It’s that time of year again! It’s time for the PR, communications, and marketing world to look at the challenges and opportunities ahead. It’s time we determine what’s in store for our businesses, our industry, and our way of working.
Drugmaker Merck challenges Facebook after ‘losing’ page
The German drug maker Merck KGaA has begun legal action against Facebook after discovering what its lawyer described as the “the apparent takeover of its Facebook page”.
The webpage is being used by the German firm’s US rival Merck & Co.
Merck KGaA said that the social network “is an important marketing device [and] the page is of great value”, adding that since its competitor was benefiting from the move “time is of the essence.”
This kind of happening has been in the making for a long time and again demonstrate Facebook’s disregards for due process and communication, something fairly typical of social media platforms in general. Somehow, the basic social media rules do not seem to apply to social media companies.
As social media becomes increasingly important to communicate with and engage a company’s constituencies, social media companies will need to be more responsive and accountable, and if they want to attract more advertisers, they will have to implement systems to communicate with their own constituencies, something their customers learned a long time ago.
This event though, illustrates and reinforces the need to understand that an organization should not build their online presence and strategy around the social networks, but around something they have actual control and ownership over, their website and develop their website into an interactive platform. They then should use social media to drive traffic to their website, something Facebook has been steadily trying to curtail.
This legal action from a major companies could benefit us all by making Facebook more accountable
Is Facebook killing corporate websites?
Several recent studies point out to a decrease in traffic to traditional corporate websites and an increase in traffic to Facebook.
Does that mean that web users are turning their back on traditional websites or that they are spending more time on Facebook and are more likely to visit the corporate Facebook page rather than the corporate website?
It is worth noting that if the trend is very noticeable with traditional brand focused static websites, the trend reverses when it comes to transactional websites.
Big Brands Like Facebook, But They Don’t Like to Pay
Everybody wants to be liked. The question for Facebook Inc. is how much advertisers are willing to pay for the opportunity.
Facebook’s estimated market value, now in the neighborhood of $70 billion, is founded on the belief that companies will spend big to advertise on the site. Facebook’s revenues, which come largely from ads, were $1.6 billion in the first half of this year, up $800 million from a year earlier.
But most of its ads were for small advertisers, such as local businesses and small-scale websites, according to comScore Inc. Facebook is under pressure to grow its advertising on a grand scale, and to snag the sort of big brand names who now drive billions of dollars to TV, radio and print campaigns
Social Media, Ethics, Disclosures and FTC
Andy Sernovitz, shares his recommendations on how to stay safe and ethical in social media covering the latest FTC updates, the fundamentals of proper disclosure, and how to make sure your agencies and vendors comply with your standards.
Listen Before You Leap
Itron’s Online Marketing Manager, Michelle Jung, and Online Marketing Analyst, Dawn Shrum, discussed how they developed a company-wide listening strategy
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.
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.
The changing internet
A March 2010 to March 2011 study from Silicon Alley Insider shows that the way people spend their time on the internet is rapidly changing and if you are not paying attention, your brand could become a victim.
The study shows a rapid increase (69%) in time spent on Facebook and a steady decrease (9%) in time spent on traditional websites shrunk by 9%
Social media has dramatically changed the way users look and think about the web, how they spend their time on the web and what they expect from the web
Does that mean you should abandon your website? No, but you should seriously think about how you use it and how you drive traffic to it.
If the trend persists, SEO will become less important and will progressively be replaced by social media.
Another recent study (May 2011) by Comscore looks at how users spend their time on social media sites like Facebook. By the way, Facebook accounts for 90% of the time spent on all social media sites
- 27% of their time is spent “consuming and interacting” on the newsfeed/wall
- 21% on the profile section
- 17% on the photo section
Interacting has become a big part of the web experience, experience delivered through social media sites. What that means is if a brand or organization wants to keep their website relevant, they have to promote interaction.
How do you promote interaction on a website? With a blog section, with comments and by integrating your site with social media platforms.