Social Media « In Sean's Opinion

Facebook unveils new pages

February 11, 2011 Leave a comment

Facebook gave everyone a sneak peak at the new fan page design about two months ago, then went down for a period of time, causing some to panic. Yesterday, Facebook officially unveiled the new changes, which are here to stay and I have to say, so far I’m pretty happy with them. Here are my early thoughts:

1. Separation of profile and self: Of all the changes, the one I like most is the ability to switch between my personal profile, and the pages I manage. Just because I manage a Facebook page, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to answer questions or comment on it as myself, especially for energi PR’s Facebook page, where I want to comment on posts, photos or videos from time to time. Now I can.

2. Photos become more important: With the redesign, photos now appear at the top of the page, similar to the personal profiles. This means your page’s photos will be the first thing people see when they visit a brand’s wall, so it may be a good time to start snapping to keep it fresh.

3. Showcase your page admins: With the option to showcase page admins on the page, brands can add some transparency, where it did not exist before. However, the only concern I have is that Facebook is a different beast from Twitter, where privacy is concerned. Personally, I’m not 100 per cent comfortable with people viewing my profile, but others may be.

4. Peer pressure: When I see a friend of mine has “liked” a page, I’m inclined to check out that page myself, and I may “like” it as a result. This has always existed, but now it also includes the pages you have both favourited. It is also a bit higher up and taking advantage of that valuable real estate on the right column of the page.

5. Notifications: With the new setup mirroring a personal page, there is also the option of emailing notifications to the admins when someone comments, joins, etc. My issue with this is there doesn’t appear to be a way to add an email account other than the one you signed your personal account up with. I would much prefer page notifications to go to my work email, and not my Hotmail.

What is your initial reaction to the page changes? What do you hope to see in the planned changes over the next few months?

Filed under Social Media Tagged with business, facebook, public relations, Social Media

Twitter wants you back.. but not that much

February 2, 2011 1 Comment

If you’re on Twitter you would have received an email from @Biz, @Ev, & @Jack this morning.

I found it wasn’t so much a “New Year’s Resolution” post, but more one that aims to get people who have signed up for the site, to start using it again, while promoting the use of the twitter website, instead of 3rd party applications that have become popular with more avid users. Dave Fleet brought up a good point in his post this morning. He said four points are a bit basic, and that there is so much more to entice people to use the site, so he came up with 25 extra suggestions.

If I had stopped using the site because I didn’t have a network of people around me who “got it” I don’t think these few points would entice me to come back, and it comes across as a bit desperate. What do you think?

Our resolution is to help you get the most of out of Twitter this year. To start, we thought we’d send this note with four simple suggestions. Come on by our web site to try these out anytime! http://twitter.com

1) Follow your interests. We’ve found that the people who enjoy Twitter most tend to follow a variety of accounts: friends, family, people in their profession, local shops and events, and most importantly, people who share their passions.

2) Get specific. Like sports? Follow your favorite leagues, teams, players, coaches, commentators, writers and fellow fans. Love food? Follow chefs, restaurants, critics, bloggers, specialty shops and respected foodies.

3) Don’t panic. People turn to Twitter during emergencies. Snowstorms, power outages and fires are just a few emergencies where Twitter may be helpful. Search for #hashtags and follow local civic accounts to stay informed.

4) Return to Twitter. There are about 200 million accounts on Twitter now – that means new interests, new voices, and new ideas every day. We offer services in seven languages, apps for most devices, and SMS worldwide.

Filed under Social Media Tagged with dave fleet, Social Media, twitter

Twitter 101 in seven slides

October 15, 2010 2 Comments

I was looking through some old files when I stumbled upon this presentation of mine from a class in PR school from February ’09. We had to make a 5-minute piece on anything, so I decided to do Twitter. I’d been using it for about 5 months at the time and I had already developed quite the addiction. I think I had this up to at least double the amount of slides and had to cut it back quite a bit.

Slide 1: The subtitle was a commentary on how many students in class felt about Twitter. It’s useless and I’ll never use it. I’ve come to see that it has been a pattern in just about every class since, from grads I’ve gotten to know. I’m sure those people end up regretting not paying attention when they were originally taught.

Slide 2: I broke the basic terms of Twitter down to 5 points. I went through what an @ reply was, a retweet, a direct message, the amount of characters in a tweet (140) and finally hashtags (#) and how they’re used. I still feel these are relevant basic terms today. Did I miss any? Have any been added to everyday use that I’m not including?

Slide 3: Even 5 months in I was already spending most of my time off the Twitter site. I spent, and still spend, most of my time using Tweetdeck, when I’m on a computer. When I took part in a lot of chats, which used hashtags to keep track of participants, I used Tweetchat to keep it organized. Nowadays I haven’t done as many of those chats, but when I do, I still use that site. Friend or Follow is one I haven’t used since I found out about Nutshell Mail, which sends an email every morning, letting you know who your new followers are, as well as your latest quitters. Finally TweetStats, I can’t live without this site. It’s great to check many different things, like who you’ve been tweeting with the most all-time, or even per month.

Slide 4: Applications like Tweetdeck was my example of a great application for separating the different people you follow, and still is. This example has my classmates/instructors, Canadian PR people, International PR people, and people who take part in many conversations. Over time I’ve changed a few of those columns, but I still use it to keep track of many different things going on.

Slide 5: Many people starting off on Twitter get lost and say they don’t know who to follow or how to find people. My example here shows how they can make the decision a little easier, when they see the person’s stats. If they have a high number of following and a very low number of followers, my recommendation is usually to not follow. Some accounts are clearly spam, but others are just follower hoarders. Next up there are accounts with a crazy amount of followers. You can probably follow them for information/news/gossip, but if you’re looking for good conversation, chances are they won’t respond back to you. Finally it’s always good to follow people you know, or in this case, my instructor from class, Keith McDonald <insert laughter from classmates>.

Slide 6: How to make twitter work? Well it’s easy, add people you know already on it, or if you don’t, know how they use it (ie. push push push, or engaging with @ replies and RTs). Next, start engaging yourself with @ replies, RTs and the occasional DM to introduce yourself if you feel more comfortable doing so. Finally, Twitter is just a start, so get out there and attend tweetups so you can build those relationships into friendships.

Slide 7: I went through what made Twitter more appealing to me than those other sites listed. Nowadays I’d say Twitter has it’s appeal, but so do the other sites, for different reasons (minus MySpace).

What are your thoughts? Is this still a relevant 101 for a Twitter newb today as it was almost 2 years ago? I think many of the notes still hold true, but some things have grown since, including mobile use.

Filed under Social Media Tagged with school, slideshare, Social Media, twitter 101

Facebook just got a lot creepier thanks to Catfish [SPOILER]

October 4, 2010 1 Comment

If you’ve seen the movie Catfish you’ll know what I mean.

It all started when Rel somehow got into contact with this kid Abby who was a child painter. He then became pen pals with her online, with the permission of her Mom, Angela. Eventually he got to know the entire family on Facebook, including Abby’s older sister Megan.

Rel began falling in love with Megan, but issues popping up, including supposed cover songs she’d send him that turned out to be YouTube videos with the same song covered. At this point (I believe), Rel’s brother and friend decided to make the documentary. Further events led to them making a trip to Michigan where Abby and her family lived. Here’s where the twist comes in.

Chris Bumbray from JoBlo.com puts it the best in a quote from the trailer: “The final forty minutes of the film will take you on an emotional roller-coaster ride that you won’t be able to shake for days.”

After The Ellen Show clip is the spoiler part, so if you’re not reading on, I really enjoyed this movie and minus the first hour or so, it was one of the best movies of the year in my books. I give it a 4.5/5

After confronting Angela, the movie went from creepy to sad. She was a woman who had given up a lot in life to raise her husband’s boys that required 24/7 care because due to their mental and physical issues. As a painter she came up with the idea of contacting Rel from his photograph that appeared in major publications. Eventually it spiraled out from there.

Forget privacy concerns with Mark Zuckerberg, Angela was able to make a bunch of profiles using fake addresses and pictures of family members/friends, just for the sole purpose of gaining Rel’s companionship (that’s the best way I can describe it). It seemed so easy to fall pray to fall pray to this, which is most scary. She would take to the computer every night after 11pm and go to work updating her various profiles. She kept three phones on hand – one for Megan and the other two for when she was herself.

Facebook is usually for people we know, so when he got to know Abby’s mom, he added her and eventually her family. This opened Rel up to the game Angela was playing. It got me thinking about how rare this could be? Are there a lot of people out there being fooled by these fake accounts? Have you experienced this?