Itron’s Online Marketing Manager, Michelle Jung, and Online Marketing Analyst, Dawn Shrum, discussed how they developed a company-wide listening strategy
Social Media 001: Page or Profile? That is the question
As more organizations get on the social media bandwagon, it becomes more and more obvious that there is some serious confusion as to what type of page they should use for their online presence.
Whether on LinkedIn or Facebook (Google has only allowed a few organization to test the Google + business accounts and is seriously enforcing their policy of not allowing businesses and organizations using personal accounts), users are confused, misinformed or uninformed about the differences between profiles and pages.
Few users read the TOSs and who can blame them, pages after pages of boring legal mumbo jumbo that would put to sleep a toddler on a sugar high.
Not knowing the differences can have costly repercussions.
Before going public, LinkedIn was notorious for enforcing its TOS, especially when it comes to organizations using personal profiles. Facebook was enforcing as well, but with the vastly higher number of users, enforcement was spottier.
One can expect that enforcement will become stricter again in the future as the companies start focusing again on quality versus quantity.
What is the big deal? You might ask.
The big deal is choosing the wrong format can be costly in many ways. Imagine logging on to your page only to find out that your account has been suspended and there is nowhere to turn to have it restored. Imagine having to do the work all over again, rebuild your network of followers, your content, earning comments and ratings.
What figure can you put on rebuilding your social media presence? What is the cost in term of time wasted, lost goodwill, lost followers?
The rule:
Generally speaking (most social media platforms use the same basic principle)
- A “profile” is a “personal profile”, a live individual, not an organization, not a company.
- A “page” in the Facebook lingo is for an organization, company, brand. Public personalities, artists, athletes… when using the account for business purpose should use the “page” versus “profile” for one good reason, they are usually doing it to promote their brand. LinkedIn has its own version of the “page”
Using the wrong format will also limit what you can do.
Due to their original design, pages and profiles have different built in tools and using a profile for a business entity can seriously limit your reach in term of communication, exposure, engagement, measurement and visibility and that’s the subject of an upcoming post.
Adobe: Organizing for Improved Customer Engagement via Social Media
Adobe’s Group Manager, Social Media, Maria Poveromo, and Senior Manager, Product Marketing Creative Suite, Jennifer Kremer, share how Adobe is using social media to connect and engage with fans in new ways.
Intel: Listening, Learning, and Changing
Intel’s Director, Social Media, Becky Brown, shares how Intel is listening, learning, and changing its engagement strategy to better connect with fans.
Goodbye Facebook Places
Less than a year after Facebook deployed “Places” to compete with Foursquare and Gowalla, Facebook is pulling the plug on Places over the next few weeks.
Despite its 750 million members, Facebook could not leverage its mass to make “places” work
Facebook Places never really got much traction compared to other self standing geolocalization platforms like Foursquare, Yelp, Gowalla and other niche platforms. Places though is not going the way of the dinosaurs, Facebook opted to integrate the localization feature directly in the post, on the wall.
The new feature will allow any user to tag locations in their posts. They won’t need a smart phone or be near the place for that matter. They will be able to use the feature from a computer, tablet or any other device giving them access to the internet using the “Places” icon at the bottom of the post
What does that mean for users. As Facebook changed its aim from Foursquare to Groupon with the deployment of the Facebook “Deals”, we can expect a closer integration of “Deals” with the posts and more online offers. Hopefully these offers will not clog the wall
Good news though, after the uproar on Facebook privacy settings and the bad habit Facebook had to make new features “opt-out”, Facebook seems to have listened to users and the location feature will be “opt-in”
Who knows, they may even start a new trend that will lead more companies to adopt the “opt-in” model rather that the “opt-out” model.
Coming soon, major revamp of Facebook privacy settings
Facebook maybe listening after all, or is it the influence of Google +.
In the next couple of days, Facebook will release a major revamp of the privacy settings.
The revamp will affect both the profile and the way others share information about you as well as how your posts, images… are shared.
The privacy settings, although extensive were still confusing and somewhat hidden under the “account” tab.
The new privacy settings will be on the profile page (in the edit section), more intuitive, you will be able to decide who sees what on your profile section by section
When it comes to sharing, Facebook is implementing a number of new changes and making them easier to understand and apply.
- You will be able to tag anybody if they are on Facebook, not just your friends. When you do so, the person tagged will receive a notice and will have the option to accept or remove the tag
- You can set your settings to allow your friends to tag you without your approval (I would not recommend it though)
- Before you post anything to your wall, you will see a drop down menu that will allow you to decide who sees the content (public, friends or custom).
- A little known privacy feature allowed users to control tags in the past. In the new version, when somebody tags you, you will have the option to remove the tag, ask the person who posted the tag to remove the photo or video or block the person.
Facebook privacy settings are quite extensive but you still have to take the time to learn them and understand how they work and use them accordingly.
Using LinkedIn to target decision makers
Chevron’s Content Strategis, Jeordan Legon, shares how Chevron is using LinkedIn to target decision makers and key influencers for their brand.
Twitter and your job search
Twitter and your job search
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I am looking for a job, why should I care about social media?
I hear that a lot and recently have been asked to do presentations to several job clubs.
They did not ask me to do my usual “how to” presentation, instead, they asked me to design and deliver a presentation explaining why their members should care about social media and why social media was so important to their job search.
They also mentioned that a number of their members had been asked by employers what they knew about social media and how they would leverage social media to help the company if they were to be hired.
Social Media and recruiting
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Marketers want better social media analytic tools
A recent Web Liquid survey shows that although 95% of respondents state that monitoring social mentions is a priority, only 74% have strategies in place to do so.
The most used social monitoring tool is Google Alerts, used by 59% of respondents, followed by Radian 6 with 9% of respondents.
Not surprisingly, only 23% of respondents were satisfied with to monitor social mentions and only 23% are “very” satisfied with their social media analytics tool.
In an environment still ruled by traditionalists driven by traditional metrics, analytics still are the weak link.