I recently sat in on a Webinar about the value of Facebook for business. It was hosted by Mari Smith, Relationship Marketing Guru and Facebook Expert, and co-anchored by Joel Comm (author of Twitter Power). It was an hour well spent and provided a ton of insight -- even for a guy like me who has been using the site for a couple years. Below is a summary of some of that information -- with some additional original insights sprinkled in!

First off, some fun Facebook facts. These shocked and amazed me:

- there are currently more than 200 million active members on Facebook
- by 2011 that is predicted to be more than 500 million
- Facebook is the 5th most trafficked Website in the world
- it is the largest photo-sharing platform in the world (30 million pics posted a day)
- more than 70 percent of facebook users are outside the U.S.
- 1 in 3 canadians are on facebook (ehh)
- the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is 30+ and women
- in social media, Facebook has the most rigorous terms of use (TOS)
- 99.9 percent of the time, the person is who they say they are on Facebook
- there are 52,000 applications on Facebook and that number is rising fast, with 140 new apps daily
- the maximum # of friends you can have is 5,000 (due to server load), possibly increasing soon
- record holder: John Reese added the most friends in the least amount of time (5k in 5 days)
- want to browse pages?

(DID YOU KNOW: you can remove a fan or friend and it does NOT notify them. So don't worry about offending people.)

The #1 reason for a Facebook page = SEO (google indexing). If you don't know what SEO is, or the value, we'll address that in a later post (or you can visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization for a detailed definition; or visit our SEO partner Point It at http://www.pointit.com). If you're trying to ensure your fan or business page comes up in search engines, Facebook is integrated and your page can drive that ranking (but keep it updated, fresh and use good terms).

The #1 reason people fail in social media: lack of viable strategy! Use Facebook with a purpose. Whether to connect with old friends or drive relationships with prospective partners, customers or employees, one thing remains constant -- you must take the time to use the site and update your pages with good information. Since we're not worried about the "connecting with old friends" application of Facebook, we'll just focus on some business related information.

Here are some steps to help implement a solid social media strategy on Facebook (with the goal of helping to drive sales):
1. Grow a network of hand picked friends up to 5,000 (your first goal should be to get over the 500 person mark). How do you do that? Try listing your top 25-50 people you admire in your industry and find them on Facebook and friend them with a personal message. Also, search and follow others on Twitter.
2. Do more than one page. If you have separate lines of business, perhaps have a page for each. This will help with SEO and indexing.
3. Showcase your best work on the page, not just all your work.
4. Engage in deliberately chosen regular activities (post a thought of the day, tip of the day, image of the day). Drive company news through the page. Highlight good articles. Offer incentives to Facebook users.
5. Be active on twitter with key-word laden tweets, and integrate with Facebook. This can help drive content on your page.
6. Create radical strategic visibility. This is a chance to put aside the stuffy corporate image. Get creative. Try video and more.
7. Finally, think relationships first, business second... but in the end, use Facebook to drive sales and help close deals.

Now, there are some ways to get booted off Facebook. And, unfortunately, once done, it's done. So follow the rules. Here are some little know facts from the TOS. Pay attention, these can get you banned (yes, these are true):

- adding too many friends
- sending out too many emails
- sending too many wall posts
- sending too many group messages
- sending too many messages to your event invitees
- importing too many tweets to your status update
- emailing too many pending friend request peeps
- having too many pending friend requests after maxing out at 5k

Facebook takes time. So, here's how to handle the site in 5 minutes a day. Now go forth and friend!!

1. update your status (most important if not importing tweets)
2. review news feed and comment
3. review requests
4. acknowledge birthdays
5. review notifications
6. review your profile
7. check your inbox

-posted by Justin

Tags: facebook, marismith, joelcomm

Guess what was released today at The Twitter Conference in Mountain View? Eight new Twitter applications. They include:

TWILK

Twilk.com is a Twitter background generator, creating backgrounds "auto-magically" from the collective pictures of the people you follow.

FLAGGPOLE

Flaggpole is a place-based social network that connects people through places that are important to them. These places could be a zip code, a neighborhood, a park, church, a school, a club or a business. After identifying a place, users can form virtual communities related to that place's function and use both micro-messaging and Twitter integration to organize meaningful interactions. Flaggpole can be used worldwide, though it is currently only available in English.

PUBLICITWEET

Publicitweet is a social media marketing application aimed at providing in-depth analytics for Twitter campaigns. The analytics go beyond the number of clicks and provide detailed information on which users had the most referrals and the overall reach.

JOBABA

Jobaba is a social marketplace for local services integrated with Twitter. When users need help getting something done, they can simply follow @Jobaba on Twitter and tweet the request with the keyword #ineed, and Jobaba will broadcast it to its network of service providers serving the user's local area. If the service providers have the proper skills to perform the job, they can use Jobaba to engage the person in need, place a bid, or set up meetings. Anyone with skills and a desire to provide services can create a profile on Jobaba, start networking with potential customers, and bid on job requests through Twitter.

CHATTERBOX

ChatterBox is a collaboration platform used to track, categorize and respond to Twitter conversations. An intelligent, single point of access, this web-based interface pulls in conversations and creates a collaborative workspace that provides topical views of information - along with tools such as personalized views, assignment, categorization, prioritization, notifications and tagging - creating a more streamlined process to listen, organize and respond to conversations. As a result, social media power users and corporate teams can become far more effective in participating in relevant conversations, providing customer service, and generating stronger business leads.

TWEETFUNNEL

TweetFunnel provides editorial control for organizations of all types and sizes. It allows multiple contributors within a company to submit tweets for editorial review and approval before they are added to the company's time line. TweetFunnel also allows editors to assign mentions and DMs back to appropriate contributors for their replies. There is in turn, an editorial review layer for these replies.

TWITTYLINKS

TwittyLinks lets you quickly tweet about any web page, without leaving the page. Each tweet builds your brand awareness, with a link to your own site. The more you tweet about interesting web pages, the more traffic you drive to your site.

TWITTFILTER

Twittfilter is a filtering application that scores your friends and followers using a variety of scoring techniques including update rate, friend/follower ratio, keywords, and more. Twittfilter has 3 main features: 1) Your new followers are automatically ranked and only those that score above a preset level are emailed to you. 2) Messages are not viewed by time, but by user/score and only the first 3 are shown, in case someone tweets too much. 3) Twittfilter is also a searchable address book organized by how you communicate. There are many other features, check it out for yourself.

Tags: twitter

Social media continues to be quite the buzzword throughout marketing departments, even in the hardcore tech markets that traditionally show less interest. Not surprisingly, we're seeing more and more clients request advice on how to approach this medium. Many simply want us to monitor the space to ensure they're not missing out on any opportunities or chatter (good and bad), while others need us to actually post for them or build profiles, giving a proactive presence. In this post, I'd like to focus on the monitoring element -- what, how and a little advice.

Most of our clients want basic social media monitoring. What we call, "Social Media Tablestakes!" We're talking blogs, Twitter, Facebook... you get the drill. As most know, this is basically intelligent research. Research takes time. Time adds up quickly and costs money. Therefore, there's a point when agency research ceases to be a compelling option for social media monitoring. For example, while our team at VOXUS is fully capable of monitoring all outlets for our clients, regardless of size, we usually won't exceed 15 before suggesting a client automate with a tool. This doesn't require any additional work on the client end and allows the PR team to streamline efforts associated with a time-intense task. YES, it costs money. This leads to my next point -- what service and how much?

Our team likes Radian6's Social Media Monitoring Solution. This tool costs $100 for one user (the agency rep) and then $500 a month for a client. While that may seem expensive at first glance, if you truly want to monitor all social media and it's vital to your marketing efforts, it's a small price to pay (especially when you add up agency bill rates + research time). Not only does the dashboard allow you to monitor and compare (with all the charts, graphs, etc., you'd expect in a tool like this; we're thinking board meetings and measurement), it gives you a forum to instantly respond and interact with those posting about you or your business.

Not sure if you need this tool? While we always believe in taking the advice from your PR professional (you are after all paying them for it), Radian6 offers a great 7 day trial that allows you to use all the bells and whistles and see for yourself. Remember, social media can get expensive. Some agencies intentionally keep all research internal so they can drive revenue. If you're paying more than $600 a month just for social media monitoring, you may want to revaluate your agency or the methodology.




To remain objective, there's also another company Visible Technologies that offers a good service and they're local to Seattle. The technology appears to be solid. However, internal sales channels seem to be a bit undisciplined and flaky.

-posted by Justin

Tags: socialmediameasurement, radian6, visibletechnologies