Facebook is Everchanging, But Some Things Should Never Change

November 9th, 2011

Facebook plays a major role in the lives of many people. It is a source of fun, a place of business, an opportunity to kill time, and a social necessity to those who frequent the site. According to Facebook’s own statistics, there are over 800 million users, and half of the active users log in every single day. That being said, when Facebook makes changes to the site, people take notice. A lot of people.

 

I remember the days prior to a News Feed, where you actually had to search for people in order to see what they were up to on the site. Then Facebook released the News Feed, and everyone was up in arms (“The new Facebook is CREEPY!” “I feel like a stalker on the new Facebook!” “Boycott the new Facebook!” group was formed, etc.). All the commotion died down once people realized they actually like seeing what their friends are up to. Facebook has changed a few more times and added quite a few more features since then, the latest being the “ticker” that now appears on the right side of the screen, letting users see in real time what their friends are doing on the site.

 

The point is that Facebook is becoming more complicated and less intuitive. It can be quite overwhelming for someone who has recently joined Facebook to navigate the site. Some may people set up an account, take a few minutes to try and comprehend it, throw up their hands in frustration and never log in again. This is especially true for older generations who did not grow up using computers. The problem with this is that Facebook is too powerful to ignore, especially for business owners.

 

As marketers, it is our job to stay on top of these changes and see how our clients may benefit or not benefit from them. We have to adapt our strategies in order to stay on the cutting edge and still be successful for our clients. Privacy concerns are continually an issue that we must address when working on behalf of businesses and individuals. Business owners pretty much need us these days, since most are too busy running their businesses to stay up to date with all the latest social media alterations. We have the tools and knowledge available to us to be able to do this for them. We enjoy it also, which is an additional plus.

 

Even though we, as marketers, must constantly evolve our strategies, there is one thing that must remain constant: connecting with people. Regardless of the technological advances, making lasting, meaningful connections is the number 1 priority of us here at The J3 Effect. Losing sight of this goal in exchange for profit, or for any other reason is purely unacceptable to us. Facebook keeps us on our toes, but as long as we stay true to our core values, we come out a winner every time.

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Your Company Has A Social Graph

April 8th, 2011

By Johnny Wyatt

 

Every Company has a social graph: People you know and the people they know.

· Your customers and the people those persons know.

· Your vendors and the persons these people know.

· Persons you know who also serve your target audience in a different

way than you do.

· People you and your people know and the people they know. All of your employees may become promoters of your brand.Social Media Management

· Your social graph is a picture or diagram of this massive array of connection which leads back to you through people’s friendships.

 

For most companies there are four important revenue issues.

1. Keeping the customers they have.

2. Selling more products and services to the customers they have.

3. Generating word of mouth advertising.

4. Acquiring new customers.

There are many fine companies today.

They have done everything right for years but they are stepping out of the traditional mold and becoming what Clara Shih, the author of The Facebook Era, calls a “New Breed” of company: More nimble, more in touch, with greater reach, they out compete companies that use older technologies.

 

For the new breed of company there are two kinds of customers or clients.

1. Those who are connected via social technology (fans).

2. Those who are not.

On the average , fans spend $71.84 more non-fans..

On the average, fans are 28% more likely than non-fans to continue using the  brand.

On the average, fans and clients are 41% more likely than non-fans to recommend the product of service to others—word of mouth advertising. (see next page for source.)

 

Statistics based on an extensive study (glad to provide). The companies studied were: Nokia, BlackBerry, Motorola, Gillette, Axo, Dove, Victoria’s Secret, Adidas, Nike, Coca-Cola, Oreo, Skittles, Nutella, Red bull, Pringles, Playstation, Xbox, Starbucks, McDonalds. The most remarkable was McDonald’s where the average fan was worth $508.16 to 259.82. for $580,003,461-annualized. SYNCAPSE.COM

Why?

 

There are two powerful things social media marketing make possible that have never been possible before.

1. Never before has marketing media technology allowed for two-way communication.

2. Never before has marketing media provided access to your company’s social graph. The people you know and influence, the people they know and influence, the people they know…

· Social Media suddenly makes people in your social graph visible to you and each other. All are able to observe converse with and influence each other.

 

How?

What you can do.

· You can set up a system of social media properties that work synergistically to insert you into a conversation people are already having.

· You can set up a listening post so you know what people are saying about you and your brand.

· You can provide a connection hub for your company’s social graph.

· You can reach farther; build more relationships with more people than possible any other way.

 

What People can do in your social media space.

· They can visit your page and see and interact with people who support your brand.

· They can become a fan of your business to show their support.

· They learn compelling things about you, your company, your people, your products and services and promotions you offer.

 

What we can do for you?

· We can set up and manage your social media system for you.

· We will help you build your fan base.

· Tend your system every business day for (within 24 hour response)

to people’s interaction.

· Each week, post appropriate relevant content from world wide search sources.

· Direct any technical matters or complaint issues to a designated company official.

· Make direct, personal contact with each fan at intervals you determine.

Supercharge two Business Growth Drivers

Exposure

1. Social Media gives you real time, vibrant, relational exposure to a vast number of people who connect back to you through people they know like and trust, than ever before possible.

2. Keeps you “top of mind” with your customers, your vendors, your friends and strategic alliances.

3. Creates more “Touch Points” than possible any other way for less outlay.

4. Your aggressively managed social media presence makes it possible for you to insert yourself effectively into the conversation that is already going on.

 

Relationship

1. Unique to every other sort of media, Social Media has unlimited shelf-life because it is relationship-building based not marketing-campaign based.

2. Your relationship with your entire connection base grows deeper and stronger over time.

3. Your customers who are fans are more likely to purchase more of your products and services than your non-fans.

4. They are more likely to stay with your brand than non fans.

5. They are far more likely to recommend you to others.

6. Your visible influential relationships lead naturally to your acquisition of new customers.

7. Who knows, it might even make a difference when some customer is deciding who they are going to pay first.

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Previewing Your Facebook Profile as Someone Else

April 2nd, 2011

Christopher wrote a great post below, explaining how to make a limited profile. Once you have completed all those steps, how do you know that they really worked? Some people may still be a little worried that their business contacts can still see what they have supposedly been blocked from.

 

A great feature that Facebook has implemented allows users to actually view their profile as another person on their friends list. Just follow these steps (but only AFTER you have already customized your privacy settings):

 

1.) Click the "Account" button on the top right corner of the page

2.) Click "Privacy Settings" from the drop down menu

3.) Click "View Settings" at the top of the page

4.) Click "Preview My Profile"

5.) At the top of the page, type in the person’s name who you would like to see your profile as. You can then see your profile as that person would see it. Simple as that! It’s a great way to feel confident that the privacy settings are indeed working.

 

-Jaime

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Cyberbullying

March 20th, 2011

Each one of our clients differ greatly, and each comes with their own unique set of challenges. We enjoy these challenges because they help us to learn and get better at what we do. They also set a precedent, in the case that it happens again with another client in the future. br


We were recently approached by a client that has become aware of some cyberbullying going on amongst Facebook pages of their students. They wanted some advice on how to deal with the situation. br

 

What is cyberbullying?

“Cyberbullying” is when a child, preteen or teen is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones. It has to have a minor on both sides, or at least have been instigated by a minor against another minor.”   (http://www.stopcyberbullying.org/what_is_cyberbullying_exactly.html)

Social media sites like Facebook are a great way to interact with friends and family, but with the good comes the bad. It can easily become a place of negativity, especially among school-aged kids.

 

In this particular instance we were not given many details about exactly what was happening, but there are a couple obvious suggestions to make. First, in the case that one student is getting harassed via wall posts, removing them from their friends list would eliminate the attacker from being able to post any more to the wall. If the students are not friends on Facebook, and the harasser is sending inappropriate messages via Facebook email, changing the settings to prohibit non-friends from sending messages would resolve the issue. One or both of these actions would stop most cases of bullying, at least from a Facebook perspective.

 

Another suggestion would have been to check the time stamps on the wall posts or messages, and if they showed to take place while school was in session, reprimand the bullies. After some research, this turned out to not be the best suggestion.

 

Schools implementing punishment in instances of cyberbullying can be a bit of a sticky situation, legally speaking. Students should definitely be accountable for how they treat their peers, even when not in school. However, schools can also be sued for “exceeding their authority and violating the student’s free speech right.”  (http://www.stopcyberbullying.org/prevention/schools_role.html)

 

Putting the school in legal jeopardy is definitely not something we were willing to risk. Instead, we decided to put together an email and send it to the superintendent, which outlines the issue of cyberbullying and the potential for the school to take a greater stance on it. This particular school is increasingly using Facebook as part of their primary internal and external communication strategy, therefore it is important that everyone feels safe. We advised that the school look into a change in the acceptable use policy, legally allowing them to punish any cyberbullying activity. However, we did not push the issue, just made a suggestion and allowed them to deal with it how they see fit.

 

Cyberbullying is one of the unfortunate consequences of social media sites and increased access to technology. It is not something to be taken lightly. Harmful comments to a child can really make an impression on their self-esteem and confidence.

 

Here are some great references if you or someone you know ever encounter cyberbullying:

http://www.ncpc.org/cyberbullying

http://www.stopcyberbullying.org/index2.html

http://cyberbullying.us/index.php

-Jaime

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Limited Facebook Profile

March 7th, 2011

By Christopher Porter

 

We want to use this blog to feature best practices using social media. Sometimes this comes from new features we hear about, sometimes out of conversations with clients. Instead of answering the same question again and again, we want to provide a resource for people to come back to, and tell their friends about.

So you are a business professional, and have been using Facebook to keep up with friends and family, and suddenly want to start adding business contacts to your profile, what do you do? Should you create a separate profile just for your business contacts?

No need. Facebook allows you to selectively share and hide information based on lists.

 

Here is a short video Explaining more

Via Cnet

 

Adding Business Contacts

As you request people to add you as a friend on facebook, you can pre-emptively add them to a list (a creative name like business contact comes to mind) and if/when they do choose to add you as a friend, the automatically go on that list.

 

Here is numbered list process of how to add people to a limited profile list

1.Go to the Friends page.
2.Click on the "Limited Profile" Friend List in the left sidebar. If you do not see a "Limited Profile" friend list in this section, you can create one by clicking the "Make a New List" button and then naming the list.
3.Click "Edit List."
4.Type your friend’s name into the "Add to List" field. You must be friends with a person to add him or her to the Limited Profile list.

To prevent users on this list from seeing certain content, please follow the steps below:
1.Click the "Privacy Settings" option in the Account drop-down menu at the top of any Facebook page.
2.Go to the Profile Information section.
3.Select any Profile privacy setting and click "Customize."
4.Enter the name of your limited profile friend list in the "Hide this from these people" section to restrict these users from viewing the profile content you selected.

 

Not only a restriction

This is not only a way to restrict access to your profile, but actually use these lists to broadcast information. You can selectively do "status updates" to only a select list of people (like your business contacts) to let people know about special promotions at work, latest developments, whatever you like, without annoying your friends.

 

Here is another video, saying the same thing a different way. (a bit more detailed)


Source Presence Media

 

I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions, post them in the comments or contact us directly.

-

Christopher

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How to be a Social Media Guru

February 17th, 2011

Step 1. Call yourself a Guru.

Step 2. Do one strategy over and over again, without measuring your results.

I Jest (as I hope you can tell), but dislike the word Guru in social media. I would describe myself as a Learner who loves to teach others what I have learned. Possibly a technology Mentor, where learning and growing goes both ways?

The internet is a big place. I can not possibly know about all the tools that are out there. The thing I can do effectively, is come up with a strategy using my current level of understanding about the technology I am familiar with, and implement that. See if it works, tweak it, sharpen the saw as Dr. Covey calls it, and go from there.

I love this quote from Trey Pennington speaking about Klout scores “Don’t worry about increasing your Klout score (or twittergrader ranking or whatever comes next). Just use whatever gifts you have to help other people accomplish their dreams. If you’ll help enough other people get what they want, you’ll have all the influence you’ll need.”
Here is the full post, great read.

Disclaimer, I am sure there are people that call themselves Guru’s that are doing good things, being effective. My main issue, is this is all so new to be an expert at it, and it is constantly changing, where yesterdays expert may not be todays. Helping people, in my opinion, never goes out of style.

-Christopher

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We Must Flip the Chart

June 26th, 2010

Today, June 25 2010, this Hubspot chart and Nicole Landguth’s post made my mind spin. Sound the alarm, “Local Business” is the second shortest marker on the graph. Her topic: metrics. We all know that what you measure matters. I like what she said. http://blog.ogilvypr.com/
At the J3 Effect, a fundamental metric we watch, and work to effect is the ratio between the number of fans and the number of interactions. Below I’ve included the chart and my post to her helpful blog.

Most Liked Facebook Page Types HubSpot
Nicole Landguth
Writing for 360⁰ FRESH INFLUENCE, today Published “TGIF: What Makes a Page Successful? (Hint: It Isn’t Fan Count)

I posted: Nicole, my agreement meter pegs 100% with your post title. To reflect your retailer analogy, I read some years back that Walgreens’ key metric is total sale per customer visit. Obviously, that is bright, and, as you said, far more significant than the sheer number of customer visits.

The HubSpot chart interested me and I thank you for including it. Since TheJ3 effect provides business fan page management, it tells me, “WOW” we’ve got our work cut out for us.

More importantly, since effective negotiation of today’s Social Media rapids is moving to the top of the Local business “to do list,” perhaps even for long term survival, we must flip that chart. Local business must not remain the next to the shortest line on the graph.

A Fundamental metric we are running with right now:
The Fans:interaction ratio. True, each of our clients has different end goals and different success definitions, but this seems fundamental to them all.

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How Thick is a Shadow

April 8th, 2010

The Sun, just up, and directly behind me cast a long shadow as I walked.  The beauty of the brisk morning gave me the ahhhh of awe.  As I rounded the corner, I noticed a man and his wife who I often see taking their early morning walk together.  They were two blocks ahead of me.  I decided to see if I could walk fast enough to catch up with them.  Well, behind is a hard place to catch up from.  It didn’t seem to me I was making any catch-up progress.  But after a while, I noticed that only one block separated us.  About the time I realized I was actually catching up with them, the man stumbled slightly.  He grabbed his wife’s arm to steady himself.  They stopped and I as I passed by, the man said, “I stumbled on your shadow.”  I told him I was very sorry that I had startled him.  At breakfast the next day, I asked a couple of friends if someone could sue you for stumbling on your shadow.  One of them said it would take a shady lawyer.

I’m always looking for life lessons in the things I see and experience.  I’m sure you noticed the important one tucked away in the middle of this story.  It is this, If I had started my walk earlier, I wouldn’t have been behind.  We live in a fast changing world.  We don’t have as long to think about things as we used to have.  As soon as we see the need to act, we need to act.  I’m talking to my own procrastinating self more than to you, but I expect there is something you and I both need to do and do it quickly.

Have an immediate implementation day!

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When You’re “Fully Alive” …

April 7th, 2010
I have met only a couple of people I’d say were “fully alive.” They were both abundantly about other people, not so much about themselves. I remember one such person who’s passion for other humans was always just below the surface of his skin it seemed. This guy was always in full response mode, to greet, respond, engulf, with explosive respect passing out, without reserve, excited-to-see-you greetings.
If he was seated, he would spring to his feet. If he was standing, it was like his heart would shoot out of his chest to receive and emotionally embrace you. It didn’t seem to matter whether you were a stand out leader type or one who no one else noticed. Everyone got the same from this guy. We need more people like that. When I grow up, I want to be like that too.
What would happen if people got treated that way on your fan page?  How would they describe the feeling they felt if walking through the door of your business meant getting that kind of honor.

I have met only a couple of people I’d say were “fully alive.” They were both abundantly about other people, not so much about themselves. I remember one such person who’s passion for other humans was always just below the surface of his skin it seemed. This guy was always in full response mode, to greet, respond, engulf, with explosive respect passing out, without reserve, excited-to-see-you greetings.

If he was seated, he would spring to his feet. If he was standing, it was like his heart would shoot out of his chest to receive and emotionally embrace you. It didn’t seem to matter whether you were a stand out leader type or one who no one else noticed. Everyone got the same from this guy. We need more people like that. When I grow up, I want to be like that too.

What would happen if people got treated that way on your fan page?  How would they describe the feeling they felt if walking through the door of your business meant getting that kind of honor.

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It takes more than one to make big lights shine.

December 3rd, 2009

There once was a battery who had dreams of greatness. He dreamed of causing a gigantic light to shine. It would light the way of many travelers, but by himself he couldn’t do it. So he began to talk about the light and how wonderful it would be to light the way of many travelers.  He made up stories about travelers on important missions struggling to find their way but how when the light came on they could see how to get where they were going and when they did, they changed the part of the world they touched and made it better.

Before long there was another battery that caught the same vision and offered to help. The first battery humbled himself and opened the weakness of his negative pole to the positive pole of this brother battery who also wanted to make the light shine.  The power they produced together was twice what either one could do alone.

Most great accomplishments are team accomplished.  With batteries placed end to end the total result is the power of one added to the power of the other.

Human accomplishment also works like these batteries who decided to work together to make one light shine. But there is an exciting difference between batteries and people. When several batteries get together, the result is addition. When humans join as one it’s more like multiplication.

When people humble themselves to link their weaknesses to someone else’s strength to accomplish the same thing, the power that results is not simple addition. There’s synergism. Two can do more than double what either could do alone.

For batteries it is simple to agree upon the light they will cause to shine. For humans its Just as possible but not as easy.  That makes this a two part post. My next post will be about how to instigate synergy.

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