fondalo Blog Makes the Jump to Wordpress

Yes, it's true.  I have decided to make the jump to a Wordpress blog.  I will not be making anymore posts on this Blogger site and instead will be focusing all efforts on Wordpress.  Come check out the fondalo Social Media Blog and my latest post - What REALLY are Fans and Followers?

Facebook Devalues Fanpages

What company in the world could get away with making constant changes to its products against the desires of its customers?  What company in the world would jeopardize its relationship with its customers without regard to their desires?

I decided to complete this article today so nobody could accuse me of an April fools joke tomorrow. It amazes me how many times Facebook has made significant interface and functionality changes to its technology without regard to consumer and business users obvious dislike for it.  Most of the changes have proved largely harmless, with exception to unannounced privacy issues I have written about previously.  This most recent proposed change however could result in a massive reduction of value to Fanpage owners across the board.

I originally intended to write an article that asked the question, “What is a Fan or Follower?”  The intent of either can vary drastically from someone that visited a retailer in the past, all the way to a consumer that is a loyal repeat customer.  But how do you know?  The answer; in most cases you don’t.  Therein lies the problem that largely results in posting with content that is highly general, or frequently throwing out discounts that result in devaluing your brand and offering… But I digress.

The most recent change will affect Fanpages and the many brands and retailers that utilize them to engage consumers.  The reported intent of the change is to “unify” the way users “connect” to things they are “passionate about”.

There are so many problems with this mentality.  First and foremost, do people use the same emotion or “passion” to show a like of a comment made by an old high school buddy talking about a party last weekend as a consumer does when they express to their contacts their trust for a business?  I think not.

The fact is that “liking” a brand on Facebook and being a Fan, using the context that has become standard in social media, are two very different things.  True, gaining what are currently called fans can be a much faster process based on the change that is apparently inevitable.  True, it will definitely unify functions within Facebook.  True, people currently click “like” almost twice as much as “becoming a fan”.  But there is a reason for that, and it has nothing to do with un-unified link text.

What about the issue I brought up previously relating to what a fan really is?  This gray’s that issue further.

You can like the Steelers and be a Fan or the 49er’s.  You can like a burger but be a Fan of Burgerville.  The bottom line here is that there is a significant difference.  This self-serving decision by Facebook will immediately increase Fanbase for many larger brands and smaller businesses alike, which is undoubtedly the goal Facebook has in mind here.  The unfortunate result will be the further reduction of ROI from Fanpages and a further blurred line of what a Fan is/was.

By Robert M. Caruso
CEO fondalo, Inc. www.facebook.com/robertcaruso
www.twitter.com/fondalo

Social Media? Bah! Why Social Media will never become anything…

Imagine if a major magazine wrote something like that.  Further, imagine if they said, “The truth is no online social media will ever replace traditional marketing.”  Finally, imagine if they said these things about the Internet in general?  Guess what?  Someone actually did!

On March 4^th, 2010 I came across an article from February 1995, by Clifford Stoll, a writer for Newsweek.  He wrote “The truth is, no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.”  How wrong he was.

During my career in technology there are a few things I have come to respect… People and their insatiable appetite for the internet, and the ever-changing ways it can be used to expand how we navigate daily life personally and professionally. 

Though I have not come across any articles that correlate Stoll’s comments into the social media space with such confidence, we have all heard the naysayer rants.  Though recently they are all but drifting into the wastelands of Tandy, Sony’s Beta and the brick phone.

Social media has morphed into a power all its own.  A sub-set of the internet itself.  Its own animal that is evolving into a stand-alone platform in its own right.  Imagine if talented dreamers had read Stoll’s story and listened?  I myself, can’t.

My perspective on technology is that anything is possible.  Anything you can dream up can be accomplished, as long as there is a value proposition that makes sense to the consumer and business. 

There is no doubt that social networking has delivered on both sides of the spectrum thus far.  It is reaching into every aspect of Politics, Business and our families.  The next challenge for social media will be to continue to expand the value on these fronts and innovate its uses within business beyond marketing.

By Robert M. Caruso
CEO fondalo, Inc.
www.facebook.com/robertcaruso
www.twitter.com/fondalo

Quit Twitter DM Spamming me! I don’t even know you yet…

I have been very busy since my last article and therefore have been a bit slow on getting articles done.  The massive flow of followers and direct messages flowing from Twitter has aggravated me enough today to stop and rant a moment.

Let’s be clear.  Social media is about connections, conversation, adding value to one another with information and interactions.  I have a tech start up.  I am not in MLM or network marketing.  More importantly I am in no way interested in getting started, and have no time even if I were.

I will continue my rant by explaining I enjoy direct messages on Twitter from new followers.  When used appropriately, it is refreshing, informative and creates a connection to a new contributor to my world.  Having said this, direct messaging every single person that follows you back with a boiler plate message pitching your worthless auto-spam/auto-follow software that will clog my followers with useless people that aren’t truly interested in my space and won’t provide me anything valuable is just plain rude!

Now, don’t take my preceding run-on sentence as a jaded hack on all direct messaging, or templated auto-DM’s, however I do want you to THINK and take some advice.

1)       Use your Twitter DM’s to engage, not pitch.

2)       Thank followers for following and make a connection to them and what they tweet about.

3)       For God’s sake, quit spamming me!  J

Ok, I’m done.

By Robert M. Caruso
CEO fondalo, Inc.
www.facebook.com/robertcaruso
www.twitter.com/fondalo

Facebook changes terrible, but what you don’t know CAN hurt you – 4 things you need to know

Facebook made some dramatic changes to their systems and user interface that once again created an uproar.  It seems as though they completely re-code their GUI a few times a year without regard for user input.  Furthermore, this last major change appeared to not be planned well at all, leaving mobile users without access for some time.

In light of these recent changes there are four things I want to cover that you need to know.  Some need your attention immediately to prevent potential damage and others are helpful tips to make your use of Facebook smooth and inline with your goals.

Email Address Display

Facebook made a substantial change to how they display email addresses within user profiles just before the major user interface “upgrade” that was pushed on everyone.  This change is significant and can harm you so pay attention!

Just a few months ago, Facebook displayed a user's email address within their profile as an image.  This was done to prevent SPAM spiders and bots from easily screen scraping and capturing email address to be used in Spam emails.  THIS HAS CHANGED.  For whatever reason, Facebook has changed to now display a users email address as text, leaving many open to Spam.

So what should you do?  Change your profile settings for your email display immediately to be a minimum of “Friends Only” view, and a maximum of “Only Me” view.  Here’s how to do it.

1)       Go to your Profile and click the “Info” tab.

2)       Next to your email address click the “edit” button.

3)       Then click the Lock icon and select the level of protection you wish to have.  Again, I suggest either friends only or Me only to ensure your email address is not abused by people you don’t know.

Feed Display of Friends

Again for unknown reasons, Facebook now controls the number of friends (randomly it appears) whose posts appear in your news feed.  The number of friends is capped at 250 automatically by the Facebook system.

If you are like me, you have more friends on Facebook than their 250 cap, and missing posts from some could be harmful to my reasons for using Facebook to begin with.  Therefore, you need to increase this cap so as to see all stream posts from all of your friends.  Here is how you change this setting.

1) Go to your Facebook home page (News Feed).

2) Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the “Edit Options” link.

3) Change the “Number of Friends” from the 250 default to 5000.

Your Profile Display Settings

If you use Facebook to network, conduct business or connect with people in specific industries as well as your friends, it is important to manage your profile settings appropriately.  The default settings for profiles have changed so many times through the “upgrades” Facebook has done, that it is important to constantly check your settings.

So many times I notice a friend of mine has become a friend with someone and I click to view that persons profile only to see that their profile is “locked” down and not displaying their location, employer or website.  That’s great for those who just social network to stay in touch with friends, but if you are using Facebook for business, you are missing opportunity to connect and meet others.

1) To edit your profile display settings, go to your profile and click the “Info” tab.

2) Click the “Edit” link next to the section you want to change your settings for.

3) Select the viewing options you want others to have.  Again, click “Everyone” or “Friends of Friends” if your goal is to network with others you may not know yet.

Blocking Game Posts

One of the biggest advantages with the Facebook changes is the ability to block posts from annoying games in your news feed.  Now if you play games and enjoy that sort of thing that’s great, however some people don’t and find the hundreds of posts beyond annoying.

If you want to remove posts from a game application, follow these steps.

1) Go to your News Feed and find a game post you’d like to block.

2) Hover on the right side of the post and a “Hide” button will appear.

3) Click the Hide button and it will give you three options.

4) Click the center button to block posts from that game application.

It has been said that if something doesn’t grow or change it’s dead.  As with all changes we experience in life, some are bad, some are good and some just require us to change along with it.  I hope you have found these tips helpful and enable you to be more effective with Facebook, while protecting you from any harmful affects of change.

By Robert M. Caruso
CEO fondalo, Inc. www.facebook.com/robertcaruso
www.twitter.com/fondalo

The True Genius Behind Pepsi’s Superbowl Social Media Decision

I spend about one to two hours each day reading, researching and tweeting about social media and social media marketing. Since the announcement Pepsi made late last year, that it will not be having ads in the Super Bowl, I am still seeing posts, tweets and articles coming into my inbox via my Google Alerts. This is no small announcement as this will be the first time in 23 years they will not have a Super Bowl presence.

Monday this week, I was continuing my daily routine of research and reading and to my surprise I continue to see posts, articles and buzz surrounding this announcement. I decided to take some additional time to evaluate this significant decision deeper to uncover what lies beyond the obvious.

I started with what we already know… Yes, social media has come into its own and is being recognized by the likes of Pepsi, Starbucks and hundreds of major brands. Yes, this decision moves millions of dollars out of major media and into other more meaningful things. And yes, utilizing social media marketing instead of the black hole of Super Bowl advertising expenses is a far more cost effective endeavor that better engages WITH consumers. But the question remained, what outside of these things was the genius to Pepsi’s decision.

Then it hit me. This decision was masterfully timed. It took into consideration two of the most talked about subjects today, the Super Bowl and Social Media. The resulting buzz created through the major television, radio and print media, not to mention Internet blogs, social media and word of mouth reached well beyond any sum of money Pepsi could have spent this entire year.

The true genus behind Pepsi’s announcement was made from a PR and Marketing perspective and not based on financial considerations as it may have appeared on the surface. The executive team at Pepsi that authorized the major culture shift within their organization should be congratulated, but not more than their PR and Marketing teams that clearly had to push for this decision.

It will be very interesting to see whether Pepsi figures out how leverage this ground-breaking move and continues its commitment to social media, breaking away from its competitors. Will they go back to looking at social media as just something new and interesting, or will they recognized the revolutionary shift they have created and deliver value to fans and followers through continuing to innovate the space?

By Robert M. Caruso
CEO fondalo, Inc.
www.facebook.com/robertcaruso

Fans and Followers Want Deals – Social Media Marketing Should Respond and Measure ROI

The latest survey by MarketingSherpa indicates Facebook fanpage and Twitter followers expect something from the brands they are following. As a matter of fact the study reveals that a solid 64% of average fans that “friend” a brand in order to get the inside track on specials, sales and deals. For the most part, major brands have recognized this trend, however this astounding percentage can’t be overlooked by small and medium sized businesses either.

Though the study identified two user “friending” categories of Max connectors, those with more than 500 connections and Daily users that were described as average users; I am going to focus on the Daily user in this article. The Daily user is your typical customer or prospect and the one that is likely to not have their feeds overflowing with thousands of posts everyday that go unseen.

In an earlier article I wrote this year, I explained that 2010 will see a change in how social media is used and that delivering value will continually trend higher as fans expect more. This latest survey places an extreme exclamation point on my statement and warns brands that though many parts of social media marketing has no cost, i.e fanpage and Twitter account creation, a mind set of paying fans through special deals needs to take hold.

We know the social media Value trend is upon us now, so building and executing a strategy is a next step, however there are several other extremely important elements to consider.

1) How do you intend on deploying your deals to your customers?
2) How are you going to be able to track views of your offers?
3) Do you have the infrastructure to measure offer acceptance rates?
4) Can you easily measure the return on investment of your fan offers?
5) Can your offers automatically be made viral and encourage your fans friends to accept the deal also?

Until yesterday, measuring fanpage traffic and analytics was impossible. However, Facebook announced that they are instituting a new analytics system for fanpages. But only for those pages with 10,000+ fans. Great for major brands, not so helpful for local and medium companies. More importantly, is the fact that there will still be nothing in a fanpage to deploy, measure and track views and acceptance rates of the special deals being offered to your fans and followers.

As you move forward with your social media marketing strategy on Facebook and Twitter, large and small brands alike need to be sure their Value proposition is inline with followers expectations AND create a plan to deal with the other important ROI elements required to make it profitable.

By Robert M. Caruso
CEO fondalo, Inc.
www.facebook.com/robertcaruso

**fondalo - one solution to consider**

The fondalo platform forever changes the ROI landscape for business social media marketing and delivers a platform both within an outside of Facebook. The fondalo website AND integrated facebook application gives business a tool to deploy and track special deals to fans and followers, that automatically posts views and acceptance of your offers to a users feed, suggesting their friends accept your offer as well. At the same time, the fondalo system manages the number of views, offer accepts and can deploy your deals via controlled online coupon, direct web link or even through a special telephone number.

Call fondalo for additional information on how we can help your company strategize and execute your social media marketing campaigns with a quick return on investment. 503-764-1444