Posts Tagged ‘facebook’

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Snapchat and the schoolyard bully

August 7, 2016

Schoolyard bully

“Let’s just copy exactly what they are doing”

These must have been the crystal clear instructions to the programmers who work for Instagram as the new features on the platform are unashamedly and with no apology exactly the same as Snapchat.

Snapchat, the quirky social media platform has taken the world by storm and I guess recognising the imminent threat to their dominance Facebook instead of trying to buy them as they did with Instagram have just decided to try to blow them out of the online waters by “cogging” them.

Snapchat versus Facebook

I don’t like this, I think it is a poor and awful reflection of their business philosophy, their ethics and I’m starting to question their value system. This isn’t just any value system, this is the value system of Facebook, the clear dominant force in global social media.

Facebook aren’t just any other company they are a profitable giant who are without doubt the dominant force in social media. They gobbled up Instagram with their cheque book and we can see already how the two platforms are being worked for advertising purposes.

Then there is Twitter who are bravely hanging in there but they seem to be struggling to monetise their platform sufficiently to make any profit and their growth in user numbers has hit a plateau. As a serious competitor they are struggling.

Snapchat have kicked up a big storm and are challenging but the schoolyard bully has just landed a big heavy, powerful punch and they find themselves lying on the ground bewildered, battered and bruised.

For the sake of social media and the sector not being totally dominated quite dangerously by the schoolyard bully, keep tweeting and keep snapping!!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion offer Social Media Consultancy and Training from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

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Posted in Bullying, Competition, Creativity, Facebook, Media, Social Media, Twitter | Leave a Comment »

The social cost of questionable leadership at Facebook

October 23, 2013

Facebook Mission - To Make the world more open and connected

I stood there and I watched the faces of the concerned parents – this is a new era that has many of them confused, lost and petrified about the on-line dangers that could threaten any of their children at any time.

One of the parents relayed a story about her child who was being bullied by others on Facebook – in this scenario she spotted the danger, jumped in and her daughter confronted the person who was saying these nasty things. She received an immediate apology, the activity ceased and it turns out the “culprit” didn’t fully realise the damage and harm they were causing by posting silly but hurtful remarks.

For some reason many of us behave different online – in a way it’s like shouting and roaring at people from the safety of your car. Would you do that on the street?

Online many of us lose our manners, we get nasty, we get personal and we have no bother pulling the trigger and firing abuse at other people.

Would you do it to their face? Probably not..

At Fuzion we produced an infographic called “Safebook” which can be downloaded free from our website to encourage young people to use the online platforms responsibly and to help them cope with any negative scenario. In the worst cases we recommend that the culprit should be unfriended, blocked and reported.

Safebook Poster - Cyberbullying

This is quite good advice and when it comes to reporting we mean: tell your friends and parents and ultimately report them to the social media platform and the authorities where necessary.

I have come to realise that the reporting to the social media platforms is quite useless and I have never really heard it yielding results. While they proclaim they are very concerned in reality I feel they are doing nothing to really make a difference.

For over a year our Safebook poster has been downloaded by teachers, resource centres and parents all over the world – we have even been asked to translate into a number of different languages, which shows you that the problem is global.

Where are Facebook in all of this? Have they seen our poster? Do they not see the huge need to provide a resource to schools and our young people?

At this session, which had been organised by a proactive parents committee for a school in West Cork I informed them that Facebook operated different privacy settings for teenagers, which gave them a level of protection against predators. This seemed to provide some relief to the concerned parents.

Facebook change the privacy settings for teenagers

Literally the next day I read the headlines that Facebook had now relaxed the settings for teenagers, providing them with more or less the same functionality and openness that other adult users enjoyed!

In their statement they outlined their logic for this change:

“Teens are among the savviest people using social media, and whether it comes to civic engagement, activism, or their thoughts on a new movie, they want to be heard,” Facebook said on its site. “While only a small fraction of teens using Facebook might choose to post publicly, this update now gives them the choice to share more broadly, just like on other social-media services.”

In my view the truth is that Facebook is losing ground to it’s big social media rival Twitter, which does not have special settings for different age groups and it wants to protect this first and foremost. They are throwing their privacy protection mechanisms for young users out the window because of this.

While this thinking is very concerning it got even worse ..

Now we have learnt that Facebook thought it was quite OK to permit a brutal sadistic video of a woman being beheaded on their platform.

Debbie Frost - FacebookThe logic of this was explained by the Director of Communications and Public Affairs Facebook:

“People turn to Facebook to share their experiences and to raise awareness about issues important to them,” said spokeswoman Debbie Frost in a statement. “If it is being shared for sadistic pleasure or to celebrate violence, Facebook removes it.”

How does Facebook know if I am sharing the post because I am horrified by it or because it gives me a thrill?

Facebook staffThey were allowing a brutal video that any TV station in the world would instinctively know should not be viewed on air, to be shared by all their users on Facebook based on freedom of expression and  the social good!

While Facebook is a huge, profitable business and is winning commercially it that has clearly lost it’s way when it comes to moderating its platform, which must be put down to some very questionable leadership.

When Mark Zuckerberg says the Facebook mission is to “Make the world more Open and Connected” is this what he meant?

Have they lost all objectivity and social decency by employing too many young guns who just do not have the life experience and moral compass required to deal with policy and such huge issues?

The scary thing for me is that up until this point they have probably been the more proactive social media platform when it comes to privacy and safety!

My conclusion when I talk to parents and teachers about social media is that the onus is on us to teach good behaviour and we need to be proactive and learn the tools for ourselves so that we can advise from an informed place.

I call it “Teach don’t Preach“.

It now really looks like it is up to us because the safety walls have just been lowered and I don’t trust the owners to build them again.

I think of the faces of those concerned parents – maybe they are right to be concerned?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion offer social media consultancy and training in Ireland from our offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Bullying, Facebook, Social Media | 5 Comments »

A New Generation needs Old Values

August 22, 2013

Eminem - Slane Convert

Once again a social media fuelled incident has hit the headlines as a result of the #Slanegirl photos that bounced around Ireland and beyond from the Slane concert recently where the famous Detroit rapper, “the poet for a New Generation” Eminem was the headline act.

If you missed all the drama a young woman (newspaper reports claim she is 17) and an older guy were caught performing an inappropriate act in quite a public place at the gig. The incident was photographed by a bystander, pushed out on social media and before you could blink (or a hash tag was created) the photo went viral by people retweeting and sharing.

This 17 year old girl and the guy involved must now deal with the pressure of a huge media/public spotlight – too much for any young person to cope with.

At a media conference in the US in 2011 celebrity Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post, said that the popularity of Facebook, Twitter and websites like her online news site indicate that “self-expression has become the new entertainment.”

We can see in this scenario how Arianna was right at so many levels.

Once any incident occurs good or bad that has an “Oh My God, guess what I’ve just seen” element to it, you are guaranteed that it will travel like wildfire in our New Generation.

Pretty much all of us are now self publishers and with our own platforms and audiences we are armed with powerful devices that can bring something to life within seconds.

As usual after this incident social media got a huge amount of flack and all sorts of issues have been raised- the experts from the legal professions, the various authorities, organisations and social media were wheeled onto TV and radio shows to give their many and varied opinions.

Both Twitter and Facebook did react and pulled the posts down as soon as it became clear how distasteful the content and the act of sharing and commenting was. Unfortunately the damage was pretty much done at this stage – these pictures are still widely available online.

New GenerationWhat can we do to stop this happening? Can we do anything?

The police are conducting an investigation – is the young man in trouble, what about the person who took the photo and what about those who passed it quickly along the chain on the various social media channels?

Who was to blame and how can they be punished?

We will huff and puff but ultimately very little will happen – it’s virtually impossible to shut down the self publishing machine.

Besides demonstrating once again how hurtful and irresponsible people can be, the Slane incident is very frustrating for a number of reasons:

The Social Media is to blame argument

Social media is powerful and hugely beneficial but it is mostly in the media spotlight when something “bad” has happened.

You never really hear in the media about long lost relatives connecting through twitter, businesses thriving by using the platforms cleverly, people publicising causes and injustices or tricky problems being solved online – it is mostly the negative, controversial stuff that we hear about.

We find ourselves blaming the social media platforms and not the users – twitter, facebook and all the other platforms are only as good or as bad as the people using them.

The platforms do have a big responsibility to respond quickly to sensitive issues and have methods of detecting and dealing with inappropriate content. At least accounts were pulled down on this occasion, which will send a strong message to all users who use social media as a core part of their lives.

The Incident

This sort of misfortunate incident is not unique and has been happening as far back as I can remember but the difference is that now we can share it easily so the impact and consequences are much larger, which brings me to the point of New World Rules.

1. We need to be extra vigilant in our new world and be extra careful with any incident in public

2. Accept that the incident will be recorded as nearly everyone watching anything has a phone capable of taking a good photo or even filming the activity

3. Assume automatically that the photo or footage will be shared on one or more social media platforms complete with descriptions and hash tags instantly and with the capability of identifying the individuals in the picture.

4. Assume if the incident is an “Oh My God, guess what I’ve just seen” then it will be shared online and will quickly spread virally

5. Posting or sharing anything online leaves a digital footprint back to you and more importantly gives an instant impression to others about you as a person, good or bad. This impression tends to stay with you.

We can look to the authorities to legislate for such instances and we can work with the social media platforms to introduce better controls and quicker ways to respond but the real job lies with us, the users.

We, the New Generation need to understand the powerful technology that is at our fingertips and we need to use it responsibly. That simple photo, status update, share or retweet can cause untold damage to someone’s life.

We need to think about our own values and the values we pass onto our children – this applies equally offline and online. There is no difference.

We must take our own personal responsibility – if we see something not right when we are out or online we should react and play our part and instead of saying “Oh My God, guess what I’ve just seen” we should be saying “It’s not right ….stop” and report it immediately.

The sooner we realise that old values need to be applied to our New Generation the better.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion offer Social Media Consultancy and training in Ireland from offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Entertainment, Facebook, Parenting, Personal development, Publishing, Social Media, Twitter | 10 Comments »

Who does the world think you are?

June 19, 2013

Facebook advertisingApparently I’m someone who is interested in Adult Fantasy Games, the odd bet and I wouldn’t mind driving the new Volvo V40.

I’d like to go on holidays to Tuscany after needing the help of a Retail Consultant and playing some more adult fantasy games!

LinkedIn AdvertisingWhen I get serious I’m interested in ERP (excuse my ignorance but I have no idea what that is) for small business, a white board device for waking up ideas and I might even like to earn some extra money.

When I’m done with all of that I might like to find a new  file sharing platform while I take on my one year diploma course in Corporate Governance with DCU.

Finally I might be interested in switching to UPC.

Interesting person!!

Social Media Advertising

This is a sample of the advertising that is being targeted at me across Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

With all of the different social media platforms it is possible to do some very specific targeting with your advertising campaigns.

Facebook – this probably has the biggest targeting capability as it can focus on your location (as precise as towns), age, personal status and declared personal interests.

For the advertiser  it works on either a pay per click basis (you only pay when someone clicks your advert) or on impressions (the number of times your advert has been shown).

You set a daily budget and you also have the capability of setting a maximum amount per click. The big limitation with Facebook advertising is that most people are in a very social frame of mind when they are using the platform so it probably isn’t great for “heavy” topics.

With Facebook you can also enjoy an element of what I call “endorsed” or “trust” advertising – where you see an advert and it declares that one of your friends likes that brand/product. If you want extra oomph from your page posts you can invest a few bob to push them out to the people who have liked your pages and their friends.

We have found it to be quite effective for many of our clients.

LinkedIn – the targeting capability for advertisers is really good here with options around location (just country so far), age, seniority, the size of the company the person works for, job role, sector and you can even target Groups that have been set up. This also operates on a pay per click basis (these are quite expensive) – you set the maximum per click and a daily budget.

I haven’t used it yet for clients but I have experimented with it for Fuzion – we have won some business as a result.

Twitter ADvertisingTwitter – advertising on twitter is still in it’s infancy and my feeling is that targeting will be more difficult because a user provides limited information when they set up their account. However if you read the blurb twitter reckon you can target by gender, geography and special interests (it must track the content of your tweets  or maybe who you are following to assess this – it might be tricky to target the huge number of users on twitter who lurk and never tweet). You have a choice between promoting your account or pushing your tweets into peoples twitter feed).

We haven’t used twitter advertising for any clients yet.

Collectively across all platforms there is a lot of information and capability that can help you target customers – the skill is knowing who your customer might be and using the targeting tools to attract their attention.

For the record when it comes to me other than a trip to Tuscany (off there next week!), Facebook marketing and pulling my hair out with Sky last Christmas the world just doesn’t know me at all.

I definitely have no interest in adult fantasy games… (al least that what I keep telling everyone!)

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion 

Fuzion with offices in Cork and Dublin in Ireland provide Social Media Consultancy and Training services.

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Posted in Advertising, Facebook, LinkedIn, Motivation, Online Advertising, Social Media, Web Marketing | 2 Comments »

Social Media – Teach or Preach?

January 28, 2013

Cyberbullying

Like most people I am very concerned about the whole topic of Cyberbullying and the effect it has been having on some of our young people.

After the tragic suicides recently we decided to do our part and we produced a simple info graphic called “safebook” , which is an easy guide for young people. Our objective was to encourage the safe and responsible use of social media and at the same time provide clear advice to people who may be faced with a bullying situation.

Safebook Poster - CyberbullyingOur poster struck a chord with people all over the world – it’s been downloaded in over 100 countries, which I put down to its simplicity and I believe it is helping parents and teachers to have sensible conversations about the responsible use of social media with their children.

Our activity in this area has brought us into contact with many teachers, schools and organisations and I can see the considerable efforts that are being made to control and deal with the issue. I am watching the training programmes, I can see the liaison with the authorities and government agencies and I can see how schools are making attempts to block the use of these platforms and do their best to cope with the situation.

I have also heard presentations from Facebook who are attempting to deal with this huge issue, introduce controls and mechanisms to help people report incidents and inappropriate behaviour.

On one side I’m watching all of the downside – the social media concern, the “control” activity but what about the huge upside?

Social media is now a really valuable life skill that we all should learn – most of our clients would grab job applicants who are social media savvy. Is there a dilemma?

Teaching Social MediaTeach not Preach!

From my considerable exposure to this huge Cyberbullying issue my conclusion is that we need to embrace the social media tools from a sensible, early age and we should encourage the positive use of these platforms in schools (probably the best place to ensure this happens).

How about:
– students publishing their essays on their own personal blogs
– classes that show the children how to set up their social media accounts including their privacy settings
– setting up Facebook groups for use by each of the classes
– setting up Twitter accounts for the Economics, History, Science and Geography classes and following and interacting with other relevant accounts to facilitate learning and staying up to date with current issues

At the same time I do feel that the social media providers must self regulate, put in the controls and aids, be proactive around privacy settings and act sensibly – however, the main solution is in the users hands.

While I know it won’t be easy, while I know it will require a lot of training, I know social media is a valuable skill, which will be critical to every young person in the future.

Why not concentrate on teaching and forget the preaching?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion.

Fuzion provide social media consultancy and training services from the offices in Dublin and Cork.

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Posted in Bullying, Parenting, Personal development, Self Help, Staff training | 6 Comments »

Erin, Ciara and Cyber Bullying

November 1, 2012

Teenage DiscoI remember being 13 – it was one of the years I enjoyed most in my life!

I was hanging around with a cool gang, I was discovering Deep Purple, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, I played football day and night – it was a time when we were gaining independence but without  too much responsibility and the “big” school exams were still  a few years away.

And of course there were the girls, the first disco’s (Highfield Rugby Club) …life was great!

Erin Gallagher - victim of cyber bullyingHow could the age of 13 end up being so different for Erin Gallagher in 2012?

I struggle to get my head around how she felt and how social media, something I enjoy so much could play a part in making her so miserable that she took a decision to end her beautiful life.

Just like Ciara Pugsley a few weeks earlier, taking her own life was her best solution to cope with what she was going through.

Social Media?

Of course social media isn’t to blame.

However social media unfortunately provides bullies (let’s face it – they have always existed) with more ammo, with a thicker skin and the ability to bully from a distance and often with a degree of anonymity.

This is why we have a responsibility to step up to the mark and go further than ever before to make sure that bullying is highlighted and that the bullies are stopped and exposed.

Parents & teachers

It’s no longer enough that we can plead ignorance and dismiss Facebook and the other social media platforms as being something for the young folk.

It’s no longer enough to ban our children from using the platforms – they will anyhow.

To protect our vulnerable children we need to jump in ourselves, learn and understand how these powerful and very useful social media platforms work, discover the risks and plan so that these can be managed and minimised.

Lead the way

We owe it to our kids to show them how to:

  • Set up their personal accounts properly
  • Maintain their privacy settings
  • Connect with “friends” safely
  • Think about what they post
  • Post appropriately
  • Spot and deal with inappropriate behaviour
  • “Unfriend” and Block certain users
  • Report Bullying

All of the functionality and procedures are in place to make this possible – learn about them.

Please download our “Safebook” poster , which is a simple aid for parents and teachers to help promote the responsible and safe use of Social Media and assist them in a bullying or inappropriate situation.

If our child is drowning they must know how to help themselves and must know when to ask for help.

Ciara Pugsley - victim of cyber bullyingWe owe it to the memory of Erin and Ciara, their parents, friends and families to take responsibility and help to make our exciting new world a great place for every 13 year old.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion provide Social Media Training and Consultancy in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Bullying, Facebook, Parenting, Social Media | 15 Comments »

Facebook – Targeting your posts

October 21, 2012
Bra fitting service

It won’t fit everyone!

Maybe you don’t want every post from your Facebook business page reach every single viewer.

A great feature has just come on stream with Facebook which gives you the ability to control exactly this scenario.

Why might you do this?

With a particular post you might want to limit it to fans of your page who live locally or who are in a particular age group. Sometimes you may want to just target your post at members of a particular sex or with a particular personal status.

A department store who are running a special promotion on bra fitting may not want to interrupt their male audience with such a message, running the risk of them deciding to unlike the page.

A restaurant may not want to annoy viewers who are single when they are promoting specials on Valentines day – it might just annoy them!

How does it work?

Target post on Facebook

Who do you want to see this post?

When you are writing your post before you publish it you can choose to target the audience for this post be clicking on the “target” button, which can be seen on the bottom left corner of the post window alongside the timing button. (you must first enable this feature in your page settings – see below)

From here you can make your audience selection, which gives you a wide range of choices enabling you to limit the reach of your post.  Once you decide to publish, the post will only appear in the newsfeed of those fans that match your selected criteria.

The criteria includes gender, location, age, relationship status, education and interests.

If your fans choose to share that post it will only appear in the newsfeed of their friends that match that criteria.

The post will appear on your wall as normal visible to everyone who visits your page.

Enabling the Post Targeting feature

If your want to use this feature you must first enable the post privacy gating feature for your Facebook page – what a terrible name for the feature!

To do this you must go to the edit page menu that appears at the top of your admin panel. From here click into the manage permissions menu and you will see the “post privacy gating” option towards the end of the page, which you enable by just clicking the box.

Once you have done this the “target” feature\icon will appear as an option in the post comment window as already described.

Well done Facebook !! – its a great new feature.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion offer Social Media Consultancy and Training from our offices in Cork and Dublin.

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Posted in Direct Marketing, Facebook, Marketing, Social Media | 5 Comments »

Social Media – End of the Auto-Post?

July 2, 2012
Social Media Training - LinkedIn

How often do you post an update on LinkedIn? – thought so !

Over the last few days you may have noticed a message from LinkedIn advising that your “tweets” will no longer appear automatically as status updates on LinkedIn.

If you didn’t have this feature switched on it obviously makes  no difference to you but if you did you need to consider how this affects your social media activity.

Twitter to LinkedIn

I’m not sure what is behind this change but I am suspecting that LinkedIn may want you to post directly from their platform – at least this way you will have to open up your LinkedIn dashboard to make a post and hopefully (for them) notice some adverts that are of interest to you. Clicking these makes them money by the way!

The big problem that I see here is that most people do not consume their social media from LinkedIn – yep, we connect, search for contacts but very very few of us are actually consuming – am I wrong? Is this their effort to make themselves part of the conversation and more relevant?

LinkedIn to Twitter

You can see from the graphic above that it is still possible to push your LinkedIn posts to Twitter once you click the little twitter box at the bottom of the post.

Twitter to Facebook

Another recent development I have noticed is that my Twitter posts are no longer being pushed to Facebook  despite all the connections being switched on. I have disconnected and refreshed the connection but it has made no difference.

I am starting to think that Facebook like LinkedIn want the user to log on directly to their platform to post updates, again in the hope that you will spot some adverts and make them a few bob!

Facebook to Twitter

I’m not sure if it is a coincidence but in line with this lapse in functionality Facebook are promoting their auto posts to Twitter feature quite actively when you log on. Hmmm ..

Robot Using a Computer!

Automation isn’t always good ..

Consequence?

So what does all of this mean to the heavy social media user who is quite active on all platforms and was enjoying the benefit of these time saving applications. Effectively you could post once on Twitter and this post would replicate on both Facebook and LinkedIn. This is what I was doing myself.

Maybe it’s a good thing?

I think you should embrace the change and treat it as a good thing.

Auto posts from Twitter were never the best idea for a number of reasons:

  • You can allow yourself to post more often and repeat posts on Twitter (this frequency could come across as “spam” on Facebook and LinkedIn)
  • If you have posts of a visual nature you are better going to Facebook and posting there directly – when you post from Twitter any link was just appearing as a link.
  • The platforms are quite different and while auto-post can be ok most of the time, often your “tweet” may be inappropriate on LinkedIn and maybe on Facebook
  • I find that if you use the “auto-post” feature you actually start to miss some of the action on the other platforms – they all do a different job for you, don’t forget that.
  • Users of LinkedIn and Facebook may not get all of the @gregcantyfuzion and the hash tag #FF, #Positivity “stuff” and can find it quite annoying and distracting from the actual message

My best advice is to treat each of the social media platforms differently, post separately as appropriate and for ultimate control use tools like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite as time saving devices. Using these you can select the destination for each of your updates (be it to any of your twitter accounts, your facebook personal or business pages).

The schedule facility on these platforms is an extra bonus, which can also be very handy.

LinkedIn

Regarding LinkedIn status updates I don’t see the change making the platform more relevant – If anything it could actually have the opposite effect!

If you wish to make an impact here try:

  • Participating in discussions on Groups you have joined
  • Start discussions in Groups you have joined
  • Start Asking and Answering Questions that have been posted for your industry sector/area of expertise

But I don’t have the time .. (this must be the one thing I hear most from people about social media)

Heh, that’s not my problem …if you have figured out that social media is good for your business then you’ll make the time!

Happy Posting ..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion PR

Note:

If you need a helping hand with your social media effectiveness check out our Social Media Training / Social Media Consultancy services.

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Posted in Facebook, LinkedIn, Marketing, Social Media, Training, Twitter | 10 Comments »

Facebook – “Show Me the Money !”

June 11, 2012
Show me the money

Show me the money !!

I was doing a simple status update on the Fuzion Facebook business page and I noticed a “notification” window open up that I had not spotted before.

“Promote this post to get more views and comments” the notification window shouted at me. I already knew that I could create an advert for specific posts but it had never been waved at me so blatantly.

Between the changes to business pages that went through at the end of March, the stricter rules about running competitions and no longer being able to specify “landing” pages, Facebook are really hitting the brakes on your ability to generate activity and “likes” without writing a cheque…. the free ride is over.

promoted posts - facebookFor the business page owner/administrator you need to provide huge value, personality and clever content to make it attractive for users to “like” your page or you must simply write a cheque.

Facebook is now serious business and we have officially entered the era of “Show me the Money”

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Advertising, Facebook, Marketing, Online Advertising, Social Media | 1 Comment »

Facebook Business Page Changes – March 2012

March 23, 2012

We thought we should put out a blog post dedicated to Facebook seeing as it has been going through a few major changes that will affect everyone that has a Facebook business page.

If you haven’t embraced the changes they are due to be imposed on you on the  31st March.

With over 1.8 million people using Facebook in Ireland we would suggest that every business should be being proactive about the platform. In this article we will take you through some of the business page changes and the impact of these.

We will also discuss the running of competitions and how to generate more interest  in your page.

The biggest change of all will be the new Facebook philosophy – since  the Initial Public Offering in February 2012 Facebook will now be under pressure to deliver financially for its investors.

We will see the platform becoming more and more monetised and we predict that many of the tricks and gimmicks that we have all been using to boost our page fan numbers will be outlawed and in future if you want to do this you will have to advertise – pure and simple.

Facebook need to start delivering for their investors and will have to manage the balance between maintaining a credible and enjoyable social platform and a place where advertising will be pushed more on all of us.

This change of dynamic will affect how we use Facebook and the March changes are the first big hint of this.

Business Page Changes

The whole look and feel of your Facebook business page (personal profile pages have already changed) will change totally on the 31st March and some of your previous features will not work any longer.

You will need to do a few things to maximise the opportunities here. Besides some new visual changes a timeline has also been introduced where at a glance you can view a chronological history of posts on the page.

Our view is that these changes if embraced properly will deliver an even more impactful page for your business.

(For those of you operating your business from a personal page we would advise changing over immediately as this is not allowed – it is possible to convert from one to the other with friends coming across as fans).

Visual

Your own key visual identity will be delivered by two key visuals.

A (see image above) – Thumbnail

Your thumbnail will more than likely be your company logo and this appears on the bottom left of the main image that a viewer will see on your page. This should be 180 x 180 pixels in size.

Every time the page owner makes a post this thumbnail will appear alongside the post.

B (see image above) – Cover

The main banner image is a new feature introduced by Facebook. It is referred to as a “cover” and it stretches above the thumbnail across the page. This image can be a maximum of 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels high.

Facebook have very specific rules about the content of the “cover page”.

It should be an image that captures the business as best as possible but must not include offers, contact details, web address or any “like” us text. The basic logic here is that this information is available elsewhere on the Facebook page.

Starbucks on Facebook

It is clear that the new rules prevent the business from advertising or encouraging the user to “like” the page on this cover page.

Our design team are currently preparing new cover pages for a number of clients.

This is a really good opportunity to make your page stand out from competitor pages – grab it!

Landing Page

Before it was possible to specify a “landing page” (see example below) that a new user on your business page was directed to when they first visited.

This was often a customised and highly visual promotional landing page, which encouraged likes, promoted the business or offered the user the opportunity to enter competitions.

Facebook landing pages

This is not possible now using the new layouts and these customised landing pages will be redundant. It is still possible to have a tab that will host competitions and promotions but you can no longer dictate that a user of the page will “land” on this page.

Menu tabs

The menu tabs that were available on the old format on the left hand side of the page are now displayed as tabs in the main display just below (see Starbucks example above) the new cover visual.

It is only possible to display four tabs across the page. The other tabs/applications are available from the right of these displayed tabs by selecting the “down arrow”.

At any time it is only possible to display a maximum of 12 tabs/applications. It is possible to select your own choice of tabs to display on the main page except for photos, which will always display first.

You can do this by clicking on the “down arrow” which will display all the tabs. From here you can swap between tabs that you wish are displayed in the main view.

Posting

You can post as normal but there are a few new features.


Pinning a post – It is now possible to pin a post, which effectively means it will be featured and stay at the top of the page for 7 days.

Other subsequent posts will appear below this post in the stream. This is done by selecting the “pin to top” option (see visual above) that is available to you at the top right corner of each post. You would use this to position your most important post at the top of a page for each new visitor to see first.

Star post – when you “star” a post it will stretch across the full display instead of appearing on the left as a normal post. This will give that post more prominence on the page and it is very useful if you have posts with a lot of content.

Hide/delete post – it is now possible to hide a post (& unhide after if required). When you hide a post it will still display in the  “activity log” as a post. As before it is also possible to permanently delete a post.

Change date of post – it is possible to alter the date of a post so that it will appear in a different position on your timeline.

Milestone – it is now possible to create a “milestone” post, which is a way of marking special events in the life of the business such as a product launch or key event. This feature allows you to upload a photo and specific the milestone date.

Personal User view

The display of your business page is totally customised for each user.

MadMen on facebook
When a user visits a business page their own friend’s activity with that page will appear on the right hand side (see Mad Men visual above) making their experience with the page more informed and personal.

Display View

A user can view different aspects of the business page by choosing from the menu that appears at the top of the page once you start (see image below) scrolling down.


From here the user can choose from the menu of Apps/tabs, choose from the timeline or select different types of highlights.

The timeline can also be accessed directly from the time bar on the right hand side of the page.

Messages

The messages facility is new to Facebook business pages and is a very significant development. Fans of the page can now send a “message” to the page directly if they want to communicate as an alternative to posting directly on the page (which would be visible to all users).

These messages can be viewed and responded to in/from theadmin panel (top of your page). It is possible to shut off this feature preventing fans of the page to send messages.

It is really important that messages are responded to promptly.

Other Features

There are a few new features worth mentioning.

Approval of Posts – it is possible that you can change the settings so that all posts require approval before appearing as posts on the page (this feature can be accessed by going to the  Admin Panel, choosing Manage Page tab, Edit Page, Manage Permissions menu)

Activity Log – from the admin panel it is possible to access a log of all posts by type

Insights – there is now more data available to track the success of your activities

Competitions

This is now a very tricky area for every business who has been building numbers of fans on their page by offering prizes.

The facebook guidelines are quite strict and the new format, which cuts out landing pages where businesses have typically hosted competitions will make it even more difficult.

If you want to run a compeition you will need to:

  • Host it on an app/separate canvas page
  • State clearly that it is not endorsed by Facebook
  • Ensure that the entry criteria does not involve a Facebook activity such as “liking”,”sharing” or “commenting” – for example it could involve answering a question
  • Ask each entrant to give seperate contact details
  • Inform the winner independently of Facebook (by email or phone)
  • Only announce the winner on Facebook once they have been informed and have given their permission

Rozanne Stevens Cookery School
The competition can be mentioned on the wall of the page but cannot be featured on the page.

It would be an idea to mention the competition in a post and then to pin the post to the top of the page, keeping it there above other posts for at least 7 days.

Winning on Facebook

So – with all of these restrictions how can you build your numbers on your Facebook business page and really start engaging with fans?

Facebook Like Button
Content, content, content is the answer…

Without any big fancy tricks or gimmicks you need to give fans good reasons for coming onto your page.

Maybe it will be ..

Because they like you and like what you say

Because they are the first to learn about new products, events and sales?

Because you ask for their opinion and they enjoy giving it

Because you say really interesting things that they enjoy

Because they learn things from your page

Because you give good advice, provide useful tips and information

Because you are really funny and cheer them up

Because you run good competitions and promotions

Because you operate a really great business and they want to express their thanks – a live testimonial!

Because there are really useful Apps on the page

Because they want to feel part of something special

Its important that you achieve all of this through regular posts that are varied, visually interesting and not at all “spam like”.

Over 29.2 million people “like” the Starbucks business page – that’s a lot of coffee drinkers!

“Like” – If you want to boost your page numbers think of this simple word!

While we are having this conversation why not Like the Fuzion Facebook page – we need to catch up with Starbucks!

Social Media Training

If you require assistance with your Facebook activity or any other aspect of your Social Media presence including your overall strategy, blogging, Twitter or LinkedIn use please give us a call.

Fuzion provide Social Media Consultancy, one to one training and run courses for various organisations incuding the Enterprise Boards and the Digital Marketing Institute.

Your 31st March to-do list

We have mentioned a lot of issues and changes but the main things that you need to concern yourself with for the 31st March are:

  • Maximise your visual opportunity through a customised cover age (851 x 315 pixels)
  • Decide on the tabs that you wish are displayed on the main page
  • Review your settings that allow visitors to post
  • Decide if you wish to allow fans to leave messages

Until next time.. keep liking !!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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