Talk It Up!

Facebook Deals: the Godzilla of coupons, crushing everything in its path

Facebook Deals rolling out location-based deals to select U.S. cities

According to reports from the New York Times, TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb, the feature will go live for key U.S. cities: Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego, and San Francisco.

Is Facebook the Godzilla that crushes everything in its path? Will Groupon and Living Social be next?

Facebook tred on Flickr's turf and is now the number one photo-sharing site on the web, surpassing the Yahoo-owned photo-sharing site. Will it do the same to the shared deal market?

Photo by Duane Hess, Legozilla

The advantages:

• Deal participation for retailers might be free or low-cost. Groupon and Living Social both take a cut from the retailer, which has driven some small retailers unable to handle the sudden influx of traffic out of business. At first, Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb reported that deal participation would be free for retailers, then Facebook PR made a correction to the post. Currently, the cost of participation is unclear, but it seems that it might not be as financially invasive for retailers as participation in a Groupon of Living Social deal.
• It all happens in the (not-so-)walled garden. The deals can be puchased using Facebook Credits, which reportedly will be exchanged for vouchers. The possibility of Facebook Credits flowing back and forth like water is easily imaginable. Birthday? Give your Facebook friend Facebook Credits to spend on his favorite haunts or to try something new. Grandma not sure what the hip thing is for her grandkid? Give her Facebook credits and delight as she uses them publicly, in the stream. It all happens within the Facebook garden. The fact is that such a large percentage of the population is there anyway; why not share deals here instead of purchasing through Groupon and cross-posting to Facebook? One less step, one more reason to stay in the garden.
• Sharing is caring. For even more motivation, just as users can tag friends in photos, they will be able to tag friends in deals. The New York Times reports: "Local retailers will be able to offer several different kinds of deals, including one-time offers and loyalty rewards, as well as 'friend deals,' for those who check in and 'tag' multiple friends."

It's a logical step. Facebook Places merchants have been offering deals through Check-Ins for the past six months, and "with 600 million users and being a platform based upon friends sharing with friends... , it does seem the best suited platform for group deals." (Source: Suzanna Vara) With so many users already accustomed to sharing every detail of their lives on the site, why not at least get a free side of fries with that, right?

The rub

However, there is a rub. Facebook is famously unabashed about collecting all the data users choose to share and providing it to marketers for more exact targeting. It's a dream for marketers, with a plethora of data fields to romp about in. And it's a nightmare for Facebook users, who can expect to have their demographic and sociographic information shared with retailers. It would be foolish to believe that Facebook wouldn't share your recent activities, favorite movies, beloved hobbies, martial status, etc. with retailers hungry for more efficient targeting.

Also, the delivery mechanism is unclear. The New York Times reported deals would be available through the iPhone app, but ReadWriteWeb later posted that Facebook PR refuted that fact: "Update: Facebook PR pinged us and said that at launch, deals will not be offered on mobile." Hmm. 

Would you use Facebook Deals due to the convenience factor? Or would you avoid it, knowing that marketers will have access to a tremendous amount of personal data as a result? Will you give up Groupon and Living Social in favor of the Facebook Godzilla?

Hoover's Boycott: genius social media or bogus PR?

Hoover announced on its Facebook Page that it would be pulling all of its ABC advertising to protect the network's cancellation of two popular soap operas.

This week, ABC announced it would cancel two of its popular soap operas, All My Children and One Life to Live. When Hoover marketing executive Brian Kirkendall heard the news, he decided to do something about it. He made the executive decision to pull all of Hoover's ads that run during the shows in a boycott intended to support soap opera fans. The announcement was posted on Hoover's Facebook page on Monday:

 
From the AP article:

"I'm not trying to be a martyr," Kirkendall said. "I'm just reacting to what our consumers said."

The gesture seems relatively sincere.  Communication strategist Amber Avines' reaction was my first reaction, too: what a brilliant way to show you really understand your fans' true passions by supporting a part of their lives that they love, even if it has little to do with your actual product. It's a brilliant way to engage fans and show commonalities. When I speak of acting like a person, not a brand, this is exactly the kind of communication I'm referring to:

One of the things that makes companies successful when it comes to social media is finding out what its customers are concerned about. Do Hoover's customers want to know the best vacuum to get pet dander out of the carpet? For sure. But, just talking about vacuums all the time doesn't make for great social media. What does, however, is remembering that customers have other interests, too. And soaps, well, those are a big part of everyday life for many stay-at-home moms, seniors, college students, and other people who have dirty carpets! --Amber Avines

The show of solidarity reflects exactly how brands should operate: promote your own products, sure, but make the effort to understand your users and engage with them on topics that they care about.

There are other sides to the coin, however. Consumer Reports reports that Hoover is slipping in its reliability ratings and is no longer the top choice for upright vacuums in terms of product reliability. The article's title reveals what CR believes to be the motivation behind the announcement: Hoover vacuum's soap-opera saga could boost sales.

Likewise, BNet posits that the move is mostly a hollow, bogus gesture, albeit an act of "PR Genius." Jim Edwards points out that Hoover's overall ad spend on ABC is only $353,000 out of a total TV budget of $2.5 million. "That’s such a tiny amount for television most marketers would consider spending it on a less fleeting medium," he reports. Perhaps I'm not quite as cynical, but cutting 7% of the advertising budget overnight in order to support the fans' passions sounds fairly dramatic to me. OK, maybe it wasn't the hugest sacrifice in the world, but it was a sincere action that rallied and engaged fans.

What isn't in dispute is the amount of fan engagement Hoover is being showered with on its Facebook page. The number of people Liking Hoover on Facebook jumped from around 7,000 before the announcement to over 13,000 fans as of this morning. Additionally, a Soap Opera Digest columnist asked its fans to make this coming Friday "Buy a Hoover Day" to support the company's boycott of ABC.

Also of note is that Hoover's first Facebook post about the soap cancellations garnered 51 Likes and and 59 Comments, while the announcement that it would pull its ABC advertising garnered 669 Likes and 349 Comments. A clearer indication of fan engagement you could rarely find: Hoover fans support and admire the decision to pull advertising from ABC. Detractors aside, the results speak for themselves. These fans are engaged.

 

How to optimize your Facebook privacy for business

One of the questions that arose during this week's Huzzah! event on Search and Social Revelations was the issue of Facebook profile versus a brand page.

While changes have been made that allow pages to act more like people (the ability to Like other pages, for example, and receive notifications when a fan has posted to the page), there are still many advantages to having a personal profile that business colleagues, leads and partners can connect with. However, many of the workshop participants had originally set up their personal profiles as just that--a way to connect personally with friends and family, without the intention of posting information that was for public consumption.

My current stance on the matter is to have both: a personal profile so that colleagues, associates and industry connections can connect with you personally, tag you in photos from industry events, and message you personally. And then, if you are also a consultant or sole proprietor, it's wise to take advantage of the benefits of a brand page for engaging with fans and promoting events. After all, Facebook is social networking, and networking has always relied on personal connections.

So how does one make the transition from a heretofore extremely personal profile to a more global, public profile?

HubSpot recently produced a quick, two-minute video on how to do just that by creating custom lists to limit which contacts see which information so that your Facebook profile can serve your business networking needs as well:

Social CRM: Managing Online Relationships

Had a great time at Huzzah's Wappow event this afternoon! One thing I do love about the world of social media is that it is ever-changing. Every time I go to present the basics, Facebook or Twitter have changed in some essential way that requires a bit of finesse from the online manager.

The most substantial update to this deck: profile or page? With Facebook's recent updates to add more facilitation, notifications and profile-like features to brand pages, the advantages to having a page versus a profile alone have shifted. The quick rundown:

Benefits of Brand Page

• Your name is positioned as a brand entity
• Capacity for multiple administrators
• Access to analytics
• Ability to message over 5,000 fans simultaneously
• Ability to capture unique ID with over 50 fans

Drawbacks of Page vs. Profile

• Friends can't friend you
• Friends can't tag photos of you
• Friends can't invite you to events
• Lack of desire to friend a brand
• Page mesages go to a separate, oft-neglected inbox

In the end, I would generally believe that it's a good idea to have a personal profile so that you can make your presence known at events, friend new business contacts, and have your photos tagged when you attend industry events. Likewise, the brand should also have a page with a strategized presence that can easily interact with fans.

Social CRM: Managing online relationships

View more presentations from Heidi Miller

No one wants to friend your brand on Facebook

You have a brand Page. Does anyone care?

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Why would anyone want to be a brand's friend? They have real people that they have actually met and can have a real, ad-free conversation with online. Why would anyone friend your brand on Facebook?

Because you asked nicely? No. Even if you ask super-nicely or promise a bribe (free iPad drawing for the first 500 Likes!), no one cares about your brand. No one cares about how great your products are, what color your logo is, or what promotion you're running this week. They can get that information from your site or your newsletter.

Because you offer discounts? No. A few people might Like a Facebook Page in order to receive coupons, but there are a zillion other, more efficient ways to distribute those coupons. Facebook is a multi-level, social media tool ideal for facilitating conversations. It can be like having your own chat room about all the topics your fans really care about. And contrary to popular belief, not all that many people waste time with coupons, specials and deals. No, they waste time on Facebook for an entirely different reason: to connect and share ideas.

Because you have company news? Snore. Never mind that the e-newsletter has been around forever, no one cares about your company news but you. Here's the shocker: people care about themselves and about the experiences they can have.

So why have a Facebook Page?

The question is rather: why have a brand? Why is it that your brand is different? Why should anyone care about your brand? Why should they be compelled to spend their precious time interacting with your brand? Will you make them laugh? Think? Cry? Share? Love? What makes your brand vital to their daily lives? If they can't live without it, why not? Why do people love your brand? Why do they tell all their friends about your brand? Why do they tell stories about your brand?

If you don't know the answers to those questions, you aren't ready to create a brand presence on Facebook. The answers to those questions will direct every message, every comment, every game, every promotion, every photo, every link and every video posted to your brand's Facebook Page.

What will engage on a  brand Page?

Every message on your brand Page should be relevant, personable, engaging and entertaining. If you don't know what your fans consider relevant, engaging and entertaining, now is the time to find out. Ask them via email, a poll, Quora, LinkedIn, Twitter or wherever they currently spend their online time.

Do not mistake your brand Page for an ad. An ad is an ad, and it has its own conventions. A Page is a living, breathing entity that will self-direct its own priorities and nurture the types of experiences its constituents find the most relevant. Not sure what your fans find relevant? That's what analytics are for. Check your statistics to see which posts got the most clicks and the most comments and focus on those topics for future posts. Which photos were viewed most often? Which videos? On which days do your fans interact the most? What time of day? Which other Pages do your fans participate in? If you cross-post popular topics from those Pages, does that create more loyalty with your fans?

No one cares about friending your brand's Facebook Page. What people care about is the possibility of interacting and engaging in discussions relating to their favorite topics. They want something that makes them think. Or laugh. Or argue. Or share.

What is your brand offering on your Page?

People, not Twitter, make a revolution

Does Libya need Twitter?

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During this period of change and protest Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Iran, Algeria, Yemen and Bahrain, observers have noted the role that social media has played in facilitating both communication for protesters and providing news sources for journalists. In the quest for flashy headlines, it's possible that some have given Twitter and Facebook a tad too much credit for engendering political change.

Dean Takahashi in Social Beat claims that the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt were "set off by social media" and notes Twitter and Facebook's uses as "tools of the revolution." Takahashi concludes:

If social media has ever had its greatest moment, it’s now. It shows that the power of the network effect can work in political revolutions just as it does in other parts of our lives.

Interestingly, NPR reported that in Libya, anti-Gadhafi activists have taken to using a Muslim dating site to communicate, passing coded messages back and forth to each other. Because the Libyan secret police monitor common internet sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, the activists were forced to find another platform for communication. Enter the Mawada dating site: what a democracy uses for coffee dates, those under dictators use for revolution.

Notice here that bloggers and journalists aren't rushing to label that phenomenon "the Mawada Revolution" to succeed "the Twitter Revolution"? Perhaps our love of social tools such as Twitter and Facebook are leading us to give too much credit to the tools rather than the craftsman. Recently, since repressive governments are hip to Twitter and Facebook as communication tools for populist political communications, activists are finding alternate methods of communication, such as the creative idea of communicating via a common dating site. Where once the use of Twitter during government crackdowns was news, now a dating site is providing the newest social media platform for communication in times of unrest.

And while I find it fascinating at the creativity of sending coded messages through a dating site, let's get some perspective and credit the activists here, not the tool.

This shows that the platforms, while useful and innovative, aren't revolutionary. What is astounding--and astoundingly consistent--in the tales of political change we've seen over the last few years is the extraordinary human capacity to find a platform for communication, no matter the restrictions.

Malcolm Gladwell criticized the gloating Twitter aficionados, saying

But surely the least interesting fact about them is that some of the protesters may (or may not) have at one point or another employed some of the tools of the new media to communicate with one another... People with a grievance will always find ways to communicate with each other. How they choose to do it is less interesting, in the end, than why they were driven to do it in the first place.

Yes, the use of Twitter and Facebook to facilitate political change is interesting. Let's just not forget that behind every Twitter account is a human being seeking to express him- or herself.

Killing me softly: is BranchOut for Facebook a LinkedIn killer?

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BranchOut, the latest connection tool for social networkers, has some folks speculating that this could be the new tool that kills the older, more venerable LinkedIn network.

While BranchOut isn't a social network itself, it seems to aspire to replicate LinkedIn's business networking functions on the most popular social networking site to date, Facebook. Here's how it works--and why it threatens to overtake LinkedIn as a business network.

"BranchOut is a Facebook app that allows you to import your LinkedIn network to Facebook, it then matches that to your Facebook connections and allows you to add those people to your professional network, providing you with the same functionality in terms of places of work etc. that LinkedIn always has."--Incslingers

So while BranchOut isn't an entirely new social network, Rick Marini, BranchOut founder, designed it as a Facebook app, presumably to leverage the massive level of participation for Facebook's 500 million users for those who want to consider using Facebook to reinforce their business connections.

"The BranchOut site directs users to install a Facebook app, which ingests their entire “social graph” (i.e., all of their friends and contacts) and then pulls up a kind of dashboard view of the corporate relationships within that group, along with a search bar that allows you to search for companies your friends might be associated with."--Matthew Ingram on GigaOm

BranchOut is kind of LinkedIn for Facebook users. There is the barrier: in order for BranchOut to work like LinkedIn, the user's Facebook friends need to install the app. And the user must invite all her friends, which means basically re-creating the user's entire LinkedIn network a second time, on Facebook. This is quite a barrier, even if it can be done with just a few spammy clicks. If a user already has a solid network on LinkedIn, what is the motivation for re-creating it on Facebook?

More interestingly, there is the issue of perception. LinkedIn is widely perceived as the purely professional, business-oriented networking site. It's been around; it's venerable and respectable; it's established. Its brand promise is to help its 70 million users make professional connections and link job seekers with hiring companies. LinkedIn is in essence a corporate network, the modern equivalent of the networking lunch. Users expect to divulge corporate affiliations and detailed job descriptions in their profiles and to their connections.

Facebook, on the other hand, is most popular in the hands of GenX and GenY (and let's not forget the 55+ crowd) for sharing photos and personal life updates. Facebook doesn't yet have the business mojo and street cred that LinkedIn has worked so hard to establish. It's more like the pop star who is wildly popular today, but who might be the subject of an episode of Where Are They Now in two years.

I see BranchOut as an attempt to help Facebook grow up and be seen as a real adult instead of the networking world's equivalent of a one hit wonder pop star. BranchOut is a first step in blurring the line between personal and professional networks for the mainstream, a phenomenon that has proven difficult for those habituated to separating the two. Even though I have long maintained that the personal and professional have become one and the same, the fact that these two social networks, LinkedIn and Facebook, have existed side-by-side indicates that users still draw the distinction between personal social networking and business networking.

But as personal and professional lives blur, I suspect that users' networking habits will as well. I see BranchOut as the first obviously public domino to fall in the wall separating the business network from the social network trying to break out of its adolescent shell.

39% of Facebook fans Like to show public support of a brand

Facebook: the new home for brand ambassadors

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When social media tools such as blogs, podcasts and then Twitter and Facebook came to the fore, a common comparison for social capital was the peer recommendation. That is, blogging that you like X product is the same as going to a sewing circle (don't laugh; they still exist under the name "Stitch and Bitch") or recipe exchange and saying, "Oh, you know what I found that works really well for that? X product!"

In the early days, we often equated social media mentions with recommendations or criticism, depending on the sentiment. And perhaps when social media was limited to blogs and podcasts, that might have been true.

But a new study by ExactTarget and CoTweets shows that, at least on Facebook, discounts and “social badging” were the primary reasons consumers Like brands.

While 40% of respondents reported their motivation for Liking a brand on Facebook was to receive discounts, the #2 reason was "to show my support for the company to others."

I don't know about you, but as a marketer, this represents a huge opportunity for outreach and engagement. That tells me that 39% of people who Like my brand on Facebook do it because they want to be perceived publicly as brand ambassadors. Not for freebies or to "stay informed" about new products, but specifically because they want to wear my brand on their sleeve.

Now, armed with that knowledge, ask yourself the following questions:

• What tools does your page offer to brand ambassadors? Can they download a badge, add a widget to their blog?
• What rewards does your page offer to brand ambassadors? Can they get special status, invitations or priority access to events, offers or activities?
• What level of interaction do you offer to brand ambassadors? Are their comments and feedback responded to on the page in a timely manner?

In short, knowing that a good portion of your fans are Liking your page because of a specific desire to be a brand ambassador, what are you doing to show your gratitude and deepen their involvement?

 

Facebook: now with minty-fresh hijack access

Firesheep Firefox plugin provides easy, three-step hacking to anyone's Facebook account

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If I were to make the statement, "Facebook doesn't value its users' privacy or security," would anyone disagree?

Time and again, Mark Zuckerberg has shown that his priority is universal access and functional awesomeness over privacy. And hey, Facebook is a pretty cool tool, and let's not forget that it's free, so perhaps we should file privacy and security considerations under "you get what you pay for." And I've always felt there was something rather juvenile and vaguely sci-fi about the complaint, "Hey, you made me completely dependent on this for communication, and even though I didn't pay for any of it, it's your fault that someone could hack into it and steal my identity!" Kind of reminds me of old Star Trek episodes when alien cultures have foolishly become dependent on some technology, drug or food source and resort to unseemly behavior when access is denied.

Privacy issues have led some famous technologists to quit Facebook in a very public manner. Personally, I've been of the "don't post it online if you don't want anyone to see it" school of thought.

But the new Facebook security concerns are of a different ilk. Eric Butler, Seattle web developer, has created a tool called FireSheep that serves one nefarious purpose: to hack into vulnerable Facebook accounts. To be clear, he created the Firefox plugin with the goal of drawing attention to Facebook's vulnerabilities in the hopes that the creators would make more substantial efforts to ensure secure access.

As I read over various technologists' responses to the plugin, the catch-22 we are in does seem vaguely reminiscent of Star Trekk plot dilemmas. The only real solutions to ensure secure access to sites such as Facebook and Twitter seem to be to set up your own Virtual Private Network (and even I am not geeky enough to do that), or to use a tool to force https access on the sites.

Or we could stop using Facebook.

But then again, we didn't stop using email when spammer got hold of our addresses; we developed spam filters and mailboxes and verification instead. And we didn't stop writing checks when forgers adopted check washing scams. And we didn't stop using computers when viruses and malware began their attacks. We just bought Macs instead of PCs.

Firesheep is the first step in creating tools that will allow us to adapt to Facebook's weaknesses. I predict that there will be a new market for Facebook and Twitter security widgets and plugins to correct this issue, just as there is a healthy market for antivirus and anti-malware software. Soon we'll all be downloading and updating those widgets just as readily as we update our current spam filters.

We humans are just crazy for adapting like that.

Facebook questions: a rat maze?

Yesterday, I posted my first impressions of Facebook's new Questions feature, along with my own lukewarm reaction. Curious, I checked back in today to see the response rate to the Questions I'd posted.

According to my Facebook wall, I've never asked a question:

However, I did receive emails indicating that the questions had received some pretty kick-butt answers. Clicking the embedded email link brings one to the Question page, but the questions and answers for some reason don't appear on the Wall. And there doesn't seem to be an easy way to get to one's own Question page to track and follow the answers as they come in.

For this, I give Questions the Fail Award. No way to track on the Wall or find them after you've posted? Not quite the rat's maze that is the new privacy settings, but close.

Facebook questions: brilliant or blah?

Facebook has just rolled out a new feature, Questions. Taking a lesson in conversation from old-school social networking site LinkedIn, Facebook now allows users to ask a general question to the public and/or to specific friends within the user's network.

Mashable has pointed out a few useful features for Questions, such as polling, topic exploration and tagging by category.

Asking a question does change the homepage and the bar at the top:

And, as is noted above, all questions are public. No complicated privacy filters here, so your 2:00 a.m. musings from the Mashable Birthday Bash about whether that guy likes you or not might not be the best use of the feature.

Questions also allows the possibility to ask the question to specific friends in your network by tagging:

And the Question tab does appear at the top of your wall for easy asking and tracking of conversations. The most useful feature so far seems to be the ability to tag and track questions by category.

So far, the general reaction seems to be a bit underwhelming, to say the least. Really? Social networking monster Facebook finally caught on to a feature that LinkedIn has had for over a year? The functionality offered by Questions doesn't as yet add any significant value over Facebook's other myriad opportunities for connection.

I vote meh. How about you?

Facebook privacy: with great free-ness comes great responsibility

I've put this off for a while. I mean, honestly, do we really need another post about the Facebook privacy issues?

Apparently, we do. It comes up in almost every conversation I've had about social media in the last two weeks. And that's a LOT of conversations. Here's my take.

We pay for "free" in one way or another. Chris Anderson's Free was a great audio book listen, and I don't disagree that free is a business model and the way of the future for quite a bit of content. However, free does need to pay for itself somehow. Google isn't a charity working on donations, and neither is Facebook. Zuckerberg and the rest deserve to make a living through their business, as much as we'd like to believe that we, the public, deserve unlimited use of a free tool to connect with our friends. Chris Penn, of my favorite podcasters, has pointed out, we pay for free one way or another. He rants:

If you don’t like how these businesses – and they are businesses, seeking to make profits – treat you, don’t use them. Don’t sign up for them. Don’t give them your time, data, or mindshare. Build your own or use businesses that are more aligned with your values – and be prepared to pay cash out of pocket for them.

Google pays for free by mining data and revenue from ads correlated to that data. If you don't like Facebook's privacy settings, you have a few choices. Create your own social network and convince all your friends to join. Go to an open source, privacy-aware model such as Diaspora, and convince all your friends to join. Or just connect the old-fashioned way. You know, with LinkedIn.

In the words of a friend of mine, "If you don't like it, you can't have any."

If you don't want your grandmother to see or read it, don't publish it online. I don't subscribe to the philosophy that "there is no such thing as privacy" anymore. We do have the expectation of privacy in many situations. For example, I have the right to expect that my credit card information will be kept private; I will take legal recourse if it's not. My social security number, my home address--these are things I expect to be kept private. That, and other bits of my life I choose not to publish online. As C.T. Moore has pointed out in his post Facebook isn't evil; we're just naive, however,

When you're not in the privacy of your own home, your privacy rights are limited.

As comfy as we might feel online, the entire interwebz isn't "home." Our rights to privacy are limited. When information is published online, it's up to the publisher to determine and implement the desired privacy constraints.

If you must post the photo of yourself licking the frozen flagpole in your birthday suit, it's your responsibility to filter if from public search so that your next employer doesn't see it. Or better yet, don't post it at all, and keep it as a happy memory of the day you left part of your tongue in Canada. Likewise, if you're out drinking with friends and someone snaps a photo of you licking the frozen flagpole in your birthday suit, it's your responsibility to let that friend know that that photo is for personal viewing, not for posting online.

With free tools comes some responsibility on the part of the user. I've made my share of online slip-ups; I'll admit it. I've published angry Tweets, unflattering photos of friends into their cups, posted content intended for a personal account to a work account and vice versa. But none of those were Facebook's fault; they were mine.

Facebook could stand to be more user-oriented. All the above being said, Facebook could stand to be responsive to its users' needs, even though those users aren't paying for the service. Zuckerberg has claimed that he truly believed that more sharing was the default that users preferred. I find that hard to believe, since every progressive shift toward less privacy has been met by user uproar. Has Zuckerberg really not noticed that users are pushing back on every move he's made in the last six months?

Shauna Causey, Seattle's own Energizer Bunny of customer service and social media, was quoted in this article on Facebook privacy:

Facebook is walking a very thin line of trust with its users right now... Many users are looking for alternatives to feel like they are in control of their information online.

True that. Moore says Facebook is just acting like a business, promoting its own interests. Fair enough. But many of us have learned that in business, it's a good idea to listen to your customers. Will Facebook step up and do that?

Please rob me: the truth about online privacy risks

Last night, Social Media Club Seattle featured a stellar panel on Ethics, Money and New Ideas, with panelists Andru Edwards of Gear Live Media, Izabelle Gorczynski (privacy attorney for Microsoft), Matt Haynes of Wunderman and moderated Andy Boyer of Spring Creek Group. Some interesting questions were raised, not the least of which was "What would you do if you had run across the iPad at the bar before release?"

If you're curious, answers ranged from "I'd take pictures of it and then give it to the bartender to return" to "It's abandoned; I'd keep it. But I wouldn't sell it for $5,000."

More interesting to me was the fairly tired debate over location-based services and privacy/safety. I'm considering establishing a new drinking game: when the subject of privacy comes up with respect to social networking sites and/or location-based services, the first person to mention Please Rob Me loses--and everybody drinks.

Does social media put its users at increased risk?

Frankly, it's pretty silly to believe that an average level of participation in Foursquare or Facebook mean that you're a significantly more likely target for burglars. First of all, as was explained to me when my own Chicago apartment was robbed eight years ago, long before Facebook was more than a gleam in Mark Zuckerberg's eye, robbery involves taking something of value by force or threat of force and or by putting the victim in fear. For robbery, the victim is present and threatened. Burglary refers to a crime involving breaking and entering, usually for the secondary crime of theft of personal property. So the site should be entitled "Come Burglarize Me."

Grammar aside, I'd also like to point out that that particular burglary managed to take place without the aid of Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare or Gowalla. Some kids (we think) climbed onto the garage and in a window when I was at Fourth of July festivities in another part of town. They had no way of knowing I was gone; the building had no assigned parking spaces.

Crimes of opportunity happen, but I'm not convinced that participating in social networking sites, microblogs and location-based services heightens the risk significantly, provided the user takes a moderate level of precautions. So the question isn't "does participation in these sites put the user at risk?" it's "does participation in these sites put the user at increased risk?"

Consider the following:

• It's uncommon to publish a home address on Facebook. One panelist suggested that it was common for Facebook users to publish street addresses publicly on their profiles. A poll during the question-and-answer session showed that only one person out of 150 attendees published a home address on Facebook. It's not a common practice.
• It's uncommon to publish a precise home address on Foursquare. Despite the fact that my buddy Mike Foley will check in to "Foleymo World Headquarters," he doesn't include an exact address, just a neighborhood. with his exact address ("It's 1510 23rd Ave. And I don't care who knows it," he Tweets), most users don't publish their home addresses. It's more common to list a title such as "The Homestead" with mention only of a neighborhood, such as "Fremont." If someone wants to hit every home in Fremont, he could be our guest, but I suspect a burglar's time would be better spent actually casing homes to physically see who isn't home and has valuables to steal. And most people don't check in at home, just to social venues.
• Just because one person is out doesn't mean the home is empty. Spouses, children, housesitters and petsitters are often still present in the home, so simply because one resident checks in at a hotel in Hawaii doesn't mean the home is abandoned and free game. In my case, a burglar would have to make his way through a concierge, a secure building and some pretty feisty house- and pet-sitters. And frankly, my most valuable assets, my laptop and electronics, will usually with me. Sadly, there is no hidden stash of Tiffany diamonds or Faberge eggs in the back of my closet (that I know of).

None of this is to say that another burglary couldn't happen, but is the risk increased? A few months ago, five scant months after my move to Seattle, my car was stolen out of the building's "secure" parking garage. Again, it was a crime of opportunity for joyriders looking for a nondistinct ride to take on a crime spree--and nothing was more nondistinct than my silver Honda Civic. Would my checking in on Foursquare and indicating that I was on foot, nowhere near my car, have made that particular burglary any more or less likely? Doubtful.

If you're concerned about your online presence increasing the chance of your becoming the victim of a crime, just take these basic precautions:

• Don't publish your address anywhere. Not on Facebook, not on Twitter, not on Foursquare or Gowalla.
• Don't mention the name of the street on which you live.
• When away for extended periods of time, make it known that others are occupying your home and that you are checking in frequently
• For extra security, don't publish your work address, either.

I'd welcome your anecdotes with social sites and increased risk of crime--what has been your experience?

Is time spent on social networking sites "wasted"?

The Economist's special report on social networking contains some intriguing information; read Wide Angle's 10 Nuggets from the report or the full report here. Some of the information, such as the fact that 10% account of Twitterers account for 90% of Tweets, has been reported before; other findings are fresher, such as the interesting tidbit that "Since February 2009, people have been spending more time on social-networking sites than on email."

What caught my eye was the report that so much time is being "wasted" analyzing how much time is "wasted" on social networks.

It constantly boggles my mind that this underlying assumption is confirmed: when a "social networking site" is referenced, time spent networking is valueless. Social networking is just that: networking. That is social. Is the value of networking in general being questioned, or is there simply a basic misconception that online media provide no value?

If an employee were to go to a Chamber of Commerce event, no manager would question the business value of nursing those local connections. If a manager were to go to a networking breakfast, I wonder if his time would so readily be recorded as "wasted" because he was investing time in his network. If a CEO spent time volunteering for a local charity, would his time be counted as "wasted"? Why are these activities perceived to be off less value when they happen online?

Is it because the experience can also be fun? What businesses must remember is that channels like Twitter don't lose their networking value because one Tweet in a dozen is a link to a cartoon instead of an article in Forbes. And Facebook doesn't lose its networking value because your old college drinking buddies post pictures of their cute new kids. Remember when we drudged out to networking events and spent hours upon hours nurturing relationships, carefully marking down the names of each contact's significant other, kids' names, and so on in our CMS's? Channels such as Facebook shouldn't be penalized for making that process easy, searchable and transparent. 

And a little fun.

What do you think? Why is there such acceptance of the notion that time spent on social networking sites is time wasted?

New survey: 54% of CIOs ban social media

In a new study conducted by Robert Half Technology,54% of 1,400 Chief Information Officers interviewed report banning social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook at work.

Interestingly, 19% of respondents reported that the sites would be allowed "for business purposes only", while 16% permitted access for "limited personal use."

CIOs were asked, “Which of the following most closely describes your company’s policy on visiting social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, while at work?” Their responses:

In a blog post commenting on the study, AtlanTech blogger Urvaksh Karkaria commented, "I can understand the corner office's concerns with employees tweeting about the tuna at lunch or Monday night's Packers-Vikings game, on the company’s dime."

I can't.

This type of fearful view is short-sighted and shows a lack of understanding of how human beings connect both in real life and in a Web 2.0 world online. What is the difference between using Facebook "for business purposes only" and "for limited personal use"? The urge to make the distinction shows a gap in knowledge of modern work habits. These days, work and life aren't "balanced;" they are integrated. We check on our kids and check the game scores in the office, and we also use our iPhones to check email in the evenings from the game. We log into Facebook at home and talk about the company, and we log into Facebook at work and chat about our kids and pets.

For every study that has shown a decrease in productivity when social networking sites are permitted at work (such as the Nucleus Research study from July showing that companies who allowed access to SNS such as Facebook showed a 1.5% drop in productivity), there are no concurrent studies to show that during those same weeks, employees logged into the server from home over the weekend. No one has done studies to show those same employees chatting up clients, leads and potential employees at dinners, cocktail events and other live social networking events.

For those who separate personal life and work, the argument in favor of allowing employees access to social networking sites can be unclear. "Is it for work?" they might ask. Consider this: an employee of Zappos has a Facebook account. She logs in a few times a day to chat with friends or to post funny articles. She also mentions how much she loves her job or what a kick she got out of a customer service interaction.

Were the logins "for business purposes" or "limited personal"? The question is irrelevant, because the person posting the updates is a fully integrated human being with a range of interests and passions.

Business Is Personal

One of the major benefits of using services such as Twitter and Facebook, as businesses such as Zappos, Starbucks and Comcast have discovered, is that participation by real human beings in social networks puts a human face on a company. Comcast doesn't Twitter; Frank Eliason does. Brad Nelson shares his passion for coffee and tidbits about his own life on Starbucks' Twitter account. Are the Tweets about his life "personal" while the rest are "business"? No. These days, business is personal. 

Whom do you trust?

Last year's Edelman Trust Barometer indicated that only 29% of respondents indicated they would trust information coming directly from the company CEO, down from 36% the previous year. Only 13% said they would trust product advertising (down from 20%), and 44% said they would trust information printed in an article in a business magazine (down from 57%).

The reasons for the lack of trust vary, but they all have to do with the fact that people don't know your CEO. They don't know him personally. Maybe if they did, they might trust his words, but most of us don't. Same with product advertising or the writer of those business magazine articles--the audience doesn't know those people and so has less reason to trust their communications.

However, the stream of information available about a person via Twitter or Facebook is much more accessible and more likely to give an overall idea of who a person is and what she cares about. Product advertising can be faked, but an entire Facebook presence will give a good overview of the account holder as a fully-integrated human being.

Tweeting about the tuna at lunch or the Vikings-Packers game gives followers an insight into the human interests of the account holder. And that type of information, mixed with information about the company experience, provides a solid foundation of trust that can be lacking in other corporate communications.

How much Facebook is too much Facebook?

Dave Willmer, executive director of Robert Half Technology, acknowledged that “Professionals should let common sense prevail when using Facebook and similar sites -- even outside of business hours,” he said. "Regrettable posts can be a career liability."

Let's ignore the burglar who was caught because he logged in to Facebook during the robbery (did he post a status update, "Robbing this guy's house," one wonders), and consider whether social networking sites can indeed affect productivity. For some, surely this is the case. Willmer offers some basic common-sense guidelines for SNS use as an alternative to banning the sites all together:

• Know what’s allowed. Make sure you understand and adhere to your company’s social networking policy.
• Use caution. Be familiar with each site’s privacy settings to ensure personal details or photos you post can be viewed only by people you choose.
• Keep it professional. Use social networking sites while at work to make connections with others in your field or follow industry news -- not to catch up with family or friends.
• Stay positive. Avoid complaining about your manager and coworkers. Once you’ve hit submit or send, you can’t always take back your words -- and there’s a chance they could be read by the very people you’re criticizing.
• Polish your image. Tweet or blog about a topic related to your profession. You’ll build a reputation as a subject matter expert, which could help you advance in your career.
• Monitor yourself. Even if your employer has a liberal policy about social networking, limit the time you spend checking your Facebook page or reading other people’s tweets to avoid a productivity drain.

To that I'd add "be personable without being too personal." Don't use Facebook or Twitter as a place to rant or criticize in a way that you'll be ashamed of the next day, no matter what the situation. Share interesting personal snippets of your life as well as your passions for your work. And if you're finding that it's 4:30 and you still haven't answered your email, it might be time to step away from Facebook and focus on your daily tasks instead.