First, the back story.

See that nifty little “Like” button to the right?  That’s a bit of code that connects my web page to Facebook.  It’s part of a suite of plugins that link websites with Facebook pages.

I launched Web Marketing Nerd the day before the plugin was released.  Here’s how the following days went down:

Day 1: I’d created a Fan Page the day before, which had a whopping 12 fans by the end of the day.

Day 2:  I find a couple of properties in the Open Graph schema (nerd talk for “how Facebook categorizes things online”) that let webmasters define what type of object a “Like” button is referring to (i.e. movies, people, or in my case, a blog) and add an administrator for that particular object.  I set myself as the admin and identify my website as a blog using Facebook’s terminology.

Later that day, I notice that all of the people who once “Liked” my Web Marketing Nerd fan page on Facebook were removed.  I am puzzled, so I click “Like.”  An “admin page” option appears.  Intrigued, I click it and I’m taken to a NEW Web Marketing Nerd fan page, automatically generated by the Like plugin when I made the switch to identifying Web Marketing Nerd as a blog rather than a public figure as I had originally set it up.  Seeing the value in linking my page with my website, I like this idea.

Days 3 through 10: I publish great content, build up a modest fan base, and secure a username for my page, facebook.com/webmarketingnerd

And that brings us to today.

What changed (and what it means).

Today, I typed “Web Marketing Nerd” into Facebook’s search box, just like I always do to check on my page.  I pressed the Return key, waited a moment, and I arrived at the Web Marketing Nerd website.  ”How silly,” I thought.  ”I must have typed it into the location bar from my browser.”  I went back to Facebook and tried again.  Same result.  Hello, website.

I clicked posts that my friends and I have tagged with The Web Marketing Nerd page.  They all took me to the website.  I clicked links to the page.  They were all redirecting me to the website.  Friends confirmed the behaviour.

This, I’m sure, is dependent on my particular page configuration.  I set up the Like plugin on my website, which automatically created the Facebook page.  This is a special case, but let’s take a look at the pros and cons.

That’s great for web traffic…

Facebook is sending traffic to our websites.  That’s great.

…but not great for our fans.

Our readers connect to us on Facebook so they can hear from us on Facebook.

That makes News Feed Optimization more important than ever.

The Magic Formula to getting seen on Facebook: Σ(uwd).  This is the EdgeRank formula, wrapped up as “To appear on the News Feed, content needs to be personal, relevant, and recent.”

If my readers cannot visit my page, that means my content must be relevant enough to appear on their News Feeds.  Since the first element of the EdgeRank algorithm is user affinity, though, that means that one determining factor in content appearing on the News Feed is how often our connections interact with our Pages.  For that reason, our content would be more likely to show up on the News Feeds of connections who visit our pages regularly.

Hence, since our content only reaches people who engage with us, no harm is done by restricting access to that page.

What you need to do about it

Whether your page is configured like mine or not, News Feed Optimization is essential to creating an engaging community.  That means you need to focus on content that is:

1. Personally Relevant
2. Interesting (as in the type of content you’re creating)
3. Delivered in a time frame in which your community is likely to consume it.

To find out the optimal type of content to post and when you’ll see the most engagement, use tools like Insights to measure the response you’re seeing from your connections based on the content that you’re sharing.  Do they respond to photos more than videos?  Do they prefer educational content to entertainment, or vice versa?  Lastly, when are your visitors checking their Facebook accounts?  Recent information is more relevant to readers, to the time at which you post content is important as well.

Measurement is tricky.  Reaching your customers is more difficult.  The data–as well as common sense–all points to one thing, though: customer-centric content is necessary to encourage customers to engage with your brand.  Serve your fan base and they will promote you.

Questions, comments, concerns?  Weigh in below.

Imagine two brothers.

There are an older brother and a younger brother.  The older brother brings his friend over and they’re talking about how stupid the little brother is.

The older brother says to his friend, “Watch this. He is so stupid.”   He calls the little brother into his room…   The younger boy arrives and the older brother holds out a nickel and a dime in the palm of his hand.  He says, “You can have one of these.  You can take the BIGGER one (the nickel) or the smaller one (the dime).”

The kid takes the nickel, the bigger one, and runs out.  As soon as he is out of earshot, the two older friends start laughing hysterically.
From down in the living room, the boys’ father hears this going on and thinks, “Oh, no…  Not again.”  He goes up to the little brother’s room where he finds his son happy as can be, jumping up and down on the bed.

The dad says, “Why do you do that?  Your brother is making fun of you.  He thinks that you think the nickel is worth more than the dime.  Why do you keep taking it?”

The kid turns to his dresser and pulls out a sock full of hundreds of nickels and says, “If he knows that I know the dime is worth more than the nickel, he won’t give me any more nickels!”

Build up your community over time.

You won’t please everyone.  People will think you’re stupid for doing what you do.  But if every day, you find one more loyal reader, or fan, or follower who appreciates what you do, at the end of a month you’ll have 30 raving fans.  They will tell their friends about you.  Your fans will find more fans.

Build your community with the end in mind.  Don’t get discouraged when you don’t see a huge following overnight.  Don’t get discouraged when your blog only gets fifteen hits (like mine did yesterday).

Focus on the nickels.

Before you give up, take a lesson from the Nerd.  Welcome to The Realist’s Guide to Getting Started on Twitter.

Okay, so here’s what you need to know…

If you’ve never used Twitter before, you’re diving in to the belly of the beast we call “social media.”  You’ll find Twitter to be noisy, fast-paced, and more than likely, you’ll think it’s pretty confusing.  Bear with me.  Let’s dissect a few of the key things you need to know to get up and running like a pro.

1.) Twitter is nothing special.

Twitter is nothing more than a communication channel.  It’s just like an email, just like a telephone.  Sure, it has some different features, but the purpose of Twitter is to connect people.

Unfortunately, far too few Twitter users see the site as a communication tool.  Instead, they see Twitter as a way to blast out their message to millions of people.  The problem with that sort of thinking is that people have to actually care what you have to say if you expect them to follow you.  If you’re just creating an account to blast out a marketing message or to tell people how great you are, you’ll end up like “that guy” that shows up to networking events, passes out as many business cards as he can, and disappears into the night as quickly as he came.  I think it was @skydiver who called them “business card ninjas.”  In fact, everything in this discussion on real-world networking applies to Twitter.

2.) Twitter can be self-absorbed.

What you’ll find:

The first thing you’ll do on Twitter (after updating your status to say “just setting up my twittr“) is to go find some people to follow.  And then you’ll follow them.  And then you’ll see things like “I am sitting on the patio” and think to yourself, “I really don’t care.”  Heck, my first tweet ever was “Starting a business.”  Brilliant, no?

That’s because nearly all new Twitterers are taking some time to adjust to how things work, and there’s two sides to that coin.  At first, it’s really easy to say that someone is silly for updating their statuses to tell people what they are doing all of the time, but you’ll change your tune the moment that you follow someone because you realize that you really do care about what they’re doing and when they’re doing it.

What you can do to change it:

Any of these social tools are about relationships.  It’s called “social” for a reason, ya know?  Focus on following people that you are legitimately interested in and engage them in conversation. Use the @mention feature to reach out to people when you follow them and introduce yourself.  Ask questions and respond to others.  Focus on your followers, not just you.  I fall into the “all about me” trap, too.  Let’s start a conversation.

3.) Twitter is like voyeurism for nerds.

What you’l find:

You don’t make “friends” on Twitter.  You “follow” people.  Just like in that kinda-okay-but-really-pretty-awful Mel Gibson movie, Conspiracy Theory, where he follows Julia Roberts everywhere he goes, Twitter lets you stalk just about anybody.

The moment you create an account on Twitter, you’ll likely see people start to follow you.  Do not be alarmed. Again, that’s Twitter.

What you can do to change it:

If privacy is a concern, you’ve got a couple of options.  First, you can “protect your tweets” by approving followers as they follow you, but if you’re using Twitter for business, this will make it harder for your customers to connect to you.  Second, you can block users who you don’t want following you, but this is retroactive and, if that user signs out of Twitter, they can see your tweets publicly.  Lastly, you can just filter the info you publish to the world.  This is your best bet–if you wouldn’t tell a stranger, don’t put it on Twitter.

Another common practice on Twitter for spammers and other unsavory characters (wannabe porn stars included) is to follow as many people as possible just in hopes that those people follow back.  It’s a way of building up followers, as if the number of followers you have actually matters (it doesn’t, by the way).  I call this “twam.”  If a twammer decides you look like an easy target, just click the “Report for Spam” link on their profile.

4.) On Twitter, you’re competing for attention.

What you’ll find:

No matter how many followers you have, it’s entirely possible that your posts will go unread.  Just starting off on Twitter, you might be able to read every single tweet that the 10 or 12 people that you follow are posting.  But after you start to follow more and more people, you’re going to find that you just don’t have enough bandwidth to

What you can do to change it:

According to a study from Hubspot, most users tweet 4.422 times per day.  The more people you follow, the more tweets you see and the harder it is to keep up with every one of them.

For your message to be seen, then, you have two options.  First, if you’re trying to get in touch with a specific Twitter user or a small group, use @mention them to send the tweet to their Mentions section.  If you’re trying to reach a wider audience, then the answer is to tweet more often.  According to the Hubspot study, “users who tweet between 10 and 50 times per day have more followers on average than those that tweet more or less frequently.”  The optimal number of tweets per day is 22, according to the research.

I wouldn’t say you should tweet 22 times per day.  Instead, focus on three variables.  Create content that:

1. Provides real value, rather than a marketing message.  Your followers are a loyal community for you to serve, not spam.
2. Engages individual users with content that they’re interested in.  What you think they want and what they really want may differ.
3. Is spread out throughout the day.  Tweet throughout the day rather than in “chunks” to have the greatest reach.

5.) Twitter has awesome potential (if you use it well).

Whether you’re new to Twitter or you’ve been using the tool for a while and not seeing the results you’re looking for, follow some of the steps in this guide and I guarantee you’ll see an improvement.  Take the focus off of how great you are and focus on how great your followers are.

I’m going to take the time to unfollow some Twitterers who I don’t often connect to so I can focus on those who are doing cool things that I can brag about.  If you’re just getting going on Twitter, reach out to me.  I’d love to connect with you and share your masterpieces.  As always, you can find me on Twitter at @RobLaughter.

It doesn’t have to be.  It’s just a word we nerds use for “real life.”  You see, social media is just another tool for enabling communication, a lot like a telephone or email.  No matter which tool you use–Facebook, Twitter, YouTube–there are always real people somewhere talking back.  It’s about conversation!

Some folks like to think of it like being at a party.  I’m not entirely sold on it, but it works.  The problem with the party analogy is that it makes it sound like we’re here only to goof off and have a good time.  If you’re not careful, though, it’s easy to turn into “that guy” or “that girl.”  You know who you are…

So in order to be really successful in the social media marketing world, it’s important to think about how real, live people are connecting to each other at the party.  In other words, you need to think like a regular user.

Think like a regular user.

If you ‘re new to this social media stuff, you’ve probably been told that you can create a list of friends or followers and then “get the word out” to all of them.  To most, that’s pretty seductive; we have been trained to think that more eyeballs is better.

But consider why your potential customers are using these social tools.  Do you think they signed up for Twitter so they can receive moreadvertisements every time they turn around?  No.  They signed up to connect to people, not ads.

If you were in a business networking event where you introduced yourself to a group of people who, in return, gave you a sales pitch, would you be interested in sticking around?

With social media marketing, people will buy from you only when they’ve learned to know you, like you, and trust you.  Your emphasis should be on building relationships and serving your audience.  Early in the game, don’t focus on revenue.  If you serve your customers, opportunities for revenue will come.  Instead, focus on being genuinely helpful without a sales pitch.

Your action steps for this post

I don’t like preaching without giving you specific tasks to complete in order to drive the message home.  In order

1. For the next week, if you are using social media for your business now, stop selling.  Not a single sales pitch on Facebook, on your blog, on Twitter–anywhere.
2. Take the focus off of all the awesome things that you’re doing and highlight some of the cool stuff that other people are doing.  You can talk about yourself on occasion, but try not to be “that guy” at the party.
3. If you’re not using social media tools for business, pick one that you’re comfortable and then start connecting.  Find interesting people (if you need some tips, ask in the comments) and start a conversation.  Think like a “regular user,” not like a business trying to advertise.

If you’re running into any sticking points or challenges at all, shoot me an email or find me on Twitter @RobLaughter.  I’m here to help.

Next time, we’ll discuss how to set you–and your product or service–apart from the rest of the crowd.

I, for one, think this is supremely cool.  Before, when I told Facebook that I liked the movie Mean Girls, Facebook treated the words “mean girls” as nothing more than a string of text.  Now, the Open Graph features built into websites like IMDB tell Facebook that Mean Girls is the title of a movie, that it was released in 2004, and that there is a DVD cover image available.

What it doesn’t tell Facebook is that Lindsay Lohan was a total hottie in that movie.

Anyhow, I’ve been plugging away on The Facebook Privacy Handbook and I just finished a short section on The Open Graph idea that I’d like to share with you.  Have a look through the break.

Want to save the file to your computer? Click here to download The Facebook Privacy Handbook – The Open Graph exerpt.

P.S. if you want the super nerdy details of what the Open Graph can do, check out the documentation on Facebook’s developer website.

So in case you’re not as “plugged in” as I am, let me catch you up on what Facebook has been up to this week.

The Open Graph is great for the web.

First, they announced this thing called the “Open Graph,” which takes the connections that you make on Facebook and extends them all across the web.  It sounds scary, but in fact, it’s really cool.  The Open Graph concept will let you connect to web representations of real life “objects.”

For example, if you really liked a restaurant like @ThePitBBQ in Raleigh, NC, you could tell your friends about it on Twitter and you might even be able to join their Fan Page on Facebook, but there wasn’t an easy way to take that outside of Facebook’s walls.

Now, websites across the web can use the Open Graph protocol to “talk about” The Pit by adding a few bits of data that add meaning to the words “The Pit.”  For example, the popular review website Yelp can have a page about The Pit and add data that says that The Pit is a restaurant in Raleigh, NC, include its address and phone number, and do so in a way that Facebook understands.  That way, when you say you “like” The Pit on Facebook, suddenly Facebook knows that you’re talking about the Raleigh, NC restaurant and not this:

Personalization is great for the web.

So that’s one cool thing that Facebook has done.  Second, a few “trusted partners” (currently, Docs.com, Pandora, and Yelp) are equipped with what’s called Instant Personalization, a feature that gives the sites instant access to your public data to improve your experiences on the web.  Pandora, for example, will give you recommendations based on the pages that you Like on Facebook.

What’s really cool is that it will show you friends who like the same songs that you’re listening to.

What Facebook has done is essentially laid the groundwork for personalizing the web in a way we’ve never seen before.

Privacy concerns, of course, are going to arise.  People are whining about privacy all across the web.  Let’s look at it another way.  Facebook can only share the data that you feed it. That’s it.  On top of that, Facebook can only share the data that you give it permission to.  Check your privacy settings.  If you’re sharing thing with the world that you’d rather only tell your friends, you have the power to change that.

What do you think?

How open is “too open”?  What worries you about privacy options?  What excites you about the state of the web?  Leave a comment in the section below.

Dear social media community, stop whining about Facebook privacy.

As of this week, the control that you have over your privacy is tighter than it has ever been.

Consider this.  Until this week, any application that you authorized on Facebook instantly had access to all of your data, regardless of your privacy settings.  Not only that, but that application would have access to all of the data of your connections in your social graph, too.  That means if my friend, Greg, were to authorize a malicious application on Facebook, that application had full access to all of the dirty laundry that I hide behind privacy settings.

With the Open Graph announcements from f8, came the following gem for our privacy settings.  @MollyWood was whining that the privacy options are obscure and that they default to being pretty open.

Molly has a point.  The privacy settings are kind of obscure.  They’re hard to find.  In fact, I’m in the middle of an eBook trying to explain it all in “real people” terms.  It’s a tough project, I assure you.

But before you rant, though, consider the alternatives.  Just one week ago, we had NO control over this data.  Now that Facebook has given you the ability to control what applications can snag from your friends, you’re complaining?  Geez, I guess ignorance is bliss.  Why don’t we politely ask Facebook to take the controls away again so that any shady dev with some PHP skills can have our personal info, family statuses, birthdays, home towns…  That’s enough info to apply for a credit card in someone’s name, for Pete’s sake.

@MollyWood isn’t the only one.  Gizmodo’s Adam @Frucci is inciting riot over on one of the greatest gadget blogs on the planet.  Have a look at the comments in this post.  I get the point that Adam is adding commentary in true Gizmodo style.  Heck, that’s why I read Gizmodo.  I even tried to emulate Giz with my own gadget blog a year or so ago.  I sucked at it.

But the point remains…  Why is it that the world’s most influential tech bloggers are so focused on whining about things?  Folks like Molly and Adam are in the best place of any of us to help educate their readers about privacy concerns, but they’re too blinded by negative feedback to do anything about it.

The only problem with Facebook’s privacy settings are the users themselves.  They’re given the tools, but no one has told them how to use the tools.  Pull your head out of your asses and do it.

So rather than bashing Facebook, I’d like to see tech bloggers actually being constructive and educating their readers about the options they have.  @Scobleizer has been doing it right.  Take a look at his tweets over the past hour.  He’s been arguing pretty damned passionately that we all need to get over it, focus on the positives, and live with it.  This is the social web, folks.  This is real life.  This is what 400 million people have nurtured over the past six years.

This is the new way of life.

Look forward to a follow up post as to why I think the new features on Facebook are going to change the world.

What say you, internet folks?

A well-designed blog can be the same way.  Take Copyblogger, for example.  Some of their posts are short, some of them are long, but at the end of the day, you know what to expect when you open the wrapper.  On top of that, there’s always something new and exciting to open up when you’re done with the post you’re reading.

Let this be a lesson to bloggers big and small.  Create addictive content and keep more content within reach.  Be consistent with your message, but keep readers on their toes by mixing it up every now and then.

Blogging is a lot like Tootsie Rolls.

P.S.  I don’t think it’s any coincidence that  Copyblogger and Tootsie Rolls share the same branding colors.  Do you?

]]> http://www.webmarketingnerd.com/archives/reading-a-good-blog-is-like-eating-tootsie-rolls/feed 0 http://www.webmarketingnerd.com/archives/dark-side-of-the-numbers-game http://www.webmarketingnerd.com/archives/dark-side-of-the-numbers-game#comments Fri, 23 Apr 2010 22:54:06 +0000 Rob Laughter http://www.webmarketingnerd.com/?p=444

Image credit: 1linkz

I’m in the middle of a six-movie Star Wars marathon. Rather, “In the middle of a Star Wars marathon, I am.”

I’m on Episode III. Anakin (Darth Vader) has just turned to the Dark Side and, as I watch, I’ve been working on my upcoming eBook, The System. I was in the midst of a chapter on social media and “The Numbers Game,” the practice of building a massive following on a social media platform so you can “get the word out” to as many people as you can with as little effort as possible.

The turn of events in the movie has gotten me thinking…  While the Numbers Game can be very powerful, it can be easily misused, even with the best of intentions.  Just like The Force, the Numbers Game has its Dark Side.

Learn the 3 Evils of the Numbers Game through the break.

Evil #1: The Numbers Game tricks you into thinking your marketing efforts are more effective than the really are.

So you have 2,500 followers on Twitter. You have 800 fans on your Facebook Fan Page. You’re talking to people every hour of every day. If you’re staying busy, you must be seeing real, tangible results, right?

Not likely. The cornerstone of The System is measuring the activities that immediately impact your business in social media. Those conversations mean little for your business if their results can’t be measured.

“But, Rob. Think of the branding!” you shout. Of course. Branding is important, but branding is a by-product of engaging in a way that authentically represents your professional brand.

Evil #2: The Numbers Game requires a large audience. Developing that audience can turn into self-destructive obsession.

To be effective with The Numbers Game, you have to build a large audience. With a large audience, marketing is easy! We can blast out a message to thousands of people! So what if only four of them buy our product? That’s how many I’d sell if I were taking the time to actually relate to people, too!

Mmmm… That “easy” approach is seductive, isn’t it? Little effort, decent results. But is it really that easy?

Consider this excerpt from The System:

For the small brand, building a large audience is an uphill battle, but it can indeed be done. One way to do so would be to spend tens of thousands of dollars on more traditional advertising methods to drive traffic to social media profiles. TGI Fridays built a fan base of almost one million fans in just over a month through an aggressive Facebook campaign, including product sampling offers for 500,000 fans and several weeks of home page advertising which, at the time of this writing, starts at $30,000 a month. The average small business can’t afford this type of promotion.

So you can get results with numbers, but the work it takes to build those numbers is immense. Once you start to build that audience, it often becomes an obsession. The numbers are sexy. They validate your online existence. That brings us to #3: devaluation of the individual.

Evil #3: The Numbers Game devalues your greatest asset: the individual.

With the Dark Side, “If you’re not with me, you’re an enemy.” It’s easy to get caught up in amassing a huge audience so quickly that we don’t have any idea who we are connecting to. I’ve seen brand new Twitter users follow over a thousand people on the first day they started the account. If we don’t know who we’re connected to, In Episode V, when Luke meets Master Yoda, he dismisses the furry green guy as a lunatic. The moment Luke gives himself a chance to get to know his Master, the pair begins something amazing.

When building your network of allies, your greatest assets are the individual members of the community you’re nurturing. Help them. Care for them. Build them up. By helping others, others will help you. Don’t you forget that.

Defeat the Dark Side of the Numbers Game: be a compassionate leader.

It’s wonderful to have a large community of people that you share with. @WayneSutton, a local Twitter celebrity, has nearly 30,000 followers. Even so, I am confident that if each one of those 30,000 people messaged him with an intelligent comment or question, he’d take the time to respond to every one.

Allow yourself to be the compassionate leader. Know your community. Treat them as individuals, not an audience. Don’t build numbers just for the sake of building a pool of eyes and ears to which you can blast a marketing message.

Listen. Respond. Engage. Create. Measure.