Mark Kolier’s Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

Companies who develop a strong Twitter following online have a better chance at increasing sales according to a recent study conducted by Constant Contact and research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey – http://bit.ly/tZIZql.

The survey studied the buying habits of fewer than 1,500 people. A fairly good-sized sample and the results were that 50% of people who follow a brand are more likely to buy that brand’s products. The article also notes however that it is not all that easy to get a Twitter user to follow a brand. I would agree with that as I am not one to follow a brand on Twitter although I have done so on Facebook to some degree. In fact only 21% of Twitter users follow brands.

Also significant was the statistic that 75% of people surveyed said the never ‘un-follow’ brands after making a ‘commitment’ to them. Although I don’t really understand how following a brand shows my commitment exactly.

Mashable lists the study’s five main reasons for following a brand on Twitter:

• 64%: I am a customer of the company
• 61%: To be the first to know information about the brand
• 48%: To receive discounts and promotions
• 36%: To gain access to exclusive content
• 28%: To receive content/information to retweet and share with others

The article also noted that Twitter’s follower numbers closely mirror a Facebook study that also found that 56% of users on Facebook who like a brand’s fan page are more likely to recommend that brand to friends while 51% of consumers who like a brand Facebook fan page are more likely to purchase that product. I expect that this comes as no surprise to anyone.

Twitter continues to evolve (check out Simon Cowell’s comments on his personal turnaround on using Twitter as a listening device in today’s New York Times http://nyti.ms/vuE6dT), and personally I find myself following fewer overall people and culling out people I am following if they don’t put out tweets of interest to me. I am following over 900 people and there’s no way for me to sift through that many people’s tweets.

Brands are doing a better job of leveraging social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. For me it starts and ends with what kind of engagement the brands offer, as well as what kinds of offers the brands offer!

But there’s still room for improvement don’t you think?

How do I know this? Our daughter is a freshman and is interested in joining a sorority. She told us that all of the girls that are already in sororities and charged with recruiting incoming freshmen have to deactivate their Facebook accounts during sorority rush. If that does not demonstrate both the ubiquity and power of Facebook, nothing will.

Even with social networking ‘Greek’ life on college campuses around the United States have retained their appeal to many students. The friendships and connections can last a lifetime. It is a uniquely North American ritual most popular in the United States. While ‘pinning’ has gone by the wayside, the Greek system is representative of many of the things that take place on Facebook and other social networking sites, except that it is not virtual. However if you are familiar with hazing in real life you should also be familiar with virtual hazing on social networking platforms. It happens and it’s not good.

The fact that sorority recruiters are forced to deactivate their Facebook accounts (one assumes that for now Google+ accounts are allowed much to Google’s chagrin?) demonstrates the way college students interact. Mark Zuckerberg doubtless would be proud and aggravated at the same time.

A Ryan Tate article Monday on Gawker http://gaw.kr/oqbE0y highlights how colleges and schools can turn people into Facebook maniacs. I assume that asking current sorority members to deactivate their accounts during rush is some sort of defense against turning the rushing frosh’s into maniacs. I presume that fraternities are not doing the same thing but maybe that’s my gender prejudice.

While Greek life during my undergrad days was very popular I chose to not participate yet had many good friends who enjoyed their experience so I am not judging the positives or negatives of being in a sorority. Up until now I have given little thought to how online social networking might impact real-life social networking. The power of Facebook has met with the power of the Greek system. Facebook appears to be the loser in this round. Or is it?

Most people know that Facebook (and vanishing MySpace) were conceived to appeal to college age and even pre-teen and teenagers respectively. It did not quite work out that way. For quite a while now the fastest growing segment of FB users (I could find no stats on Google+ on audience makeup) has been the age 35-50 set. Mom and Dad are flocking to social networking which for many teens and college age kids is totally NOT cool.

As one of those not cool Dads I have engaged quite a bit with social networks – primarily Facebook, LinkedIn and more recently Google+. There are drawbacks such as the great time suck that occurs when perusing people’s posts, photos and threads to videos and articles they suggest you read and feel are of interest.

The ability to connect with people you have not seen in many years, or people that live in faraway places is the obvious benefit of social networking. Over the weekend I attended a mini-reunion of people I went to high school with a long time ago (I’m talking late 1970’s). There were many interesting facets of how it all came together but social networking and Facebook in particular were integral to making it happen. There was no reunion company specialist arranging the get together (I posted in 2009 about those reunion companies possible extinction due to the advent of social media – http://bit.ly/piT6in ) and it was the work of a couple of cool people – thanks Barbara and Dave that made our event happen.

The invitations were made on Facebook, for those that paid attention there was a list of attendees and everything came together without a hitch and the evening was intimate and fun. Afterward there were photos that were posted and tagged (BTW – I don’t know about you but I don’t love being tagged in photos on FB).

On the other hand over the past few weeks I was opted into a group (without my consent) of people from my hometown under the ‘you know you are from…if’. The flood of posts from people I did not know about things I did not care about or relate to became a deluge. I reset some my notification settings but even that only stemmed the tide a bit. I finally left the group entirely – perhaps prematurely since my guess is the initial creation of the group prompted seemingly constant updates that would eventually (hopefully?) die down.

It did make me shake my head on how much time people have to spend reading and responding to social media posts. And while there are mobile social media applications my sense is these people were working from a tablet, desktop or laptop computer.

We tell our children to be careful about what they post on social networking sites – photos, comments etc. since what’s posted lives on the web forever. What we don’t tell them is how much is too much – is that because nobody really knows? At least until it becomes too much. And I bet you know will when that happens.

Last Friday and this past Monday the stock market took major hits. Yesterday it came back. One of the biggest losers was LinkedIn which some say was overvalued. While I am not all that knowledgeable when it comes to company valuations I have been using LinkedIn more and more and with great success.
The main reason I consider it a success is that people respond to inquiries on LinkedIn more than any other social networking portal I have used.

An article in DM News http://bit.ly/pMMuZF highlights increases in LinkedIn’s revenue – and it was from Friday August 5th shortly before the stock took a pounding.

My work in developing our China business requires expertise far beyond that of my regular circle of contacts. LinkedIn has offered me a way to engage total strangers by asking for help, offering help and simply offering my opinion on something they might have written or said. What continually surprises me is the rate of return on what I consider to be a very minor investment.

Of course not all my inquiries are responded to. And I know I need to be careful since there is a rating system on LinkedIn such that if enough people complain about being spammed or contacted inappropriately you can be blacklisted from making outreaches to people you don’t know using a feature on LinkedIn called ‘Inmail’.

But I am here to tell you that if you are not using the Premium or Pro access on LinkedIn you are missing out on opportunities to connect with people in way that has never before been possible. However I do wonder how long this open-networking will last. If people begin to be deluged with requests from all over the map the opportunity conduit that LinkedIn offers may well become unworkable and unusable.

In case you are wondering I try to be as open as possible myself when it comes to answering questions posed to me on LinkedIn. I also receive offers to Link In with people I don’t know but my policy is to not Link In with total strangers. Yet answering a question for a total stranger (provided it is a relevant question and something that I can help with) is something I always agree to do.

I believe LinkedIn is the best of all the social networks in offering a value proposition. Yes better than Facebook and better than Google+ (which is on the rise as far as I am concerned).

How about you – are you getting everything out of LinkedIn that you could? Or do you think it’s too much trouble and a waste of time?

Although I was not a charter invitee to the Google+ trial universe I have been playing around with it now for about a week. Google+ is throwing the gauntlet down at Facebook offering its version of a social network. It’s easy to get started and to use. My question is will it make an impact on people in choosing Google+ over Facebook or considering switching to Google+ from Facebook?

The current field trial of Google+ allows Google to hear the noise and then tweak what they feel needs tweaking. The crash and burn of Google Buzz has learned Google a few things as the saying goes. Katie Boehret of the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday did a nice job of laying out her viewpoint on Google+ and I agree with many of her observations here – http://on.wsj.com/qnCmdR and an accompanying video here http://on.wsj.com/qTnaFB.

One of the most attractive features of Google+ is the ‘Circles’ aspect. I like the way you can organize friends, colleagues, family, enemies, or whatever into their own circles. Nobody can see what circle or circles you’ve put them in but it offers you the categorization of relationships that continues to be lacking on Facebook.

I am sure there have been many times when some obscure professional or work acquaintance ‘friend requested’ you on Facebook. The normal reaction is to shake your head and then click ‘Ignore’. But what if your boss sends a ‘Friend Request’ on Facebook? With Google+ you can share what you want to share with any particular circle. Or not. BIG +.

I haven’t used the Google+ ‘Sparks’ feature as yet, nor have I used the group video chat module called ‘Hangouts’. I can see the value of both and the Hangouts group chat (up to 10 people) could become popular among some users (but probably not me). The Google+ mobile feature offers group texting (it’s called Huddle) and I can see that being useful and another separator from Facebook.

So overall I feel Google+ has done a good job of taking the things I like about Facebook and enhancing them. But unless the people I interact with (my friends and family) on Facebook migrate en masse over to Google+ I personally don’t see myself giving up my Facebook account nor do I anticipate many other people doing that either. And the thought of having to manage two social network profiles will be a non-starter don’t you think?

I will continue to use Google+ for a while at least. If you’d like to be invited to try it, just send me a note and I will invite you to try it as well. But if you do I’d love for you to come back here to my blog and let everyone know what you thought. It’s all about the conversation isn’t it?