Facebook's plan to take over the internet.

In my last entry, I talked about Facebook and how they were phasing out "Become a fan" and changing it to "Like". At the time, no one was really sure how this was going to change the experience of Facebook. That is until later in the week at the F8 conference.

Facebook is rolling out a plan that will essentially put their footprint all over the web. This plan is called "One Graph". What is "One Graph"? In a nutshell, it's connecting Facebook to many other areas of the web and having those websites come back to Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg said "Yelp is mapping out the part of the graph that relates to small businesses. Pandora is mapping out the part of the graph that relates to music. If we can take these separate maps of the graph and pull them all together, then we can create a Web that's smarter, more social, more personalized, and more semantically aware."

Websites will have the opportunity to have like buttons on their websites. If a user clicks "Like" on the website, that information is fed back to Facebook and has potential to drive a lot of traffic from websites back to Facebook.

Many people are concerned about privacy. Privacy will become the responsibility of the user. Public doesn't mean "public on Facebook", public now has potential to mean public on the entire Facebook graph, which could potentially encompass almost everything. Facebook says they are dedicated to the users' privacy, but in the past they have gotten burned by things like "Beacon". A new privacy setting in Facebook was launched today called "instant personalization" that shares data with non-facebook websites and it is automatically set to "Allow." Doesn't sound like Facebook really cares about privacy when you see something like that.

What does all this mean? No one really knows. I don't think that Facebook even knows. Only time will tell.

Facebook: Welcome the "Like" button.

Today, Facebook started rolling out the "Like" button. This button will replace "Become a Fan". I noticed the change was being rolled out when I went to a fan page and saw this...
But what does this mean? Facebook says “When you click “Like” on a Page, you are making a connection to that Page. The Page will be displayed in your profile, and in turn, you will be displayed on the Page as a person who likes that Page. The Page will also be able to post content into your News Feed.” This makes it seem like pages might be slightly more interactive than they were before and that's a good thing.
What do you think about this? Will being a "connection" rather than a "fan" be different?

Engage.

One thing I always preach to clients is that they need to use social media to engage. But what does that mean?

1) Use Twitter. Many people say that they "don't get it", so just jump in. Tweet at least twice a day, respond to people who @ you and thank those that RT you.
2) Blog. Many of my clients get overwhelmed with this one, but a blog is a great central location for people to interact with you.
3) Thank people who comment on your blog. When someone takes the time to comment on your blog, thank them. I personally would email them to thank them, but at the very least comment a thank you. This helps build community and building community leads to building readership.
4) Find other blogs to follow. Pick at least 4 or 5 blogs that are relevant to your mission. If you are an author, follow book bloggers or other authors. If you are a musician, follow music bloggers. Then comment. People who follow those blogs may start following you.
5) Use LinkedIn. Create a profile and begin to find people you are connected to. You would be surprised by who you are connected to through your contacts.
6) Use Facebook. If you create a fan page, pay attention to it. Post new content on it. Respond to comments people leave on your fan page. Engage!
7) Pick your social sites carefully. It's easy to become overwhelmed with the multitude of social sites out there. Pick no more than five sites. This allows you to communicate on a deeper level than if you are trying to keep up with 25 sites.
8) Forget about the hard sell. Nobody cares. If all you're doing is trying to sell something, a book, a CD etc, people will get bored and bail. Build a community and the community will take care of you. It's ok to mention different projects from time to time, but don't make that your focus.

With these tips, you can begin to engage and build a community.

Spring cleaning

Spring has sprung and for many of us that means cleaning out out our closets, desk drawers but what about our "digital closets"?

Every spring, I clean up my computer and delete files and bookmarks, file things away and archive. This year, I decided to take that a step further and do some social media spring cleaning. I want to get more value out of my social media experience. I want to reconnect with people, get rid of the things that aren't adding value to my experience and just generally tidying things up.

I started with Twitter.

1) I used Untweeps to unfollow people who have not posted in 90 days. "Untweeps" lets you determine this length of time. This cleared about 200 people off my list.
2) Then I used "Your Twitter Karma" to unfollow anyone who was not following me back that I was not interested in.
3) Then I went through and made lists. I have lists for people I know in real life, social media types, music types, regional people, bloggers and authors. This helps me keep track of people I follow.  

I cut my list in Twitter in half and tidied things up a bit.

Then I moved to Facebook.
1) I unfriended people that I wasn't getting anything from. This was mostly people I knew from high school who most likely wanted to add me to poke around and see what I had been up to since graduation.
2) I 10 people I knew who could be valuable connections in my professional life.

This cleaned up my newsfeed quite a bit.

In LinkedIn, I reconnected with 20 connections who might have some value to me professionally, either because of what they have to offer or because of what their connections have to offer. While I was in there, I also joined a few groups so things aren't stagnant.

When I was done with all of that, I unsubscribed to any newsletters and blogs I don't read anymore.

Clearing out the cobwebs from my "digital closet" has helped me focus on what matters and now I'm able to spend a little less time on "noise" and get real value from my digital life. Maybe you could do the same?

Twitter turns four.

On March 21st, Twitter celebrated it's fourth birthday. In that time, it's gone from 5,000 tweets a day to 50 million tweets a day. Lately, many people have been wondering if Twitter has reached it's plateau. The number of active users has decreased, but the number of tweets posted has increased. It seems that Twitter is still a relevant platform. Personally, I go through stages where I use it more than other times. Currently, I am in a stage where I am using it throughout the day. Is the future still bright for Twitter or will they end up being like other social media platforms that fall out of favor such as Myspace?

What are your thoughts about the future of Twitter?

Is Twitter still relevant?

Are you using Twitter more/less/at all?