Facebook « Spiderworking.com's Social Networking blog

February 24, 2010

Your Social Media Questions Answered – Will Facebook become the hub for social network integation?

I’ve been asking for your social media question small or large and this weeks one is a biggy!

John Abbot from Abbot Consulting asked:

“would you agree with Gartner’s predictions about Facebook becoming the hub for social network integation by 2012.”

Lets have a closer look at what Gartner predicted:

“By 2012, Facebook will become the hub for social network integration and Web socialization. Through Facebook Connect and other similar mechanisms, Facebook will support and take a leading role in developing the distributed, interoperable social Web. As Facebook continues to grow and outnumber other social networks, this interoperability will become critical to the success and survival of other social networks, communication channels and media sites.”

There is no doubt that by 2012 Facebook will have continued it’s massive growth, maybe even reaching a billion users worldwide. However there is a danger that more users may result in less interaction with the site. It is possible that with so many friends to keep up with that users will be overwhelmed with the information coming in. There is also the danger that people will begin to feel that Facebook is too commercial, they will become fans of too many pages and find their news feeds full of marketing messages. For this reason it is important that page owners keep their posts interesting and relevant to their target audience.

Certainly Facebook are aware of the possible downside of growth and have been quite innovative in the way that they allow their content to be shared. Facebook Connect for example and the opening up of Facebook chat that puts them in strong competiton with other IM solutions. Mobile apps such as ‘Urban Spoon‘ will make the way we interact with our facebook friends very different and it is this move forward, creating a Facebook Profile allowing you to easily share experiences across both the mobile and standard internet, that could give Facebook the ability to become the ‘hub’ Gartner predicts.

In some ways Google Buzz is already attempting to make use of your Google profile in a similar way. By buying into several platforms such as YouTube and Blogger and by allowing you to syndicate these to your email contacts using Buzz there is the potential for Google to become stiff competition to become the ‘hub’ in the future. Whether Buzz succeeds as a social network will not be clear for quite some time. It may even be beyond 2012 before we see it take off in the way Twitter and Facebook has, but I would imagine that Facebook will be keeping a close eye on it’s progress in order to stay one step ahead.

Tags: Facebook, Your Questions Answered — Tags: Buzz, Facebook, Google, Questions and answers, Social media for business, social media marketing —

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February 17, 2010

Your Social Media Questions Answered – Facebook Groups

We were asked by Lorna from Garrendenny Lane Interiors:

“Wondering about the effectiveness of forming a group on Facebook – how do I invite people -is it friends or fans or both? “

Facebook groups are a good way to create a bit of a buzz around your industry. A business should always have a ‘Page’ first but a group is a good way to add value to your brand. They can be a great place for people with a similar interest to share information. For example, it might be worth Lorna starting a group about interior design in Ireland, that way she could keep on top of the current sentiment attached to her industry, share information, start discussions on particular trends all whilst gathering a group of people together who would have an interest in her brand and what she has to offer.

Mashable published a great article on the difference between Groups and Pages recently.

There a couple of things you should consider when you are setting up a group:

They have a very short shelf life – group pages do not update members news feeds the way that Pages and Profiles do so it can be easy for people to forget about them.
They are connected to your personal profile. Members of the group will know it is you that is administering the group, unlike a page which appears as an entity on it’s own.

The advantages are:

You can message members directly. From a business page it is only possible to send ‘updates’ which often remain unread in a fan’s inbox. From a page you can send a message which appears in the inbox the way a personal message does. Be aware not to overload your group members with messages though, use this feature sparingly to avoid people leaving your group.
If your business already has a page and you are running a new initiative it can be a way to gather together those with a specific interest in it, rather than overloading your fans news feeds with the same message. For example, Spiderworking.com just launched it’s Work The Web Workshops. Imagining that a number of the poeple interested in the workshops would already be fans of Spiderworking.com we decided against setting up a business page. Spiderworking.com’s page will be promoting Work The Web and clogging up fans news feeds with the same recurring message could result in loosing them. For this reason we set up a group. It also means that we will be able to message directly those interested in the workshops.
People may be more inclined to join a group because they know that a group cannot pollute their news feed.

Inviting people to join a group

You can invite your ‘friends’ directly to join your new group. You cannot invite ‘fans’ of your business page directly but can post details of the group on your wall and ask them to join.

If you have a social media question that you would like answered no matter how large or small leave a comment on this post or tweet us @spiderworking.

Tags: Facebook, Your Questions Answered — Tags: Facebook, groups, Questions and answers —

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February 10, 2010

Creating lists on Facebook

The average Facebook user has 130 friends, add to this fan and business pages and your news feed can begin to look a bit daunting.

Lists are a great way of filtering your friends and pages into categories, allowing you to view their news in seperate sections. You can use it to separate friends from work colleagues or to categorise your pages by type, for example restaurants or Irish Businesses.

How do you make a list?

Log into Facebook and click the ‘Account’ tab on the top right hand side

Select ‘Edit friends’ from the drop down menu.

On the left hand side of the next page click the ‘All connections’ tab:

Click ‘Create New List’:

A window will open, here you can name your list and select which friends and pages to add to it.

Once you have set up a list it is simple to add connections and pages to it. When the window is closed you can scroll down through your friends and use the drop down menu on the right hand side to choose which lists to add them to.

Now go back to your home page. Click on ‘friends’ on the left hand side of your screen. Your lists will appear here. By clicking a list you will be able to see the updates just from those on the list.

Tags: Facebook — Tags: Facebook, lists, tutorial —

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January 7, 2010

When should you use notes, status updates and links on your Facebook fan page.

In a previous post I talked about how to populate your Facebook fan page but when you have that vital piece of information that you want to share, what’s the best way to do it? Should you use the ‘Notes’ application, should you post it in your status update? or should you just post a link?

Status Updates: If you have a short piece of news or have a short announcement to make use the Status bar at the top of the page. It is now possible to allow facebook to update your twitter page so always try and stick to the 140 characters that twitter allows.

Notes: If you have something a bit longer to say use the notes application. You can also add pictures and add tags to a note. It is also possible to import your blog into notes.

Links: If you find a cool link that you would like to share with your fans, or want to share a link to your own webpage click this button underneath your status update. Paste the link in the box provided. If there are pictures in the link you are posting you will be given a choice of thumbnails. Scroll through the thumbnails using the arrows next to the pictures. It’s a good idea to comment on the link and why you are sharing it. You can do this by writing in the status update box above the link. Finally post the link by clicking the add button.

Tags: Facebook — Tags: Facebook, fan page, import blog to facebook —

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December 10, 2009

Treat every social network differently.

Every social media network is different. Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin amongst others are all brilliant in their own way and it is important to understand how each one works so that you can make the most out of them.

You can also view this blog post on our YouTube Channel and on our Facebook Page.

Tags: Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter — Tags: Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube —

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November 20, 2009

4 reasons why a facebook fanpage is better than a profile page for business

1. Visible to the whole world, good for SEO and for encouraging fans.
2. Demographics – Facebook offer some great demographics which mean you can see if you are targetting the right audience with your page.
3. Respect your customers, respect their privacy.
4. Facebook don’t want you to do it… they could close you down.

Tags: Facebook — Tags: Facebook, fan page —

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November 12, 2009

It’s time to stop linking your Twitter and Facebook accounts!

If you have your Twitter and Facebook accounts linked, if every time you tweet it appears on your Facebook status, it’s time to disconnect.

We tell you why and how to solve the problem with an alternative facebook application, selective twitter status.

Tags: Facebook, Twitter — Tags: Facebook, Twitter —

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October 27, 2009

5 ways to populate your Facebook fan page.

So you’ve got a Facebook business page, you’ve started to gather fans but what should you post?

One of the nicest things about Facebook is that you can keep in touch with your fans on a daily basis (I wouldn’t recommend more than once a day). This gives you a unique way to enhance your brand, to establish yourself as a customer and to converse with your customers and fans.

Trying to find content for your page however can seem like an impossible task, so I thought I would share with you some of the tricks that I use to keep my page populated.

1. Google Alerts: Google alerts is a free subscription service. You can choose words or phrases as your ‘alerts’ and Google will send you daily or weekly emails listing web, news and blog results containing those phrases. When they hit your mail box in the morning scan through them for stories that would be of interest to your customers and that will help enhance your brand.

For example, for Feelgood Organic Hampers I have a Google alert for ‘Organic Ireland’, occasionally there will be a great story, posted in a newspaper or a blog about someone producing organic food or living a sustainable lifestyle in Ireland, the sort of story that not only would be of interest to my fans and customers but which is also relevant to my brand. When I find one of these gems I share it on my Facebook page.

2. Import your blog: Importing your blog into Facebook means that your page will automatically update whenever you post a new blog entry. The simplest way to do this is to use the notes function:

Click the ‘edit page’ link under your company logo.
Click on the pencil next to the ‘Notes’ application.
Choose ‘edit’ from the drop-down menu, you will be brought to the notes page.
On the right hand side of the screen click the link ‘import blog’ and follow instructions to feed your blog into your fan page.

3. Ask a question: Another example from Feelgood Organic Hampers. Gardening has been a massive trend this year and one which I have taken an active interest in, sharing my experiences on our blog and across our social networks . As every gardener knows slugs are a massive problem so I asked the Feelgood Organic Hampers Facebook fans and Twitter followers to give us their Slug solutions. They obliged by posting their suggestions on the fan page wall.

4. Have a competition: Offer a small prize in return for a short story, a caption, a name for a product. Spread the word about the competition through your mailing list, twitter, your blog, your other social networks as well as through your Facebook page. You will find that this brings you plenty of new fans too.

5. Company news and promotions: You will soon loose fans if you constantly directly promote your business but that doesn’t mean you can never do it. As long as you are providing value to your fans through other interesting content it can be beneficial to add company news and special offers to your news feed.

If you need help with your Facebook fan page join our online community and ask a question. We’d also love to hear your Facebook fan page success stories.

Tags: Facebook — Tags: Facebook, fan page, Google alerts, import blog to facebook —

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