Socialmedialand

Posted via web from Katie Van Domelen’s Posterous

I'd rather not speculate about next year – a lot of people have been doing that already. I'm going to take a cue from a few of my favorite bloggers and simply share what I plan to do for next year:

In general:

1. Focus on people - The last year or so seems to have been the era of explaining to businesses why social media is so important. And while I think we still need to make that clear (see number one) I think that it's time to shift focus. We, as social marketers, need to explain to customers why connecting with our brand via social channels is beneficial to them. We passed the early adoption phase long ago (where brands in social media were automatically kind of "cool" or "hip"), and now we're rapidly moving out of the status quo phase (where every brand is almost expected to have a social presence of some sort). I think we're coming around to the post-social phase where consumers have been so inundated with blogs and Facebook pages and Twitter accounts that they're going to need a solid reason to want to connect with your brand. And I doubt that random videos and pictures are going to be enough anymore.
2. Integrate - flowing from the last thought, I think it's time brands focus on how social media can support and work with their service offering. Rather than having social media as a marketing element, it needs to become part of the product or service itself so that the value of being connected with the brand online supplements and enforces the value of being a customer. Social media marketers need to shift their skills into becoming consumer experience experts rather than advertising experts. *note: I'm not saying that some of the most successful brands haven't already done this – I'm just suggesting that it's going to quickly become that only viable way for brands to use social media effectively.

For me personally:

1. Communicate better - I need to make the connection between social media and my clients' business more clear. I know in my own mind why something I recommended made sense or would fit into their business but now more than ever that connection needs to be underscored.
2. Educate and be educated - In 2010 I hope to get some training to help me advance beyond my current capabilities and do my job better. That includes presentation skills, some basic web design and html concepts (for use on Facebook pages, blogs, etc), and maybe some refreshers on other business/marketing disciplines so I can work on the integration I talked about above. At the same time I want to share the things I've already learned with others so they can do their jobs better. Karma.
3. Converse - The last few months I've definitely slacked off on commenting, blogging and sharing links on Twitter/Google Reader. I've been in the background reading without participating. I want to get back into that discussion. More Karma. 

So that's my plan. What's yours? Leave a comment and let me know, or link back to your own post on 2010 plans!

Posted via email from Katie Van Domelen’s Posterous

Or just an evolution?

Either way I think the most recent change in Facebook’s homepage News Feed is going to force marketers to rethink the way they use Facebook.

As I explained earlier, Facebook developed an algorithm to display only the most “interesting” posts from your friends and fan pages in your news feed, presumably based on your previous “likes” and comments. Although this is the default view for most users, you can click to view the live stream, which shows everything. But unless you remember to do that, you’re going to see the filtered version.

Now that some time has passed, I want to revisit the topic and look at some of the fallout.

The major problem I see from a brand standpoint is that the new algorithm makes it almost impossible for a brand page to get featured on a user’s news feed. Since each news feed is tailored to the individual user, it doesn’t matter if you’re the most popular brand ever and used to get hundreds of comments on each post, you won’t get featured in a news feed unless that one user interacts with you regularly. I don’t know about you, but even for the brands I love I only “like” or comment on their updates once in a blue moon, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still want to see the information.

The other thing I’ve noticed is that it’s completely based on the history of activity. For example, I recently became a fan of Southwest Airlines (which is btw, a VERY popular brand in case you haven’t heard.) They’re running a promotion for fans to win a free flight, and as a loyal Southwest customer I was surprised to find out I wasn’t already a fan – I’d love to get updates from them since I use their service frequently. Anyways, flash forward a day or two and I checked their page to see how the contest was going – and realized I’d missed several updates from them. I checked my news feed (filtered) – not there. I checked my live feed (unfiltered) – and there they were, all my missed updates.

Not sure if you caught the significance of that. I had just become a fan. Facebook didn’t even give them a trial run in my main news feed to try to elicit some interaction – they went straight to the land of lost updates.

This is a huge barrier for most brands. If that’s the treatment that a popular brand, with a strong social footprint like Southwest, gets what about that new page you just helped your client build? How are you going to get any attention?

The only answer I can see is, by paying for it. Remember when Facebook came up with that targeting feature to send ads just to fans? Well, it may be the only way you can reach them now (yes you can send “updates” but those go into a subsection of the inbox and can be lost just like your published statuses.) And I think there will be more [paid] options coming for “increasing” visibility with your own fans. I’m a fan of Pink Ribbon (for Breast Cancer research) and they are somehow able to put messaging into my “notifications” bar. They’re also able to send me email messages to my inbox. I don’t know how they do it but I’m thinking they may be part of a trial run for new offerings (because who’s going to get mad at spam from a charity?) I hope I’m wrong about that last part, because both of those options are much more disruptive to me than simply seeing the updates in my news feed.

Personally, I’m bummed because it cuts down on that viral, discovery based aspect of Facebook. If one of my friends comments on a Fan page – I won’t see that unless the friend who said it is someone I interact with frequently. It’s creating a black hole of updates. As a user myself, it’s infinitely carving away at the amount of content I see. It gives me a whittled down list of updates, and since that’s all I see, it’s all I interact with. Then as I fail to comment on every single one of those posts, it will filter out some of the people on the smaller list, and so and so on. For myself I’ll choose the live feed option to counteract the issue, but unless everyone else remembers to do that as well I think the value of Facebook is going to be ultimately decreased.

What do you think? Anyone out there have some ideas for ways to gain back visibility for pages beyond paying for it? Leave a comment! Maybe together we can brainstorm a way around this roadblock…

Anyone else noticed this? You can click the icon next to "share" on your Facebook fan page's publisher (it looks like little blue people) and it will bring up a dialogue box where you can target your update to a specific location (country) or language. Must be in response to large global brands, but I'd like to see that function get even more refined (dare I say, as robust as the advertising platform is?) It would open up some cool targeting possibilities for messaging and content.

Posted via email from Katie Van Domelen’s Posterous

Posted via email from Katie Van Domelen’s Posterous

 

Posted via email from Katie Van Domelen’s Posterous

Posted via email from Katie Van Domelen’s Posterous

Posted via email from Katie Van Domelen’s Posterous

 Facebook is redesigning it's news feed in an attempt to increase relevance and become a central web portal for users. Highlights:

• Top Stories Feature: Facebook is developing an algorithm to display the most interesting posts from your friends, presumably based on previous "likes" and comments. You will still be able to access the full stream (as it is now) by clicking "recent stories."
• Several story types that were lost in the recent news feed update will come back including: friend acceptances, relationships, event RSVPs (good news for brands on that one) and group memberships.
• Speaking of Groups – they've gotten an overhaul as well. They'll begin to look a lot more like pages and activity that your friends do in groups that you're a part of will be displayed in your feed. Group admins still can't push updates to the whole group so if you need that kind of reach, a page is still your best bet.
• For pages: virtual gifts and friends who fan a page will also show up in the news feed
• Birthdays will move back up above the fold (which is nice for us forgetful types)

Posted via email from Katie Van Domelen’s Posterous

Amber Naslund did a session at the Blog World Expo, and while I wasn't fortunate enough to see it in person she did post her slides online. Planning out corporate infrastructure around social media is something I've been dabbling in when writing strategies for clients. I found a few of the slides in the middle of this presentation to be especially useful so I attached them here. I like how she shows the progression from mainly listening to responding, creating and engaging and the breakdown of how many resources you'll need at each stage. She's committed to exploring the meat of her talk on her blog over the next few posts which you can see here: http://altitudebranding.com/2009/10/social-media-time-management/ and you can check out the full slide show here:  

Posted via email from Katie Van Domelen’s Posterous