Now this isn’t the end-all-be-all list of Facebook Post Categories, but after some consideration, we think posts from businesses fall into one of the following ilks:

1. Horn-toots for the company.
2. Horn-toots for an employee or employees.
3. Horn-toots for clients, partners, or causes.
4. Links to information.
5. Requests for response.
6. Idle chatter.

Now, there is a time and place for horn-tooting. And there’s even more time and place for horn-tooting the merits of others, like local business, your clients, or the latest fundraising campaign. But how much is too much? Dominating your customers walls is not the goal, and certainly being absent is not good either. What is the right ratio of types of posts to frequency that will leave you with lots of impressions, but few hiders?

Unfortunately, there’s no way of knowing. Even assuming you are putting out a great ratio of self-promotion to outside-promotion and being an engager instead of yacker, it still depends on your audience. The number of times you appear on their wall varies by how much you post, of course, but also how many friends they have, how often they post, and whether or not they are set to “Top News” or “Most Recent.”

Then, of course, there is your content. How much meaty content can you reasonably expect to have in a given period of time? Is it better to only post good content, or post frequently enough to be a presence in the news feed?

Here’s the good news: you can ask. Ask your customers what they think of your content and your frequency. Ask them in person. Ask them on Facebook. Not only is this a great way to engage your clients, but it’s a great way to show that you care about their opinions. The fact of the matter is that everyone is constantly trying to adjust and update their social media presence. By it’s very nature, social media is ever-fluctuating, and so are the expectations. No one will hold it against you or think less of you for asking for advice on your strategy, because they’re probably in the same boat.

We’ll start. What do you think of our social media life?

“They’ve pulled the carpet out from under your feet. They gave you an expectation of privacy. And they have reneged on that deal. They are in for some hot water. They are being viewed as a utility.”

If you Google “define utility,” the first result is a definition from Princeton: “a company that performs a public service; subject to government regulation.”

The Memphis-based Facebook Free Friday movement wasn’t the only backlash Facebook faced this weekend – QuitFacebookDay.com had 34,000 users committed to quit the social media site on Memorial Day, May 31. However, that’s 34,000 of 400 million users, a mere .0085%, and there’s no word yet on how many of them actually went through with it. The QuitFacebookDay fan page still has more than 7,000 members that evidently did not really intend to delete their accounts.

Like water, gas and electricity, people are finding they simply cannot walk away from Facebook. Many have tried to abandon their accounts only to return. Many more don’t even kid themselves by trying. Sure, we can survive without Facebook. We can survive without electricity, too, but do we want to? No. But the costs, distribution and regulations that allow us to enjoy electricity, and now  Facebook too, must be government regulated.

The new Facebook privacy controls are better, but still not totally comprehensive. For instance, the controversial “Pilot Program” is still opt-in, the opt-out check box is still buried in layers of settings, and it’s still unclear to the average user what in the world the Pilot Program even is.

Amid the din of users’ outcries, both Facebook and Google received letters from Representative John Conyers of Michigan demanding an explanation of their recent privacy violations. As the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Conyers is positioned to bring forth a hearing against the two groups and introduce legislation to regulate online privacy. It would appear that Facebook’s reluctance to operate under its members’ expectations will almost certainly result in legislative measures for controlling the utility of social media.

Take our friend, Mari Smith. Mari and I shared the stage at an unconference session on Facebook for Business in Seattle in 2007. We’ve both been blowing the Facebook horn ever since. Mari has educated and enriched so many people about the potentials of Facebook, and many of her fans are making realities of dreams. Anybody that’s ever spent more than a few moments with Mari sees Facebook in new and exciting ways. She’s also enlightened thousands on the merits of the feature that now leaves that bit of wisdom painfully empty to all but a small percentage (the Facebook affluent). Mari is a wonderful person. Solid, and she certainly would not treat people the way Facebook has. This conflict is why there is a deeper problem.

As a consultant, your clients are expecting you to know the best solutions from the best companies. You and your clients expect these companies to be morally compatible with you. There are a huge number of great people who consult and recommend Facebook. However, Facebook is tipping a moral scale. In order for consultants to continue to recommend Facebook, we will have to idealistically be divorced of Facebook. We will have to table Facebook as questionable while, for the time being, recommend Facebook while identifying the risk.

The risk in doing anything with Facebook is suddenly high. They’re a wild card.

This will hold true unless Facebook’s reputation becomes a liability instead of an asset. If we get to a point where people regard Facebook negatively, a business won’t want a Facebook badge on its website.

We want Facebook to get it together. Maybe you’d like to participate in a boycott next Friday, May 28 via Facebook Free Friday. Facebook is a great tool, but it can’t continue with these outrageous and repeated changes. Facebook’s story keeps repeating: “oh crap, we didn’t know this meant so much to you. Here, we’ll put this band-aid right here and make it feel better… because we care. Really.”

Do you feel Facebook is now high risk? Comfortable with Facebook?

Writing for the Web – Elizabeth Cawein

DON’T DO THIS!!!!

Really, folks. Typing in all caps is just unnecessary and annoying, and makes people want to abandon your blog as fast as their mice can hit the Back button. But, short of that preference, Elizabeth Cawein’s “Writing for the Web” session was not dictatorial on grammar. After all, the less formal nature of blogs and some websites may lend themselves to run-on sentences, incomplete clauses, and maybe even the SELECTIVE use of all caps for emphasis.

The key, Elizabeth says, is to “establish a style and stick to it.” That might include choosing a particular style manual (like MLA or Chicago), but mainly it’s about your tone and topics. If you write a funny blog about your dog and sudden throw in a cooking post, people are gonna be scratching their heads.

Your style will also determine the proper length of your posts. Shorter is better in general, but depending on your content and how engaging it is, people might be willing to commit to a longer post. Even so, Elizabeth says she tries to keep her posts under 500 or so words.

Elizabeth also emphasized the importance of reading and then re-reading your post to check for misspellings and (unintentional) grammatical errors. Even if you’re writing in a lighter, fun style, there’s still no excuse for errors that make your post difficult to read.
Then, tag tag tag!

There are three concepts that describe a classic training development process:

Development to Delivery to Post-Episodic:

For each stage in that process, there are social tools available to make your task easier, and more efficient. Whichever tools you decide to use depends on you, and your clients.

We provided a handout (below) that categorizes different platforms available:

Development & Post-Episodic: Social Tools

Delivery: Social Tools

Miscellaneous Tools

• Professional Learning Networks: http://budurl.com/PLN4U
• Evolution of Training podcast: http://xyleme.com/podcasts

So what does all of this mean? Take the gun, leave the canola. With a plethora of social networking tools available, it is always best to choose what fits your needs best: You (training professionals) said that you use online learning to connect with other learners (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) and also to directly share content (Delicious, SocialCast, WetPaint). With the conversation, we acknowledged how overwhelming it all is, but in 2010, also necessary. Identify your primary need. Pick a social tool and try it out.

And then we promised to better explain an RSS feed:

RSS in Plain English

The questions you asked:

1) What are your suggestions for content selection?

Answer:  Let’s refer to Betty White’s still-talked-about SNL debut. She referenced the way in which she was essentially recruited to SNL—via Facebook. And then she said “[Facebook] just looks like an incredible waste of time.” And of course she is right; Betty White is always right. But this problem can be remedied.

Dave’s response to the question was this: “The mundane stuff is the glue that maintains the connection.” The popularity of these social mediums indicates how they grow: one connection begets another.  The conversations we are used to holding face to face (f2f or “meat space”), are now displayed online and in public domains for everyone to see.  This constant presence is the appeal of social media: it is a perpetual status update. “What are you doing?” would never be asked if many didn’t want to know.

2) How do I engage my LinkedIn group members? (Or rather, how do I get activity from someone besides the moderator?)

Answer:  Your group will allow more than one moderator—use this tool. More moderators. More information. More activity. More participation can be induced with individual prodding. Stoke the fire. One of the biggest complaints about LinkedIn is that it is “too official.” We like to be flies on the wall, but are drawn to the flame the moment a question is asked that provokes us. Increase your chance for feedback by simply increasing your activity.

Become a fan of LunaWeb on Facebook.LunaWeb.com for helpful social tips right in your newsfeed.

Free as a Business Model - Blake Palmer

Is there such thing as a free lunch?

In most industries, no. Sure, a business will tell you that such-and-such is free, but only if you jump through these hurdles, pay for this other thing, or face a hidden fee later. “What’s the catch?” we, the cautious consumers, have learned to ask. We have been burned before.

It’s just the laws of supply and demand at work. Most products are inherently limited in supply and simply cannot be given away for free, lest the manufacturer lose their profit. But what about Internet content, which has no limit? With ever increasing supplies of bandwidth, storing and processing, we can produce all the online music, blogs, social networks and cat videos that the public could want.

So, can we have at least a cyber-free-lunch in this environment of unlimited supply? Blake Palmer argues that it’s not only possible, but inevitable. Just look at services like Flickr. They offer a great service for no charge at all. If, however, you want unlimited storage, you can pay a small fee to become a premium member, and Flickr can make enough money from the small percentage of users that opt for premium that they can keep the rest of the site up and running. And a premium option is only one model for using “free” as your business model.

The band Radiohead posted a whole album for download to their website, and asked listeners to pay whatever they wanted to for it, with zero as an option. They made more money than they would have with a record label, plus they earned good will and great publicity.
Can we one day have a free lunch outside of the internet? Some businesses are already working on it. Blake cited a gym in Europe that offers completely free memberships, but if you don’t go at least once a week, you have to pay for that whole month. Ryan Air now offers travel for as low as one euro, and hope to soon offer completely free flights, while they make all their profit off of the extras, like checked luggage and-in flight food and drink.

It’s about thinking outside the box. Turning the traditional business model on it’s head and creating an innovative relationship between the consumer and the business. And isn’t that what Web 2.0 is all about?

Let’s compare the traditional business model to Tribe Sourcing. A business, The ACME Company, needs a new marketing direction. Traditionally, ACME might select a marketing firm (MarketsRUs) to understand their vision, develop a strategy and implement an execution plan. Depending on ACME’s resources, they also may engage MarketsRUs to actually carry out the plan.

Now here’s how this would play out in the Tribe Sourcing model. ACME would approach MarketsRUs, who offers not only traditional in-house expertise, but also a team that includes other marketing companies who participate in the discovery process and solution development. The result is an even richer solution than possible in the traditional approach.

It’s cooperation in the environment of healthy competition: co-opetition.*

In co-opetition, companies that would’ve previously been in competition to land the project form a temporary tribe in order to collaborate in an idea-rich environment. Though in theory there are many perspectives among the employees of MarketsRUs, in practice, people who work together become diluted by each other’s ideas over time. Although they may be better collaborators as a team, their contribution will not offer the variety possible when diverse professionals team up for a specific engagement.

Co-opetition through Tribe Sourcing encourages consultants and companies in related fields to form a network. If MarketsRUs put together this tribe to brainstorm for ACME, in the spirit of reciprocity, other marketing companies may present the idea of Tribe Sourcing to their next clients. Of course, the tribe could and should be composed differently for each unique project.

In the end, more than just the client will benefit from Tribe Sourcing. In a hyper competitive economy, for a business to stay afloat it must be exceptional. In the always faster paced world, being exceptional has a shorter shelf life than ever. Classic competition forces all business to innovate individually, but co-opetition could boost all the members of the tribe. At the same time, the tribes will give rise to new ideas and fresh perspectives in their field that would never have otherwise been found.

*Hat-tips Dr. Markman for introducing us to this phrase: “co-opetition”.

Thanks to the following who participated in the roundtable discussion on this topic at TribeCamp:
Dr. Kris Markman, Deborah Crawford, Mark Taylor, Christy Prewett, and David Sandy.

blogpost by lunaweb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Crowd photo by Yodel Anecdotal –

Layer 3: Analyze. The Numbers and Statistics.

As stated before, you can’t measure the brand trust your efforts are creating, but there are a few helpful and, hopefully, encouraging tools to measure response to your social presence.

1. Facebook Insights. This tool, which comes free with all Facebook Pages (but not personal profiles), delivers data about your fans and consumption in easy to read graphs. Insights breaks down your fans by gender and age categories and rates your post quality, to name a couple of features.

2. YouTube Insights. Break down by individual video or see total overall views for your content. Even view graphs on viewers by region.

3. Twitter Measurers. HootSuite, TweetStats, Twitter Counter, etc.

4. Budurl or Bit.ly. Bit.ly is free, budurl is not, but both provide a means of URL shortening for Twitter. Budurl allows you to create a custom name for your URL, which can really increase the chances a follower will click the link. More commonly used shorteners, like TinyURL, are being abused, making users less likely to click if they see those domain names.

5. Built in blog tracking. Many blog platforms, for instance Wordpress.com, have statistics built into their Dashboard page, but you can also track a blog on Analytics.

6. A RSS Feed Tracker. Feedage.com, for one. Sometimes site visits are not the only indication of how many people you are really reaching. If a user subscribes to your blog via an RSS feeder like Google Reader, they can be avidly reading your content without ever making an impact on your Analytics. A feed tracker will let you know how many people are subscribed to your content through RSS.

7. Social Bookmarking sites: Digg, Delicious, and StumbleUpon are just a few sites through which others might share your content. See if you’ve produced any content that has been bookmarked by others to get an idea of what makes a successful post.

8. Traditional Measurements. How many sales are made through the website? How many dollars in donations come in through it? How many people respond with a social media platform or the website when asked “How did you hear about us?” over the phone or on a survey? Directly ask for feedback where ever possible.

Layer 4: Modify. Then do it again.

Use the analysis you’ve gathered to hone in on what makes people respond to you. Then optimize, push traffic, analyze, and modify again. Social media is fluctuating, and you can’t get comfortable. You need to be growing and adapting along with the platforms you are utilizing.

I’m posting the best content I can! What else can I do?

Just a few ideas…

• Publicize company problems and issues and show how you’ve resolved them, or are working to take care of them.
• Use tags on all videos, photos, and blogposts to maximize your “Google Juice” (how high in the search results you appear for certain keywords).
• Use various platforms. Consider a live Podcast through BlogTalkRadio.com, or conduct a survey through Survey Monkey.
• Open up social media to the whole company, not just your marketing department. Inner-office social tools, like SocialCast.com, provide a forum for real-time communication and the quick interchange of ideas. The more ideas are circulating between your network, the more content you can produce.

Why am I spending all this time on social media again?

Two words: Effective Frequency.

In 1885, a London businessman named Thomas Smith a guide called Successful Advertising, in which he alleged that a potential consumer must be exposed to an advertisement twenty times before they’ll buy. Whether that magic number is really as high as twenty or as low as three will, of course, vary for different businesses, but the overall idea of an Effective Frequency is true enough. This is the number of times an advertiser must put his products into the view of the potential customer to incite recognition, then curiosity, and finally, a decision. Under-advertise, and the customer never reaches the decision point. Over-advertise, and you’re wasting your resources.

Say your goal is ticket sales for an event this Saturday. It’s now Tuesday, and Bob tweets about “This cool event” on Saturday, which results in a Facebook “Like” from Susan, which appears in Joe’s Facebook feed. Thursday, Joe sees a billboard advertisement for the event, and, on Friday, hears a radio ad. The radio ad is also heard by Roger, who gives it a blog mention. Joe reads the blog, remembers the radio ad, and wants to email the box office a question. He gets on the website (which you’ve Optimized), and decides to buy a ticket.

Although the customer may cite the radio ad as their impetus to buy, the reality is that all these exposures influenced that decision, and the lack of even one may have meant that customer never reached action.

Conclusion and the Hype Cycle

The Garter Hype cycle (www.garter.com) was developed as a way to show predictions and observations about emerging technologies.

Click to open a more legible version.

The five categories, listed in bold across the bottom of the chart, represent the stages a new technology passes through before it is established, accepted, and mainstream. This is the Hype Cycle from 2009. As you can see, Garter finds that Corporate Blogging is well within the “Slope of Enlightenment,” and set to be mainstream in less than two years. Social Network Analysis is not too far behind. Microblogging (like Twitter) is on its way down into the Trough of Disillusionment, but the blue dot indicates that Garter does not write the concept off as “obsolete.” For more on the 2009 Hype Cycle, see http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1124212.

Returning to the idea of trust, consider this quote:

“Heirarchies exist where there is ambiguity in transactions, resulting in the need for authority. Authority manifests itself in the form of hierarchy.

Networks are constructive and destructive because the transcend hierarchy. They operate on the basis of trust.

This is a human design pattern.”

-Karen Stevenson

Social media creates networks, and therefore creates a system based on trust. These platforms are ways to keep in touch, whether it be with friends, or people who have only met through the sites.

As a company in the social media realm, you are capitalizing on the opportunity to create a dialogue directly with your consumer to build trust. You are stepping away from the traditional advertizing hierarchy, in which the brand and the expert reviewers are at the top, and the everyman is at the bottom. In social networks, everyone is on the same plane, and you are recommending your product as a “peer.”

It takes time, which comes in shorter and shorter supply these days, as you add these strategies onto an existing marketing plan. Hopefully, these methods of measuring your social media impact will make the time spent worth it.

Good luck!

Introduction.

Whether you are selling tickets, toys, or shoes, your overall goal is to use social media to gain recognition, incite curiosity, and then build trust in your brand – trust that will lead a customer to buy the product, and then do it again.

So you go to the websites that people are already on: Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, to name just a few, to build that recognition. When your contacts are curious enough, they may be drawn to your website. Hopefully, the trust you’ve laid the groundwork for on social media platforms will be solidified by your website, and you’ll land a sale.

Social media marketing can be time consuming, though, and it would be a comfort to know that your valuable time and effort is paying off in that desired trust. Only, you can’t measure trust. So how will you know you’re not wasting your time?

We hope this blog will give you some ideas for “finding your social yardstick,” which is to say, gauging your social media impact and how you might improve it. We’ve outlined four “layers” of building a social presence. They are “layers” and not “steps” since you never really move past any of the processes, but you build upon it, like floors in a building. Each of the lower levels must be maintained and adjusted to make sure the upper floors are still stable.

Layer 1: Optimize. Learning Pre-Social Networking Tools.

The goal of social marketing is to get the potential customer to your website. So, before you expend time and energy into Facebook, Twitter, or a blog, you’ll want to Optimize your website. Which is to say, you want the site to be everything it can be: eye-catching, professional, and easily navigable. Once a person has found your page, you want the layout that provides the greatest chance of a sale.

There are two very important tools for optimizing your site. One is Google Analytics. This is a free service, which can take some time to install on your website, depending on how it is built. Once your site is synced to Google Analytics, though, you can easily access more information about your website that you thought possible to track.

Learn how people find your site. Are they coming from Facebook by clicking on a successful ad? Are they running a search on Google? Analytics will even tell you what keywords in the a visitor typed in the search bar before they clicked the link to your site. Then, you can maximize on those keywords by using them as “Tags” on any photos, videos, or blogposts you publish to the internet.

Analytics will also give you a picture of how people are navigating through your site. One key statistic is your bounce rate: percentage of initial visitors who “bounce” away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site. Knowing the bounce rate for each of your pages will let you know which ones are immediately disengaging. Analytics can also tell you which page most often leads to the goal (or purchase) page, which will let you know where you may already be doing something right.

Click here for the official tour of Google Analytics.

http://www.google.com/analytics/tour.html

With the information from Google Analytics in hand, you will be prepared to begin optimizing, using the aptly named Google Website Optimizer.

This tool combines website editing with a middle school science experiment. Say you have a home page for your website. On it, you show a banner, some text, and a menu for navigation, and you want to decrease your bounce rate for that page. You would like to try adding a photo, tweaking the text, and changing the color of the banner, but, as we all learned in our middle school science class, adding too many variables at once and not having a “control” will make it impossible to know which variable led to the change.

Enter the Optimizer’s Multivariate Test. Once it is synced to your website, you can submit multiple variables to the program. It will then mix and match the new variables with your existing components and provide comprehensive feedback on which combination led to the highest conversion rate: the number of site visitors who complete the desired action (clicking to the “Checkout” page, for instance) divided by the total visits.

How long you want to run Google Optimizer before you commit to a certain combination will probably depend on how much traffic you receive. More traffic means you’ll get faster statistics, but, ultimately, it’s up to you and your company.

Once your site is optimized, and even while it is optimizing, you’ll want to Push Traffic. Get people there. Keep in mind, though, that even once you’ve run Optimizer and found the best possible combination of photos and text, the internet is an ever-changing entity. Websites must be updated, and people’s expectations vary over time. Keep optimizing, and definitely keep getting feedback from Analytics.

Layer 2: Push Traffic. Getting Started with Social Media.

If you have no experience with social media, it is more than okay to start small. There are five steps to establishing your online presence, so it’s best to make a schedule. Decide how long you will spend on step one, lurking. Perhaps you’ll lurk on Facebook for two weeks to see what it’s about. Then break down that period of time further. Set aside the time to spend two hours on three days of the week lurking. Then do it.

1. Lurk. Sign-up for your social platform of choice. Whether it be Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, your first step is to explore. Watch what others are doing until you feel comfortable enough to jump in.

2. Presence. Create your profile, upload a video, post a picture or your first blogpost. Don’t be afraid to start very small. A blogpost does not need to be a five paragraph essay, and it doesn’t need to take you all day to write. Become a fan of some pages on Facebook and start following people on Twitter.

3. Consumption/ Conversation. This is the step at which you can begin to measure your effectiveness. Gain Facebook fans or Twitter followers. Get views on your YouTube video by posting links on other sites. Ask people questions at the end of your blogpost so you get comments. You want to get people talking to you.

4. Engagement. To keep those people talking to you, you’ll need to talk to them. Reach out into the online community. Set a numeric goal. For instance, “I will post great content often enough on my blog to get 10 comments this month!” Or maybe, “I will comment on two Facebook pages other than my company’s every day.” This is the time to step up your game to really produce great content, which will lead to…

5. Virality. This is the goal, in which other people start sharing your content. Maybe they’ve subscribed to your blog through an RSS feed (more on this later), or they are posting links to your YouTube videos on their Facebook profiles. Congratulations, you are viral.

You’ll find yourself cycling through steps 3 to 5 again and again as you upload new content, engage contacts to gain feedback, and push the video or picture to virality. Now, pick another social media platform and make a new schedule.

If you’ve got ten minutes right now, take a step forward in your social media presence, even if it’s a small one. Watch the tutorial for Analytics or Optimizer, or maybe just create a username on a social website you’re unfamiliar with and spend a few minutes exploring. If you’re well-established on a social network, try spending ten minutes posting on fans’ walls. Later this week, we’ll post Layers 3 and 4, which will feature more numeric tools for measuring your success!

Head here to RSVP and we hope to see you there — we’ll be taking photos and talking with attendees and blogging about it all for The Social Expedition, so be sure to stay tuned for more.

Here’s an excerpt from the Expedition blog:

The idea of the campaign is to inspire Memphians to take ownership of the city and be proud ambassadors of everything Memphis has to offer. Friday’s pep rally is only the beginning — events will be happening all over the city in April during three themed days of celebration. Thursday, April 8 will be favorite Memphis music; Friday, April 9 will be favorite Memphis food; and Saturday, April 10 will be what you love about Memphis. On those days, Memphians will be encouraged to create their own brand of “pep rally,” whether it’s a potluck lunch at work, a Memphis music swap or simply organizing contributions to a local charity.

Between now and then, more details will be available about specific events. Spirit of Memphis will be hosting several throughout the city on the final day of the April celebration. You can keep up with the plans as they develop by following @SpiritofMemphis on Twitter or checking in regularly at SpiritOfMemphis.org.