It has a been a busy month for social media. Twitter is busy monetizing their site, Google+ finally opened to the public and Facebook made a bunch of changes that nobody seems to like (so far). This is a very exciting time because with all of this competition amongst these social giants, we (as users) are going to see and be able to experience some pretty dramatic changes in each platform.
Image property of Facebook
Well, Zuck’s at it again! As you may already know, Facebook has rolled out their new ‘Pages’ which is similar to the new profile look implemented not long ago. If you haven’t seen it yet check out ours.
The question is: As marketers, what can we do to utilize these new features to their full potential? We’ve seen some creative uses of the new profile on sites like Mashable, but we’re excited to see what sort of tactics businesses will implement to show off their brands. We can predict that we will see not only an aesthetically pleasing array of picture layouts—as we did with the profile pages—but also new forms of outreach and communication.
By giving page administrators the ability to interact with other parts of Facebook as their page, they are giving marketers a valuable outreach tool to engage potential fans and consumers. On top of that, you can also edit your page settings so that you receive notifications about fan activity and keep up with them like never before.
The digital world is always changing and in order to stay on top of our game we must embrace the change and utilize it to the best of our abilities. Cheers, and happy marketing!
As Twitter gained mainstream popularity it was only a matter of time before we saw an abundance of spam making its way in. This should not be a surprise, we’ve seen this happen in the past with another popular social networking site, MySpace. The social networking site has been in a slow decline in the U.S. because of the large quantity of scammers and fake accounts. After a while users became annoyed and disconnected with MySpace.
Spam is an especially huge concern for Twitter because of its very nature to act as a broadcasting service in which any account can accumulate ‘followers’ beyond their traditional network of contacts. And, because Twitter is a cost effective service for marketing, it’s a no brainer for companies and entrepreneurs to sign up and plaster their marketing messages all over people’s personal timelines. Mashable outlines three ways spammers are filling twitter with junk. People don’t join social networks like Twitter to be sent messages on weight loss plans and male enhancement pills, they sign up to talk to their peers and to stay relevant with current events. Unless Twitter can control the spread of spam (we give them credit for trying), there’s a risk that users will be turned off from the microblogging platform and find a new form of online communication.
This is in no way to say that companies should not participate in Twitter. In fact many have been praised for their efforts on Twitter. But, what separates a successful company on Twitter from a spammer is the ability to listen, engage, and humanize the brand. If done correctly the meaningful online relationships established on Twitter will follow your brand even when and/ or if Twitter becomes irrelevant.
