It has been reported that Mark Zukerberg’s love for Twitter is what pushed him to change Facebook’s layout. As someone who uses both Facebook and Twitter – I’m not a fan. At all.
Twitter and Facebook have two different uses. Facebook was first developed to connect people in college. While it was gradually opened up to high school students and the entire world, it has always been a network where your ‘Facebook friends’ aren’t necessarily the people you talk to every day. We keep in touch with them and check out their vacation pictures, but I really don’t want to hear what they’re doing throughout the day.
On the other hand, Twitter has been a tool where I can follow what people are doing, and see what they find interesting and want to share. The people I’m following on Twitter are completely different from the people I’m friends with on Facebook. It’s like two separate worlds.
I usually use Twitter throughout the day, although hours can go by before I check and see what people have been posting. I used to check Facebook 5-6 times a week – not anymore. Now when I go on the site it’s filled with information that I don’t want to see, and it’s too difficult to navigate through everything.
So why did Facebook have to change their layout? As of last month, Twitter was receiving 54 million monthly visitors, which impressive. However, Facebook was receiving 1.2 billion visitors a month! While Twitter is becoming mainstream, it’s not for everybody. Facebook has a wider appeal, but they are now changing their model to appear more like a micro-social network that has less members.
One thing that Facebook has done correctly in the past is listen to its users, so hopefully it will hear the outcries about the most recent changes. One Facebook application is currently holding a vote on what people thing of the new design.
What do you think of the new layout?
Update (3.20.09)
TechCrunch reports that 94% of users don’t like the new Facebook design.
This incident has also created its own meme across the Web and the Twittersphere, and even landed on TechMeme’s (top tech stories) Website. While the unnamed applicant will surely rebound and “survive,” one would think he/she would have thought before posting something about Cisco, a company so well versed in the Web, that they market the “Human Network.”
Starting today, folks who use Twitter and Yammer, can import their Twitter updates into their Yammer streams. As an avid Twitter user, and an occasional Yammer user, the news of integration was music to my ears – bringing internal and external communications together.
However, that was before I realized that you have to insert the #yam (hashtag) into each tweet you want imported into Yammer. While it’s a great idea to sync the two, so you can alert your colleagues to your external communications, the idea of placing #yam in every tweet isn’t necessarily appealing. Instead, the mandatory use of #yam seems like a ploy to grow Yammer’s popularity on Twitter – and I’m sure it will end up trending today.
I think Yammer is extremely beneficial internal communications tool for enterprises (publishers and agencies especially), but I hope they find a better way to integrate with Twitter, without the use of this pointless tag. Are you a Twitter and Yammer user? Will you #yam?
Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester released a follow-up survey / report today on social media during the recession. The report entitled “Social Media Playtime Is Over,” found that 95% of social media marketers will maintain or increase social media spending in the downturn. The news is fairly interesting when you take into account that 93% of CMO’s polled by the ANA in February indicated they are examining cost savings and reductions and 77 percent were reducing advertising campaign media budgets. Social media – as Bernoff notes – is one of the few marketing tactics/areas that isn’t being affected by these cuts. Owyang specifies on his blog that 53% of marketers are determined to increase their social media budget during a recession, while 42% will keep it the same.
With the smaller fees that social media consulting and implementation curtail versus advertising (especially broadcast), and measurable ROI it provides, the results aren’t that surprising. However, Owyang rightly notes that the days of playing with different ideas are over and marketers are focused on social media strategy and campaigns that can provide real ROI. Forrester and Jupiter have stressed the need for measurable ROI in interactive marketing campaigns often in the past. However, as B.L. Ochman chronicles nicely, until we get more clients and prospective corporations up to speed with agencies that are on the leading edge of this movement – it will be nearly impossible to provide that ROI.
In what is considered a professional sports first, Milwaukee Bucks forward (and Uconn Alum) Charlie Villanueva posted a message on Twitter during halftime of his game against the Celtics on Sunday:
In da locker room, snuck to post with my twitt. We’re playing the Celtics, tie ball game at da half. Coach wants more toughness. I gotta step up.
With professional athletes seemingly taking up Twitter with open arms, the micro-social networking site has begun to change the fan’s method of obtaining information on their favorite sports teams. Instead of watching Sunday’s basketball and having a sideline reporter tell viewers what went on during the Milwaukee’s halftime meeting, players can alert fans themselves, telling them exactly what is happening while it’s happening.
Senators have also begun using Twitter as a tool to connect with their constituents and tell them what they are doing, what decisions they are making, and what votes are coming up. Again, this communication cuts out the reporter and providers the reader/viewer with the information they are looking for directly, instead of through a third party.
This new model of information obviously has advantages and disadvantages, but the opportunity it creates is certainly valuable. However, it’s important not to eliminate the media, which can often provide us with investigative reporting and bring our attention to the bad news that could otherwise be brushed under the carpet.
What’s your take on the current media model? Are we moving to a Twitter-run world?
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer made it official today, announcing that they will print the final issue of the 146-year old newspaper tomorrow. Like the Rocky Mountain News, cameras were present to document the next-to-last day in a new media way, via the embedded online video. Expect more videos to come, as the Seattle P-I moves to online only.
After all, whilst marketers consider the 30 second ad to be on its last legs because it tries to wallop all and sundry, you can take longer to get your point over if you’re talking to those whose interest is already sparked and who want to find out more.
My last post featured a video and an animation, and I promised to come back with some more formats for starting a conversation in an interesting way. For topical reasons I have another animation for your interest, but the main feature in this post is a call-to-action-microsite.
Burma – It Can’t Wait
Fanista, a community for entertainment enthusiasts, started a corporate initiative to drive awareness and generate consumer participation for the US Campaign for Burma.
The resultant microsite, www.burmaitcantwait.com, centres around an image of Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner now under house arrest in Burma, and features fifty short videos with entertainment and music celebrities describing the horrible situation in Burma and asking for public support (including the video at the top of this post featuring Will Ferrell).
The videos were also distributed on a YouTube Channel.
How effective was the microsite?…
Over 1 million video views on YouTube and the microsite
Hundreds of blogs embedded the videos
Achieved YouTube Editorial Spotlight – became “most discussed,” “top favorites” and “top rated” in countries around the world
The campaign was covered by over 200 media articles including a New York Times feature and a LA Times article
The Facebook App generated thousands of downloads with friend-to-friend acceptance rate twice the average rate
The microsite had a 6:48 min average user engagement time
Now that’s an interesting way to start a conversation!
[Disclosure - the microsite was developed by Digital Influence Group, a sister company to Racepoint Group.]
The Crisis of Credit
And here’s that topical animation I mentioned. I’m fairly business and financially literate, but I found it less than easy to establish what had happened to cause this global financial meltdown let alone explain it to others.
Animation to the rescue. Imagine the kudos a financial institution could reap in recent times if it took time out to converse with its highly concerned stakeholders in an interesting way, in a way that said “hey, we know what’s happened and we know how to explain it too”.
Unfortunately, unless I’ve missed it, they are obviously too busy trying to secure their annual bonuses.
So the task is left to Jonathan Jarvis. Now Jonathan isn’t looking to start a conversation with you about the credit crunch, but as a Master of Fine Arts Candidate on the Media Design Programme at the Art Center College of Design, I’m sure he’d be delighted to start a conversation with you in respect of his skills and your employment of them!
• Blogs and microblogging tools like twitter have made journalism more “personal” and yet impersonal at the same time. While tools like twitter have allowed journalists to more directly connect with readers, with more followers it becomes increasingly difficult to really have any meaningful 1:1 interaction with everyone.
• The ability for readers to post blog comments is currently an under-leveraged feature. While journalists gain the immediacy of feedback on stories and blog posts, there could be better basic moderation to enable more intelligent conversations that get past the tone and actual add value to a story. People who comment (on blogs) can be harsh and highly critical, but if journalists can get past the tone and forge deeper conversations and more meaningful interaction, there’s a lot of great information that can be harnessed that will result in a better story.
• The journalist’s role is not to provide the definitive answer, but to be a conversation starter. By pointing out interesting discussions, the journalist can make something greater, beyond his/her own point of view.
• Journalists and PR people need to better collaborate because journalists no longer have exclusive access to the news. With the proliferation of bloggers, pundits and other sources online good journalists understand that they need reliable PR people with useful information that will help them keep abreast of latest developments.
• twitter is largely suited for bragging in its current state and the future of twitter is in becoming an advertising platform. Tweney reminds us that the number one rule in twitter is to “be useful.”
• With the demise of daily newspapers, there will be an information vacuum for bloggers to access information. Companies and their PR leads have an opportunity to fill this void by creating useful blogs that can become reliable sources of information.
Tweney is certainly one of the most open and innovative journalists we’ve talked to, and perhaps one of the most evolved as well. When asked which print media are likely to survive, he mentioned Vogue as a great example of continuing to feature rich, engaging ads true to their brand. He’s also an avid follower of Jeffrey Steingarten.
Twitter has recently become a popularity contest for some users, as celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres have openly campaigned and begged for followers. However, others users are willing to pay (a lot of money) for the additional following, like Jason Calacanis, founder of Mahalo. He has offered Twitter $250,000 to include him on their list of 100 suggested people to follow, which every new user sees. The list offers new Tweeters a wide range of people and companies/organizations to follow, including Google, The New York Times, John Mayer and Kevin Rose.
Calacanis went on to tell TechCrunch that he believes the the top 20 recommended slots will be worth $1 million a year (like a Super Bowl commercial) by 2014.
So how much attention and/or traffic does Twitter bring? TechCrunch published a chart showing how much of their Web traffic came from Twitter over the past 14 months.
While TechCrunch appreciates all of their followers, they did say that not all followers are equal:
My suspicion is that most of the new followers aren’t hard core TechCrunch fanatics and wouldn’t be as valuable as the follower that we “earned” prior to being added to the suggested list. So far the data is confirming this.
So while it can be good to have a lot of followers, it’s much more important to have the right followers.
Facebook’s recent move to make Facebook pages similar to user profiles (in-terms of interactivity) is drawing attention from mainstream publishers and marketers at top brands. New publishing features on Facebook are being used by brands like Coca-Cola, and publishers such as Fortune Magazine and TheNew York Times, in an effort to become part of the new Facebook stream. The pages will also serve as landing pages for brands on Facebook, which they can promote and measure traffic to using Facebook Advertising.
TheNew York Times quickly launched a new version of their Facebook page in response to the changes last week and Fortune launched their new page within the last couple days. Coca-Cola, the second most popular brand on Facebook, re-shaped their page, and launched this video to illustrate how two fans created the original one. Other top brands on Facebook should be redesigning their pages in the days to come, as Facebook slowly roles out the new features.
One of the more interesting story-lines of the redesign will be how marketers adjust to handling these new pages. Many believe these new profile-like features will make page status-updates increasingly important for the marketing folks in control of the pages – a la Twitter.
The biggest problem with brand pages on Facebook – up until now – has been the lack of real-time interaction with the Facebook community (i.e. current & prospective customers). These new features hope to solve that problem and should bring in the marketers who have been capitalizing on Twitter’s real-time mass messaging appeal. In fact, given the scale of Facebook, it’s likely that we will see the best Twitter brands: Jet Blue, Ford, Comcast, Home Depot, Zappos and their handlers making a strong play for Facebook mind-share.
Like David Kirkpatrick, who’s deep inside Facebook for his upcoming Face-book, I’m often baffled by how the recent Twitter frenzy has overlooked the brand opportunity for marketers on Facebook, along with the lack of scale for Twitter. Yes, Twitter now has 6 million users, but Facebook has 175 million! More importantly, according to Nielsen’s recent report on social networks (which we covered this week), Facebook users spend an average of 3 hours and 10 minutes on the site per-month; the highest average time per-person amongst the 75 most popular brands online.
As Facebook continues to drive towards becoming the one-stop-social network for information, similar to the way Google has become the one-stop-search for information, publishers (such as the Times and Fortune) are being drawn towards utilizing the new real-time updates as story distribution tools. With online story engagement moving away from publishers Websites and onto Twitter and Facebook, these new Facebook page destinations could become vital on-deck landing pages – to get readers back to publisher’s Websites. Fortune, who is housed online at CNNMoney.com, doesn’t enable comments on its stories there, making its Facebook page the first channel for reader comments and engagement (outside of letters to the editor).
