social media

I had the strangest experience on Facebook recently. I logged into my own account and entered the name of a friend into the search bar. Upon hitting enter, I suddenly found myself looking at status updates from people I didn’t know.

My original reaction was ….”who the heck are these people?” Then I realized I was logged in as someone else! I wasn’t logged in as the friend I was looking for either… it was a complete stranger!

I have absolutely no idea as to how I suddenly entered this person’s account, but I did. I was able to view EVERYTHING – their privacy settings, contact information, and more.

What did I do? I logged out immediately and sent an email to Facebook via a copyright infringment form – since it was the only contact form I could find.

What could have happened? If I were the non-ethical type, I could have done some damage in this person’s account.

The lesson. Not all Facebook account hacks are done maliciously. If you find that your account has been compromised, it may have been an accident.

Facebook and Privacy are a combination of words that have been handcuffed together and receiving a lot of attention lately. In a post we wrote earlier this week, we discussed the announcement that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made on Wednesday afternoon that satisfied many Facebook users: Facebook simplified its privacy controls.

Attention Facebook Users: Facebook is simplifying its privacy controls. Facebook has been growing and making many changes to the site over the past few years. Recently, Facebook tried to give users’ more control over their privacy settings- but all of the customization options were just too confusing.

In response to many complaints and criticism, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that his company would “simplify” privacy controls starting with a re-designed privacy settings page.

So what does this mean for Facebook Users? On the official Facebook blog, Mark Zuckerberg posted, “Today we’re starting to roll out some changes that will make all of these controls a lot simpler. We’ve focused on three things: a single control for your content, more powerful controls for your basic information and an easy control to turn off all applications.”

We will keep you updated by posting new information up on our blog about the new Facebook privacy features, so check back soon.

Mike McDonald of Web Pro News spoke with Vanessa Fox, founder of Nine by Blue, and Avinash Kaushik, Google’s analytics evangelist at SMX West in Santa Clara. Both spoke about how real-time search and social search affects marketers.

What does this all mean for marketers?

More WebProNews Videos

What happened this week in Social Media?

Facebook Location Feature Leaked

LinkedIn Celebrates it’s 7th Birthday

Foursquare Adds “Like” Button to Venue Pages

Twitter to Release “Embedded Tweets”

Foursquare Goes Down

Microsoft Spindex Puts New Spin on Social Networking

Digg.com Cuts 10% of It’s Workforce

Have other stories to share? Let us know.

I was speaking with a client the other day about social media marketing and the benefits of getting involved. The client is new to the whole “social media thing” and had a great point of view. From his perspective, lots of companies either use social networking sites (like Facebook and Twitter) for shameless self promotion. Or, they only post nonsense, like what they had for dinner or how much they are enjoying the weather.

Seeing that he was very skeptical of the benefits, the topic of social media do’s and don’ts quickly arose. From this conversation, and other similar conversations I’ve had about social media, I compiled a list of common social media pet peeves. Here are the top 5 Social Media Pet Peeves that will surely turn off potential Twitter followers or Facebook fans.

1. “Used Car Salesman” Syndrome
   Social networks are for building communities and adding value. Those that use social media to constantly push their own products or services are not only NOT adding value, but they may be turning off potential prospects.  No one likes to be sold to. If you’re not using social media to offer value to your community, then you’re doing yourself and your company a disservice.
2. The Ghost Town
   Have you ever been asked to become a fan of a Facebook page or follow someone on Twitter, just to land on an empty page or profile? Before asking for fans or followers, be sure to have content that your readers will want to read.
3. Using Facebook Personal Profile for Business (enter your own snazzy title here)
   There’s nothing worse than logging into Facebook and be greeted by sales pitch after sales pitch. Facebook personal profiles are just that – personal. Facebook has three sections…. personal profiles, business fan pages and groups. It’s not rocket science people! Want to promote your business, then create a fan page and stop cluttering your family and friend’s walls with sales pitches. Besides, using your personal profile to self promote is a violation of Facebook’s terms and your account may get suspended for this activity.
4. The Stalled Effort
   To be successful at using social media for business, you must commit. If you’re guilty of starting, stopping, then starting again….. make up your mind already. The more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it.
5. Eat Spam!
   We all hate spammers. Don’t know if you’re spamming? Well, if you send a direct message to someone on Twitter including a sales pitch a link to your website – you’re spamming. If you send a friend request to a fan of your business page so you can get their contact info – you’re spamming. If you @ reply a follower on Twitter with your own sales pitch and link – you’re spamming.

So there you have it – the top 5 social media pet peeves. Have more pet peeves? Feel free to list them in a comment.

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Social Media Workshop

Facebook Marketing 201 – How to Build a Fan Base and Get Noticed

When: Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Where: 50 Market St., Portsmouth, NH (Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce)
Cost: $65/pp if signed-up before May 8th. After May 8th – $75/pp
Description: This workshop is great for those that have a Facebook Fan page for their business, but need the know-how to take it to the next level.

Attend This Event

On April 6 from 9 to Noon we will be offering our Facebook Marketing 101 workshop. We want our Facebook Fans to receive a special discount. Simply become a fan of CreativeMind Search Marketing on facebook, send us an email to training@cmsearchmarketing.com and you will receive a discount code to use when registering.

In this 3 hour workshop Patti Fousek, President of CreativeMind Search Marketing, will give you the tools you need to create a Facebook fan page and build an interactive fan base. Those who attend this workshop will leave with a Facebook marketing plan and an updated Facebook fan page.

Who is this workshop for:

• Small business owners
• Marketing managers
• PR professionals
• Entrepreneurs
• Non-profits
• Real estate pros
• Restaurant owners
• Business professionals looking to gain a competitive edge on Facebook

Sign up now, registration closes on April 4, 2010.

Post Revised 3/8/10, 2:19pm.

Dear readers, I have revised this post from it’s original format and removed a paragraph that may have sounded patronizing. The rest of the post has remained the same.

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Today it seems that everyone is claiming to be a social media “expert”.  The amount of companies making this claim is getting to be a bit ridiculous. Even folks like Chris Brogan, Gary Vee and Jason Falls don’t claim to be experts – and they know what their doing.

The reason I bring this up is because I’ve witnessed many businesses jump on the social media bandwagon simply because they see dollar signs. They see social media as an easy way to make money. They think by saying they offer social media services, clients will just flock to their door and flood their voice mail and in-boxes with consultation requests.

Social media today reminds me of SEO in the late 90’s, early 2000’s. Everyone and their grandmother made claims that they could “get your website on the front page of Google.” Jump ahead 10 years and how many of those companies still exist? Not many.

We can even compare social media to real estate. Remember when the real estate market was doing really well? How many people did you know suddenly decide they wanted to sell real estate? How many of those people still sell real estate? Need I say more?

I really don’t mean to get so angry about this, but when I see random companies suddenly offering social media services, I do get angry. Companies like that make us, the ones that truly get what social media is all about, feel not only angry, but dirty. I just don’t want to see an industry that I fell in love with, one that I built my business on (legitimately), get a bad name, or even worse, bust.

What do you think? Do you think social media will bust just like the dot com’s?

Just when everyone was getting used to the last Facebook change (the “News Feed” vs “Live Feed” thing), they once again make another change to their home page.

According to Facebook, the new home page is “provides easy access to your entire Facebook experience”. That statement has yet to be proven. From what I can see, the most apparent changes are:

1. Search field has relocated from the upper right corner to the upper left center

2. Friend requests are in the upper left corner, identified by this symbol: 

3. Messages are next to the “friend requests”, identified by this symbol:

4. Notifications are right next to “messages”, identified by this symbol: 

5. If you are the admin of a Facebook “fan” page, you can now enter that page via the left side bar (moved from the bottom footer bar), identified by this symbol:

6. Privacy and account settings can now be found under the “Account” drop down in the upper right corner

Of course this change couldn’t come at a worse time. Yesterday I hosted a four hour workshop in Social Media to a local real estate company, 1.5 hours which were spent on Facebook, and everything they learned has changed.

Honestly, I can see how the new changes will make Facebook easier to navigate, but they should just leave it alone. Facebook may soon find that their 400 million users may dwindle due to frustration.

Tell us what you think of the latest Facebook changes. Your comments may appear on CreativeMind’s  Facebook Fan Page.

Matt Cutts from Google explains in this video how all links are created equal, even those from Twitter and Facebook.

My thoughts

Even though links from Facebook or Twitter may not count towards page rank (if they are no follow links), I think they’re still important for driving traffic to your site. So, should you work towards building inbound links from Facebook and Twitter? Yes, for traffic purposes only.