am covering divorce later on in this series it will be about the human story of creating intertwined lives and social networks and then going through a divorce. What do you do? Unfriend everyone? Don't post anything about your feelings during the divorce? There are no easy answers to this new challenge that faces those who are divorced in the age of Facebook.

Part two will be coming soon!

Facebook Ad Rates are the Cheapest. Here's Why.


Thanks to one of my favourite e-newsletters. The Silicon Valley Insider Chart O' D' Day -or in less irish terms "of the". Today's chart confirm something I've suspected all along: Facebook might serve up more display ads than anyone else, but they are the cheapest. The next cheapest? Email.

Thanks to a chance phone call from Richard at the Goodline Group I was reminded of the power of permission marketing. Beyond permission marketing is a strong strategy for the customer focused businesses of the future. Today organizations are clamouring just to get people to see them in a world full of marketing and advertising.
photo by: Doug Wheller. Remixed under creative commons licence.
That means getting a chance to have eyeballs see your brand, product or services and hopefully click a few things can be costly. See the chart below to see the most expensive and least expensive types of sites to advertise on. The rates are in CPM or cost per thousand impressions. That means about 2000 eyeballs had the chance to see an ad. It doesn't even mean that they saw the ad. It may cost you significantly less on Facebook than on any other site to get the chance to be seen but low prices reflect users likelihood to ignore your advertisement.

The reasons for the differences in the costs of online display ads are complex and I don't pretend to know all about them, but after using Facebook ads over the last 2+ years I've learned a lot and watched as the average cost of a click has triple and quadrupled. Still it has the lowest cost of online ads because of the users habits and nature of Facebook ads.

Some users ignore them entirely. Some users click them all the time with no intention of taking any further action. Some users are playing games when they click an ad and really just want to back to their game. Some users are doing research on your use of the ads and where you direct them with that ad. Some users genuinely connect with your brand. It's challenging but at this time and when used right represents strong current and better future marketing value.
photo by: Penny Higgins. Remixed under creative commons licence.
On the bright side some users read ads and don't click, raising awareness. Using a strong brand image can help to build familiarity of that brand and cut through the generic ads. You get great metrics, but have to draw some of your own conclusions.

It was announced today during Zuckerberg's Web 2.0 interview that 250 million facebook users are daily users. 50% of users come back everyday. Last I hear the average user spends almost an hour on facebook each day. I like Facebook advertising and I advocate it for many reasons; especially targeting and related brand awareness. For more on this please see Facebook Advertising: Beyond the Click. Below I have embedded Zuckerberg's 60 minute 'interview' at web 2.0 today.

skip to 7 minutes for the 'confrontation'

Social Networking studies lack scientific diligence

While listening to CBC Radio this morning @JianGhomeshi of Q was talking about a recently released study that stated that Facebook users are narcissistic. The study was picked up by media all across Canada and the world including: The Globe and Mail, Mashable, the CBC and Yahoo to name a few.

This gets me thinking about the methodology and scientific validity of some studies around social technologies. I say some because data mining of online activities is different from subjective applications of archaic social psychology measurements on digital social technologies. This kind of study lacks the scientific diligence of something published so widely by so many voices of authority in media.

I don't want to take anything away from the author who I have a lot of respect for and know is going to be incredibly successful. Students should be encouraged to pursue innovative cyberpsychology studies.

Anything that receives as much press as this undergraduate study is an important thing in our digital culture. It is also important that as more and more studies begin to emerge about social networking we raise our level of analysis. The methodology and definitions used in studies around web technologies is often murky and can mislead people about the outcomes of those studies. This can be said of many studies.


Traditional media need to be more diligent about publishing the methodology of studies they discuss. The size of this study was only 100 voluntary participants. This sample is small and the fact they volunteered after being recruited on a University campus skews the results about social networks; a participatory and youth focused technology. How can we have a proper cross section of any group when only those on campus and willing to participate do?

As an example from higher education marketing a large institution in the US released a statistic that is much used by those advocating higher education marketing on social networks. That stat is:

99% of prospective students have a social networking profile.

I agree that social networks are the place for educational institutions to manage relationships with the next generations more effectively. 99% is a powerful stat so I dug into the methodology used by this large American Institution. There were a number of things that should have been published along with that stat.

Those who responded to the survey had already opted-in to participate in surveys via the internet with this institution. They were then sent an email inviting them to participate in an online survey. Those who participated clicked the link in the email and landed on a questionnaire asking them a number of questions about their use of social networks.

These steps all skewed the survey results. Much like the Canadian government intentions of changing the long form census from mandatory to voluntary the fact that people opt-in to take the surveys skews things immediately. In this case participants have to be technologically inclined and willing to take multiple actions with no obvious benefit to themselves: something most humans have little interest in [Disclosure: I fill out surveys all the time].

photo by: Kris Krug. remixed under creative commons license.
I don't know about you but I would think that 99% of people who took each of these participatory steps have an online social networking profile. It's this kind of methodology that hinders academic study of complex social technologies.
A new study saw participants singling out narcissists just by looking at their Facebook profiles. The study found that users with an abundance of friends, wall posts and attractive (usually sexual) photos often qualified as narcissists.
This sounds like something from the most recent study, right? This study was conducted by the University of Georgia in 2008. It states that people who have many pictures of themselves and lots of friends are narcissists. To me what makes these studies about Facebook users' narcissistic tendencies problematic is that they are putting the cart before the horse. Facebook doesn't make people narcissistic. It enables them to act out their narcissistic tendencies. It even encourages them to do so by its very nature. Even the average Facebook user doesn't need a survey to see this. It's plainly obvious and baked-in to the Facebook ecosystem and culture.

photo by: D'ashley Wilson. remixed under creative commons license.
In the most recent study [PDF] on Facebook narcissism and self-esteem the sample size was 100 individuals recruited from an Ontario university campus, aged between 18 and 25, 50% men, 50% women. The participants then had their Facebook pages 'rated' by the author of the study, a 22 year-old female undergraduate. Students were recruited on campus by being approached and asked to participate in a study exploring the use of Facebook. Wouldn't narcissistic Facebook users be more interested in participating than passive users or non-narcissistic users?

The study's author used the NPI or Narcissistic Personality Inventory metric to judge the levels of narcissism in the study's participants. The more comprehensive NPI measure, a 40-item forced-choice version, was passed over in favour of a "shorter unidimensional measure" the 16-item forced-choice questionnaire. Example items include 'I am more capable than other people' and 'There is a lot I can learn from other people'.

Although it was designed to measure these features in the general population the NPI measure is based on DSM-III (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) clinical criteria and was created in the late 1980s. This measure was not designed for use in a digital world. People who have high NPI scores are said to 'value material things and like looking at themselves in the mirror'. Back to the new study:

"Five features of the participants Facebook pages were coded for the extent to which they were self-promoting. Self -promotion was distinguished as any descriptive or visual information that appeared to attempt to persuade others about one's own positive qualities. For example, facial expression (e.g., striking a pose or making a face)... The use of positive adjectives (e.g., nice, sexy, funny)".
Seriously? Striking a pose or making a face in a Facebook photo is 'self-promoting'? It's self-promotional to call yourself nice, funny or sexy? It's a struggle to understand how the judgement of the rater a 22 year-old undergraduate student can be used to report scientific results. The model is anything but objective and that's the challenge here. Studies of social networks need to use statistical information as opposed to objective measurement. Most social networking studies want to compare the way people act in digital social spaces to the way we act in real life and draw direct correlations. Digital social spaces were designed to enable self promotional activities.

The results of this study were then used by news organizations across North America and the world. This is the embarrassing part for the media. At this time media are so enamored with social technologies that they aren't conducting the critical analysis necessary for high quality journalism. Something that will preserve journalism and remain one of great value to the world. The media's current fear is driving reporting on sup-par quality information and stories.

This was shown by the balloon boy incident and most recently the worldwide exposure given to a christian cleric from the southern US who intended to burn the Koran on September 11th but recently said he wouldn't. He should never have had worldwide exposure. Less than 50 people listen to him weekly but the media gave him the opportunity to reach billions with his vitriolic intentions.

The social digital cultural revolution is real and its different than our offline social and cultural lives in terms of tempo and medium but it is still a social and cultural revolution.

"Instead of  [being] revealing, I think it just gives us a chance to edit ourselves and, in that way, conceal the real self. Facebook profiles are about the persona more so than the person ... Narcissism and voyeurism feed off each other in this case." - Ms. Sarah Nicole Prickett, 25.

According to this thorough collection of studies and insights the narcissism isn't due to the tools, like Facebook, but more from the way we are raising children these days.

"We need to stop endlessly repeating 'You're special' and having children repeat that back," said Professor Jean Twenge, author of Generation: Me and Living in the Age of Entitlement: The Narcissism Epidemic. "Kids are self-centered enough already," says Twenge.

Twenge and co-author Keith Campbell describe their study as the largest ever of its type and say students' NPI (Narcissism Personality Index) scores have risen steadily since the current test was introduced in 1982. By 2006, they said, two-thirds of the students had above average NPI scores, 30 % more than in 1982.

Facebook Advertising: Beyond the Click

In the last 12 months Facebook has pushed past Fox media and Yahoo! Sites to serve the most display ads on its website to US users, according to new data from comScore. Even with the privacy issues Facebook is still THE social network for the majority of users and will hit 500 million users sometime in the next few weeks (See: CEO Zuckerberg's Post). A few months back I posted about what information advertisers receive about users from Facebook.
Monthly Unique Visitors -comscore.com
Facebook's new developments (Open Graph API, like buttons and recommendations: check the right hand sidebar for examples) cost money. Why do people continue to wonder why their information is less private and why Facebook continues to make the changes it does (See: Facebook does what's good for Facebook). Facebook is a business providing a free service to users it has to make money somehow. Your data is a major part of that.

eMarketer has predicted a 39%increase in ad spend on Facebook in 2010. This maybe an underestimate considering the vast increase in users globally engaged with Facebook. I believe in Facebook advertising for a few reasons:

  • It offers unparalleled targeting for niche advertising
  • It provides rich data about audience behaviour 
  • It builds brand awareness
  • It offers reasonable CPC rates and measurable CTR
For advertisers Facebook ads provide a lot of market intelligence about the size of the target market on Facebook even before an ad order is placed. In my opinion the real value in Facebook advertising isn't the click throughs. The more I look into Facebook advertising the more diverse benefits I have discovered for advertisers beyond the click.

5 Reasons to use Facebook Advertising
Advertising on the web is growing increasingly complex and diverse. From pre-roll ad spots on WebTV to Interactive web overlays, Facebook campaigns and social experiments the landscape of advertising on the web is changing quickly. Attention is the new currency but what are the new billboards on the social web? Facebook ads of course. Here are my top five reasons to put up yours:


Incredible Targeting
Facebook's targeting system is good and getting better. It recently added more cities and broke down large cities into their suburban parts. You can also target 'friends of fans' if you have a page. This posts your ad with a reference to someone who the target knows who already 'likes' (this is the new word for being a fan) your page.


Exposure is 'Free' with CPC
On Facebook you can choose between cost-per-click (CPC) advertising or cost-per-mille (CPM) or a thousand impressions. When you choose CPC there are many things you can do to improve the value you receive from the ads. If you are a known brand use a logo and not a picture, this will leverage your brand power and cut through the spammy ads. If you are advertising an event be sure to include all pertinent info: what, when, where and how much to ensure that people who can't or won't attend don't click the ad, more on that another time. 

I also recommend adding a custom shortened link to the end of your ad copy so that people can check your link later if they want, this will not cost you anything. I have never used CPM as I don't believe it provides enough value for brands that aren't huge. I have heard evidence both ways on CPM.


Great Information about clickers
Facebook will tell you the age and sex of the people who saw your ad and clicked it as well. They also provide information about what clickers favourite Books, TV, Music and Movies are as you can see in another post. If you use bit.ly or j.mp to shorten your destination link it will tell you what Facebook app, page or profile people were browsing when they clicked your ad. This includes more information than Facebook would like to give advertisers. Take a look: 






This is a tiny portion of that list and if you have the chance check out someone else's campaign results to get the full picture. You can see the data for anyone's j.mp or bit.ly link by adding + to the end of it (IE: http://j.mp/kmay20 > http://j.mp/kmay20+).


Build Brand Awareness
Facebook ads (CPC) increase brand awareness even when people don't click. When I talk to students I often ask how many of them have read a Facebook ad and not clicked it and the vast majority put up their hands. Ask yourself the same question and don't ask yourself if you ever read one ask yourself if you've even 'seen' one. This is how Facebook ads operate like a social billboard. When people see just your brand or logo on Facebook that increases awareness in the minds of the audience. This is key because people aren't in a buying frame of mind when they use Facebook but you still want your brand to remain top of mind when that audience turns to Google when they're ready to buy.


Leverage your Page "Friends of Fans"
I talked about this a little off the top but this may be one of the most effective tools for leveraging your brand's connections. Check Facebook Ad reports which can give you audience and responder information that offer insights both into general user tendencies(the younger they are the more often they click) and the specific tendencies of your market. For example when my ads target 'friends of fans' Men 35-44 have a click through ratio (CTR) that is five times higher when not targeting 'friends of fans'.


Make sure you are using Google Analytics or other web analytics to track the behaviour of the people you drive from Facebook to your website. A great easy way to do that is to build a Google URL then shorten it then use it in your FB ad and finally track visitors with j.mp and Google Analytics.

I wanted to add some final insights from my Facebook advertising experiences. Sending someone from an ad to a Facebook page or event is more successful than sending them to a generic webpage. Create a custom landing page on your site if you are planning to spend $1000+. Try Facebook advertising with variations in ad copy, ad image and targeting and you can discover a lot of information about your target audience habits, likes and dislikes.
On Facebook targeting younger users will raise long term awareness but cost a lot in the short term as younger consumers often lack the MAD(Money, authority, desire) to buy or convert. When this group makes up 40% of impressions and clicks things can get costly. Easily try a fix by adjusting the ad targeting to an older demographic. 

Join competitors Fan pages, the bigger the better. Then take note of which items receive the most community engagement. Is it deals? Ideas? Advice? Use this and test what works on your page by watching to see what types of content your audience engages with. 

Lastly, by searching through the sea of public data on facebook for brand, competitor and market chatter valuable market and competitive intelligence can be found. All of this takes time and experience. Analysts of consumer behaviour and people who understand how to read the rich data that is delivered by Facebook and others will find major benefits. What do you think? Should this have been more than one blog post?

Understanding Social Networks: Frequency


Last month I discussed understanding social networks with a focus on delivery. I continue to see lots of people cross posting from Twitter to LinkedIn, something that I consider to be a bad move due to the nature of the different audiences on each social network. Today let's discuss something with even less hard and fast rules than delivery: Frequency. We've all had someone in our online social network who updates their status too much or with items we don't find interesting. I am sure I have been that person before (please let me know with a comment below, thanks). On LinkedIn most of your network is professional and oriented towards different goals and habits than on Twitter or Facebook. Here's an example from LinkedIn today:

To be kind to friends and connections I have blacked the cross posters' information. As you can see these folks are cross posting from Twitter. I already get these messages on Twitter from these people. I used the colored dots in the top right of the updates to identify the same user's updates. The frequency of these people's tweets is preventing me from viewing as many different LinkedIn updates as I would like. I see the same people constantly in my LinkedIn updates section. 

The frequency of tweets (1-20/day) is very different than the usual frequency of LinkedIn updates (1-3/week). I know I am going to get into a bit of hot water here as everyone has different ideas about how often updates should be made on different social networks. There are NO hard and fast rules here, but when people ask me how frequently they should post I give them this list:
My Twitter Stats from tweetstats.com



  • Twitter: 1 ~ 100 times/day (few can be productive, see: @unmarketing's Best tip: 75% @replies.)


  • LinkedIn: 1 - 3 times/week


  • Blog: Set a standard and stick to it. (Daily, weekly, monthly)


  • Facebook Personal: As you please.


  • Facebook Page: Set a standard. Observe page insights & likes, comments, etc. Don't Spam.


  • These are frequencies I recommend using for posts. What do you recommend or use?

    We are all busy and seeing things we aren't interested in can turn people off, consider how easy it is to "unfollow" on Twitter or "hide" on Facebook. This is why it is so important to understand and respect each audience for their differences in the frequency and delivery they expect.

      Facebook's Hottest Scam: Fake Profiles

      Do you know Tracey Candace? Whitney Ximena? Kathy Theresa? Bethany Zoe? Micheala Huntsman? I didn't think so and neither do any of the people I know who have befriended these fake profiles. I reported the profiles as fake and one has been taken down at the time of this writing. The question for a few hundred people, many of whom are my friends in real life, is why did you friend them on Facebook? Some good rules were proposed by a few of my friends:
      These are a few pieces of good advice. Most often these profiles are for gathering and selling your personal info but rarely for spying. As my older brother said, "Tin foil hatters" may think that these fake profiles are authorities in Canada and the US as has been reported by a reputable news site. Most often they are phishers or people looking to collect data to sell. Fake Facebook profiles have also been used by students to make fun of teachers, by unknowns and administrators to spy on students and by police to bust underage drinkers.
      I checked all of Gillian's 170 friends on Facebook and not one had a hint of fake although it's hard to know as she says. Below I have put in screenshots of fake profiles. The top profile, Tracy Candace, is the less sophisticated one and the bottom one, Whitney Ximena, which has since been pulled from Facebook, is more sophisticated using a photo and joining some pages and groups.
      Most often these profiles claim to be women born between 1981 and 1990, although the stories referenced above include both fake men and women. They join a network and start friending everyone who will accept. Then they move on to add all of the friends of the first group and so on spreading like a virus. 
      Most people could care less and that's part of why they accept these fake friends. We aren't preparing ourselves for the possible repercussions of fake profiles which include harvesting personal info, spreading spyware, phishing scams and many more shady moves. Have you been asked to befriend a 'fake' profile? Has anything bad ever happenned because you did? Do you care about fake profiles? Please comment below.
       
      Original Photo by: Darren Hester remixed under Creative Commons License

      Embed Twitter and Facebook on your website or blog

      Here Comes Everybody is a great book by Clay Shirky. It's all about how everyone can be a publisher and producer now. If this guy can anyone can. A lot of people want to know about embedding elements of Facebook and Twitter into a web page or blog in non-technical speak, so here goes...

      The Short Answer:
      These options can create dynamic content on your site whether embedding a relevant Twitter search window (as below) or placing Facebook widgets into your page to link to many different elements of Facebook it's easy to be a cut and paste coder and it can help you cross promote and show visitors what your 'community' looks like. Be sure to watch design and keep things clean and manageable for visitors. My site for example has far too many links and text unrelated to the main body and too many widgets, but I like information ;)


      The Longer Answer:
      I have created a document  about how to embed Facebook badges or elements and embedded it at the end of this post or download or view it online here on Slideshare (one of my favourite web tools for storage and display). The easiest way to embed Facebook elements is through their Facebook Widget site it's great and easy  to use. You can also check out my earlier post previewing Facebook Widgets it's from September 2009 when they were first released, so check the Facebook widget site for what's new.

      If you want to put something like the "Follow Me On Twitter" badge, or the Retweet button or Share/AddThis bar at the top of the post you will need to know how to either cut and paste code or put an image on your page and link it. You can use a service like Twitter Buttons or click the above links for the respective tool.

      Twitter Widgets: It wasn't easy to find them but here is the link. I strongly recommend you check out Twitter's Widget offerings first before trying the ways listed below:


      Twitter's widgets are awesome and totally customizable. I am showing the Profile widget in the right column on the blog and the Search Widget is displayed below with a few tweaks and a custom search:



      Tweetizen: The directions are straight forward and allow multiple types of embeds. Tweetizen offers a number of options to customize what appears on your page and can include searches or tweets from specific people. It's a good tool but doesn't have the all-out customization of Twitter's Gadgets.

      How to embed Facebook onto your webpage or blog:





      Facebook Advertising Undressed

      Facebook has passed Google in terms of market share of weekly visits in the US highlighting it's position as America's favourite website. With no end to the growth in sight Facebook Advertising is a must for any online advertising campaign or is it? This post will reveal how your information is 'given' to advertisers by Facebook.
      People love Facebook but Facebook advertising is many things to many people. I asked my network on Facebook, "What do you think of Facebook Advertising?". The perspectives varied especially between those who use Facebook ads and those who can't stand to even see them. In this post I am addressing this complaint which came from more than a couple of the responders.

      This is something of a common complaint about Facebook. The user's 'cut' is the entire Facebook ecosystem: the communication, the games, the quizzes etc. Facebook doesn't 'sell our personal information'. They provide advertisers access to a targeting system based on information you enter into Facebook. Your information is never revealed to advertisers and doesn't leave the site. This is the kind of information that advertisers receive:

      Sample 'Responder Demographics' Report:


      The information on the far right is: % of Impressions, % of Clickers and CTR. (m1317 = Male 13 -17 years old)




      Sample 'Responder Profiles' Report:
       

      *NOTE: Facebook's reporting system is imperfect. When a column is empty it moves items from columns to the right to the open column on the left. IE: the only books or movies listed by clickers were 'twilight series' and 'twilight' respectively, but 'rap' is a Music interest which has been pushed left because there was no 'Book' or 'Movie' in the second position. I hope that's not too confusing. The columns are: Interest, Book, Movie, Music, TV Show.

      This may give an advertiser hints about what kinds of people click their ads but in no way does it release your personal information to advertisers. Besides choosing TV programs to advertise on what else could this be used for? Facebook offers advertisers and promoters many opportunities that are hard to find online especially when it comes to targeting. This is how Facebook turned a profit last year, ahead of schedule. Any business or product that employees people has to have a revenue model to grow. That is what Facebook is doing and ultimately it is to benefit the users. The history of the creation of Facebook is a fascinating read from the Business Insider.

      What do you think of Facebook advertising? Love it as an advertiser? Hate it as a user? Or don't even notice it. These seem to be the three perspectives I have found I would love to hear yours in a comment below. Watch this space for a new post "Facebook Advertising's Benefits: Beyond the Click".

      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.
      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?