Social Media Failing You? Here’s What to Do

I recently had a colleague, whom I’d presented a Web PR plan a few months ago, come back to me to say she just wasn’t getting the clients she expected from her social media efforts. So what gives?

I really put some thought to her dilemma, because for me this stuff works great, and thought you could benefit from my suggestions to her, as well.

So if social media ain’t working, try these tips:
1) Start Twittering!
As I have uttered many a time, Twitter has pretty much taken all the other Web 2.0 tools I use and put them into overdrive. It’s a perfect way to choose your target audience (follow who you want to hear you and who you want to learn from) and promote your blog, your events, and overall position yourself as the expert you are.

2) Cross-promote.
All these things work best together, not as isolated entities. Link to your Facebook page on your blog. Promote your blog posts on Twitter and in your Facebook status. Ask people to follow you on Twitter on MySpace. Link to your blog on your YouTube Channel. You get the picture. The more you cross-promote, the bigger this stuff builds.

3) Put the pieces together.
Use programs like FriendFeed that help you manage all this stuff under one roof. Link to your YouTube channel, your RSS feeds, your podcast, your blog, your Facebook page, Twitter, blah, blah, blah, here and people can truly follow EVERYTHING you’re doing.

4) Make time for this stuff.
I know you all are not the type to just set up your profiles and never go there again, but I’m betting you’re still not spending enough time on a lot of these tools to seem like you’re really “present.” If you don’t seem present, people will stop paying attention to you. Set aside 45 minutes to an hour each day and dedicate yourself to engaging this stuff. It seems like a lot, but you want it to work, don’t you?

5) It goes both ways.
Want people to comment on your blog? Comment on theirs every so often. Be active and interact. Leave a note on someone’s Facebook wall, add a video comment to their YouTube video, be a fan of their Facebook page, write a positive recommendation on LinkedIn. I promise they’ll pay you back in spades. Listen and you will be listened to.

6) Check your stats.
Make sure you have some analytics tool like Google Analytics so you can check to see what’s working for you and what isn’t. If you’re getting loads of referrals everytime you post a blog entry in your Facebook status, keep doing that! Pay attention to what key words people are searching that send them to your page. Try to do more blog posts that use those words.

7) Remember this is a PR tool, not a sales tool.
So the goal here is really to build awareness and position yourself in a certain manner, not directly drive sales. That’s up to you. This stuff will drive people to your Web site, your blog, your Facebook profile, but once they get there it’s up to you to close the deal.

Got any other tips? Let me know if these work for you.

MySpace Gets a Facelift

Just read where MySpace is getting a makeover and a new look. Hallelujah! It’s about time. Man, do I hate the look of MySpace. It is so messy and cluttered. Maybe that appeals to Generation Y, but not Generation X , or at least not this Generation Xer.

Says a spokesman, “This is more than a facelift. We’re changing the way people interact with the site and with brands.” Here here!

Read more.

MySpace Is a Copy Cat

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? Well, then Facebook can take MySpace’s latest foray as a true compliment.

MySpace has followed along the path of Facebook by adding applications that users can upload to their profiles to make them even more super cool (goodness knows MySpace pages don’t need anything else distracting on them, but here we go!). I checked it out and surprise, surprise, many of them are the same ones you can get on Facebook.

So those of you MySpacers out there, give some of them a whirl and let us know what you think. Are they functioning right? Which ones do you like best? Any ones that are cooler than the ones on Facebook. Speak out!

Madonna on MySpace

Where can you hear Madonna’s album first? Why, MySpace of course. She joins a list of other “hip” artists like Black Eyes Peas, Nine Inch Nails and Outkast who have also released their albums to MySpace first. After all, that’s really where MySpace shines: promoting musicians, especially those who haven’t reached celebrity status yet.

So, if the Material Girl’s continued controversies draw your interest, head on over to MySpace to see what her new album HardCandy is all about (I hear it’s more dance-beat style stuff).

Facebook on Its Way Out?

Well, frankly, I think not. Some new stats from Hitwise, however, show that the popular social networking site’s numbers are down 27% for the week ending Feb. 23, and that has people all abuzz that Facebook is on its way out.

I have always said, and will continue to say for the time being, that MySpace, right now, is THE place to be. It has much larger numbers of users, but its growth was way outpaced by Facebook’s. I think that Facebook will eventually be THE place to be for several reasons.

MySpace, while a good place to be, still creeps me out a little bit. I remember signing up for the first time and getting messages from some strange folks I didn’t know. Same goes today for my clients — one company has “adventures” in the name, so you can imagine what that conjures up — but you simply decline those kind invites to be friends and move on to more appropriate contacts.

Facebook is so much cleaner and more appealing to us thirty-somethings than MySpace’s wild colors and music. It’s easier to navigate and figure out what the heck you’re doing. I had to buy a book to figure out MySpace!

So for these reasons, I think Facebook will continue to be adopted at a faster pace by the older crowd (it’s already about saturated the younger crowd) and eventually hit the big numbers of MySpace.

One complaint, though: Facebook recently adopted Facebook Pages that are designed for businesses, but I think they’ve gotten a little money hungry in the process. No longer can businesses use the regular profiles as their pages — in fact, Facebook disables you if you have one.

However, the new Facebook Pages do not have all the cool features and usability of the profiles, which has proven to be troublesome for my clients. Some of the applications haven’t been designed for “pages” yet, and the worst is that there’s no way to invite people to be your “fans” (on “pages” you have “fans” not “friends”). So how do you drive people there? Well, they want you to pay to advertise with them. What do you do if you had a loyal following on a profile, but now have to switch over to “pages”?

Facebook, if you’re listening, please fix this. As a loyal user, I am very disappointed and suspect I am not the only one. Don’t run off your business clients — this could help you grow to number one! Otherwise, I’m afraid you might tick enough people off that it could send you on your way out…

Make the Holidays Easier with Web 2.0

Check out my tips which ran in Charleston’s Post & Courier Friday 5 section yesterday:

1) Forget the holiday letter – blog instead! Set up a free blog at Blogger.com and keep your friends and family up to date this holiday season (or all year) with a blog detailing your family life. Post photos, video, audio files and more and give them a much richer experience than the oft-tossed holiday letter.
2) Gift Lists 2.0 – Use social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us and Digg to share your gift list with friends and family – and the world! Tag your favorite items at any online store with your name or create a gift shopping list for different members of your family. Grandma and Grandpa don’t know what to get Junior? Give them a list of links on Del.icio.us where they can instantly click and order the gift and they’re good to go!
3) Instant Photos - Post and instantly share photos from holiday events, get-togethers and parties on social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and Flickr. Members of these sites will know whenever they log in if there’s a new photo posted of them anywhere throughout the site. Create a group and ask other friends and family to upload their photos of the same event to these sites, as well.
4) Memories Cherished Online – Create your family’s holiday “story” complete with photos, video, music, audio and text on Panraven.com. It creates a multimedia experience for remembering the good times.
5) Save Money With PayPal – Lots of popular online retailers, including BarnesandNoble.com and SharperImage.com, are now offering discounts up to 20% if you purchase items through PayPal. So open that account and save away!

Who’s Watching You On Facebook?

This story on CNN cracked me up so I thought I would share, but it’s also a cautionary tale about sharing information on the Internet.

Apparently, an intern emailed his boss on Halloween saying something had come up and he needed to head out of town for a few days. However, the sleuthing boss searched him out on Facebook and found a photo of his fine intern not handling an emergency, but partying down on Halloween! Watch the CNN video.

These days it’s also very common for prospective employers to check out job candidates online on Facebook and MySpace, and even universities and fraternal organizations are looking for students and members engaged in inappropriate behavior online.

So let that be a lesson: Be smart about how you use these tools. They can be great for business and for sharing information with friends and family, but don’t stick anything on there you wouldn’t want the whole world to know!

Holiday Shopping 2.0

For years, we’ve been able to shop online for our myriad holiday presents, so that’s certainly nothing new. But some retailers are pulling out all the stops to create a useful and fun online experience using many Web 2.0 tools.

Dell
Dell is a great example. Like many people, they’re jumping on the online video bandwagon, but in a smart way. They created a site, http://www.yoursishere.com/, where you can choose a video plea (performed by various B celebrities) for the product that you want and send it to your friends and family. For example, George’s mom from “Seinfeld” says in her video, “Not that it’s any of my business, but you usually get them a thoughtless gift every year anyway. Would it kill you to get them something nice this holiday season?”

Then, you can link that to your PayPal account to encourage friends and family to contribute to the “fund”. You can even embed a widget on your Facebook and MySpace pages to track the fund’s progress and thank your contributors. The initiative launches Thanksgiving weekend.

Sears
With the reissuance of their famous “Wishes” catalog, Sears is continuing their Wish theme campaign. One new component this year is a social space they have created with Yahoo called Where Wishes Begin. Log on and you can vote on what you would wish for, ask and answer questions about gift giving through Yahoo Answers, share your “wish” photos on Flickr, and learn about special “wishing hours” both in store and online during which you can get special holiday deals.

Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart is heavily pushing its Web site, www.walmart.com, this season with about 100 special sales revealed daily on the site over the course of the season. And they are also tapping into mobile marketing, letting people who text the keyword “save” to 96278 get a message back, revealing the sales item as soon as it’s announced.

They’ve also added some new features to the site to make holiday shopping easier, including a free shipping program where you can buy something online and have it delivered to your local store for free, an option to check availability of products at your local store (that sounds great to me, I hate to go in Wal-Mart looking all over for something and not find it), and a rate and review system where you can post comments about products on the site.

Wal-Mart execs anticipate sales will rise 40-60% on Walmart.com this year and expect about 800 million visits by the conclusion of the year.

Anything that makes holiday shopping easier gets a thumbs up from me!

Do Social Ads Violate Your Privacy?

An interesting debate has arisen since MySpace and Facebook announced their new ad options that allow advertisers to target people based on information in their profiles. The Center for Digital Democracy and the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups are protesting the new ads to the Federal Trade Commission, saying they violate consumers’ privacy.

These groups say that companies should only be allowed to do this if consumers have consented, and they worry that many people who sign up on these sites don’t realize the extent to which their information is being shared and how it is being used.

“We know that teenagers use the Internet to seek help for their personal problems and to deal with difficult issues in their lives. These activities give marketers unprecedented opportunities for massive data collection and behavioral targeting,” says Kathryn Montgomery, Ph.D., professor of Communication at American University and author of “Generation Digital: Politics, Commerce, and Childhood in the Age of the Internet” (MIT Press, 2007). “The loss of privacy is too high a price for reaping the benefits of the digital age.”

Read their press release and weigh in with your thoughts. Are you OK with such information about yourself being shared with advertisers?

Social Advertising

Well, the wars continue between MySpace and Facebook, this time over new advertising features. Today, Facebook unveiled a new ad platform called Social Ads which are small ads that show up on a profile page’s “mini-feed” (which updates that person’s new activities on Facebook) and on their friends’ feeds. The ads relate to products or services that person recently purchased or recommends.

Pretty clever I think. I talked in an earlier post about how I don’t feel online advertising has really reached its potential as of yet, but I think this has the potential to really work. Wouldn’t you be much more likely to click on an ad if you knew your “friend” recommended it?

Last week, MySpace made its own ad announcement. The new “SelfServe” platform lets small businesses target users based on interests they’ve displayed on their MySpace profiles. MySpace gives these smaller ad purchasers tools to customize their ads and target their reach based on geographic, demographic and other criteria.

Not as snazzy as Facebook in my opinion (but MySpace always seems to me to fall short in that category), but a useful tool for advertisers looking to get in the online game, nonetheless.

« Previous Page — Next Page »