Morada Musings

Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

By now you’ve probably heard that Facebook has made some significant changes.  Or perhaps you’ve noticed some of them on the site, said “Hmmmm…” and didn’t give it another thought.  You should, because the changes they’ve made changes everything you thought you knew about Facebook and how we connect with each other.   Some folks are crying “Foul!” while others are cheering the greater connectivity.

Before I go into any particulars, I’d like to suggest that if you already have a Facebook profile, head on over there and check your privacy settings.  Seriously, go right now; I’ll wait.  (If you don’t know what they should look like or how to change something you see that you don’t like, read my earlier posts or check out Mari Smith’s very helpful blog.)

So, here’s the thing – Facebook wants to take over the cyberworld.  No, I’m not being paranoid -  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the new social plugins aim to “dramatically expand [Facebook's] presence across the web.”  And on the Facebook Blog, [these plugins will help] “all websites [...] work together to build a more comprehensive map of connections and create better, more social experiences for everyone.”   He also said “…public is the new social norm.”  All this relatedness goes by the name of  Open Graph.  How will it affect you?

There are several of these social plugins and each enables to you share information in different ways and different places.  Here, I will just briefly touch on one and encourage you to read on or more of the several very good articles written which explain them in more detail (see the Resources below.)  I also recommend this really great visual representation of the Facebook privacy changes  that  have occurred over the past five years.

Facebook has changed it’s “Like” button to be universal throughout its site but also on other web sites.  Read a great article on a CNN.com?  Click the Facebook Like button and it will show up in your Facebook stream.  Look closely in the CNN sidebar and what do you see?  The  profile photos of other Facebook users who have clicked the “Like” button.  Everyone who clicks is sharing their opinion with the entire cyber world.  Some people will like that, others won’t.

There are already calls for government intercession and backlash from users who feel that the push to breakdown barriers goes too far.  Others simply feel that the default privacy settings are both too broad and too complex that most users can’t make sense of them well enough to tweak them for the level of sharing they really want.  For example, you can choose who sees your new post by setting a default level in your profile but also overriding that by choosing from the drop down list.

That should be an easy enough thing, except it’s not.  The choices are Everyone, Friends of Friends, Only Friends or Customize.  I have set up lists based on how I know the people and/or how much privacy I wish to maintain (i.e. Family, Church, Professional, etc.)  All of these lists appear in the Friends grouping but I want to have very different levels of sharing.  So on a particular post, how will I know that only my family will see it and not my potential clients?  I have to choose Customize then choose the list(s) I want (or, conversely, exclude the ones I don’t.)

What about my profile information – if I don’t wish to share that fact that I support a particular political campaign or belong to medical support group – what then?   I “drill down” in the privacy settings for my profile to each of the specific sections to assign appropriate levels of sharing.  This is not a hard thing to do, but can be time consuming.

And that’s the crux of the matter – how easy is it for people to learn about the changes, figure out how and where to do it, and, to a greater degree, understand the ramifications of the choices they make.  For some folks, the announcements by Facebook at the end of April never made it onto their radar.  Others ignored it, or deferred it for looking into later (and we all know what that usually means!)  Many heard it, thought they understood it and intended to check their settings but haven’t gotten around to it.  They need to.  You need to.  So go do it!

In the immortal words of Sgt. Phil Esterhaus at the beginning of each episode of Hill Street Blues –

“Let’s be careful out there!”

Resources:

Mari Smith: Relationship Marketing

Mashable: F8 News & Reveiws, Facebook Guide

Huffington Post: The Ultimate Guide to 11 Big Facebook Changes – And What They Mean

Have you ever looked at a symbol like this in an email or post and wondered what it meant?  Or wished you could add an emoticon to your Facebook post or Twitter tweet but didn’t know how to do it?  If you’re on a PC, this site has a handy chart showing the key combinations to use.

Want to add a heart ♥?  Hold the Alt key while pressing the 3 key.  Musical note?  That’s Alt and 13 for a ♪, Alt 14 for ♫.  There are ways to quickly insert the copyright or trademark symbols, special letters from other languages and currency symbols.  There are even combos that will enable you to lay out a road map section by section!

So go ahead, jazz it up and tell me how you really feel!

Seems just when you’ve finally figured something out, they go and change it on you!  Yes, it’s been done again in both Facebook and Twitter.  Until I’ve worked with both of them a bit more, I can’t say that either of these applications have been improved through the changes but my initial sense is it’s a mixed bag for both.

Facebook:  They’ve changed the way you view what’s happening, and frankly, I don’t like it.  There is now a News Feed and a Live Feed.  My understanding of it is that the intent was to make it easier for you to see just the posts in the News Feed without the clutter of those notices that Jane is now connected to Bob.  Sounds good but the reality is quite different.  While the Live Feed is just that – immediate streaming of all the posts and notices connected with or by the people I’m connected to – it seems to only maintain one page’s worth at any given time with no way to see earlier ones.  The News Feed, on the other hand, is supposed to capture all of the posts by my connections and allow me to “page back” to see earlier ones; the problem is that only some of my people’s posts are showing up there.  I have to bounce between the two to really know what’s happening with all my tribes.  Hmmm…definitely more research needed to see if there’s a setting which needs to be tweaked.

The other area of change, which occurred this week, is greater customization in privacy settings.  We can now change the settings for parts of our About Me instead of the entire set of information in our profiles.  This is a welcome change!  Now I can let everyone see my work and education without having to share more personal information like my birthday, and there’s also more separation of who sees things like religious or political views, favorite books or movies, and contact info.  The more control we have over who sees what allows us to be open and authentic with those who are close while keeping our professional images intact.  I like that!

Twitter:  One thing that has long bugged me is when I would retweet someone’s post, often it exceeded the 140 characters once the poster’s ID was placed before the tweet.  Then I had to decide – do I remove the ID or try to edit the tweet to gain a few characters.  Here’s the rub: while the original poster will surely recognize the retweet as theirs, there’s nothing to tell anyone else.   Unless they are also a follower of the original poster, they won’t know and might think it’s my great quote, thought or link.  But editing what someone else has said to make it fit could also be problematic.  Does it still say or infer the same thing?  Is it even intelligible?

The new way of doing it is a huge improvement.  Now, instead of right-clicking to retweet and have the ID inserted, there’s a retweet link right in the lower right corner of the post (hover your mouse there to make it appear.)  Click on Retweet and the post is retweeted with an acknowledgment showing up underneath and a new gray icon of squared arrows next to it.  The post is intact and people know it was you who retweeted it so  if they wanted to follow up, they know who to contact.  Sweet!  And the original poster will know who to thank, which is always nice.  There’s no chance to add a comment, though, so if you want to do that, you’ll have to click Reply instead and edit.

Until next time, keep posting and twittering!

Privacy – it’s something we all agree that we care about to one degree or another.  The problem is that some of us are much more sensitive than others around what we consider private.  This can lead to real problems in the realm of social media where we are encouraged to mingle, share and make new friends.  Fortunately, there are ways in each site to keep control over who sees how much but there are limits, and it’s important to know what they are.  A good yardstick to use – would you want your children or grandchildren to see this today, or 5, 10, even 20 years from now?   If not, don’t post it!  This includes photos, videos and links as well as your words.  You may intend something one way but others may take it – and use it – in an entirely different manner.

Twitter:  Some people become confused by “strangers” who suddenly appear in their list of followers and wonder how this happens.  Simple – they either did a topic or keyword search which brought you into a results news stream and they liked what they read, or they saw one of your tweets (or a retweet (RT) you made of someone else’s post) that piqued their interest so they decided they’d like to see what else you have to say. Before you agree to follow them back, take the time to check out their profile, visit their web site if they have one and try to get a sense of what the common connection might be.  If it looks like you might find them interesting or helpful, follow them and send a Direct Message (DM) being sure to include something personal (i.e. “I see we share an interest in…”)

Sometimes, however, these folks are just trolling for someone new to market to and aren’t really interested in developing a rapport.  You’ll usually know it right away because they’ll send you a sales message without so much as a howdy-do.  Feel free to “unfollow” those people and delete any DM’s they send.  They can still follow you, however, and if that makes you uncomfortable, you have the option of blocking them.  This removes them from your news stream and you from theirs as well as preventing direct messages between you.  Make sure you want to do this because once it’s done, it’s not easily undone.

Facebook:  Here you have many more controls you can set, both globally and on the “granular” level.  One of the easiest ways to handle this is to create lists based on meaningful criteria such as personal, professional, civic or business organization, geographic location – whatever you might use to make connection with them, or determine how private you want to be with that group of people.   For example, I have a list for personal (which includes family and close friends), church (people I know and interact with regularly but with whom I am not necessarily intimate) and professional (which includes my VA colleagues as well as business contacts, potential clients, and as-yet-unknown friends.)

On your profile home page, in the upper right on the blue bar you’ll see Settings.  When you click on that, one of the choices you’ll have is Privacy.  Under that heading you’ll see the different areas where you can set privacy levels – Profile (who can see which parts of your information), News feed and Wall (what Recent Activity is visible on your profile and in your friends’ home pages), Search (who can search for you, what they can see, and how they can contact you), and Applications (what information is available to applications you use on Facebook.)  Within each of these areas there are even more specific choices, and this is where the lists can make it much easier; “Custom” is one of the options you are given and your lists give you a ready made way to choose.

There isn’t the space here to go through all of the Facebook privacy settings but I will be covering it in detail in my newsletter.   Signing up is easy – just go up there to the left and fill in your name and emails address.  Be assured – it’s for my use only and won’t be shared with anyone else; I hate unsolicited mail as much as you do.

Next time I will give you an overview of some of the features and add-on applications for both Facebook and Twitter.

Many people are confused by the differences between Facebook and Twitter.  It could be said one is for those you know and the other for those you’d like to know.  Not completely true but good enough for our illustration.

Facebook started out as a way to connect with friends, family, schoolmates, former co-workers – in short, people you already know.  But it doesn’t stop there because as you read what they write, you also get to see what their friends/family/coworkers write in response.   Maybe you’d really like to get to know John’s friend Jimbo because you just love his sense of humor, or Mary because she always mentions her pet and you have the same kind.  You can ask your “friend” to introduce you but you can also contact them directly and ask to be a “friend” on the basis of your mutual acquaintance.  Your postings (messages) are written on your “Wall”, similar to tacking a notice on a bulletin board.  Those whom you have added as friends, and their friends, will be able to read what you’ve written.  Your friends can write comments in response, or just click on the “Like” link to indicate that they share your opinion or otherwise like what you had to say without having to write their own message.   (There are additional privacy settings you can choose in your profile to restrict who can see what and who can write on your wall.  I’ll go into these in depth in future newsletter articles so be sure to subscribe using the sign-up box over there in the upper left.)

Twitter, on the other hand, is more like a networking event or cocktail party – you make connections with people you don’t know yet and develop a relationship based on shared interests.  Your postings are called “tweets” and are limited to 140 characters in answer to the question “What are you doing?”  The people you are connected to are referred to as your “followers” just as you are listed on others’ lists as “following” them.

So, how do you meet these people and start following each other?  When you login each day, you’ll see a list on the right side of the page showing Trending Topics – what’s most being talked about right now by everyone on Twitter, not just the people you’re following or who are following you.  Click on one of those links and you’re connected to the “news stream” page for that topic.  Don’t see something of interest in the topics list?  Type a keyword in the search box and find others who are talking about what’s of interest to you.  It’s like making your way around the room at a party until you find a cluster who are having a conversation that’s engaging to you.

But don’t stop there by just posting a tweet; click on the tag names of other people and check out their profiles.  Do it resonate with you?  Have tweets that bring up interesting topics or  links to outside articles that you find relevant?  If you like what you see, click on the “Follow” button in the upper left of their profile page and whenever they tweet, it will show up in the news stream on your homepage.   It’s also a nice gesture to send them a Direct Message introducing yourself.  Although a DM is in the same restricted 140 character form, it is private correspondence between you and the person to whom you’re sending it.  More often than not, those you follow will choose to follow you as well and a new relationship begins.

So, those are the very basics of these two forms of social media.  You can decide that one works well for you but not the other, or you may realize that each can bring you into “touching” distance of people you’d never have otherwise met.  New friends, new ways of building community and new opportunities to get connected with potential customers.  Next time we’ll talk more about marketing etiquette in these venues and ways to maintain appropriate privacy.

Okay, I know – you’ve heard about Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others for months now and, quite frankly, maybe you’re a little sick of it.  You think it’s for geeks and techies and pushy online marketing types, right?  Wrong!

You may think that social media, aka Web 2.0, is great for others but not something you need to get involved in – after all, your business is local.  Or maybe you think it’s too confusing, involves too much time or there’s too little privacy.  Wrong, again!  Connecting with your customers, where they are, and with the right teaching/coaching, it need not be any of those things.  There are so many resources available – oh, that’s part of the problem?

That’s what I’m here for – to give you guidance through the sea of tools, resources and tips.  Today, we’ll start off with a good basic article that can help you grasp what it’s all about and how it can help you in your business.  In the article, Bill Powell, co-owner of Serif Group and co-founder of Inbox Orange, has this to say about the change in approach:

“But business is about relationships,” he said. We need to make it authentic and real. And hey, some people really do want to know that you took your kids to Kings Island last weekend. “It personalizes you a little more…Now we’re looking for real connections with real people.  If you tell a friend you like working with So and So, they appreciate your word of mouth. Using Facebook and Twitter, and other social platforms, can help expand your relationships with people.”

Not only does it expand and deepen your relationship with people you already know, these platforms expand your circle by connecting you to the people your people know.   A “friend of a friend” can become your friend and then their circle of acquaintances comes closer to you.  Throw a stone in the water and see how far the ripples go!

In my next posting, I’ll explain the differences between Facebook and Twitter, and how you can utilize those differences to your advantage.