Tagged with: Facebook
While the changes that Facebook announced at F8 created more ways to connect with consumers, reaching those consumers may be more difficult, in three important ways, which we explain below.
To summarize the recent announcements, two major changes occurred on Facebook.
First, Facebook announced the Timeline. This is a chronological, user-curated view of every activity the user has taken or announced via Facebook that he or she deems meaningful. It’s a personal scrapbook annotated with photos, status updates, music, location check-ins, etc. This may become the most valuable real estate for users and for brands. Marketers may create applications that interact with the Timeline.
The second big change is the expansion of a piece of an underlying technology called the Open Graph. Previously the Open Graph allowed brands to include owned web properties into the Facebook ecosystem via the Like button. Now brands may go beyond the Like and embed custom verbs and actions into their applications — on Facebook or on their own sites.
This may result in more brand-relevant and viral newsfeed updates. Instead of simply Like-ing content on a brand site, consumer can send the following types of messages into their streams, from branded properties: “Joan is redecorating with the bold look of Kohler” or “Ron is grilling an Applegate Organic Hot Dog with Laurie.” Users can choose to include these branded stories or experiences into their Timeline, thereby elevating them to updates likely to be seen by friends.
According to the National Labor Relations Board, companies can not fire or discipline workers who criticize the company or their supervisor in social media.
The New York Times reports that the National Labor Relations Board agreed Monday to settle a case with a company that fired an employee after she posted disparaging remarks about a supervisor on her Facebook page from a home computer.
While her employer, American Medical Response, claimed that her statements did not qualify as protected activity, the National Labor Relations Board — for the first time — asserted that companies can not discipline workers who post criticisms on social-networking sites.
According to the NLRB, this employer will:
- Revise its “overly broad rules” to ensure that they do not improperly restrict employees from discussing wages, hours and working conditions with co-workers and others while not at work, and
- They will not discipline or discharge employees for engaging in such discussions.
Based on this clarification by the NLRB, I know a lot of companies who will be changing their social media policies right away.
Recently one of our own, Paull Young, turned his birthday into a social media experiment to raise money for charity:water a group working to provide clean water in Ethiopia.
The purpose of this experiment was not only to raise money for a good cause, but also to gauge the amount of leverage Paull could exert over his social network.
Why is this experiment important?
One of our biggest challenge in social media consulting and marketing is connecting conversation and relationships to action and ROI. The more we work to understand what types of relationships have the most potential for action, the better we can prove our impact.
Paull’s Method:
Tracking: By using Bit.ly Paull was able to track the number and sources of clicks to his charity page.
Communication: Paull used his Facebook status to make his friends aware of charity efforts when they came to his profile page to wish him happy birthday. Secondly, he used Twitter, on his birthday and the days following his birthday, to talk about the charity, his efforts and to spur greater action.
What were Paull’s Results?
Paull raised $1,240 for clean water in Ethiopia in the month of September. By looking at the statistics provided by bit.ly Paull was able to track how many people clicked on his link and where each of them came from.
Paull got:
- 101 clicks from Twitter
- 39 clicks from Facebook30 clicks from his blog
He received:
- $530 from his blog
- $325 from his personal contacts (i.e. people not on Twitter or Facebook)
- $302 from his Twitter friends
- $10 from a friend on Facebook (curiously, he met this person on Twitter)
If you do the math you can calculate the dollar amount Paull received per click:
- On his blog each click was worth $17.66
- On Twitter each click was worth (almost) $3
- On Facebook each click represented $0.25
Paull’s Takeaways
The greatest action comes from the people that you have the best relationships with. These are people that you have relationships with in the real word, co-workers and close friends.
Although Facebook has a much great potential for visibility it has weaker relationships: 77 people left Paull a Facebook wall comments saying happy birthday, 39 of them clicked through to his charity page and only 1 donated.
Twitter allowed for a more active visibility. On Facebook he could only change his status. Twitter allowed him to create a constant reminder updating his tweets nearly 20 times to remind people of the opportunity.
A bigger network = bigger results – Pete Cashmore of Mashable joined Paull in his charity efforts and was able to raise more than three times Paull’s amount.
For a more in depth look at Paull’s case study check out his blog posts. Importantly, you can support his efforts until the end of this month by visiting his page and making a donation.
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