Musings of a Social Media Guru

Facebook is Using Your Face in Their Ads

2009-07-24T10:42:00.004-05:00

Did you know that Facebook has agreed to let 3rd party advertisers use your posted pictures without your permission? I bet you didn’t know you signed up for that!

I know, I know. Facebook is not the bad guy here because all of this is clearly stated in their privacy policy, but really people, who actually brews a nice, hot cup of tea, turns on their favorite tunes and reads a privacy policy from end to end? I don’t even look at website agreements before I register. You know what I mean; it’s all about finding the “I agree” checkbox as quickly as possible. I just want to use the service, never mind that I am possible signing my life away.

Facebook doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to privacy and they haven’t always properly guarded the privacy rights of its users. However, in a statement last week, a Facebook representative said "Facebook's industry-leading privacy protections do an outstanding job of empowering users to make their own choices about sharing information on a complex and ever-changing Internet. Nonetheless, if there are suggestions for improvements, we are sure that we will continue what has so far been a productive dialogue"

Earlier this year, an online revolt among Facebook users over the question of who owns content posted to the website forced Facebook to withdraw a new "terms of service" document that raised concerns among users. I guess that’s a form of dialogue…

If all of this is not cool with you, take two minutes to keep your photos of Facebook from becoming clip art, stock photos and the potential face of a brand that you do not support.

Protect your privacy:

Click on SETTINGS up where you see the log out link.
Select PRIVACY – Manage.
Select NEWS FEEDS AND WALL.
Select the tab that reads FACEBOOK ADS.
There is a drop down box, select NO ONE.
SAVE your changes.
PASS this post along!

Tworphan’s: Creators of Orphaned Tweets

2009-06-10T13:07:00.003-05:00

Estimates suggest that the micro-blogging service Twitter now has more than 10 million users and is growing faster than any other social network; however, despite the explosive hype surrounding it, research shows that a small percentage of users actually contribute to the vast majority of content.

After probing exactly 300,542 Twitter accounts in May 2009, a Harvard Business School professor reported that 10 percent of the service's users produce more than 90 percent of the tweets.

In contrast, on other online social networks, the top 10 percent of users account for an average of around 30 percent of all production. That’s quite a stark difference, but why? To me, this implies that Twitter resembles more of a one-way or “one-to-many” publishing service; as opposed to other social networking tools that represent a two-way, “peer-to-peer” communication network.

The study compliments recent analysis by the media research firm Nielsen. Nielsen’s claim is that 60 percent of Twitter users do not return from one month to the next. Cooperatively, these findings suggest that, so far, Twitter has been a great deal better at signing up users than keeping them.

PROBLEM: the median number of lifetime tweets per user is one — when new people sign up for Twitter, they post once and then never return.

Twitter describes itself as a way to "communicate and stay connected" with "friends, family and co-workers". The team at Twitter needs to decide if this lack of member longevity is a problem. If they decide it is, they need to figure out how to spin Twitter into something more acceptable to the average Web 2.0 user.

Twitter + Fares = Twares

2009-06-01T20:38:00.006-05:00

Like many other business sectors, the travel industry has adopted Twitter as a medium for B2C communication. But how are they using it and how can you benefit?

JetBlue, one of the most followed Twitter members, offers Twitter-based customer service (note: they even present the name of the customer support agent currently on duty).

By means of their Twitter profile, Southwest Airlines manages non-official and sometimes amusing discussions with their customers.

United Airlines is now jumping on the bandwagon, offering “Twares,” which, as you might have already guessed, are exclusive, time-sensitive fare offers from United to its Twitter followers. You’ve already missed the first few specials, but don’t fret, a “Mileage Plus Special Offer” is still available — a customer rewards program where consumers can register for and collect a “small bonus” when United’s Twitter account hits 10,000 followers — a token of United’s appreciation.

The UA marketing tactic is quite elegant in its approach, offering up a set number of special fares exclusively to Twitter users, because you need to follow them closely if you want to have any chance of getting the deal.

Travel is a multi-billion dollar industry and the companies in this space are using social media tools more often as they look for cost-efficient marketing techniques in this cool economy. Listed below are a few other Twitter players who hold a big stake in the travel industry:

Luxury Las Vegas
Twitter Name: LuxorLV

Marriott International Hotels and Resorts
Twitter Name: MarriottIntl

Carnival Cruise Lines
Twitter Name: CarnivalCruise

Hertz
Twitter Name: ConnectByHertz

Tweets From The Grave...Creepy

2009-05-21T17:29:00.007-05:00

How does the afterlife embraced the world-wide web? Through Tweeji of course! Tweeji is a new Twitter-like site with an idea similar to CelebrityTweet - a place for Tweets from famous people. However, in this case, the famous people are…ummm, deceased. Yes, this site boasts itself as the original dead celebrity’s website.

Wondering what William Shakespeare, Anna Nicole Smith, Albert Einstein, Walt Disney or even Notorious B.I.G are up to these days? Heck, you can always “suggest a dead celebrity” if someone is missing.

Go ahead and join in if you like, not me though, there’s just something creepy about “following dead people” – quite morbid. I've got to agree with Pete Cashmore over at Mashable:

"If the angle was more like the wonderful Historical Tweets, which humorously creates faux tweets from historical figures, it would be great. It’s simply the case that wallowing in morbidity doesn’t appeal."

There you have it. Now you can get the latest from beyond… and you thought the original Twitter was waste of time…

WARNING - Another Facebook Phishing Scam!

2009-05-21T16:44:00.001-05:00

It seems that I just posted about this, and yes, it’s getting a bit repetitive, but scammers continue to exploit Facebook with very formulaic phishing scams that more or less do the same thing.

Today’s is from a site called “Areps.at,” and like other scams before it (see FBAction.net and FBStarter.com), it simply asks for you to input your Facebook username and password, with a design that looks similar to that of Facebook.

Don’t give this site your information. If you do, it will proceed to send all of your friends a message telling them to go to Areps.at, and hence, the scam will continue to spread like wildfire.

Harmless to your computer, but your Facebook password may be compromised - who knows how long you will lose your account if this happens to you...

Patrick Swayze Dead?

2009-05-19T15:40:00.008-05:00

Twitter thinks so - social networking tools do have some cons, one being the viral spreading of unsubstantiated information a.k.a rumours.

The actor who has been fighting pancreatic cancer since January 2008, Patrick Swayze, is very much alive, despite some rumors earlier today that he’d passed away.

The Florida-based radio station KissFM started the inaccurate rumor this morning. However, it was Twitter that spread the news rapidly, even leading to Patrick’s Wikipedia page being wrongly updated. I'm glad to see that the page has since been corrected to "Actor, years active: 1978 – present".

The false Tweets forced Swayze’s rep to release a statement:
"This is to confirm that Patrick Swayze did not pass away this morning contrary to severely reckless reports stemming from a radio station in Jacksonville, Florida. Swayze is alive, well and is enjoying his life and he continues to respond to treatment." Lesson learned: Beware of reports that surface via Social networking and online media sources; they have to answer to no one for spreading misinformation.

Visitor Frenzy 2.0 by Webzpoint.com

2009-05-18T12:45:00.005-05:00

Visitor Frenzy is a simple program that allows you to stimulate referrals coming from your site to other websites. This, accordingly, will boost your website traffic through two ways:

1. Webmasters will see your link at their traffic stats page and click on it.
2. Many websites show “Last referrers” on their website - this may also generate temporary backlinks.

I’ve put together a comprehensive list of more than 72,000 URLS to get you started; however, VF will only simulate 20,000 URL’s each session, so you will have to split these up into chunks. Enjoy! Click here to download.

If you want a fast way of generating your own lists you can download Silverwolf’s domain grabber. Download the windows version here.

If you would like to immediately purchase Visitor frenzy, go here.

WARNING: Facebook Scam Is Spreading Rapidly, Steals Passwords

2009-04-29T15:19:00.003-05:00

I just caught news that a widespread phishing scam has hit Facebook today. I think this is spreading quickly as even some of my friends have already been taken advantage of. The end objective of the scam is to steal your login and spam your friends.

I’ve got a number of messages in my Facebook inbox with links to “FBAction.net”, a site that displays a fake Facebook login. Enter your details there, and it will spam all your friends with the same message and link. Even more annoying is that you might get locked out of your account for a time until Facebook purges its system of the issue.

There is no malicious payload with the attack, so it seems; no virus or worm is downloaded, it’s simply an enormous irritation for avid Facebook users.

I know that we all get tricked into clicking on links that we shouldn’t from time to time (don’t you feel so foolish when you’ve been taken advantage of?), but please take note and remember: don’t enter your Facebook password if the URL is not Facebook.com, and contact Facebook if you’re no longer able to access your account.

Is Email Dying?

2009-04-27T17:22:00.009-05:00

Some would say that email is being replaced; it has peaked - RSS feeds, social networking, online file storage & URL truncation (TinyURL and Snurl) are all contributors to its demise.

Email is a “catch-all” for every type of communication. What has happened is it has split into more functional technologies: RSS feeds replace list servers, instant messaging replaced the instant communication and social networking replaced the distribution lists.

There are many applications that can be used to send someone a private file without using email - Google Docs, DropBox, SugarSync, ADrive, Flip Drive, Flickr, Picassa, Zoho, etc. Also, all of these programs provide you with more storage space than you could ever use, they allow for version control, give you networked backup, web access to your files from any computer with an internet connection on the planet and let you publish documents and share them with whomever you like.

Twitter, Plurk and other microblogging tools are great ways to send quick notes people and social networking applications (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) are far more advanced messaging services than our ancient email friend.

One of the latest statistics reports out of the Nielson camp states that communication through social networking is outnumbering emails sent. Nevertheless, the numbers of emails sent haven't drastically reduced.

With all that said, I can confidently say that email is far from a dying breed. I think I can convince you with one simple rhetorical question: Do you invite someone to lunch by e-mail or Twitter?

Top 3 Twitter Updates of All Time... So Far

2009-04-27T12:20:00.009-05:00

Twitter updates are most often used to communicate the simple things in life: political opinions, link sharing, what you’re eatting, etc. But there are some exceptional, circumstances where Twitter has been used in some ways that can only be explained as bizarre. Below are the 3 most extraordinary and creative uses of Twitter updates that I have ever come across.

3. Tweeting From Space (aka Spaweeting)

When ice was found on Mars, how did the news break? Through CNN? Maybe a publication? Wrong. The statement that ice had been discovered on Mars was first made by the Twitter account of the Mars Phoenix Lander

The Mars Phoenix Lander was a space vessel designed to collect information on Mars, in particular, whether or not Mars could support life. The response was nothing short of amazing, with thousands of followers and increased buzz for the Mars mission and Twitter alike.

This had to make the list because Mars Phoneix Lander is truly the first to post status updates from another world. I bet you didn’t know that!

2. Tweeting from the womb (aka Infantweets)

What’s the record for the youngest Tweeter? If you’re Corey Menscher’s child, it’s never too early. Corey’s baby was tweeting at 6 months….before he was even born. Corey created a device and a Twitter account, kickbee, which sent out tweets anytime little Tyler kicked his mommy. Tyler was born on January 19th, 2009 and now “tweets” from his new account, @minimensch

1. The marriage proposal (I have no term for this one…)

On May 28th, Max Kiesler proposed to Emily Chang via Twitter. And with a quick response, she accepted.

Stunning! What a way for these two social media enthusiasts to become connected forever. Also, let’s not forget the additional benefit of allowing thousands of people to be part of the special moment.

Others have also gotten engaged using Twitter since: @garazi to @stefsull and @grobertson to @film_girl.

The realities of Social Media marketing – it’s not so simple

2009-04-25T11:23:00.006-05:00

Everyone from Ashton Kutcher to the average Joe is looking to utilize Social Media as part of a personal or brand marketing strategy. Social media programs have become legitimate marketing tools, providing an effective communications channel. The problem is that these strategies require a great deal of resources to maintain. It’s also very difficult (without a trained Social Media Specialist) to find the ROI in a world so intangible.

Creating corporate blogs, Twitter accounts, and Facebook implementation programs are a few of the many possibilities, and even still there are many more options for marketing teams looking for new bang from their PR buck, but there is no magical formula that consistently works – nor is running a viral marketing campaign as easy as some may think.

I came across these “Five Things You Need to Know About Social Media Marketing and PR” over at the PageOne PR blog; I think the beauty is in its simplicity:

1. Social media requires a willingness and readiness to engage
2. Your audience might not naturally pay attention
3. Social media never stops
4. Social media requires A LOT of planning
5. Social media is everyone's responsibility

Friendsourcing: it’s happening more and more

2009-04-23T18:51:00.009-05:00

We’re familiar with outsourcing - sending our tasks or whatever to totally outside people. We’re familiar, too, with crowdsourcing - asking the world to answer questions for ourselves. In either case, these methods are generally going to people who we trust marginally, perhaps only because that’s their job (outsourcing) or because we hope that correct answers will bubble to the top (crowdsourcing).

The mass collaboration enabled by Web 2.0 technologies on social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter have helped to evolve a new strain of crowdsourcing called friendsourcing.

Friendsourcing is the act of finding help with business or personal projects through friends and it may just be the next big thing. After all, “trust” is an important factor in just about any transaction. And who else to trust better than your long time, faithful friends, right?

What is LinkedIn? (video)

2009-04-22T16:18:00.005-05:00

A nice 3 minute video that describes the features and uses of LinkedIn:

2009: The Rise of Social Media

2009-04-21T14:25:00.014-05:00

I can recall when Robert Scoble the famous American blogger best known for his blog, Scobleizer had a few thousand followers on Twitter he was king and it was a big deal. Now Twitter is 100 times more popular and Ashton Kutcher, or aplusk as he likes to call himself, has more than 2 million followers (he is currently the TwitKing… or KingTwit ;)

Okay, so I’ve taken a cheap shot at Ashton (in all fairness, he seemed like a cool guy on CNN last week) and you’re wondering where I’m going with this. Well, my point is that this is the year of Social Media. In 2009, the growth of nearly every aspect of Social Media continues to be enormous and it shows no sign of slowing down.

Let’s continue to use Twitter as our prime example and look at some astonishing statistics. Twitter grew at a swift, monthly rate of 77 percent from February to March and by 1,382 percent year over year! According to Nielsen, Twitter attracts nearly 7 million unique visitors each month. At that pace, Twitter will have almost 100 million visitors by this time next year - Woooowzaaa!

Finally, for all of you skeptics that think Twitter is just a phase, let’s look at the big picture: Nielsen’s latest online research shows that social networking is now more popular than email. According to the study, 66.8% of Internet users use social networks, while only 65.1% use email.Remember when we had all of those cynics who refused to open a Facebook account? Well they eventually did.Are you still holding out on Twitter? Believe me, you’ll give in sooner or later…

Tweeting Becomes a Summer Job Opportunity - "Summer Twinterns"

2009-04-20T15:16:00.008-05:00

Pizza Hut is looking for "Summer Twinterns", a summer intern who uses Twitter, to aid the company in social media outreach. Here's the official job description:

JOB TITLE: Summer Twintern

JOB TITLE, TRANSLATED: A summer intern who uses Twitter.

JOB CATEGORY: Hot pizza/social media

SALARY: Competitive (with other Twitterers).

JOB PURPOSE: To attend advertising shoots, product meetings and other corporate events. “They’ll be our social media journalist, chronicling in 140 characters or less what’s going on at PizzaHut,” said Bob Kraut, the vice president for marketing communications at the company. The Twintern must also play social-media defense, monitoring Twitter for any mentions of the brand and alerting superiors whenever anything negative about the Hut is being said. (Applicants should study last week’s YouTube gross-out video posted by Domino’s employees, which was quickly passed around Twitter, to understand why.) The successful applicant will speak fluent OMG and LOL and correctly use the terms DM (direct message), RT (retweet) and # (hashtag).

JOB REQUIREMENTS:
Applicants must be currently enrolled in college, willing to move to Dallas for the summer, and happy to distill their thoughts into short and frequent bursts of text. Applications will be accepted on PizzaHut.com beginning Monday. Job seekers must demonstrate social-media skills through some kind of creative response.

NFL scouts are using Facebook to evaluate draft picks

2009-04-17T13:22:00.023-05:00

The NFL is employing a tactic already used by many employers in getting the skinny on job applicants: checking out the social networking profiles of potential draft picks.But they’re doing it in a rather interesting and some might argue unethical way. NFL personnel are setting up Facebook (Facebook reviews) profiles that look to be that of an attractive woman. From there, they send friend requests and messages to the players they are evaluating.

If the unsuspecting future
NFL star accepts it, suddenly, the teams evaluating them have access to their personal information and photos, which, could raise all sorts of questions about the athlete if they have anything unflattering in their profile.

Yahoo! Sports has all of the juicy details on the practice, noting that “creating fake profiles to get added to the private pages of some draft picks – isn’t isolated. Executives from three NFL teams admitted that at one point or another, they had used a similar method to get information. And all three suggested that it was something that was likely used by the investigative sources of all teams.”

What type of results has this type of lurking obtained for teams? Yahoo! Sports notes a few examples, including one where a prospect had pictures of drugs attached to social networking profile. Of course, like other celebrities, top athletes are photographed wherever they go, which has often led to embarrassment surfacing on the Web for everyone to see.

The bottom line is that while this feels like a huge invasion of privacy, it’s to be expected, and users – famous or not – need to take control of the tools available to them to keep unwanted information off the Web. That’s easier said than done for NFL prospects, some of who have probably been using Facebook long before they became public figures, but an unfortunate reality of the social web.

Is your Twitter account linked in?

2009-04-16T12:35:00.007-05:00

Ever try searching for yourself on Twitter? If not, then I suggest you do – especially if you have an account that was created within the last month.

Why? Because your account may not be searchable by other Twitter users, in other words, you may not be linked in to the rest of the community - new users aren't being added to the 'find people' search database.

I first became aware of this when a friend sent me an email. She said that she had searched for my on Twitter but couldn’t find my profile. I performed some investigation and realized that I couldn’t even find myself!

Since, I have escalated the issue to Twitter Support and it turns out that this is a known issue:
“Hi, Thank you for contacting Twitter Support.
Thanks for the heads up! We’re aware of the issue you’ve reported and currently working on a resolution. However, we don’t have an exact time frame for a fix. We truly apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
We highly encourage posting your detail feedback and contact info at our Known Issues page:
http://twitter.zendesk.com/forums/31935/entries”

My issues with the issue:
1. Why wasn’t I made aware of this problem when I first created an account? It would have been nice to have been sent an automatic notification…

2. This is a major issue that has not been resolved even though the people at Twitter have known about it since April 1, 2009. That’s so not Tweeterrific!

Facebook is coming for you China

2009-04-14T22:48:00.005-05:00

Facebook announced this week that it added its 200 millionth user on April 8, 2009. The US had more Facebook users than any other country. However, the largest concentration of users was in the Eastern US and Western Europe.

Two hundred million users.

Let me try to quickly put that into perspective: The Facebook population is now 24 times larger than the population of New York City, equivalent in size to 1,904 completely-sold out shows at the gigantic Wembley Stadium, and would be the fifth largest country in the world if it were its own country. Or as I like to think of it, 199,999,700 more people that are out there waiting to befriend me.

The numbers are impressive to say the least. What's even more incredible is that the site took less than five years to reach this landmark, and its current growth rate is even more outlandish – 100 million new users in only 8 months...

But that's nothing if you look at China. Home to more than 1.2 billion (1,200,000,000) people. With a global population of 6 billion, one out of every five people on the planet. Any guesses on when Facebook will overtake the Orient?

TinyURL + Twitter = MAS

2009-04-13T15:45:00.006-05:00

Twitter is the world-famous micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates known as “tweets”. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers). So what exactly are most people doing when they “tweet”?

They are micro attention sharing (better known as MAS) of course. MAS empowers users to update others of your latest blog post or something funny and entertaining you found on the web. But also serves as a great way to spread the word about a good cause, for us saving the planet.

Furthermore, Twitter has a built in function to use tinyurl.com to shrink URLs to keep it under 140 characters. It’s *like* using del.icio.us to share, but it’s instant, and you wouldn’t drop 100 links on someone in Twitter in a given day. So you don’t have to worry about annoying your followers by posting those long URL’s anymore – the answer is TinyURL!

TinyURL is a web service that provides short aliases for redirection of long URLs. You can also use it outside of Twitter.

LinkedIn - What's it all about?

2009-04-12T21:43:00.010-05:00

LinkedIn is an interconnected network of experienced professionals from around the world, representing 170 industries and 200 countries. You can find, be introduced to, and collaborate with qualified professionals that you need to work with to accomplish your goals.

But why should you use LinkedIn? Linkedin is a great website for the freelancer who is constantly on the lookout for new job opportunities. Job seekers will also find the social network very appealing. By forming a wide array of connections, you are able to utilize those connections in the job hunt.
Linkedin is also great for those looking to fill job vacancies, especially people in job recruitment or HR positions

LinkedIn Facts (As of April 12, 2009:
- LinkedIn has over 38 million members in over 200 countries and territories around the world.
- A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second, and about half of our members are outside the U.S.
- Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.

Still not convinced?
Check out this great blog post by our good friend Guy Kawasaki: How to Change the World: Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn.

What is Twitter?

2009-04-12T14:49:00.001-05:00

I thought I would start this blog by touching on the hottest current Social Media application – Twitter. Everyone has heard about Twitter, but what exactly is it?

Twitter.com describes the tool as a "service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” Sounds easy enough… but in reality, the Twitter phenomenon is far from a simple definition.

In my mind, a model (here on Flickr) made by Raimo van der Klein, best classifies Twitter: Twitter is microblogging: high frequency public (one2many) messaging

A weblog: low-frequency public (one2many) messaging

SMS: low-frequency private (one2one) messaging

MrTweet says that "Everyone has different uses and purposes for Twitter".

How do you define or use Twitter?