Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

Understanding the Culture of Social Media Platforms

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Understanding the Culture of Social Media Platforms

Every social media platform (Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, etc.) has it’s own “culture.”  Each of these platforms has it’s own language, its own customs, and its own personality.  Paying attention to these cultures is critically important to anyone looking to use these social media platforms for marketing or brand building.  Ignoring, or not properly understanding, the culture of a particular platform will make your marketing efforts suffer.  And you’ll look silly, and will be ignored, in the process.

Understanding the culture of a particular social media platform is no different than understanding the culture of another group, city, business, or country.  By that, I mean that it requires a lot of listening and observation.  When I was in the Army, I was stationed in South Korea for fourteen months.  During my time there, one of the most valuable lessons I learned was how to appreciate a different culture.  There were many things about the South Korean culture that, at first, didn’t make any sense to me.  For a 21 year old kid, it was a lot to take in.  Over time, however, I did learn to accept and appreciate the culture there.  Once I decided to make the effort to learn and experience as much as I could about the South Korean society, my time there became much more rewarding and enjoyable.  It’s no different when it comes to understanding and operating on a social media platform.

To give a better idea of what I’m talking about when I refer to a social media platform’s culture, let’s use Twitter as an example.  Twitter represents a community of 200 million users who communicate with each other in 140 characters or less.  Certain symbols and abbreviations (@, #, RT, etc) have taken on special meaning and they have adopted unique customs like Follow Friday and Music Monday.  The communication across Twitter is rapid-fire, with many users sending multiple updates an hour.  Compare that with Facebook, where most users rarely post more than three times a day.  Someone who’s attempting to use Twitter to market a brand or business had better be well versed in the culture of the platform.  Otherwise, they will be quickly ignored for the same reason that telemarketers are widely ignored.

So does this mean that your marketing department needs to enlist a sociologist to help you navigate social media?  No.  However, it does mean that before any campaign is launched across any social media platform, time and care must be taken to understand the culture of that platform.  Anyone looking to use any social platform for marketing purposes needs to understand who uses that platform, how they use it, and how best to interact and build a relationship with its community.  Otherwise, you’ll just be wasting a lot of time with little to show for it.

-Dan Cheek
LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com
Twitter.com/LaserBurnMedia
(570)795-9467

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Posted in Social Marketing Strategy | No Comments »

Casual Friday

Friday, May 7th, 2010

It’s Friday.  Here’s what’s going on in my world….

Projects

  • Continuing to design a social media marketing campaign for an amateur mixed martial arts (MMA) cage fighter.  The client is looking to go pro and wants to begin attracting the attention of both fans and potential sponsors.  Working with a very limited budget, we’re planning on putting together some You Tube videos.  In addition, we’ve also set him up with a free WordPress blog, a domain, and a Facebook fan page.  Finally, we’re providing some advice on how he can begin to use his Twitter account to build his brand and expand his professional network.
  • Meeting either tonight or this weekend with a potential client who is looking to setup a website that will feature his very own online comic, blog, and a small e-store where he can sell custom designed t-shirts and other swag.  We need to see what his goals are and how we can best incorporate a social media campaign to meet his marketing needs.  As a comic loving geek, I’m excited about the prospect of working with this guy.

Personal

  • After one whole year in our apartment, it’s now time for my wife and I to re-new our lease.  We will be looking to possibly purchase our first home, but for right now, the apartment will continue to be our humble abode.
  • Long time friends of ours packed things up and moved to Myrtle Beach.  They found a great place down there, exciting career opportunities, and are closer to family.  While it was sad to see them leave, we look forward to visiting them (and their warmer weather) in a few weeks.
  • I spent most of Cinco de Mayo working.  The wife and I finally made it over to a party later that night, but after having one whole Corona, I had to call it a night.  Damnit, I might be getting old.

Links

That’s all I got now for you, guys and gals.  Have a great Friday and enjoy the weekend!

See also: 5 Ways That Social Media Can Hurt Your Business

-Dan Cheek
www.LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com

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Posted in Casual Fridays | No Comments »

Facebook: Are Your Privates Private?

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

What information are you sharing on Facebook?  Who has access to that information?  What are your friends sharing about you on Facebook?  How do you access and manage your Facebook privacy settings?  These are all pretty important questions and, sadly, most people who have a Facebook account probably can’t answer these questions.  Considering Facebook’s new privacy and marketing policies, answering these questions is becoming more and more important.  We want to take a moment to help you understand how to manage your Facebook privacy settings.

Okay, first things first.  From your Facebook page, click on the ACCOUNT drop down, located in the upper right hand corner.  That will give you a list of options.  From those, you want to select PRIVACY SETTINGS.  This takes you to a very boring-looking, yet extremely important part of Facebook.  This page allows you to access and manage your privacy settings.  Congratulations, you’re looking at a page that most Facebook users will never see, either because they don’t know where it is or don’t care enough to look at it.  You are no longer one of those people.

So now that we’re here, let’s get started.  We’ll begin by clicking on PROFILE INFORMATION, the first option on the screen.  This will take you to a page that will allow you to control who can view your profile information.  Personally, I have all of these set to ONLY FRIENDS.  I do this because if I’m not your friend on Facebook, I’d rather you didn’t know everything about me or have access to my profile stuff.  You can adjust these setting, most of which are pretty self explanatory, to your own liking.  Also, keep in mind that you can change these settings anytime you’d like.

When you’re ready, click on BACK TO PRIVACY.  This will take you back to your Privacy Settings page.  Next, click on CONTACT INFORMATION.  This will take you to a page that looks similar to the PROFILE INFORMATION page you just came from.  From here, you can control who can see your contact information such as email addresses, phone numbers, and IM screen names.  Again, I keep mine set to ONLY FRIENDS.  Adjust your settings (or leave them alone if you like where they’re at) and when you’re ready, click on BACK TO PRIVACY.

So now you’re back at the Privacy Settings page.  From here, click on APPLICATIONS AND WEBSITES.  This page is extremely important, so pay close attention to what you’re about to look at.  I recommend that you take the time to review all of the sections on this page, but of these, the two most critical are the WHAT YOUR FRIENDS CAN SHARE ABOUT YOU and the INSTANT PERSONALIZATION PILOT PROGRAM sections.  From the WHAT YOUR FRIENDS CAN SHARE ABOUT YOU section, you can control what you’re Facebook buddies can share about you.  The less of these boxes that are checked, in my opinion, the better.  And as for the INSTANT PERSONALIZATION PILOT PROGRAM section, you really only have the option of allowing it or not allowing it.  Personally, I have un-checked the box at the bottom of that page.  If you leave it checked (and by default, it is checked for you), Facebook will share your information with other websites.

Once you’re satisfied that your APPLICATIONS AND WEBSITES settings are all to your liking, click once again on BACK TO PRIVACY.  The last two options on the page, SEARCH and BLOCK LIST are fairly self explanatory.  The SEARCH page allows you to control who can search for your profile, both on Facebook and through search engines.  I allow anyone to find me using a Facebook search (if they’re not my friend they can’t see any of my info, due to my other privacy settings) and I don’t allow my Facebook profile to show up in search engine results.  Because that’s just the way I like it.  The BLOCK LIST lets you block certain people from seeing or interacting with you on Facebook.  If you want to block someone(s), do it here.

And there you have it.  What did that take, less than five minutes?  And it was easy, right?  Managing your Facebook privacy settings is critically important.  It’s a good idea, even after you’ve adjusted and/or verified your settings, to check back on these settings at least once a month.  Facebook is constantly adjusting their privacy policies and, from time to time, these changes may result in changes to your settings.  So keep a close eye on them.  After all, if you don’t take responsibility for your privacy settings, don’t trust that anyone else will.

All for now.

See also: Good Content is Good SEO

-Dan Cheek
www.LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com

PS
If you are on Facebook, please take a moment to consider becoming a fan of Laser Burn Media.  You can do that HERE.  Thanks.

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Facebook and Twitter Go Down

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

Denial of Service Attack Cartoon

Anyone trying to use either Facebook or Twitter today probably noticed that both sites were, at times, unresponsive.  And while Facebook has yet to offer up an explanation for the sluggish and unstable service, the people over at Twitter announced that their problems were due to a Denial of Service (DoS) Attack, one that they are still fighting though.  And while Facebook hasn’t announced if they were under a similar attack, it wouldn’t be all that surprising.  Because if you are going to try and bring down one social networking goliath, you might as well try and bring down two social networking goliaths.

A Denial of Service attack, for those that don’t know, is where someone bombards the servers of a website (in this case Twitter) with millions of “pings” or information requests.  Not being able to deal with the massive ammount of traffic and server requests, the entire site becomes sluggish or even unresponsive.  And when dealing with social networking sites, this type of thing tends to snowball.  Why?  Well, because people tend to send out Twitter messages talking about Twitter being hit with a DoS attack, which increases traffic across the Twitter servers, adding to the problem.  Same with Facebook (although it has yet to be confirmed that their problems are, in fact, a result of a DoS attack).

From the official Twitter Blog…

Ongoing denial-of-service attack 2 hours ago

We are defending against a denial-of-service attack, and will update status again shortly.

Update: the site is back up, but we are continuing to defend against and recover from this attack.

Update (9:46a): As we recover, users will experience some longer load times and slowness. This includes timeouts to API clients. We’re working to get back to 100% as quickly as we can.

So who is responsible for the attack?  No one knows yet.  This could be the work of one hacker or even another country.  The way the attack typically works is that a virus is sent out to thousands (or more) computers.  The infected computers, who’s owners probably don’t even know it, begin, all at once, bombarding the target website with information requests.  It’s the equivilant of having everyone in a city flush all of their toilets at the exact same time.  It tends to break things.

As more information is released, we’ll be sure to keep you all updated.  All for now, gang.

-Dan Cheek
www.LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com

PS
For additional coverage of the Twitter and Facebook “crisis”, be sure to also check out Mashable.

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Posted in Facebook, Twitter | No Comments »

Catholic Arcbishop Blasts Social Media

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

Archbishop Nichols

According to Catholic Archbishop Vincent Nichols, Social Media and other modern communication technology is leading to the downfall of our civillization. In an interview published in the Telegraph (a UK newspaper), Archbishop Nichols says that social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace put children at risk of committing suicide and leads them to “devalue” relationships. He also says that technologies like cellphones and texting results in people losing social skills, unable to effectively communicate in person or to read another person’s body language. In short, the Archbishop makes the case that Social Media is a dangerous thing, something that we should move fearfully away from. Allow me, with all do respect, to explain why the Archbishop is wrong.

Archbishop Nichols was prompted, in large part, to speak out about the dangers of social media after a young girl, Megan Gillan, took her life after being bullied on the social networking site Bebo.  This tragedy, in his mind, proves his point that social networking sites are dangerous.  Here is an excerpt from the Telegraph story…

The archbishop blamed social network sites for leaving children with impoverished friendships.

“Facebook and MySpace might contribute towards communities, but I’m wary about it. It’s not rounded communication so it won’t build a rounded community,” he said.

“If we mean by community a genuine growing together and a mutual sharing in an interest that is of some significance then it needs more than Facebook.”

He warned that the sites are contributing to a trend for teenagers to put too much importance on the number of friends they have and that this can ultimately lead to suicide.

“Among young people often a key factor in them committing suicide is the trauma of transient relationships.

“They throw themselves into a friendship or network of friendships, then it collapses and they’re desolate.”

He couldn’t be more wrong, in my opinion.  Social networking sites don’t make kids kill themselves.  Had this girl been bullied in a public school, would the Archbishop be making an argument warning against the danger of public education?  Had this girl been assaulted by a member of the Catholic clergy, would the Archbishop be warning people to run and hide from priests and nuns?  Probably not.  Bullies are a part of life.  Dealing with bullies is something that almost all of us must deal with at some point or another.  Sometimes it’s in school, sometimes it’s at work, and sometimes it’s online.

Don’t misunderstand me, I think what happened in the Megan Gillan case was horrible.  However, if a 15 year old girl is willing to kill herself because of a bully on a social networking site, I would argue that this girl had bigger problems than a cyber-bully.  Megan killed herself by overdosing on a bottle of painkillers.  I’d say the pills had more to do with her death than Bebo did, but I don’t think that painkillers should be banned or villified.  Had she killed herself because of breakup, I also wouldn’t place the blame on the institution of dating.  And if she had thrown herself off of a bridge, I wouldn’t think to blame bridges, either.  Something horrible went wrong with this girl’s life and it wasn’t a social networking site.

Social Media is becoming a bigger and bigger part of our society.  It can add value to our lives, our work, and our culture.  Or it could not.  It depends, entirely, on how we use it.  And, like it or not, the genie that is Social Media has already been let out of it’s bottle.  We can’t push it back in, or uninvent it, or expect everyone to suddenly stop taking advantage of all the benefits that it offers.  Like any technology, there will be roadbumps and learning curves, and, sadly, sometimes things will go wrong.  Horribly wrong.  And that’s not just true of technology.  That’s true of life.

-Dan Cheek
www.LaserBurnMedia.com
Dan@laserburnmedia.com

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Posted in Social Media in Society | No Comments »