Archive for the ‘Facebook Strategy’ Category

Facebook: Innovative yet Conceited

Categories: Community Marketing, Facebook Strategy, FeedbackPosted on December 23rd, 2007

Ellen Lee did a great wrap-up article over at SFGate on Facebook in 2007, she called me up for my opinion on the company over the last year. I suggested that Facebook is very innovative (the first to lead an application platform, and to do social based ads) yet remains very arrogant. (twice not including customers to make decisions over their very own privacy of the newspage and beacon).

Having betrayed the trust of it’s users twice, a third time is going to result in mutiny, and users will start leaving, it wont be hard for some users to organize and move.

What could Facebook do better? Involve it’s ~~customers~~ members (Update: See Doc Searls comment) in testing and decision making. I would advise them to bring ~~customers~~ members closer and involve them in the testing and decision making process. Create a small private group of members that really understand the program and involve them in the decision maker process. This group would be empowered to talk to the product team, test out new features, and provide honest and thoughtful research. You can reward them with insider knowledge (they won’t need to be paid) and many of them will become advocates and help promote (and sometimes defend) the feature releases and the brand in general.

To Facebook’s defense, I’ll bet they didn’t know the full ramifications of their innovative actions (or didn’t think it all the way through), and as a result, were learning about it from reading blogs.

With Facebook being a community or “social utility” it will be nice to see them living some of these values we hold dear before they release their next feature.

Get closer to members, and be more successful, a social network is only as good as the collective of it’s members.

Please chime in with your suggestions for Facebook.

Posted in Community Marketing, Facebook Strategy, Feedback | Comments

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Video: The pitfalls no one tells you about Widgets (3 min with Rodney Rumford)

Categories: Facebook Strategy, Video, Widget StrategyPosted on December 15th, 2007

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Rodney Rumford, of FaceReviews, one of the speakers at the Web Community Forum shared his expertise with Widgets, which are mini-applications that can be deployed on top of existing communities –like Facebook.

Rodney shares some of the pitfalls to watch out for, as well as gives some specific actionable steps to overcome these issues. Measurement is key in adjusting a product in mid-flight.

According to Rodney, two attributes that make a successful widget are engagement and viral growth. Instead of the term engagement, I prefer attributes like attention or interaction or both.

It was great to catch a beautiful view of Seattle, rare this time of year due to the rain.

Posted in Facebook Strategy, Video, Widget Strategy | Comments

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7 Key Learnings you should know from the Web Community Forum

Categories: Conference, Facebook Strategy, Web IndustryPosted on December 7th, 2007

I just spent the last two days exploring nearly all aspects of Facebook with 100 brands, marketers, widget companies, and developers at Seattle’s Web Community Forum (with a focus on Facebook). Some have had success (some were strategic…others were in the right place at the right time), but many are trying to make sense of what to do.

But what does it all mean, what’s the big takeaway? A few high-level themes that I observed:

1. Hard to keep up: Facebook platform is constantly changing
Nearly every developer who presented mentioned that the Facebooks developer platform F8 is constantly changing, and sometimes without notice, it’s difficult to keep up. New features are released (such as the ability to read messages in external email) without warning, and major changes are made that can impact privacy (Newsfeed and Beacon) with little warning to the community. On the brand side, some expressed they were still trying to understand all the different features and tools. Facebook is like an evolving operating system.

2. There are so many features or products –overwhelming for brands We had several sessions showing the many features of Facebook, the 80/20 rule of feature adoption probably holds true. Most of us just use a small portion of features for most of the time. I learned a few new things: I didn’t realize that applications could be put on top of Facebook pages (fan pages), there’s an interesting dynamic there, except for the fact that most applications won’t serve a large brand. With so many features and combinations, it’s difficult for brands to keep up.

3. Advertising effectiveness questioned, although hasn’t been fully explored A few times, the click through rates were challenged for ads, banners, and contextual or social ads. In only one case did I hear that one advertiser created a very focused ad campaign (towards college-bound high school students) received low click through rates, but once the users made it over to her site, the conversion was at 40%, that’s very high. With that said, I’ve yet to hear of a large brand use a balanced advertising campaign on Facebook, a combination of Facebook pages, ads, social ads, banner ads, and applications in an integrated way.

4. Despite privacy issues, majority of users will continue on
The majority of Facebook users (and internet users at large) are unaware or don’t care about how their information is being used online. Proof? I’ve lectured my kid-sisters in college on what’s appropriate, I’m not sure if she understood. Despite the major concerns for user privacy, a majority of users will continue to live life online as normal, they will only become concerned once it impacts them. I still think the majority of internet users are sheep, they follow the behind of the sheep in front of them.

5. Many widget creators are planning for other networks
Some of the widget networks I’ve been talking to (I’m starting to get briefed by others) are looking NOT just at Facebook as the sole place to deploy, but on other networks. It makes sense, yet there are two major challenges: 1) Each community is different, so expecting widgets to work universally across all social networks is unwise. 2) APIs and platforms for each social network are radically different, so many applications have to be rebuilt.

6. A mini eco-system has emerged
Building off the previous bullet, a new service industry has appeared. I made at least two introductions for my clients that were present (at their request) to widget developers for Facebook (which are very hard to find now a days). We should also expect a new service provider to emerge that will help widget developers quickly port applciations to many social networks –sort of a ‘widget/container integration specialist’. Lastly, the conference itself was a nod to this future industry, I mentioned to the press over a call that 12 months ago, no one had even expected that a conference on Facebook would emerge, yet there are at least 4 this year.

7. The “Distributed Web Strategy” starts to take hold
In more than one presentation did the theme of “Fish where the fish are” resonate. Brands, companies, and marketers, need to stop focusing so hard on ‘driving traffic to my irrelevant corporate website (translated into 8 languages now)‘ and now start thinking about joining communities where they exist, where the trust is highest, and being part of the communities that are naturally forming online. This also means that any brand who is focused on a Facebook strategy alone is missing the picture, the scope should be to wherever online communities are forming in their marketplace.

My upcoming research reports are focused on Online Communities and Social Networks, I was able to formerly interview many of the community strategists or community managers that are living in the day to day, they’ve shared quite a bit with me. Many of those who I interviewed for my research I also did some mini-video interviews, you’ll see them published over the next few days.

For some research that is available from Bill Johnston check out this report Online Community ROI Best Practices Survey (PDF) from Forum One. On question 9 on budgets for online communities, is that monthly or yearly? Also, in the metrics that are reported back to management, how come ‘attention’ isn’t listed? (Update: Bill responded in the comments below, budget is annual, and attention wasn’t considered important) Great report overall, if you’re in the space, you should read that, and attend their events –I’ve been to a few, and will attend future ones.

Ok, now back to you, what other large themes and trends are you seeing? Care to dispute any of these observations?

Posted in Conference, Facebook Strategy, Web Industry | Comments

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Facebook: Opportunities of a Ready-Made Platform

Categories: Events, Facebook StrategyPosted on December 5th, 2007

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I’ve just completed my keynote here at the Web Community Forum, my presentation was a kick off: Your Facebook Strategy: Opportunities of a Ready-Made Platform. I also cover some of the challenges, including the recent BeaconGate, and most importantly, how to develop a strategy that makes sense.

If you’re not familiar with Facebook, I’ve written this primer: What you should know about Facebook.

In addition to being an Analyst covering social networks, I’m a user too, you can add me as a contact (I’ll add you back) or join the Web Strategy Group.

Tris Hussey has blogged about the presentation and there were a tremendous amount of tweets from Teresa on Web Comm Forum. Update: Ariel of Microsoft took amazing notes, I was watching her type with flurry and passion, followed by Mari’s high level bullet points.

Update: Mari also was blogging the event.

Tags for this event are wcf07

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See you at Seattle’s Facebook Conference (How to develop a Strategy and is Facebook worth $100 Billion?)

Categories: Conference, Facebook StrategyPosted on December 3rd, 2007

See you in Seattle
I’ll be in Seattle at the Web Community Forum (a focus on Facebook) and will be delivering the opening keynote, Justin has the highlights. If you check out the schedule you’ll see there’s a really interesting mix of discussions, both pro and con. I’ll be pretty objective in my keynote, demonstrating the opportunities, but also highlighting the risks of brands doing it wrong.

Brands need a strategy
The crux of my presentation will advise that brands need to first develop a strategy: Identify who’s in Facebook (is that even your market?), figure out what is it that you’re trying to accomplish (to learn, to talk, viral spread, to build better products, etc) develop a plan, then lastly, figure out which of the different tools are available. So many brands have inverted this and are doing it completely backwards. This is the same methodology that Charlene and Josh perscribe at Forrester. You may have read my previous rants that brands first need a strategy.

Is Facebook really worth $100,000,000,000.00?
On the second day, I’m really curious to hear Lee Lorenzen’s opener, he thinks that Facebook is worth $100 Billion. I’ll be tweeting (from Twitter) that morning all the key nuggets on why he says that, so add me as friend to tune in, even if remote. If you’re going, I’m looking forward to seeing you, I think there’s a group of folks that are getting together for dinner on Tuesday night.

With social networks comes nearly unlimited business opportunities
I rarely request people to be my friend on Facebook, I have an open policy that if you add me, I’ll add you back. People often ask me are those your real friends? Some yes, but most are not. This has become a rolodex for me, and unlike some business social networks, I have a better understanding of who these people are, what they like, and their interests. In many ways, my network is nearly unlimited now, and with that comes nearly unlimited opportunities and possibilities.

From web to print to web
A few weeks ago, Leah Jones and myself (and the Blue Monster) were featured on the front page of the Business section of the Chicago Tribune, including a screenshot of my Facebook profile. It’s a bit sureal, as my real life pictures was put online on a social network, which was then put on print, which I now share online.

Thanks to Leah Jones, and Jay Rudman, for sending me the paper clippings.

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Why You Need to have a Strategy before you make a Facebook Fan Page NOW!

Categories: Facebook Strategy, Social Networking, Web TheoryPosted on November 13th, 2007

The good folks at Search Engine Journal have written an article demonstrating Why You Need to Make a Facebook Fan Page for Your Website NOW! This blog post is in response.

They see the SEO tactical benefits, (which are being debated) but aren’t looking at the bigger strategy.

[There are so many new social apps flying at every week, before we jump from tool to tool, let's first develop some objectives and a strategy. Your plan shouldn't waste time entering the market, but should set you up for long-term, holistic success]

I must caution you, that doing the ’shiny’ hop from product to product is dangerous, and the product has yet to be vetted by the market. Instead of jumping in right away, I suggest that each brand ask and answer the following questions before jumping in and creating a Facebook Fan page for their brand.

1) What’s your objective in joining social networks? Why are you doing this in the first place? Does it align with the direction your company is going?

2) Is Facebook the right network for you? Is your audience there? Do they speak and read English? Are you sure they’re not in Bebo, MySpace, Orkut, or other network? Do you know the Facebook demographics? (I do, and it’s not the right audience for every market)

3) Do you already have a social networking hub elsewhere? Maybe your company has already deployed a social network, or has a sponsored group in Facebook, would this canibalize it?

4) Once you send customers to this page, what’s in it for them? The features of Facebook pages are limited, it’s a discussion board (with oh so spartan features) a wall, and an affinity group (fans).

5) When do you stop? How will this amplify your web strategy? How does this integrate with the rest of your strategies?

6) How do you measure success? Nothing is free, nothing. Using free tools require time, which equals dollars. Unplugging a free system may cost far more than building it. How will you know when this is successful? Have you already dedicated resources to manage and maintain this site? What happens if your detractors flame your wall up? Do you have a plan?

7) How will you have a conversation with your community? Building a fan page is only step one, getting them to come, and actively being part of an ongoing dialog is another.

I was one of the very few briefed on this product and my analysis on the announcement is available.

If you can first answer these 7 questions and still feel confident to go forward, then do it, I just want to make sure you have a clear plan first. I”ll be discussing these strategies as the Keynote speaker at the upcoming Facebook Web Community conference in Seattle this Dec 5-6.

Posted in Facebook Strategy, Social Networking, Web Theory | Comments

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Testing Facebook Pages and $20 worth of SocialAds

Categories: Facebook Strategy, Web Advertising, Web MarketingPosted on November 7th, 2007

It’s about 3am and I got up to test the Facebook SocialAd and Facebook Pages system.

Status of Test
I’ll update this section as I have changes

Nov 7: Created a Web Strategy Facebook page, ran $20 SocialAd requesting people write on my wall.

Nov 8: Social Ads are working. A few people have arrived to the Facebook page from Social Ads, at least 4 people have voiced that from the wall writings. The stats on insight are still not populated (it says it takes 48 hours), 99 Fans now.

Nov 9: The insight dashboard is not displaying any data, although there are a few people who left wall comments that they’ve come from newsfeed (socialads).

Nov 11: The insight dashboard is still not displaying click through rates (CTR) of the social ads, so I can’t give any formal metrics away. I do think that it’s likely under 5%. There were a handful of folks that came to the site from social ads, but certainly not the majority, which came from blogs, twitter, and other incoming links (Scoble).

Creating a Facebook Page easy, segmentation detailed
I created a Facebook Page for the “Web Strategy by Jeremiah” brand and was pleased to see there were filters for people (they call them celebrities) and I was able to filter to “Writers”. Analysts are professional writers, and part of why I was hired is because of this blog, so I’m qualified.

Adding details to give color
Creating the page was easy, much like creating a profile, I added a few basic blurbs about the brand, where it’s located, and interests. I uploaded the graphic banner. I tweeted the experience, and within minutes had a few fans. I tested the ‘message all’ product to the three people in the group. I also added an event, promoting the Barcelona Blogger Dinner I’m co-hosting next week. Finally I added a discussion board and asked “How can the Web Strategy Blog improve” (feel free to give honest feedback, even if critical). Of course, I added my masthead photo, which also embodies the brand, and my ugly mug as a profile picture.

$20 test of SocialAd: Highly targeted
I learned this from Charlene Li, who recently tested Facebook flyers. I aimed for and the text reads “Web Strategy Blog Readers This is really a test of the F Pages and Fan systems” and has my picture on it. The ad systems would not let me have the word “Facebook” in it, interesting.

The targeting system is very targeted, here’s what I selected:

Targeting: You are targeting people between 18 and 65 years old in the United States who like blogging, marketing, or web design.
Social Actions

This ad will display with social actions from: (This is the part everyone is concerned with)
* Web Strategy by Jeremiah

Locations
This ad will display in the:
* News Feed
* Ad Space

In the ad, I requested people to write on my wall, I wanted to be more specific, but there’s not a lot of real estate.

Insight Dashboard
Although there’s no data yet, the dashboard has some pretty sophisticated tracking and graphing tools, I’m sure others will post some screenshots, so I’m not going to worry about it now.

Community Responses: Approvals and Rejections
So far, a few people have become Fan-Sumers, there’s about 8 fans of just an hour of deployment. Many of them saw it from my Tweets, and most I already know.

Warning: Corporate Facebook Pages
I also created a Facebook page for Forrester, but did not publish it yet. Why? Because a corporation should have a strategy before using tools, and I haven’t developed one for this specific tool. Please, before you rush in and create a Facebook page for your company, consider the overall strategy, and use the POST methodology that we prescribe: People, Objectives, Strategy, and then finally Technology.

Analysis: Will update in Real Time
I’ll update this post as the test continues to run, and then will eventually do some analysis, pow-wow with Charlene and then explain HOW TO use these tools most effectively.

Nov 07: So far, the process went smoothly, and since it’s self-service many people can get in on the game.
Nov 08: Overall, I’m starting to see how this could help companies, still in ‘analysis mode’

ok, now back to bed

Posted in Facebook Strategy, Web Advertising, Web Marketing | Comments

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More color on the Facebook announcement

Categories: Facebook Strategy, Feedback, Social NetworkingPosted on November 6th, 2007

Today has been a real whirlwind, I was up pretty late (and got up early) to finish off the analysis and make a few changes based on the feedback from Charlene and Shar (both very insigtful) Today was spent talking to media and press nearly all day, one of which was Robert Scoble (I call him a media personality brand), he came by and we did a 20 minute discussion here at Forrester. His brother has a MySpace page for his bar, which we used as a use case example, if you’re a web designer or UX designer, I highly advise you not to click, you may explode. I did a 2 minute video interview of him, I’ll post it when I get a chance.

I really embrace the other views out there, but I think I made Ian throw up. What will settle his stomach? Francine Hardaway wholeheartedly disagrees with my assessment that SocialAds could work, she can’t think of any brands that she could have a fandom over. I left a comment on her blog indicated that she’s already a fan of Social Media Club (See her left nav). Since we’re friends, and I like the SMC too, this model can work. (Update: Steve Mann of SAP (Client) agrees with me, why? “At SAP, we’ve done quite a bit of work on attitudinal segmentation”)

GigaOm brings up the old privacy issue, (a topic constantly talked about with social network) yet we forget that we are the ones that populate the profiles and information on these free to use websites. Before we throw a rock out the window, we should first look in the mirror.

For other color, check out Techmeme, thanks to all your incoming links and comments, the web strategy blog has become a node. There’s a lot of folks reporting the news, but very who sort out what really matters, give meaningful opinions and can back them up with reason or data.

Oh, and less I forget, Happy Birthday Shel Israel.

Update: Below I turned the camera on Robert to get his perspective, he had some time to simmer on the news, read a few other perspectives and give it some thought.

If you don’t know Robert, he’s a ‘pathfinder’, I follow him to find out which tools are hot, I knew him before we worked together at PodTech. The key thing is to watch which technologies he throws away. The tools he keeps are often the ones that as the dominant leaders in their particular industry. Then I do my analysis and tell practitioners how to use them. Robert and I act like two filters, it’s an interesting dynamic.

Find out why he’s bullish on both ad systems.

Click To Play

Posted in Facebook Strategy, Feedback, Social Networking | Comments

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MySpace and Facebook launch new Advertising products, why Hyper Targeting, Social Ads and rise of the “Fan-Sumer” matter to brands

Categories: Facebook Strategy, Fansumer, Social Networking, Web StrategyPosted on November 6th, 2007

By Jeremiah Owyang, insight from Charlene Li and Shar VanBoskirk. This is also being cross-posted on the Forrester Marketing Blog.

Executive Summary
Both Facebook and MySpace have launched profile and network targeted advertising and marketing products. As they both use member interests and the communities which they are part of, trust continues to become key in adoption as information is passed along the network. The sheer size of MySpace’s member base, as well as the thriving local business membership will lead to success. Facebook, which brings a unique solution evolves advertisements to endorsements and encourages members to subscribe to a brand in what we are calling “Fan-Sumers” (an evolution of the consumer). As consumers share their affinities, brands can advertise using trusted social relationships.

Data: Highest trust comes from friends or acquaintances

(Left Graph: Consumers trust their friends and acquaintances far more than any other sources –Report: Leveraging User-Generated Content, 2007)

Trust is and will continue to be one of the most important attributes in the decision making process.

Communities form online, trust develops
How we get information continues to evolve as communities form online organized by individuals with similar interests. Just like in real life, we identify our interests, and are often influenced by opinions and experiences of trusted peers in our communities. For many, social networking sites embody these relationships and influence how trusted decisions are made.

MySpace: Brands have a home and can hyper-target ads
The already active MySpace platform is leveraging their already active member profile pages, encouraging the many small and medium businesses to setup a online storefront and providing tools to make it easy to self-serve advertisements to their customers. It’s easy to make the case that demand and inventory are present.

[Brands can now self-serve a targeted marketing and advertising campaign within the already thriving MySpace community]

Webmaster not needed: MySpace profile for businesses
Small businesses can continue to build their online profile on MySpace (many of them already have), but now, because of their familiarity with self-marketing (restaurant, nightclub, and other local businesses and their customers) on Myspace.

Self-service ads remove middle man
When friction is removed, efficiency is created. With MySpace’s “Self-Service” ad network small businesese can target ads across a variety of affinities (over 300) and deploy ads on users’ profile pages. These ads, which should (by theory) be relevant and contextual to a user who has self-populated their profile page will have these ads displayed.

Advertising balance required in already busy MySpace
With marketers already with a strong presence in MySpace this could continue to erode away at early adopter “cool kids” from embracing MySpace. But as cycles have shown, where communities form, marketers follow.

User experience continues to be free-form
These ads, which will conform to IAB advertising standards (sizes) will give advertisers the freedom to create the ads in the style accustomed to the network. Yes, expect more blinking text.

To watch: OpenSocial
As OpenSocial starts to be deployed across MySpace and other partners, expect profile ads to be tied to widgets and vice versa; a fabric of links. I’ve already outlined How to explain OpenSocial to your executives.

Inaccurate user profiles could result in mis-targeting of ads
We know that many members do not make their profiles accurate which could yield inconsistencies in how and where ads are displayed. While MySpace has assured they’re accounting for rogue outliers, expect some inefficiencies in advertisements.

Our Call: Sheer mass will yield success
We think this to be a win for MySpace, given their great reach, there are millions of users with active profiles, and there’s also plenty of inventory as many small and local businesses that are present will be comfortable deploying ads where their community already exists.

Facebook: Rise of the Fan-Sumer
Going beyond just profile matching of advertisements, Facebook allows consumers to self-identify with brands and becoming fans. In turn, brands can use these “Fan-Sumers” as endorsers to their own trusted networks, resulting in trusted word-of-mouth. Brands can also self-manage their own campaigns, and there’s some unique opportunities for eCommerce widgets or applications to be part of this formula.

[Using Facebook, consumers will publicly endorse brands, resulting in the birth of the “Fan-Sumer”, causing efficient word-of-mouth marketing in their trusted network]

There are three major components to today’s announcement, they include the following:

1) Facebook Pages: Brands get their own profile
For the first time, businesses will legitimately be able to setup profile pages, much like MySpace’s business profiles feature. Next, Facebook members will add these brands as ‘fans’ (much like friends) and this will produce a connection between the parties. Members will self-identify with brands in what we are calling “Fan-Sumers”. Furthermore, this service, called “Beacon” gives third parties the ability to share information on the newsfeed and provides lots of unique opportunities. Sponsored groups will start to evolve into this new form brand profile as this system gets adopted.

2) SocialAds: Endorsements at the friend level lead to eCommerce
Once a member has indicated they are a fan of a brand, that brand can choose to purchase SocialAds (from Facebook Sales or via a self-service platform). A unique endorsement of a product or brand will now appear on that individuals news feed or banner or skyscraper ads. Advertisers can purchase social ads target by profile demographics and profiles, as well as by activities done in Facebook. Payment is an auction-based system available to marketers via both CPM and CPC pricing.

3) Use “Insight” for control and flexibility
This self-service dashboard called Insight gives the marketer detailed knowledge how their advertising campaign is working on Facebook. It’s expected that advertisers will have flexibility, control over the type of ads they deploy, in what quantity, and the demographics they want to target.

A likely scenario:
Shauna, who enjoys Revlon products, indicates she’s a fan of the brand and becomes a Fan-Sumer. Marketers at Revlon can then purchase SocialAds, which will then display on Shauna’s newsfeed or on ads on her profile. If Shauna purchases Revlon makeup from Amazon, her newsfeed could indicate an eCommerce links recommending it to her 100 trusted friends, resulting in further sales.

[The traditional marketing funnel as we know it is distorted; endorsements are now passed from trusted customers to prospects, not direct from the brands themselves]

Implications for Facebook:

Members have more control over ads
Facebook users can opt to turn off social ads, and friends of that user can ‘dial down’ endorsements they see using preferences. We believe that Facebook is attempting to respect the rights of users by giving control to members to ‘opt-in’ to become a Fan-Sumer.

Quest for Fans will cause brands to beg
Since social ads only work if a member has indicated they are a fan, brands will be working to earn and buy fans to accept them as members. Expect a lot of noise to be generated from this activity as brands run campaigns to encourage members to add them as fans through discussion boards, banner ads, and special offers.

Hard to qualify a “business”
Facebook is limiting these features to ‘real’ businesses and organizations. Expect an entire team to be crawling and dealing with this qualifying the issue. As recent member accounts have been disabled from Facebook, expect businesses and organizations to encounter same issues.

Limited ad supply to raise prices
Because Facebook members will see only two social ads per day, we expect the supply of ads to be in scarce supply and thus raising prices and not matching the value. This could shift ad buying to large brands who have experience buying and managing search and direct response ads.

Our Call: Brand affinity leads to community endorsements and more trusted marketing.
We see this as a win for Facebook, this highly targeted system isn’t just about web advertising but about brand affinity and hooks into what’s really important, trusted endorsements from people in a network. This truly is the next generation of advertising. Facebook tells us that the worst case it will be 2 times click through rate over the performance of (existing is 4-26%)

Next Steps For Brands

Experiment: Because of the control and flexibility, we recommend to brands that are currently on either of these social networks to experiment and test.

Learn how to efficiently manage your campaigns. There’s clearly a trend towards self-service, which provides efficiencies for both businesses and the platforms.

To know: Marketing has changed, advertising is no longer a sole-solution. Marketers must also learn how to be part of communities, engage with them, and be part of the conversation.

To know: Marketing is now distributed, brands must embrace communities where they currently exist, rather than solely driving them to their corporate website.

[While traditional search advertisers like Google and Yahoo match by keyword, My Space and Facebook match on something far more powerful: people and their relationships]

This digest not only explains what is happening, but why it matters to you. If this was helpful, please pass it on. Love to hear your thoughts, please leave a comment, even if you don’t agree.

Posted in Facebook Strategy, Fansumer, Social Networking, Web Strategy | Comments

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How Microsoft got their Passport afterall

Categories: Facebook Strategy, Identity, Social NetworkingPosted on October 26th, 2007

A few hundred million is a steal for your identity, they’ve got plenty of money.

Microsoft and Facebook are in partnership, but what’s at stake? Three things:

1) Facebook knows who you are: your name, your gender, where you live, your martial and political status, sexual preference, age, where you work, the list goes on. The funny thing is, you’ve voluntarily given that information up.

2) The Graph: They also know who you connect to, who you talk to, and what you say to them (you don’t own those private message ya know).

3) Gestures: Sure, up to one third of all profile information is bogus, but what about those unsaid gestures: What people do is more important than what they say. What apps you use, how frequent, what and who you click on.

Great, but why does it matter? Because the new partner likely will have access to this very precious data.

[We once rejected Microsoft's Passport identity campaign, but we've potentially and unknowingly just handed it over]

Are they mining this information? With Facebook being a company of about 700 folks, it’s hard to imagine that they will. Their new advertising partner, (experienced pros) have the tools, process, and sophistication to do this.

Does Microsoft have access to all this information in day two after the deal? Not likely. But will they? Here’s a few reasons why it makes sense: Advertisers are all about margins and accuracy, the more accurate the ad, the less waste and more efficient the spend is. If Microsoft can target these ads right down to Jane in Santa Clara who is conservative and likely to buy X gidget then it could work.

How else can the data be used? For Marketers there’s a bunch of clever things they can do, if their community is in Facebook, why would you ever have them sign up for a registration form again? Just friend them or create an event page. What if you had the ability to export your network contact list via CSV?

Google still relevant?
What about Google? The killer in online advertising and search. There are millions of people using Google, and yet the Facebook audience is much smaller, and North America focused (for now). What matters is growth curves, it’s taking off near vertically.

[Google sells ads based on keywords, FaceSoft can now sell ads on something far more accurate: people]

What’s the next generation of online advertising look like?
What will these ads look like? At first, it will be the traditional forms we know, the banners, skyscrapers. Then they’ll move closer to the newspage, then the sponsored groups. The biggest untapped opportunity? Microsoft can bring the big name advertisers to the geeky kid in the garage who created that popular food throwing app. Geeky kids lack the sophistication to manage a big name advertising relationship or negotiation, but MS can.

[Don't be surprised if the popular Food Fight App in Facebook starts to include Chicken McNuggets, Pepsi's latest drink, and 'the Big Meaty' pizza from Domino]

Upside to users
Ads could become very targeted, very relational, and very social, the savvy brands will let go of the ads, and let the control move to the users. We’ll embrace them.

The takeaway
While the internet has rejected ‘forced’ identity systems from big brands, we willingfully (and often unknowingly) hand over incredibly detailed information about our precious identity. We’ve never seen an advertising system as potentially as sophisticated as this one. There’s many opportunities for the web to become more targeted, more accurate, and more relevant, but with that comes the risk of giving up some control.

Update:
Harvard’s Berkman center fellow Doc Searls has responded to this post, and gives a very user-focused perspective. He points out that Facebook’s users are not it’s customers, and that we should review the 7 rules of identity. Great to be all user-focused, there’s got to be way where all parties can work and benefit. Movements happen at the consumer level and most are sheep.

Posted in Facebook Strategy, Identity, Social Networking | Comments

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FaceSoft: What the VP of Microsoft Sales is thinking

Categories: Facebook Strategy, Web IndustryPosted on October 25th, 2007

I’m following the Facebook and Microsoft deal closely, this really hammers home a few ideas

Industry confirmation
It’s for real people, finally, Microsoft is putting some skin in the game for the new web, other than the corporate only social computing programs they’ve put together (like Channel 8,9,10) as marketing tools this is the first deployment for the social media tool set. Secondly, this triggers confidence in the social media space as the future of communications, this is for real people.

Why this deal makes sense
I have the pleasure of sitting next to Charlene and we’re bouncing ideas of each other, her predictions (from Sept 24) on why this make sense were spot on 1) The experience and ability to execute online advertising is Microsoft’s strength and 2) For MS, a platform company, this is a key play to bring their slew of developers to now build on the new platform, the web platform. A concept I’ve been discussing for some time.

Why else does this deal make sense? 3) The application development can go both ways, utility widgets (not food fights) that glean information or bubble up network data will be prime suspect to be reused on existing internal apps for Microsoft. Such as desktop widgets on MS Vista, or widgets embedded nicely into sharepoint.

4) Identity: Next, imagine fluidity between enterprise collaboration tools. We already know that many Microsoft employees are using Facebook, and this is becoming an identity tool that Microsoft has always wanted (remember Passport?). Microsoft will experiment with connecting Facebook, looking for alignments to daily work and personal lifestyles, and combine where appropriate.

What the VP of Sales and Microsoft’s Advertising group is thinking
Ok, back to the primary reason why this deal works, it’s because of the advertising. I’m going to do the VP a favor and kick start her (or him) new sales book, here’s how I see the new additions:

Intelligence: User and Network Data from 42million opt-in members. Sure about one third of the profile information may be incorrect, but what we can learn from what they do is invaluable. Google doesn’t have this level of granularity, that’s why we’re more accurate. Your marketing and advertising dollars will be better spent with us

Demographics: If you’re trying to reach the educated, white collar, engaged, interactive, and growing segment of North America, Middle East, part of Europe and Asia then you’ll go with us. We can also segment by band or market to isolate and make your marketing spend effective. Need to reach a male in detroit that is conservative and single, yeah we got that.

Community in a box: Tired of trying to kick start your own community? Building those engaging social communities on your own web domain is a challenge, who wants to deal with IT or go through the motions of getting users to come? We’ve got an instant community you can interact with and engage with.

Brand Experiences: Advertising not enough? want to build true interaction around your brand and get customer and user feedback? We’ve got that too, you can purchase a sponsored group in Facebook for 100k, which is just a drop for most advertising spends at the Fortune 1000 level. You’ll get your own branded community, and we will cross promote from other areas in Facebook. Users will be engaged, self-identify, and get closer to your brand, and yes, you can deploy an eCommerce application in the group.

Flexibility: With the smallest flyer, to a branded sponsored group, we can custom tailor any marketing initiative to correctly fit your needs, and those of the Facebook community.

Data and Reporting: By far the most important thing for you is to prove the value of your advertising and marketing dollars, by using our platform we’ll tell you who you are resonating with, when, and by how much. You’ll be able to course correct any campaigns in real time. Google doesn’t give you the personal and network data. Numbers are safe, and we know your boss is risk averse.

Holistic Strategy: Already deployed advertising campaigns on the web (maybe with us) we’ll help from a strategic media partner sense and take a look at your entire holistic strategy. Work with us to deploy on Microsoft properties, our search engine, affiliate partners, and Facebook.

But what are the risks?
With any shiny object the cool kids get on it first, play with it and the adoption process starts (read the theory on the personas of early adopters), over marketing and too many branded invasions (MySpace may be suffering from this) causes the cool kids to move away –with the platform provider unaware or not caring while cashing in– taking their groups with them. Over advertise and destroy the experience results in a ghost town of billboards, popups and targeted ads.

Although I’ve been quoted by the press before, today is a milestone as this was my first quote as an analyst in this Bloomberg piece answering why this deal makes sense, and nicely positioned at the top of the article.

Do you need to learn more?
Thinking of deploying in Facebook? then first read What the Web Strategist should know about Facebook. Also, I publish a weekly digest of the Social Networking industry (I add my insight as well), stay up to date and read these every Wednesday. Also, I’ll be keynoting this upcoming Facebook conference in December in Seattle, hope to see you then.

Posted in Facebook Strategy, Web Industry | Comments

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Video: The “Fanboys” of Facebook

Categories: Facebook Strategy, Podtech, VideoPosted on October 12th, 2007

I wasn’t able to attend Dave McClure’s Facebook conference, but am enjoying the different opinions from the A-List crowd, they never fail to entertain. Fellow panelists Robert Scoble, Rodney Rumford, and Dave McClure had to fight their way into the conversation. Thanks Tom for the video.

Be sure to watch the final minutes where you hear Dave rant about open vs closed, and finally Calacanis rip on some poor soul, be nice guys. By the way, does anybody know if Mark Zuckerberg showed up to the conference?

Posted in Facebook Strategy, Podtech, Video | Comments

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2 Minute Video: Dave McClure on Facebook

Categories: Facebook Strategy, Interview, VideoPosted on September 19th, 2007

Click To Play

(I interviewed Dave, if you can’t see the embedded flash player, go directly to this post)

Dave tells us about the growing phenomenon known as Facebook, have you heard of it? It’s taking hold here in Hong Kong I’m finding out, the registered users doubled in two weeks from 50,000 to 100,000 registered users.

The Master of 500 hats has a conference hat, as he’s putting on this upcoming Facebook conference called Graphing Social. Dave was one of the major coordinators for the Web 2.0 expo, so I’m sure he’ll pull this one off with ease, I like his diverse speaker roster. I’ll be out of town, but would attend if possible. Are you planning to go

Posted in Facebook Strategy, Interview, Video | Comments

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Facebook Poke: Social Impact from a Feature with no Purpose

Categories: Facebook StrategyPosted on September 13th, 2007

Has someone poked you? What a colleague? Yes, I too know that awkward silence near the coffee machine the next day.

When my friend Kit Seeborg first joined Facebook, she emailed me and text messages me asking me about what is the “poke feature” for in Facebook. I explained it was first a way for people to flirt, and even have an awkward one night stand at Brown University and now it’s a gesture, to get someone’s attention. In fact there’s 172 groups (with chapters for major cities) within Facebook entitled “Enough with the Poking let’s just have sex“, go figure. Don’t ask me how this applies to a corporate web strategy.

Facebook has an official FAQ for the Poke Feature, “A poke is a way to interact with your friends on Facebook. When we created the poke, we thought it would be cool to have a feature without any specific purpose. People interpret the poke in many different ways, and we encourage you to come up with your own meanings.”

If you ‘remove’ a poke from your profile, Facebook let’s us know what happens: “Once a poke is hidden, it’s gone forever. The memories, however, will last a lifetime. Oh, and hiding a poke allows the other person to poke you again, which is always a good thing.” Still not sure what Poke is for? You’re not alone.

Clueless? maybe it’s a generational thing, I can help, have you used my Crises Management Template: Child Relations for Social Networks (Facebook)? It’s 1st in my Child Relations Initiative programs for web strategists.

On previous blog posts, I’ve asked people to add me as their friend, and I promise to add them back, as long as they don’t poke or bite me, well, it didn’t work.

Here’s a list of the offenders that have poked me, let the public humiliation begin:

You were poked by
Giovanni Rodriguez.

You were poked by
Tinu Abayomi-Paul.

You were poked by
Edward Vielmetti.

You were poked by
Kris Krüg.

You were poked by
Cecilia Kim.

You were poked by
Allan J. Cox.

You were poked by
Jennifer Jones.

You were poked by
Daniel Johnson Jr.

You were poked by
Robert Scoble.

You were poked by
Glory Wong.

You were poked by
Dave McClure.

You were poked by
Darold Massaro.

You were poked by
Anita Wong.

You were poked by
Eric At Arcscale.

You were poked by
Kit Seeborg.

You were poked by
Shirley O

So, how should I punish them?

(In case you can’t tell, I’m attempting to be humorous, if not satirical of the whole poking thing, all of those folks listed above are friends, and one is even my wife! )

Posted in Facebook Strategy | Comments

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Facebook Sponsored Group Analysis: Target vs Wal-Mart

Categories: Case Study, Facebook Strategy, Social Networking, eCommercePosted on September 10th, 2007

Web Strategist Connie Benson pointed out the Target Wal-Mart Sponsored group in Facebook isn’t getting a warm reception. As I cruised through the group, I noticed a much higher degree of interaction, amount of members, and community engagement.

[Target and Wal-Mart have both deployed a Sponsored Group within Facebook, each deploying contrasting strategies with different results]

Here’s a comparison of the two groups as of Sept 10th, 2007:
Please note, it’s impossible to tell who’s really behind some of these comments and threads, some could be hired on various services.

Marketing Strategy
The timing is right to launch these site, as it’s back to school season

Wal-Mart: College students, dorm rooms
Target: College students, dorm rooms

URL to view live group:

Wal-Mart: Direct lnk (Facebook account required)
Target: Direct link (Facebook account required)

PR Firm:

Wal-Mart: Edelman
Target: ? (update: AKQA)

Launch Date, estimated:

Wal-Mart: Early August
Target: Early July

Features:

Wal-Mart:
“Your Personal Checklist” eCommerce links to Walmart.com
“The Roommate Style Match Quiz” Personal persona wizard, eCommerce hooks, very clever
“Mix it Up” Mix and match roommate styles
“SoundCheck” Media samples of popular bands
“College Store” Green products, Freshman tips
Target:
“Tip Me” Product Marketing images
“Is it edible” interactive animation, I found to be clever
“Not your mom’s checklist” eCommerce selector
“Find your soul furniture” customized product wizard
“Snoop for inspiration” Design ideas gallery
“Good roomate” Media animations with tips

Number of current members:

Wal-Mart: 1196
Target: 7106

Number of Discussion Threads:

Wal-Mart: Sadly, None, as feature is disabled
Target: 33 Discussion threads
Most are under 5 responses, however “Tips from someone with experience” (started by Target employee) has over 55

Number of Pictures:

Wal-Mart: 27
Target: 396 Photos, many appear to be CGM (can’t confirm)

Wall Posts Quantity:

Wal-Mart: 426
Target: 462

Blog Trackbacks (Technorati:

Wal-Mart: 6 Tracbacks
Target: 51 Trackbacks (most are from Marketing and PR professionals)

Anecdotal Opinions:

Wal-Mart: Very negative, details on this post
Target: Majority positive on wallposts

Other Metrics
I need data to check interaction levels, only Facebook and the respective companies will have this. I would want to see, time on site (attention), interaction levels, spikes and trends, and other information.

Screenshots

Screenshot: Target’s Sponsored Group, “Dorm Survival Guide”

Screenshot: Wal-Mart’s Sponsored Group “Roommate Match”

Web Strategy Analysis: Embracing customer interaction yields Target as leader
Last month, I published a White paper on Social Media Measurement (co-authored with Matt Toll) and I could easily quantify these numbers are return a score card, if I had more time (or if it was my job) I would measure and score. Regardless, it’s clear that based upon engagement and interaction that Target is performing much better. Students even linked to their “Dorm room tours” on YouTube, whereas Wal-Mart lacks a discussion feature.

[Brands that "release control" to customer involvement have an improved chance from brand stewardship, customer ownership, and consumer advocacy. Let go to gain more]

What’s the difference between the two strategies? Target is clearly involving students to shape and be part of the group, whereas Wal-Mart’s strategy appears to be more of interactive web design, which is evident as the discussion forum is not enabled. I also suggested to Wal-Mart to consider an authentic evangelism program, the comments suggest a female evangelist would be best.

Update: If you want to know more about Facebook, read my Web Strategy: What the Web Strategist should know about Facebook. Also, I’ll be Keynoting The Seattle Facebook Conference on Dec 5th.

Posted in Case Study, Facebook Strategy, Social Networking, eCommerce | Comments

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News Feed Optimization in Facebook Overated

Categories: Facebook Strategy, Technology, Word of Mouth MarketingPosted on September 3rd, 2007

A few weeks ago, Facebook thought leaders Dave and Justin identified and shaped the term News Feed Optimization. Sadly, (or gladly) we suspect it has already jumped the shark.

[With the release of Facebook's open widget platform, marketers are jockeying for position on the prominent News Feed page, savvy Facebook fights back, but deep down, we know the battle never ends]

What’s News Feed Optimization (NFO)?
It’s an evolution of social media optimization where a clever developer will maninupate a Facebook application so it appears more frequently on the Facebook News Page (essentially a Feedreader). The opportunity? viral growth from massive network awareness.

Facebook is a savvy company, already aware of the massive opportunities that applications can grow and amazing rates. Aware of the tricks of clever application developers, they’re preserving the user experience by limiting the power applications have to ’spam’ out over news feeds.

Kevin Chou, CEO of Watercooler, a Facebook application company I advise (well, just until Sept 30th) tells me that:

“News Feed Optimization is overrated today. Sure, in the first three-to-five weeks it was a strategic lever, but then Facebook responded to general news feed overload and reduced the impact of application news feeds. Today, NFO only works when both users have the same application installed, thus limiting its usefulness for rapid growth”

Also, Facebook is continuing to optimize and recently articles suggest they ‘punish’ spammy applications, so some notifications have been decreased to protect users. It’s important to note that when a user installs an application, it’s default behavior updates their entire network.

Still don’t believe me? Want to start a career as a NFO? well then www.newfeedoptimization.com is for sale, would make an excellent buy.

Hungry for more social networking industry news? I’ve got the thing just for you, I publish a weekly digest of the social networking industry for those who don’t have time to scour the web like a mad web strategist.

Posted in Facebook Strategy, Technology, Word of Mouth Marketing | Comments

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Conference: Community Building in the Age of Facebook

Categories: Conference, Facebook StrategyPosted on August 27th, 2007

I’ve been asked to keynote the 2007 Web Community Forum will take place in Seattle, WA on December 5-6, 2007. (Update: Read these important changes from the Blog Business Summit)

I’ll be providing a high-level strategy on the opportunities, challenges, and market growth of the tool. It’s being run by the good folks at the Blog Business Summit, we all know Steve Brobeck and Teresa Valdez Klein. I started my social media business path with them, in fact at a summer time conference in SF in 2005. A few years later, they’re still leading the industry with a new conference series on the opportunities the Facebook platform provides, if you’re preparing to deploy in Facebook, you should attend.

What’s a big change how Facebook is impacting web strategies? Users can opt-in to offer information connect with peers, in fact it could even mean the death of the registration page once and for all. As an industry, we’re not there yet, but the savvy will figure out that Facebook is really an identity platform first, followed by media, then applications.
If you want to get up-to-date on Facebook strategies, I’ve created a new tag called Facebook Strategy.

Here’s the description of the session I’ll be leading:

Your Facebook Strategy: Opportunities of a Ready-Made Platform

Facebook is a media, community and application platform that offers an existing thriving ecosystem, scalable growth, and word-of-mouth marketing. The ability to understand users, their preferences, and networks, helps web applications to quickly segment and rapidly grow. Of course, no system is perfect, as we will understand the challenges with data, privacy and the growing conflict as work and personal lives collide online.

By analyzing users, their profiles, networks and affiliations there’s a tremendous amount of rich data that we’ve not seen displayed so readily. The ability to create a targeted web strategy to meet specific needs of the ‘long tail’ is more accessible than ever before.

Facebook provides targeted advertising unlike we’ve ever seen before, the ability to provide messages segmented by location, gender, and or preference gives the ability to accurately market effectively

The recently launched Application Platform gives the small agile web team the ability to quickly deploy a widget, scale and monetize. We’ll explore what’s worked as these mini-applications are launched on top of an existing community.

We’ll learn:

-Demographics and Trend Data of Facebook
-Word of mouth and viral growth using the Newsfeed and Widgets
-Groups, Sponsored groups and other community features
-Harness Personal and Network information
-Contextual and targeted Advertising opportunities
-Monetizing your efforts
-Case studies of success and failure
-Understanding costs, and strategies to measure ROI

I hope to see you there!

Posted in Conference, Facebook Strategy | Comments

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Does Wal-Mart need a Robert Scoble or a Lionel Menchaca? Neither, says the community

Categories: Community Marketing, Facebook StrategyPosted on August 25th, 2007

I try to help companies when it comes to the web, in fact the tagline on this blog is “Jeremiah discusses how web tools enable companies to connect with customers” Consider this free advice from myself and the community for Wal-Mart. I hope Richard Edelman and Steve Rubel see this –this comes from the community that knows this space, don’t pass up our free advice.

There’s a healthy discussion in my previous post indicating that Wal-Mart’s Facebook campaign is not going that great, at first, I thought it was salvageable, but now I’m realizing from the comments that the damage to the brand is causing this rejection. The Wal-Mart brand appears to be so tainted that the social media programs are not accepting (There’s a long history, go look it up, from the MySpace clone, to the astroturfing blogs).

[The Wal-Mart brand is so badly damaged that it's campaigns are not being accepted in the social media sphere, to correct, Wal-Mart needs a trusted evangelist to reach, fix, and be human]

Web Strategist, Connie Benson, suggested in the comments that what Wal-Mart needs is an evangelist. Someone that will authentically, and transparently, and with passion will address the core issues, embrace and build community (even detractors) to provide a linkage and show that Wal-Mart has real live humans. (Update: AdnohrYak was the first to suggest the evangelist should be a woman, thanks to you both!)

Both Microsoft and Dell had damaged brands: The software giant was known as the the “evil empire”, and PC giant was going to “hell“. In response, both of these companies made a smart and strategic move to elevate or hire the right type of folks to change how one-way communications have failed. Robert Scoble (now my colleague and VP) put a human face on Microsoft, and even became the biggest critic of his own employer –forcing the community to join him, and Lionel Menchaca (my video interview with him) who launched the Dell blog, engaged detractors (even in person) and helped to spearhead the revolutionary IdeaStorm. In the end, many of the problems may or may not be fixed, but the perception has absolutely changed.

It’s clear to me now (Thanks Connie and community), that Wal-Mart’s online web tactics in the social mediasphere will not be accepted, in fact they will all be rejected until the bigger problem is fixed. Wal-Mart needs an evangelist to engage real humans, address the issues (and fix ‘em too) and engage detractors head-on, via the web. Both Robert and Lionel had different tactics to change their own mediaspheres, so a unique strategy will have to come from Wal-Mart.

Connie has recently commented again, and doesn’t think that either a Lionel or a Scoble would fix the brand, she suggests that:

“As to what type of person, I agree with Adnohryak that it needs to be a woman. But not a single mom. I think it needs to be a woman that is strong enough to speak out intelligently initially to turn the brand around, but viewed as an avg American shopper. And yes, she needs to appeal to a range of ages & guys too. She will need to have strong leadership skills in order to support & motivate her evangelists because in the beg. it’s going to be a challenge. So the woman should be a cross between Robert & Lionel – someone who knows the tools to use, be out there with a strong message & intelligently utilize both.” –Connie Benson

I know exactly where to find strong, intelligent women, they should start with BlogHer.

By the way, I come from experience, I was a Community Manager at Hitachi (started this way back in 2005), read “How to be a Community Manager“, and am involved with the community event series called Lunch 2.0, here’s how to have a successful community event.

Posted in Community Marketing, Facebook Strategy | Comments

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WalMart’s Facebook Strategy Sinking: Analysis and Reccomendations

Categories: Facebook Strategy, Social Networking, Web MarketingPosted on August 24th, 2007

Previously Walmart built a MySpace clone on the corporate website which was pathetically closed after a mere 10 weeks. Having learned their lesson to consider joining existing communities before building their own they’ve saddled up for more social networking. Today, Wal-Mart’s sponsored group in Facebook is aimed at dorm-bound students who need to pimp out their pads –sadly, after 2 weeks in, there’s little to brag about.

Low membership
I’m checking up on the group, and have noticed that the group size is very low, in fact only 934 members. The Web Strategy Group that I promote is at 1500 members in just a few weeks longer, and it’s certainly a much smaller ‘brand’ than Wal-Mart.

Business Week’s blog notice this damage and apologize, Sorry, Wal-Mart. The kids would rather talk labor politics than home decor, followed by GenDigital’s observations of the “Enlightening Conversations”

I encourage you to take at look at the Wall in the Wal-Mart’s Back to School sponsored group to get a sense for what’s happening. I’ve posted the last 20 wall posts, only 10% are positive.

20 most recent wall posts (last names removed, and company names although it’s viewable by any member)

Mark (New Orleans, LA) wrote
at 5:22pm on August 23rd, 2007
why do you lonely retards insist on joining, and writing on this wall, about how “WalMart sucks”? Wouldn’t it be better if you started your own group(s)? Oh….because noone would join and read your crap?
Message – Report

Spencer (UGA) wrote
at 2:06pm on August 23rd, 2007
I HATE WALMART AND WOULD NEVER HAVE JOINED THIS GROUP!! I DONT KNOW HOW I BECAME A MEMBER OF IT, BUT I WANT TO VOMIT KNOWING MY NAME WAS ASSOCIATED WITH ANYTHING HAVING TO DO WITH WALMART!
Message – Report

Kendall (San Diego, CA) wrote
at 1:45pm on August 23rd, 2007
All you people saying “Walmart is a great company” are so full of sh|t. You are obviously getting paid by Walmart to come here and spout off propaganda. Everything at Walmart is made in China and every time you shop there the Chinese will gladly collect your money and give it to the Red Army. So, by shopping at Walmart you are indirectly helping to build the Chinese army. What a great American company!
Message – Report

Barbara (no network) wrote
at 8:21am on August 23rd, 2007
Walmart is a great American company that shows what you can do in America if you only work hard. A woman I know who worked for Walmart recently lost her husband and Walmart did so many things for the family during her trying time. I can’t say enough good things about Walmart. I think the unions are just mad because they haven’t gotten into Walmart and are trying to ruin their business. I love the low prices and I guess lots of other people do too because the parking lot is always crowded.
Message – Report

Brandon wrote
at 12:33am on August 23rd, 2007
Wal-Mart is a great American company that has been extremely successful at what they do. Sam Walton rose from a cashier to one of the richest men in the world, if that isn’t the American Dream, I don’t know what is.

My grandpa worked for Wal-Mart and recently passed away, he loved the people and the company treated him well. Over 200 people from the store he worked at came to his funeral and the manager of the store he worked at brought in workers from surrounding Wal-Marts to work at the store while the local workers went to his funeral.

They may make mistakes like any other company but, Wal-Mart is a good company that knows it’s business and does it well.
Message – Report

Christopher (Kansas) wrote
at 9:14pm on August 22nd, 2007
If you haven’t seen “The High Cost of Low Prices” you need to…its a great documentary of how WalMart is the armpit of society and treats its employees that way.
Message – Report

Dave wrote
at 5:24pm on August 22nd, 2007
Give Wal Mart a Union !

typically hippies and the labor movement, which is what i think wal mart needs don’t get along. Help save our great country and don’t shop at wal mart !
Message – Report

Myles wrote
at 4:57pm on August 22nd, 2007
you hippies need to look at the jobs creation, savings, and fun-ness of wal mart before you attack it. smelly friggen hippies
Report

Janine (UCSC) wrote
at 4:41pm on August 22nd, 2007
http://www.quarantinewalmart.com/

Wal Mart is toxic to communities and livelihoods.

Facebook should take the number of negative comments on this page as a note that we don’t support this company of it’s use of a space for social networking to further horrendous business practices.

And this goes for all companies that profit from human devastation: GET OFF OF FACEBOOK.

This is a space for people talking to other people. Facebook, get your priorities straight.
Message – Report

Mark (New Orleans, LA) wrote
at 1:12pm on August 22nd, 2007
Sara: You would live at WalMart, if you could?!

Wait…..what’s stoppin’ you?
Message – Report

Adam (Dartmouth) wrote
at 10:55am on August 22nd, 2007
one more link for you… my hometown in Maine – and all the small towns that neighbor it – recently banded together to pass legislation that effectively prevented Wal-Mart (or any other big-box retailer) from invading the neighborhood. a documentary was made about the process. it’s a pretty good story/resource for any town that has a similar battle on its hands.

http://www.ourtownmaine.com/
Message – Report

Sandeep (UC Irvine) wrote
at 10:31am on August 22nd, 2007
http://walmartwatch.com/
http://www.walmartmovie.com/
http://blog.wakeupwalmart.com/
http://www.nea.org/topics/walmart.html

=)
Message – Report

John (Clemson) wrote
at 11:14pm on August 21st, 2007
Wal Mart was once the small local store competing against the big guys. What did they do to overcome?
Message – Report

John (Capital) wrote
at 8:00pm on August 21st, 2007
are you kidding me. they are getting rid of every person that owns their own store. yes they found a new way to move products to the consumers and what not. big deal. im apart of a business that found a even better way to do that. but the fact is they are putting people out of business and taking their jobs. wal-mart is a bad business for this country
Report

Matthew (Kettering) wrote
at 5:28pm on August 21st, 2007
Why is it that it takes a company like Wal-Mart to stop the overpricing of goods at other stores?
Message – Report

Nicole (Smith) wrote
at 12:43pm on August 21st, 2007
In case folks haven’t seen it yet, here is the BusinessWeek blog post on the wall posts for this group: http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/brandnewday/archives/2007/08/sorry_wal-mart.html

Also linked to from the Wal-Mart Watch blog:
http://walmartwatch.com/blog/archives/students_talk_wal_mart_politics_not_pillows_on_facebook/
Message – Report

Sara (UCLA) wrote
at 12:09pm on August 21st, 2007
I adore Walmart. I would live there if I could. P.S., there should be an apostrophe in “Roommates” in the “Mix it up” box — it should either read “Roommate’s” or “Roommates’.” Please fix it.
Message – Report

Stefan (Hillsdale Baptist) wrote
at 1:23am on August 21st, 2007
Grant, you don’t live in the same community that the HQ of Target is located. Of course you aren’t going to see what they do for schools and surrounding neighbohoods.
Message – Report

Stefan (Hillsdale Baptist) wrote
at 1:22am on August 21st, 2007
Don’t do it. Don’t shop at wal-mart.
I know it sucks, my school is less than 2 two miles away from a wal-mart but it can be done. Good luck.
Message – Report

Jamiah (CBS) wrote
at 6:28pm on August 20th, 2007
Organize against Wal-Mart in your community! Don’t contribute to the abuse of American workers. Contact me and I will send you a free DVD of the documentary, “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price” so that you can organize a community screening in your neighborhood! Educate others about the evil of Wal-Mart.

Web Strategy Recommendations
Is this program salvageable? Absolutely.

The battering of the brand continues on for the next 100 wall posts, and it will likely continue, this is expected. I’ve analyzed all the comments and there’s only a few students and a handful of folks that admit to actually shopping there –they’ve not reached the college segment.

This sponsored group doesn’t have discussion forums, I’d recommend they turn those on, and try to segment the conversations about going back to school, and even consider keeping folks on topic. Continue to allow critics (you can’t stop it anyways) but try to use the forums to guide a discussion about school. I’m not sure why Wal-Mart has not chosen to turn on it’s marketing engines and point people here from their corporate site, using a cross-promotion tactic would certainly drive more folks over to the group.

What’s the great thing about all this? Wal-Mart’s still here, was bold enough to try it again, and hasn’t pulled the site down. I highly recommend that Wal-Mart consider trying a community strategy using a transparent and authentic blog or video blog series that addresses the very brand issues that they are getting slammed on. I took at look online for a “Walmart blog” and didn’t see any from the company, why is this? It’s going to be very difficult to try a community marketing strategy with eCommerce hooks without first addressing the brand detractors.

Update: Connie (in the comments below) suggests that Wal-Mart may need an evangelist, certainly an interesting notion.

Posted in Facebook Strategy, Social Networking, Web Marketing | Comments

Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang

Archive for the ‘Facebook Strategy’ Category

Facebook: Innovative yet Conceited

Video: The pitfalls no one tells you about Widgets (3 min with Rodney Rumford)

7 Key Learnings you should know from the Web Community Forum

Facebook: Opportunities of a Ready-Made Platform

See you at Seattle’s Facebook Conference (How to develop a Strategy and is Facebook worth $100 Billion?)

Testing Facebook Pages and $20 worth of SocialAds

FaceSoft: What the VP of Microsoft Sales is thinking

Video: The “Fanboys” of Facebook

2 Minute Video: Dave McClure on Facebook

Facebook Poke: Social Impact from a Feature with no Purpose

News Feed Optimization in Facebook Overated

[With the release of Facebook's open widget platform, marketers are jockeying for position on the prominent News Feed page, savvy Facebook fights back, but deep down, we know the battle never ends]

Conference: Community Building in the Age of Facebook

Does Wal-Mart need a Robert Scoble or a Lionel Menchaca? Neither, says the community

[The Wal-Mart brand is so badly damaged that it's campaigns are not being accepted in the social media sphere, to correct, Wal-Mart needs a trusted evangelist to reach, fix, and be human]

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