If you’re known as the family geek, chances are you’ll be asked for a Facebook tutorial. If not, it can break awkward family silence at the dinner table. So, we’ve put together a list for you (think of it as your Christmas present) of what we think are some important guidelines for those just joining Facebook.

Top 5 Facebook tips to share with Grandma:

Too Many Requests!

1. Know the difference between Facebook messages and wall posts – and use it.
2. Don’t friend people you don’t know.
3. Don’t overload with invites to groups, games, or events. (Simply because it’s annoying).
4. Know your privacy settings. Who sees your information?*
5. If privacy settings disappeared and everything on Facebook were suddenly public to the world, make sure none of that content would ruin your life.

Facebook Privacy

*You can also assign each friend to a list you create. Make a list for family, colleagues, friends, etc. to ensure that what you share is received by the appropriate people. You might end up quite embarrassed if you are not careful. See the following photo for an example:

Make a list!

For a comical collection of disasters, refer to Facebook Fails. We recommend setting up a projector screen and searching through this as opposed to watching Home Alone. Happy Holidays, everyone.

Amazingly, the last three months where we’ve had a Social Expedition breakfast, Facebook has also released big news. Today is no exception and boils down to three main points:

• Single Sign-on for mobile
• Location API’s
• Deals

Here are the key takeaways:

Single Sign-on for Mobile

Think Facebook Connect, but for mobile. Here’s how it works (on your phone): login to Facebook, and then access Foursquare (or other participating app) without having to type a unique username and password for Foursquare. This same functionality has existed on the desktop for a while, but hasn’t existed with mobile apps until now. This saves a huge amount of login frustration.

Location API’s

Big news here is that you’ll be able to see where your friends have checked-in near your current location. Example: You’re standing outside of LunaWeb wondering where to go for lunch. You’ll be able to see that lots of your friends have previously checked in at Memphis Pizza Cafe…

Deals

For anybody following Proximity Marketing over the past few years, here’s a major step forward. Merchants can create deals and make them available to you based on your location (the deals are proximate). So using the above example of standing outside LunaWeb, in looking at Deals you’ll see that Asian Bistro up the street is offering a free appetizer with the purchase of two lunch specials. (Prediction: this will soon evolve into you being able to specify the types of deals you’re interested in and if you’d like them pushed to you, which is one of the original promises of proximity marketing… steps away.)

Also, Facebook is giving Android devices more attention than previously (this comes on the heels of news that Android is less than 10% away from iOS (iPhone) adoption and closing). In fact, the brand new Facebook for Android app is released today.

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?

facebook-privacy

Last week’s announcement that four NYU students were developing  a Facebook alternative suggests that they want its global dominance to shift: in the name of freedom. The students have more than raised their needed-for-development goal of $10,000 in 27 fewer days than scheduled.

But before the project, Diaspora*, is launched, we’ve found some articles that can be used in the meantime:

1) A timely article entitled “Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative” which discusses the viral, yet ambiguous, nature of its privacy laws, or lack thereof.

2) ReclaimPrivacy’s tool that allows users to scan their profiles for privacy intrusion.

3) Consumer Report’s Facebook rule of thumb: “7 Things to Stop Doing Now on Facebook”

4) SaveFace: A tool that allows users to reset most user settings back to “Friends Only.”

We aren’t against Facebook; we just want our privacy back.

We’re calling that rule Step Zero.

Step Zero: If businesses become operative within social media without regard to their community, they become irresponsible and oppressive.

"Laptop Megaphone" by jj_pappas423 on Flickr

We’re aware of these boundaries in the real world: an overzealous sales associate who stalks each new customer with nonstop pleas for service:  “May I help you?” “Would you like to try that on?” “What are you looking for today?” A customer is likely to walk out of the store every time. But in terms of the web, it takes a different form: countless fan page requests, despite denial time and time again.  And then there’s the megaphone effect, when businesses use social profiles as a megaphone to broadcast their message, without actually participating in the community.

All other subsequent “laws” hinge upon this idea. We often forget that real world rules and courtesies apply within the web. Bombarding social profiles with requests and suggestions is no way to earn business. Once this intangible, invisible line is crossed, marketing efforts become oppressive.

People are generous to extend some level of accepting interruptions. By connecting with businesses online, customers are granting permission for marketing purposes, but don’t take advantage of this generosity. If business exceeds this level, the community will regard it as being socially irresponsible and insulting.

We’ve posted their newest episode featuring Church Health Center below. Help support these guys and all the good they are highlighting in our city!

Also, hear Bob talk about his recent entry into the iPhone app store with a dedicated app for his blog, OneHalfAmazing.com. Check it all out at on the Social Expedition Web site.

And sure, there are plenty of benefits to real-time search. It’s got lots of sparkle and shine to it – the idea that you can search literally everything that’s being said about a given topic on the web right at this instant. It’s a fascinating innovation, but it comes with huge risk factors.

"Annoying Noises Prohibitted (sic)" by BarelyFitz on Flickr

As businesses become aware that their Facebook page – which may only have a hundred or so fans – is being indexed by Google, the temptation will be great to deck out updates with SEO-friendly terms and inundate the stream to grab that coveted top spot in the search. With search results automatically updating in real time, one post a day isn’t going to cut it. If you update about tomato soup in the morning and someone searches for tomato soup in the afternoon, your update likely won’t appear – it will have been pushed down by all the other people who’ve raved about tomato soup since 9 a.m.

Ultimately, while businesses can benefit greatly from being involved in social media, these platforms were not created for businesses. They were created for individual users. Still, very often a business’s presence on Facebook is a good thing for those individual users – as fans, they get benefits like exclusive deals and discounts and they can keep up with events at their favorite local venues. But Google is dangling a pretty tasty looking carrot in front of businesses with real-time search; if they bite, the utilities of social sites for individuals may soon be overshadowed by superfluous, constant updates that are a huge turn-off for most every user.

It’s certainly not surprising that a business would go to great lengths to nab the No. 1 spot in a Google search. Before now, that might have involved expensive SEO consulting and tedious copy writing to try to get in good with the algorithm. Real-time search is like a secret passageway, letting them bypass the algorithm entirely simply by having a social media presence.

But for those of us hanging out on Facebook, and not on the Google results page? As the Grinch himself once said, all the noise, noise, noise, noise, noise! We’re going to see much more of it on Facebook and Twitter. We may soon find businesses posting anything and everything to up their search rankings. But is that ranking more important than genuine fans or followers who are interested in your message or your product/service? If it’s the Google ranking, eventually those fans may go by the wayside, either by removing your page entirely or hiding your updates from their feeds.

There’s a fine line to walk. It would be foolish to ignore the possibilities of real-time search. You shouldn’t completely throw SEO principles out the window. But this does inject one more artificial aspect into the conversation that may push people away if not handled correctly. If it weren’t for the people using these networks, they wouldn’t have any value. If businesses turn up the noise too much those users are going to retreat. The back channel will have truly gone mainstream, and the value for the individual will wane quickly.

As for Google’s motives with this, we can’t help but feel like we’ve run into another snake-oil salesman. Hey, Facebook and Twitter and MySpace! We’ll give your sites lots of search love by listing real-time web updates in our search results. Sound good?

On the surface, it does. But if this results in increased noise, it may eventually be a detriment to these social sites. The habits of traditional marketing are hard to kick, and it won’t take long before businesses start picking up their megaphones. Our word to businesses? Be careful. Be smart and be savvy — you don’t want to get left in the dust — but be careful.

Dave Barger of LunaWeb does a great job showing us exactly how these new additions may change the way you use Facebook:

This upgrade, along with Facebook’s recent acquisition of social aggregator FriendFeed (made up of several former Google employees), seems to foreshadow big news in the upcoming months for the site’s search feature and who knows what else…

Short and Sweet: Microsoft’s Office Online (“Web Office”) will be offered for free to individuals within Facebook (either as platform or a Facebook app). A paid “Web Office” package will be available for small businesses. The paid version will be within a collaborative framework much like an extranet. This fee-based package will essentially be a hybrid of a Facebook group and a public profile (“fan page”).

More Details: There are developments that need to precede this evolution:

• FB Groups will need extra functionality like applications, super admin, auto friend list(of colleagues).
• Alternatively, “public profiles” will need privacy and membership options.

Facebook needs to pay more attention to its individual users before adding more business tools.  Lately, Facebook has been adding increased functionality for businesses, but not adding much for the individuals. Facebook must balance this out or risk alienating individuals.

Facebook users are already spending an immense amount of time on the site (increasingly for business).  Facebook is a mature, proven, and currently unmatched social network platform. Facebook’s popularity and Zuckerberg’s genius are formidable opponents to Google.  The increasing potential for Facebook to unleash it’s new display ad platform (more speculation on my part) across the immense number of Facebook Connect(ed) sites with ads that outperform Adwords is a major threat to Google.

Thundering through Google’s product development cycle are: Wave, the new OS, and Voice. All of these are “game changers” in their own right.

With both Microsoft and Facebook being Google competitors (and with Microsoft’s ~2% ownership of Facebook), a collaborative project to erode Google share will be incredibly appealing and add tidal waves of motion to an already fluid medium.