Paris Blog » Editor’s Take

Should Facebook be regulated?

BlogPostman — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:36:01 +0000

Frustration with the constant tweaks to Facebook’s privacy policy is nothing new — but experts say they believe the situation is getting worse because now it’s a challenge to even understand what a Facebook user is agreeing to. When average users get upset about Facebook’s policies, we have limited options. We can show our outrage online, we can send Facebook a strongly worded note or we can opt out of the service. But Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., isn’t an average user, and, as we note in the lead story of today’s SmartBrief on Social Media , he’s begun to call for regulation . Schumer says he wants the network to make it easier for users to understand how their personal information is being used. He’s asked the Federal Trade Commission to look into the issue. Schumer says that if that doesn’t work, he’ll craft legislation to achieve the same end. Does Facebook need to be regulated? Would an FTC rule on disclosing data sharing improve the average Facebook user’s experience? Is legislation the better bet? Image credit, James Steidl , via Shutterstock

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Should Facebook be regulated?

What does a lower bar on privacy mean for marketers?

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 15:38:37 +0000

One of my journalism professors once began a lecture on the unreliability of online sources by showing everyone a famous “New Yorker” cartoon — at that point already nearly 10 years old — of a dog using a computer and saying, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Today, we not only know it’s a dog, but we also know his name and his breed. Soon, we’ll know what kinds of tricks he can do and how many fleas he has. We can bemoan the death of online anonymity. We can rail against the services that constantly threaten to expose data we once believed to be safe. We can look for ways to protect the privacy we’ve got left — or even drop out of the scene entirely. But we can never go back to those early days of the Web when we were all strangers and nothing could be verified. The masquerade is over. Even as some of us (me included) shift nervously in our chairs at the thought of someone sniffing about in our online detritus, others are overjoyed — especially younger users for whom sharing so much information is more natural. The New York Times profiles the rise of several newer services that allow users to share more information than ever before, including Dopplr and Blippy . These sites raise some interesting questions for users, but also for businesses. At first, it might seem like these services make a marketer’s job much easier, but I think that as these kinds of sites catch on, they’re going to require strategies that are profoundly different from the ones that worked on traditional social platforms. On Facebook and its ilk, companies are fighting for users’ attention, but also for their trust, as they try to create a relationship with fans. If a user is already giving everything about themselves away, then disclosing information no longer creates a lasting bond. Marketers are going to have to think of ways to establish relationships that don’t center on this traditional transaction. It may be tempting to say that once you have the data, you don’t need the relationship with the customer — but that’s selling the power of social media short. Instead, marketers will have to craft strategies that don’t center on cementing a relationship with the exchange of information. Should marketers encourage customers to display their purchases online? What does engagement mean in this context? How will marketers need to rethink their strategies to account for these kinds of sites? Image credit, iQoncept , via Shutterstock

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What does a lower bar on privacy mean for marketers?

Is the new Facebook a boon or a threat?

BlogPostman — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 14:28:20 +0000

The Facebook overhaul announced at F8 yesterday is easily the most significant social-media development of 2010 — and it’ll be a tough act to follow for anyone to follow this year. Like all great shifts, it’s impossible to say what these changes will mean. Are we looking at a shiny new dawn of the social Web ? Or is this the biggest invasion of privacy this side of a George Orwell novel? A boon for marketers everywhere? A naked grab for power ? Talking informally with friends yesterday about the changes, I was struck by how divided many people were. Some people were salivating about how the changes would enhance their businesses — and then they’d turn right around and fret about what would happen to all their personal data. I found myself feeling the same way — profoundly torn between the promises and the perils of that much data. The only thing I can be sure of right now is that I’m dying to learn how these changes will unfold each day as I prepare SmartBrief on Social Media . The biggest news of the year may already be out — but the story is just beginning. What about you? Are you more excited or concerned by these announcements? How will you respond to these changes? Personally? Professionally? What will we need to relearn to survive in “a Web where the default is social”? Image credit, Gunnar Pippel , via Shutterstock

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Is the new Facebook a boon or a threat?

Should companies focus on targeting peer-influencers?

BlogPostman — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:05:26 +0000

If you’ve been working social media or word-of-mouth marketing for long, it shouldn’t surprise you that 16% of Web users create 80% of brand impressions . WOM marketers have operated under an 80/20 principle for a long time — now they’ve got the data to back it up . But now that we have this information, what do we do with it? How do we take this information about an influencers’ role in creating brand impressions and turn it into something we can use? I think there are three natural questions that stem from these reports. How do I identify the connectors and mavens who speak to my target audience? By their very nature, influencers want to be found. They tend to be active and visible in their communities. If you’re not sure who you should be talking to, that may be a sign that you need to learn more about your target community. How much of my energy should I put into engaging influencers ? Anyone who has ever tried to win over an influencer knows what a time sink it can be. You can spend hours pitching to one person and come up empty again and again. So, take a diversified approach. Think of your marketing plan the way you would a stock portfolio. You want a mixture of risk and reward levels. Pitching to connectors and mavens is a high-risk, high-reward scenario. Make sure you balance those efforts with campaigns that aren’t all-or-nothing. How do I engage them? This is the hardest part — and getting an influencer’s attention will only get more difficult as more marketers target them. There are plenty of easy ways to rise above the din — but one of the best may be to start early. Don’t aim for the biggest fish — aim for the little fish that’s growing fastest. If you can form a relationship with someone before everyone wants his or her attention, you’ve got a much better chance of making an impact. Will you change your marketing strategy in light of this information? How should marketers use this new data? What companies do an especially fine job of reaching out to influencers? Image credit, iofoto , Shutterstock

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Should companies focus on targeting peer-influencers?

Does Foursquare need to change to be successful?

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:42:21 +0000

We love looking for the Next Big Thing. Social-media enthusiasts of all stripes love scanning the Web for hints of what’s to come — for the next social technology that will take us all by storm. A lot of social pundits are pumped up about the potential of location-based networks such as Foursquare — yet as Caroline McCarthy points out in the lead story from today’s SmartBrief on Social Media , these networks have some pretty significant limitations . I think McCarthy is dead-on in her analysis of the hurdles these networks have to overcome if they want to be the Next Big Thing. But what if they don’t want to be Big? What if they just want to be What’s Next? Not every burger shack needs to be the next McDonald’s to be considered successful. Not every retailer needs to be Wal-Mart. Not every software developer needs to be Microsoft. Yet when it comes to the social Web, there’s a sense that anything short of total ubiquity is a kind of failing. We’ve seen so many giants born in the last 10 years that we’re starting to forget how abnormal that really is in the business world. Foursquare doesn’t have to replace Twitter — or anything else — to be a success. It’s playing a different game, one that caters to a naturally smaller audience. It’s not for every person, or every business. And that’s really OK. If it tried to appeal to everyone by becoming more like Facebook or some other network, there’s a good chance it would ruin the utility it already has. Sometimes, having a powerful draw for a specific audience can be the most powerful thing a brand can have. It’s better for the network to develop its user base organically, focusing on better serving the kinds of people it does attract. Niche communities can be prosperous without being everywhere; they can be What’s Next without being Big. What do you think? Do location-based networks need to become more mainstream to be successful? Do social networks need to be large to be important? Are location-based networks overrated? Image credit, Eric Isselée , via Shutterstock

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Does Foursquare need to change to be successful?

“Open database of places”: Could it be true?

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 14:57:45 +0000

Since social media landed on the radar of business marketers, one of the toughest challenges has been how to keep up with the latest tools and platforms. It wasn’t long ago that I was charged with building my former company’s MySpace strategy. Man, that skin was something else. Today, marketers are faced with more opportunities than ever — but directing resources toward all of them is near impossible. So what do we do? Some of us bet on the front-runners; some us gamble on the new kids on the block; and some of us build our own networks. Nearly all of us, though, are hoping for a universe where data is shared across platforms, allowing business to engage efficiently and effectively. The lead story in today’s SmartBrief on Social Media examines the possibility of such a system in the white-hot location-based services sector. Erick Schonfeld’s back and forth with Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley suggests that a shared database of places may not be impossible. Crowley calls a “Facebook Connect for places” an “amazing” opportunity that will be “fixed by next year.” Next year? That would be impressive. If such an open database were to come to fruition, it seems plausible that it could start in the location-based area. These are, after all, physical locations, not virtual spaces. What might be built could serve as a shared atlas, complete with rich data on users, businesses, transactions, reviews. The possibilities are exciting for developers, end-users and, of course, businesses. While we seem to be hearing more great case studies of companies leveraging location-based social services (which, incidentally, I’ll be covering in my session with Foursquare’s Tristan Walker at the upcoming Social Media Success Summit ), the truth is that the vast majority of businesses are still struggling to leverage these services — partially because the usage and data is so splintered. If Crowley’s prophecy proves correct, and an “open database of places” were to become a reality, would you (as a marketer) be more likely to engage with location-based social services? Image credit, Maica , via iStock

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“Open database of places”: Could it be true?

Are you happy with Twitter’s new direction?

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:09:33 +0000

There’s no doubt about it: Twitter is growing up. After a year of explosive growth paired with a total lack of strategy, the news coming out of Chirp seems to suggest that the micro-blogging platform wants to step its game. As we note in the lead story of SmartBrief on Social Media , the company has sketched out its future in more concrete terms than ever before. Metadata for tweets, @anywhere functionality and better location-aware features made headlines this week — but those announcements all felt anti-climatic to me. These are things Twitter should have been doing all along — in most cases, they’re things other social networks already do. The announcement that it was going to provide more robust access to user data, however, got my attention. Twitter’s simplicity makes it a powerful tool for research. It could tell us so much about ourselves and about how we interact with each other. The Library of Congress is acquiring Twitter’s archives for exactly that reason. Normally, social-media research makes me nervous, but I think that because Twitter is a broadcast tool, it makes a better candidate for academic work than most networks. Twitter is meant to be public, meant to be shared in a way that other networks just aren’t. It’s coming as close to a public record of what the world is talking about as we’re ever likely to see — and I think Twitter is smart to capitalize on that. But what do you think? Are you happy with the announcements coming out of Chirp? What initiative are you most excited about? Are you worried about Twitter being turned into a research engine? What other directions would you like to see the network explore? Image credit, M. Dykstra , via Shutter Stock

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Are you happy with Twitter’s new direction?

What will growing diversity mean for social media?

BlogPostman — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:17:58 +0000

Keeping up with changing technology is a big part of being a social-media enthusiast — but we have to be careful not to let the allure of new gadgets distract us from the ways in which people are changing. The Internet will become larger and more diverse over the next four years — and that may be good news for social marketers , as we note in the lead story of today’s SmartBrief on Social Media . For some businesses, these demographic shifts may make more of an impact than mobile networks, augmented reality and geo-tagging put together. Yet as I’ve noted in the past, tackling diversity can be a minefield for business. Companies will have to come up with more-evolved social strategies if they’re going to stay on top of the ways in which the Web is changing. Advertisers have gone through shifts like this — realizing the growing buying power of children, for example — but they’ve never had to make the transition in a social environment, where engagement can spread like wildfire and every misstep is magnified. How will increasing Internet use among minorities change social media? How should marketers respond to this trend? What companies are already doing this well? Image credit, maxstockphoto , via Shutterstock

What does the Kyrgyz revolution say about social-media engagement?

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 13:59:18 +0000

Does a Twitter topic need to trend to have an impact? Is a topic less important if it has a deep resonance for a smaller group of people — instead of the other way around? If those seem like silly questions to you, think about the way the role of social media in the Kyrgyz revolution is being portrayed by many media outlets. In the lead story of today’s SmartBrief on Social Media , Evgeny Morozov compares the Kyrgyz revolution with the Iranian revolts of last summer. He argues that because Kyrgyzstan is less important on the world stage, Western media is less interested in the drama unfolding there. “In short: why is there no Twitter revolution in Kyrgyzstan? Because there is no one to hype it up.” He also notes that the platform is being used differently than it was in Iran — less a tool of organization and more a broadcasting mechanism. Yet it would be a mistake to think that Twitter isn’t an important of this story just because it doesn’t neatly parallel the events in Iran, notes Sarah Kendzior. “The tweets, blog posts, and news articles written by people in Kyrgyzstan — often with great emotion and care — are dismissed because they were written for people in Kyrgyzstan. But for whom, may I ask, are people in Kyrgyzstan supposed to be writing?” In other words, it doesn’t matter whether the whole world is watching The conversation is important to its intended target: the Kyrgyz people. Now think about your own social-media efforts. Are you obsessed with getting on Twitter’s trending topics? Making it onto the front page of Digg? Becoming a YouTube sensation? Those are all perfectly worthy goals. But they’re not the only goals. If you’re reaching the people you need to reach — and more importantly, if you’re really affecting them, then its not as important if someone outside your target demographic hears about you or not. When you start your own revolution, ask yourself, who are you doing this for? Is it just for the attention of strangers? Or are you trying to make a difference in your community? The answer to that question may dictate your entire strategy — and determine whether you ultimately regard your campaign as successful. Does a social-media campaign always need mass awareness to be successful? What are some examples of campaigns that triumphed by creating deep engagement with a small population? Should campaigns decide at the outset of a campaign if they’re aiming for mass exposure or fan engagement? Image credit, Jesus Cervantes , via Shutterstock

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What does the Kyrgyz revolution say about social-media engagement?

What will it take to make Twitter great?

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 14:46:50 +0000

It’s amazing how quickly our ideas of convenience change. Think about the early days of the Internet: Remember dial-up modem noises and sluggish connections? Remember those clunky, almost paleolithic Web pages? Remember how maddeningly useless early search engines were? I don’t know about you, but I was totally blown away by it all. Sure, it could tough to navigate, but using the Web was so much more convenient than heading to the mall, the library or the post office to run errands that I didn’t even notice all the technology’s many shortcomings. Would I go back to that world now? Not a chance. Now think about Twitter. Sure, it’s all kinds of convenient and useful, but it’s filled with little imperfections we’ve trained ourselves not to notice. In the lead story of today’s SmartBrief on Social Media , Fred Wilson does an admirable job of reminding us of all the little hoops we jump through just to make the service work the way it should. Wilson is calling for a killer app to take the network to the next level. But I think first we need to get a network that recognizes what level its users are actually on. We don’t need a killer app. We need a killer network. Friendster gave way to MySpace, which passed the torch to Facebook. Each of these services improved upon the stability, popularity and feature set of its predecessor. So how is that Twitter has stood unchallenged on the field of micro-blogging for more than three years? The platform is unreliable, ungainly and seems patently uninterested in making life easier for its users. Why is it still dominant? How much longer can that last? The obvious answer is say that Twitter’s user base is too large. But then, no one thought a college-only network would someday unseat MySpace. My guess is that whatever unseats Twitter will come from a similar niche market. Wherever it comes from, it will build on the mistakes and the omissions Twitter has made. Users shouldn’t have to rely on killer apps to get the most out of a platform; the platform needs to evolve to meet the users’ needs. If Twitter hasn’t addressed its own shortcomings by the time competition does pop up, it may never get the chance. What do you think? Is Twitter lacking a killer app? Does the network need a total overhaul? Would users be better served by a competing network? Image credit, kovacevic via Shutterstock

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What will it take to make Twitter great?