Anna’s Social Media Picks of the week
Do you have time to search the web everyday to find the newest and coolest social media tools? If the answer is no, then you have come to the right place. (& if the answer is yes, leave a comment with your favorites). I have searched the World Wide Web for social media information all week, and stumbled upon a few favorites along the way.
Here are my picks of the week:
Facebook Pages & Google Real-Time Results:
This week, Google has started including Facebook Pages in their real time search results. Google announced this via status update on Wednesday, stating that “Public status updates from Facebook Pages now in real-time search: http://bit.ly/6YpCdy More about Facebook Pages: http://bit.ly/aYnAxf 04:10 PM Feb 24, 2010.” As of now, Facebook’s public user updates are not displayed on Google, but Twitter and MySpace updates are.
Rickroll Removed—and Brought Back:
This week, the original Rickroll video was removed…and then brought back. Earlier this week, the original “rickroll” video was removed from YouTube due to a copyright violation. The removal of the ever so popular (with over 30 million views) video of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” caused a bit of a stir over the internet. But not to worry…it’s back! It was mistakenly flagged by someone and is back of for your viewing pleasure…or displeasure
Facebook Patents the News Feed:
Facebook has patented the news feed! The patent, which was awarded to Facebook on Tuesday, gives Facebook executives the rights to “dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network.” This could have serious implications for other social networks. Read more about the patent and what it could mean in this ReadWriteWeb article.
What Not to Do with a Twitter Account:
If you’re going to invite people to follow your company on Twitter, you might want to make sure you give them the right Twitter handle. As Mashable reported this week, Denny’s Restaurant Chain made this mistake on their eat-in menus by inviting customers to “Join the Conversation” and follow @dennys on Twitter. The problem? @Dennys is the Twitter handle of a Taiwanese Twitterer named Dennys Hsieh, not Denny’s official restaurant account. Oops!
Who’s Using Social Media?
Well the largest 100 of Fortune 500 companies are. As Mashable reported, a new study completed by PR firm Burson-Marsteller, found that 79% of Fortune 100 companies use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or corporate blogs. 2/3rds have a Twitter account, over 50% have a Facebook fan page, 50% have a YouTube channel, and 33% have a corporate blog. The article also stated that There are a bunch of other interesting stats in the study — including proof that consumers actually do like to engage with companies via social media, making all those channels worthwhile.
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Are you a Fan of “Like” on Facebook? Hope so.
by FeedbackUPDATE:
Facebook has gone live with the changes:
Another interesting addition is the way they visually break out how many of your friends (assuming you’re logged in) “like” the Page as opposed to the complete total. For example, five of my friends like the band The Whigs:
This is consistent with the way Facebook uses peer endorsement in advertising options, showing who else is attending, or “likes” an event or Page for an ad that is viewed.
UPDATE #2:
Looks like the new changes are turning on and off at random for some users as they roll them out. Expect them live for everyone shortly.
ORIGINAL POST:
Just for the record, it is NOT a big deal for the average person that Facebook will be shelving the term Fan as a signifier of a person’s relationship to a business, institution, product, services, etc. through Pages on Facebook.
Is it a big deal for the Pages themselves and the entities behind them? Let’s just say it’s not a negative thing.
For those with fervent actual fans, it may feel like a bit of a step down in loyalty, but frankly those people will show you allegiance in other more tangible ways such as engagement and financial commitment. It may be that you take the issue into your own hands by creating exclusive clubs within (through Groups) or outside to help separate the super-fans.
But for most administrators of a Facebook Page the change will be a welcome one. It reduces the level of affinity needed to want more information from, or express endorsement of. They rightly have seen how easily and voluminously users have taken to “Like” on the most minute of posts, so to extend that on a more macro level makes sense. And Pages will benefit – watch for a surge in “Likers Formally Known As Fans” (or, “Subscribers” as you’ll notice Facebook sometimes uses in certain contexts) once it goes into action and the process becomes the norm.
We were joking with “Fans” on our Facebook Page about the levels of commitment Facebook might employ (“hearts” or “admit you’re non-commitally fond of”) and truly we’re just talking about semantics here. When you add in the upcoming changes that could impact Pages due to Facebook’s location plans, you’ll further appreciate a low barrier of psychological entry for “Likes” over “Fandom” when someone is just casually passing by your location (I won’t be a fan of something I don’t know much about, but I can “Like” what you’re about and want to check you out more later).
-Dean (@dbrowell)