How Social Media Got Personal, Real and Engaging

Many of us in the Social Media industry are frequently writing about and explaining to our clients what being social is and how it can be effective.  We often throw out terms like “engaging”, “connecting” and “interacting”, then try to explain how truly powerful that can be.  We often also use analogies of “creating a living room” environment with our fans and followers that establish the human connection.

Being social can’t be anymore human.  It’s part of us and our God given nature.  When “social” is transferred into thedigital realm properly, connections are still made, relationships formed and heart felt engagements occur.  The core social element not only remains, it flourishes and spreads wide and deep.  It’s almost like bringing back the 1950’s kind of caring and interaction people once had for each other and their customers.  At its core is human connection and interaction.

If anyone has ever had a doubt about how human this digital thing we call Social Media really is, I have a story for you.  Yesterday one of my youngest cousins was killed in a tragic automobile accident.  Yes, deep I know.  I bet you thought I was going to provide some touching example of business charitable giving and the massive goodwill and ultimate revenue they received from the story.  No, this story is deep and completely human.

Sunday morning I posted on Facebook that I had just spoken to my father and that my cousin was in a terrible accident and was not going to make it.  By far the majority of my friend connections on Facebook are industry people and not personal friends.  This did not prevent me from being human and posting this message.  Over the past two days I have been blown away.  The prayers, comments of encouragement and heart felt human interactions from hundreds of people I have not met has been, to say the least, amazing.

Though my heart is broken at the loss of this family member, this situation has done two things.

First, it has given me a real sense of being cared about.  This was a total surprise to me frankly.  Never thought this situation would reveal a simple hope that caring and heart felt communication is actually still alive.  Not a hope outside of my faith in God, but just the reality that there are really great people still out there.

Secondly, it has impressed upon me in a much deeper way how human Social Media is when done properly.  When you engage this medium or are working with clients to help them within social, remember that the human element is there and what makes social media work

Let this sink in.  Social Media is about human connections that build trust and offers value to others.  It’s just not digital feeds, posted articles and crossed fingers.

By Robert M. Caruso
CEO fondalo, Inc.
www.facebook.com/robertcaruso
www.twitter.com/fondalo

Facebook Down Just Days After Huge Changes Go Live

Well there you have it.  Facebook seems to be following in the #Fail whale footsteps of Twitter.

This marks another poor “upgrade” execution by Facebook.  Not only are users and experts in an uproar over additional privacy changes, but the site is now offline.  Amazing!

A friend of mine wrote a great article this week detailing the issues surrounding Facebook’s new Personalization.  I highly recommend you read it to know what you are up against.  Find it here: Protect Your Privacy Opt Out of Facebook’s New Instant Personalization – Yes You Have to Opt Out

In an industry where you dominate in dramatic fashion, it is completely unacceptable to become complacent.  Facebook needs to quickly figure out that its users are the driving force behind its continued success, NOT their business model aspirations.  They also need to get a handle on their server farms to ensure outages don’t become a consistent issue.  If both issues remain in the media, their domination could easily be threatened by another growing network, or even a new startup.  Just ask Nestle’ about handling things poorly…

A Review of Twitters Own BlackBerry App – Some Good, Some Annoying

Twitter recently developed its own Tweet application for the BlackBerry.  I installed the application on my Storm touch phone to see how well they did and to compare it against my staple application, UberTwitter.  Here are my quick thoughts and some screen shots.

On the down side:

Re-Tweeting sucks – Just like on the main Twitter site, the BlackBerry app does not allow editing when Re-Tweeting a post by another user.  It also doesn’t include the familiar RT notation we have all become accustomed to when scanning posts.  I, like many frequent Twitter users, often include a comment when re-tweeting a post to engage the original poster and/or make the RT a better engaging post.  Twitter should rethink this on their domain and app.

Can’t Exit App – One of my biggest complaints with the app is that you can’t turn it off or exit it completely.  It runs in the background whether you like it or not.  That is a bit controlling and I don’t like it.

Errors – It seems to me that I get the “Twitter Ran into a Problem” even more frequently than other Twitter applications.  I know, a shock huh?  The odd thing to me is that it seems more frequent even than the frequent domain Fail Whale errors.

Doesn’t auto shorten URLs – With UberTwitter, when posting a link or re-tweeting a post with a long form URL, it automatically offers to shorten it.  You don’t get this with the Twitter BlackBerry app.  I have decided to not RT several items due to this situation, where I would have on UberTwitter.

What I like:

Great interface – The interface of the Twitter app is very clean and easy to use.  Unlike UberTwitter, the tool bar options are big enough for my fingers to push on the screen without multiple attempts.

Loads and runs quickly – I noticed a significant speed improvement of Twitters application over others.  I’m sure this is due to direct connection into their own data points rather than standard API, however it is very noticeable and I like it.

Refresh of Tweet Feed – One of the things very annoying on UberTwitter is that when the feed refreshes, it leaves you where you were in the feed, forcing you to scroll endlessly to get to the latest posts at the top.  Twitter refreshes the screen and bumps you to the top automatically.

Profile Views with Follow/Unfollow ease – I like how the Twitter app displays profiles and easily lets you determine whether you are already following the profile or not and more importantly gives you single click options to Follow/Unfollow.

Battery Consumption – I noticed a seriously lower battery consumption using the Twitter application, even though it is always running.  I am not sure if this is actually true, but my spidey sense tells me it is.

Settings and Options – In general I like these.  Better than UberTwitter and when you get a new message and small icon screen notice, it actually identifies what the new notice is.  Whether a direct message, mention, etc.

Overall, I like the application and will continue using it.  However the big downside for me is the RT issue, which by itself will keep my trusty UberTwitter app safely installed on my Storm.

Here is a link to the app download – http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/8160

By Robert M. Caruso
CEO fondalo, Inc.
www.facebook.com/robertcaruso
www.twitter.com/fondalo

FINE! Don’t Join My Social Media Company Fanpage! I’ll Delete You as a Friend Then.

A Real Example of How NOT to Social Network

Had an incredibly interesting situation happen last week that is just too good of an example to share about what proper social networking does not look like.  I am going to recount the actual scenario that occurred with a real Facebook “new friend”, but will change any individual or company names so as not to embarrass anyone.  It is my sincere desire to educate and not make fun.  This is how NOT to do social media marketing.

About a week ago I friended an “industry” person on Facebook.  When I say industry person, I mean someone touting themselves as a Partner with a social media marketing company in the USA.  They had some 244 friends, and a handful that were mutual friends of mine already.

Once connected with this individual, they immediately (same day) sent me an invite to join their company fanpage.  Without any previous contact and again right after becoming “friends”.  No hello, no engagement, no valuable posts in their feed or at the least an inbox message welcoming me, etc., just an invite to join their fanpage.

I decided to take a look at the page and it was filled with YouTube video posts of mostly funny stuff, which isn’t really a negative.  At the time there were some 46 or so fans.  The only communication or engagement was a comment by this individual, commenting how much they liked the companies new website, etc.

I decided at this point, I would ignore the request since the company is in a different state and I really had no relationship established with them at this point.  You see, when I fan a brand or company it is real.  I don’t throw my fanning around like some do.

What happened over the next 3 days blew me away.  I received TWO MORE invites from this person to join their page AGAIN.  This seemed quite excessive to me and given my personality I decided to send them an inbox message.   My intent with this message was to open communication in the hopes that they might engage with me, as well as rethink their strategy to something that will be much more effective.   Following is exactly what I sent.

The message I sent:

Robert M. Caruso April 16 at 11:13am

(Friend Name Removed),

Love ya, but this is the 3rd suggestion you have sent me for your fanpage. I appreciate the invite, but in less than a week to have that many is a bit much. Not very social.

Robert

For a couple days I didn’t think anything more about it.  Later, remembering the situation, I realized that I received no response.  I did not recall the persons name, so I went back into my messages and clicked to the sent folder and found the message.  I clicked to go to the individuals profile to discover that they had “un-friended” me.

Three things to take away from this situation…

1)      Don’t hammer people with you or your clients fanpage invites.

2)      Engage and connect a little bit before pushing them to fan your brand/company.

3)      There is no room for negative anti-social reactions in Social Media.

I’m just sayin’

By Robert M. Caruso
CEO fondalo, Inc.
www.facebook.com/robertcaruso
www.twitter.com/fondalo

What REALLY are Fans and Followers?

What is a Fan or a Follower? Many people would answer these questions differently.  In this post I encourage you to think outside the box about your page, the page you manage or even the page you fan.  All goes for following on Twitter as well.

Many of us hear all the time, it’s quality, not quantity when Twitter is the subject.  Many of us say it ourselves.  But I have done some checking.  Looking at who is actually following these folks, called Guru’s and experts and more importantly who they are following back.  To be honest, I was not impressed.

Lets carry this over to Fanpages on Facebook.  I probably receive about 20 Fanpage suggestions each day from my 1000+ friends.  My assumption and low-level checking makes me assume many are pages managed by the “friend” that suggested it to me.  Interestingly enough, out of those 20 suggestions I get each day, less than one (on average) is something I would be interested, or worse is not even in my state.  How is this benefiting the brand or company whose logo is on the page?

In my last post (Facebook Devalues Fanpages) I discussed the changes Facebook is making to the “Fan” system and how it will significantly impact effectiveness and value of Fanpages.  But let’s get serious here.  If you are building a fan base of users out of your target market, interest or even location of service, how is that going to help your social media ROI outcome?

The fact is that MOST Fans and Followers of anything but major brands that fall into the categories I have brought up here are a friend of YOURS and not a Fan of YOU or your brand.  Think twice before you follow back just because it is what “you’re supposed to do”.  Think eighteen times before suggesting one of your pages to someone who is not in the pages demo/geographic target zone.

I would rather have a client of mine have 50 real Fans that we are engaging with and building communication and brand loyalty, in our target zone, than one with 500 Fans that are not.

By Robert M. Caruso
CEO fondalo, Inc.
www.facebook.com/robertcaruso
www.twitter.com/fondalo