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Facebook’s Asking Questions
Facebook has a way of balancing good and bad… or maybe I should say distracting us with something good when something bad is actually happening. With all the privacy uproar going on recently, Facebook has just come out with a pretty cool, new feature to make us forgive them.
Similar to Yahoo! Answers, Facebook Questions lets you ask a question about anything and direct it toward your Facebook community. There will be a new “Ask Question” button on the homepage that gives you easy access to the Questions feature. Even though this sounds an awfully lot like Yahoo! Answers, there are a few characteristics to set it apart.
Let’s say you have a picture of the amazing cake at a party you recently attended. And man, you really liked that cake. But you wish you had the recipe… Well you can post the picture of the awesome cake on your Facebook with a question attached like “Did anyone get the recipe to this delicious confection?” Maybe the host of the party will let you in on their culinary home run. This scenario leads me to think of other examples that might be in the future of this feature. Think Texts from Last Night meets Facebook… Eek!
Anyway, another advantage of this Q&A is the large pool of voters you’ll have. Asking an opinion question like “Should I go see Inception? Or save my $10?” I know, I know. I don’t see how you’d get two sides to that argument either. However, asking any kind of multiple answer question on Facebook will allow you to do a little polling. Facebook has 500 million users, remember? That is quite a sampling pool to pull your conclusions out of.
You can also use the Facebook tagging feature within questions maybe to direct your question at someone specific or to narrow your audience (or to compare cuteness of friends). Facebook also allows you to follow a question from its birth to its end. That way you’re not left wondering forever what the answer was. You will also be able to browse through Facebook questions by category. Categories have to do with the topic of the question. Or questions can be sorted by author.
Happy Facebook questioning!
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Facebook on a Forty Foot Screen
I went to see Inception over the weekend (which was amazing, by the way) and was pleasantly surprised when The Social Network trailer came on.
Like Facebook, the movie has generated a lot of attention in a very short time. Maybe it got that attention because it’s about Facebook and Facebook is pretty popular (500 million popular), maybe it is because David Finch (director of Se7en, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, among others) is the director, maybe it’s because Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor is doing all the music, maybe it’s because Justin Timberlake plays a lead role and all the old N’Sync fans are still secretly in love with him, or maybe it’s because the trailer makes it look so awesome.
The plot surrounds Mark Zuckerberg’s journey and struggle to the top, revealing all the litigation that ensued when the original creation team split ways. I’ll be honest, when I first heard there was going to be a movie about Facebook I thought it would definitely be lame. However, because all the people creating the movie are so talented, they will prevent it from being a total flop. The trailer and the tag line, “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies,” tell me this movie will be pretty awesome. Here is one of the newest trailers for the movie. After you watch it, you’ll see what I’m talking about.
With almost 1% of all Internet activity dedicated to Facebook, the turnout for the movie should be impressive. Be prepared; it’s supposed to hit theaters October 1st, 2010.
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The Secret to a Perfect Social Media Campaign
I hope that anyone who is reading this is familiar with the huge Old Spice social media campaign that ended today. The campaign started when Old Spice aired a new, comical Super Bowl commercial featuring actor Isaiah Mustafa. The ad got tons of attention so Old Spice continued to make comedic commercials and post them on YouTube. All of a sudden, the “Old Spice Guy” started posting personal responses to Tweets and comments from fans two days ago. He answered questions that were Tweeted at him, he extended his gratitude to people who said he was handsome in YouTube comments, he answered completely random Yahoo Answers’ questions, and he even proposed for one of his followers on Twitter.
This little publicity stunt has a specific name, a social media campaign. Pepsi has one as well in the Pepsi Refresh Project, which is giving away $1 million in grants to projects that you submit and vote for. The Old Spice man definitely took the social media campaign to a new level. Using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and various other websites, Old Spice managed to attract over 61 million people to their YouTube ads. Isaiah Mustafa responded quickly to different followers on YouTube without ever shoving Old Spice products in the audience’s face. Each response was hilarious, the perfect combination of Chuck-Norris-seriousness and off the wall answers that will make anyone laugh. One of the last responses was to the actor’s daughter, Hayley Mustafa.
A social media campaign combines all ports of social media to get attention and tons of hits. Successful social media campaigns get as many people involved on the internet as possible, either by posting direct YouTube videos or by hosting a contest conducted completely online. The point is for as many strangers to see your website (or product) as possible. Humor is a great way to get attention; it obviously worked for the Old Spice guy.
The tricky part is getting one started. You need a solid base of following if you want a significant response. Be active on sites that are relevant to your business or product and make connections within your line of work. Then try to monitor all likely forums where your line of business is relevant. While paying close attention to these websites or forums, comment (appropriately) to get some attention back to your website. At your website, there needs to be something that will really grab the attention of all the traffic coming its way. The Old Spice campaign had new videos popping up (some within minutes of the previous one). Pepsi has the promise of $1 million worth of grants.
It’s a long road to pulling off something as big as the Old Spice social media campaign, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. This campaign definitely makes me view Old Spice differently, and if I weren’t a girl, it would make me want to buy their products. Here is another informative article to help you pull off a social media campaign.
Thanks for the pictures, Social Media Bandwagon.
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Facebook Gains Users After “Quit Facebook Da...
TechCrunch came out with an interesting blog article today about new Facebook numbers. The interesting part is not that Facebook has risen past 140 million unique U.S. users in the month of June, but it is the fact that Facebook continues to gain users even after that big movement to quit Facebook on May 31, 2010. Remember that? Well, we do.
All that whining about Facebook security convinced 34,000 Facebook users to cut all ties to the social network. Don’t get me wrong, I realize that Facebook’s security had some major holes. And now I also realize that those hole would have never been patched without the whining of these few Facebook users’ rights advocates. It seems that about 50 million other Facebook users also think the security flaws are cured. TechCrunch reported that an online audience measurement provider, comScore, found that the number of unique U.S. Facebook users increased by 10 million in the month of June.
Wait a second. Didn’t we just say there was a quit Facebook campaign and yet now we’re hearing that Facebook actually increased its numbers in the U.S.?
Apparently the new privacy controls worked for Facebook’s American audience and convinced more of them to join the social media giant. The 10 million users increase was reported for the month of June, while “Quit Facebook Day” was scheduled for May 31st. I certainly hope that those 34,000 users who went through with deleting their Facebook accounts didn’t give into Facebook’s security updates in just a month.
USA Today reports that the spike in Facebook interest is probably due to its increasing number of mobile users. 150 million people in the U.S. now call themselves Facebook users. Worldwide, the number of Facebook users is a whopping 500 million.
I have to conclude that, while there was so much chatter about Facebook lacking significant security, people still love Facebook. They love connecting with old high school buddies, relatives, former teachers, and even some complete strangers. I also have a feeling that users are going to remain loyal to Facebook for a long time. Unless someone can show us a better way to connect with our teen-age buddies and grandparents in the same place, and manage to convince the 500 million Facebook users to ditch that “old” system of connecting, it’s not going to be replaced until teleporting becomes available in every household.
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Data Backups for your Information in the Cloud
Businesses are continually growing more and more involved in social media and online marketing. Many businesses now have a WordPress blog, a Twitter account, a Facebook account, Gmail, Google Docs, etc, and all without any access to old information shared on these different portals. Backupify has achieved a way to backup all your online information in every corner of the web.
Backupify provides data protection for most of the big name social media sites and Google Apps. With this service, you can recall an old Twitter direct message or an old blog article on Blogger that you accidentally deleted. Backed up data can either be downloaded to your PC by an IT Administrators or you can access stored data on the web. If you operate your business with Google Apps, Backupify says you can use its software to backup all your business’s information in “Gmail, Google Docs, Contacts, Calendar, and Sites for your entire domain.”
For an example of social media backups, the software will store the last thirty days worth of your Facebook status updates, comments, activity, et cetera. Not only on Facebook, Backupify allows you to choose from a huge pool of social media sites to be backed up. Once you have selected what social media sites you want to backup, you have to give Backupify all your account information (username, password, etc.) for backing up to begin. Once you have configured your accounts, Backupify will provide you with access to past data in PDF form.
Backupify for Google Apps users is priced at three levels. The most basic level being only $10 per month and the premium being $60 per month. The differences between plans are storage space provided and number of accounts Backupify will support. They will also allow you to try a 30 day free trial without any promise to purchase later.
For social medial and personal accounts Backupify has three different plans. The basic version of Backupify is always free but only grants support for one account and only provides 2GB of storage. The next level up, the Plus plan, will support 5 accounts with 10GB of storage for $40 per year. The top level, premium level, will support unlimited number of accounts and provides 25GB of storage for $60 per year. For all kinds of legal cases or disaster recovery, Backupify is the perfect precaution that can be taken.
Read MoreGoogle Ambushes Social Web Market
Many people did not think that Facebook would remain in the spotlight for so long. Like Myspace, it was expected that a new social networking site would have come along by now to knock the big FB out of the limelight. Maybe Twitter was supposed to be the next big hitter but the blue whale of death is around too much for Twitter to be considered a threat. Well Google is attempting to be the next Facebook with their new ‘Google Me’ social media site.
Yesterday, June 29th, a former Facebook executive confirmed rumors about the existence of a Google social media site modeled after Facebook. On Quora, a site compiled of questions and answers on any topic imaginable, Adam D’Angelo said,
“[Google Me] is not a rumor. This is a real project. There are a large number of people working on it. I am completely confident about this.”
Google is a very ambitious “little engine that could.” They didn’t fear Microsoft when launching Google Chrome browser and operating system. They weren’t afriad of Apple and the iPhone 3Gs when developing Android. Along with the number one search engine, email service, etc. Google’s list of achievements could go on and on. A fairly recent project, Buzz, was meant to compete with Twitter by allowing any Gmail users to update his or her status and provided an option to follow friends. So it is not surprising that Google will be gunning for Facebook next. In the same post on Quora, D’Angelo also says,
“[Google] realized that Buzz wasn’t enough and that they need to build out a full, first-class social network. They are modeling it off Facebook. Unlike previous attempts (before Buzz at least), this is a high-priority project within Google.”
High priority project probably means highly secretive. Right now is definitely a good time for Google to come out with a Facebook competitor because of all the criticism Facebook has faced recently. You can bet Google’s social website will take into consideration and avoid all the fundamental mistakes of Facebook.
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