Think back to your high school cafeteria. When you first walked in, the dozens (or hundreds or thousands, depending) of voices suddenly hit you like a wave. That’s Twitter.

The teachers and nerds may be discussing the latest news at their tables – stuff you need to know. The cheerleaders and jocks are probably gossiping at their tables – stuff you don’t need to know, but what you probably care about (even if secretly). And the emo kids are off at their own table, talking about some weird things you wouldn’t really care about. Then you have your own table with the people you communicate with the most. Now, from time to time you probably go over to where the drama kids sit because of that cute guy and sometimes you hang with the cheerleaders because your friend Becky is trying out for the squad this year. You join in the overall conversation.

Twitter = high school cafeteria. You only have a limited amount of time (140-characters exactly) to converse and get your point across.

So, you’re done with lunch and now you have to go to your locker. This is Facebook. Your locker is connected to those directly next to and above/below it. Those are your friends. On the outside you have a dry erase board where you put messages, like “2Good2B4Gotten” and your friends write messages to you like “I Wuz Here.” That’s your status update and wall. Inside your locker, you have your books, class notes, lip gloss and a pin-up of Justin Timberlake. Those are your apps and personal information. (You may even have a moldy sandwich … that’s like Farmville.)

You following me? Twitter is the cafeteria – everyone is in there, communicating, eating, sharing. While everyone is technically on Facebook, your own Facebook world is limited. Now, you could certainly open up your locker to everyone – but chances are you would only give out your locker location to certain people. Facebook is about building a community and having a conversation within that community. Twitter is a global conversation, open to all. (If you’re not down with the high school analogy, think of Twitter as a buffet in Vegas.)

Do you dig, or am I completely off the mark on this one? What are the differences between Twitter and Facebook in your opinion?

BLOGS
Blogging before the event can be a great way to get attendees excited and also spread information important to the event. If you already have a blog, add a new category committed specifically to the upcoming event so your users can easily follow. If you don’t have a blog, or the event is of a substantial size, build a stand-alone blog strictly dedicated to the event. We recently did this for FENCETECH (one of the fastest growing tradeshows in America; you can view the blog at fencetechblog.com) We used it to promote the event and its sponsors, as well as keep attendees informed of things to do around the destination city, information about seminars and exhibits, and a whole lot more. We also did some live blogging from the show floor and some of the major events occurring during the show.

EMAILS
Email is another great way to keep in contact with your attendees. We usually keep the emails to a minimum farther out from the show and increase them as the big day gets closer. Of course, the main purpose of the emails is to increase attendance, so that is a focus of each email. However, we’ve found great responses and more interest in the emails we send when they include more information that is useful or interesting to the recipients, such as information on key networking events or fun things to do around the city the event is taking place. It should all be focused around the event, of course. Emails are also a great way to promote all of your other social media.

FACEBOOK
Creating an event on Facebook is relatively easy and it’s a great start! Promoting that event through Facebook ads and interactions can help grow a lot of interest. Facebook allows you to get extremely precise when narrowing in on your target market which can limit wasted advertising dollars and make paid advertisements extremely cost effective. Leading up to the event, it’s good to remind your fans and keep promoting the event in some of your interactions with them.  During and after the event, Facebook is a great way to keep your fans abreast of what’s going on as well as allowing them to have a forum where they can share pictures and thoughts or questions about what they’re experiencing.

TWITTER
There is no better way for massive, instant communication than Twitter. Before the show, grow your Twitter audience (followers) with informative, relevant tweets or promotional tweets to get them excited for the event. Once the event starts you can also use it to communicate last minute changes in schedules, special events or offers, or keep the people who couldn’t attend in the loop about what’s going on. Since Twitter is such a great tool for back-and-forth communication as well, you can really get a pulse of what everyone at the event is thinking and feeling and respond to any questions or concerns as well as engage everyone in attendance in a new way.

YOUTUBE
Not every event is appropriate to be broadcast on YouTube as many in the business world contain sensitive information, but if the content being discussed can be shared publicly, YouTube is perfect! Since videos usually only go up during the event or after, it is mostly a value added service to attendees but can also be a great way to generate interest in your next event from other YouTube users. A great way to do this is through attendee testimonials.

There are many conventions and trade shows that are going the “social media” route – along with FENCETECH/DECKTECH’10, we’ve also noticed conferences such as the Big (D)esign Conference, the HOW Design Conference, and Food Fete using sites such as Facebook and Twitter as alternative ways to connect with attendees. Building a solid foundation with high expectations for the usage of social media now will ensure that your next big event will be the talk of the town.

Todd Jackson, product manager for Google Buzz, called it “an entire new world within Gmail.”

On the other side of the aisle, Facebook is allegedly working on an email client that it is calling Titan. This news has come amidst yet another “Facebook facelift,” with the social networking site releasing more changes to the home page, specifically within the toolbar, with Messages, Notifications and Friend Requests now drop-down menus on the left-hand side of the screen.

There is a strong Internet buzz that Titan will kill off Gmail, especially since it is rumored that Titan will be able to be configured with any email client. With over 400 million users, it does seem that Facebook can’t really go wrong with this move. You can already search the web with Facebook. You’re connected to anyone who you want to be connected with. You can update your Twitter account through your Facebook status update with a special app. So if you incorporate email, would you have any other reason to leave Facebook.com?

I’m actually pretty excited about the changes within Gmail; however, I am a little skeptical about any true success. People are looking for the “next Facebook,” not another Facebook. We’re looking for something different that fits our needs in a better way. For a long time, we thought MySpace fit the bill just fine until Facebook one-upped them. If Google/Gmail had something truly innovative, then this would be an entirely different blog post. But they’re not one-upping anyone here – they’re just copying Facebook and hoping that the Google brand will encourage people to switch over.

What Google does have going for it is that the company has a strong track record of responding to consumer needs and desires. With that history alone we can expect several versions of Google Buzz to update our Gmail accounts over the coming months. And there are unique features that have been announced, and I’m sure there will be many more to come. For example, Buzz will be location-enabled on your phone, so it will know where you’re at without even being told. Ignore the creepy factor, and that’s pretty neat. But I’m not entirely convinced that those features will be enough to persuade people over to the Google-verse.

Who knows? Maybe two years from now I will be eating my words and Facebook will be as irrelevant as MySpace is, with Buzz leading the way. I do think Google is on to something with Google Wave, so perhaps they’ll end up mashing together Wave + Buzz + Gmail to create something that will end up eating the Internet.

The first wave is scheduled to start today; hopefully this won’t be on such a limited-basis release as Wave was. I also can’t find a date on when Facebook’s Titan will be released, though I’m thinking that will be sooner rather than later in an attempt to stay ahead of Buzz.

The best news about all of this? With some of the best online sites duking it out, we all win.

Dear Facebook,

Facebook, Facebook, Facebook. What happened to you? What’s happened to us? When I first started seeing you, I was still in college. You promised me exclusivity, and in return I shared important information and intriguing facts about me that hardly anyone knew at the time, including the fact that I truly believe “The Great Gatsby” and “Confessions of a Shopaholic” are two of the greatest books of all time.

After some time of that, you began sneaking around. My friends told me that you were flirting with the idea of letting high school students join us. What?!? These were high school students. I thought you and I were beyond that. But you let high school students on, and I eventually became used to that fact. I still loved you, no matter how you treated me.

Once I got used to that (and almost forgot about it, actually), you threw another curveball my way. I was told that you were going to see anyone over the age of 13. Anyone. What happened to the exclusivity? I felt like you were changing, yet I had stayed the same. I tried to break up with you then, but you lured me back. We had so many mutual friends, and you always managed to come up in conversations. How could I not stay away from you?

Then you began messing with your appearance. I originally loved your simplicity – that was the best part about you. But then you introduced applications and became cluttered. I began to get invitations to events that I would never, ever want to attend. And you began sharing my information. I had to ensure – constantly – that my security settings were always set on private rather than the default public options. I began to get tired of you.

And now, here we are. At the beginning of the year, you basically told me that you didn’t care about my feelings or security. You’re completely different from when I first met you – which is okay, because change is a part of life. But I can’t help but think that your defiance is just a knee-jerk reaction to the other cutie in the room, Twitter. And you’re going about it all wrong, Facebook. You were my first love. But of course I’m going to see Twitter. Why shouldn’t I? You so clearly don’t care about me.

So I’ve made the harsh decision of keeping some of my private information from you. I first went up to my “Settings” tab, located at the top right hand side of my screen:

I then hit the “Privacy” section, which is the second to the last selection on the Settings page:

From there, I first clicked on “Profile Information”:

And there I was able to select who could see what about me. I changed the default settings from “Everyone” to “Only Friends.”

Sadly, I couldn’t stop there. I had to go back and go to “Contact Information” and repeat the same exercise, changing it so that not “Everyone” can see how to contact me. (I actually usually recommend that people keep SOME information public, but considering how accessible I am online, I keep my Facebook fairly private.)

Then, I had to go back AGAIN and click “Applications and Websites.” There, I had to select what my friends could share about me – because even if I choose not to have my information shared with everyone, that doesn’t mean that my friends feel the same way:

Facebook, I didn’t want to have to do this, but it’s done. And I’m very happy with Twitter and LinkedIn. But I do miss the way things were, and I dream about the way things could be once again if you take some time to go back to your roots. But until things change, I feel like it’s important for people to be aware of your thoughts on our privacy, how they have changed over the years, and what they can do to protect their privacy and security if they so desire.

Because now? You’ve set yourself up to become another MySpace. All it’s going to take is another college student with too much free time and a predilection for privacy, and Facebook could easily be a thing of the past.

Much love,

Carly

Was my letter too harsh? Completely off the mark? Do you agree with Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg when he says that people don’t care about privacy anymore? And how do you protect your privacy online? Let me know in the comments!

]]> http://www.oneillcommunications.com/2010/01/openlettertofacebook/feed/ 0 http://www.oneillcommunications.com/2010/01/best-new-features-of-linkedin/ http://www.oneillcommunications.com/2010/01/best-new-features-of-linkedin/#comments Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:35:35 +0000 Brandon http://oneillcommunications.com/?p=1770 LinkedIn, the popular social network for businesses, has gone through some big changes recently. It’s still one of the only social networks to go against Facebook and hold it’s own. While many of LinkedIn’s recent improvements bare strikingly similar properties to features on Facebook, some of them do not and are quite innovative. We’re going to look at seven of my favorite recent new features in this article. All of these were implemented within the last quarter. Pretty impressive!

1. Integration with Microsoft Outlook

With the release of Microsoft Office 2010 Outlook will have LinkedIn integrated into it. Users will be able to keep up with their Connections’ Network Updates, email their Connections, and manage their inbox all from within Microsoft Outlook. Users will also be given a quick link to add or invite people to their LinkedIn network. This way, when your new prospect emails you, you can quickly add them to your LinkedIn account with a simple click. I know not everyone will use LinkedIn in Outlook, but it will certainly bring in a lot of new users who just don’t remember to visit the website or never got the hang of it. Now that it’s integrated into something we all do, it’ll be easier for it to become a habit for a lot of us.

2. Follow In Groups

If you’re like me you want to keep your Connections as sincere as possible and only add those people who you actually know or have worked with. But sometimes you find some great thinker or similar spirits in some of the groups you participate in. While it wouldn’t really make sense to invite them into your network you still want to be able to follow them easily. Enter the Follow In Group feature that allows you to follow the activities of other users within the groups you both belong to. Sounds like a perfect compromise.

3. Faceted Search

LinkedIn greatly updated their search feature by adding 8 facets to each search you perform. Now your results can be narrowed down by Current Company, Past Company, Location, Relationship, Industry, School, Groups and Profile Language. If something still can’t be found with all of that, then it’s probably not there anyway.

4. New Navigation System

This one was sorely needed. The team at LinkedIn move most of the navigation to a horizontal, drop down menu across the top. While drop down menus aren’t always the best solution, this one is very reliable and nicely organized. The best part is that freed up a lot of real estate lower on the page which then allowed the important information on the page to move up as well and make it easier to find. Great solution.

5. Syncing with Twitter

Everyone who’s anyone started syncing with Twitter last year and LinkedIn was no different. However, they orchestrated the syncing in a pretty smart way. I don’t know about you but I don’t feel confident that 100% of my tweets belong on a forum as professional as the profile of my business identity, but a lot of them are. To solve this, they created a super simple way to filter what’s posted from Twitter and what’s not. Once you’ve got the account connected you can chose to turn on a filter that only posts from Twitter to LinkedIn if the tweet contains “#in”. Easy to remember and effective.

6. Developer Network

Now this is very similar to Facebook opening up it’s platform for developers, but I still think it’s a great think for LinkedIn and anyone who uses it. We saw how quickly we started seeing nearly all website allowing users to connect to their site through Facebook and reporting back their activity. Hopefully something similar will be done with LinkedIn as well as some surprising, new ways of using it, too. This one is still pretty new so it’s something to watch in the future.

7. The New iPhone App

The biggest news from LinkedIn for me was the complete redesign of their iPhone app. Their previous one was fine but there wasn’t much to it and not much you could do. In the new one you can search, mark profiles as favorites, change your Network Update and view others’, send and receive messages. You’ve also got a fully functional address book and allows you to transfer contact information between two people when they bump their phones. Pretty sweet. Download it for your phone here.

While we’re all used to search engine Google consistently changing its masthead, this is the first time that Twitter has done such an overhaul. Response has been interesting and, in my opinion, overwhelming. As trending topics on Twitter tend to be as fleeting as the wind, it’s quite the feat to maintain consistency throughout an entire day.

While World AIDS Day is well known, this campaign shows how great Twitter is when an organization or business is relying on a word-of-mouth campaign. That retweet button is a powerful tool – in one simple click, your message suddenly gets broadcast to hundreds, thousands, millions. When you have a message but are stuck with a limited budget (or are looking for a unique way to get out that message), it can pay to think outside of traditional marketing. After all, a tweet is only 140 characters. If you put your message out there and it doesn’t get picked up, it’s not hurting anything. You go about your day and try something else.

But if it does get picked up, you’ve hit marketing gold (or red, out of respect for World AIDS Day.)

• Web site. The newly redesigned Web site launched in July, and led to a 64 percent increase in hits in August. We utilized the Web site in providing downloadable PDFs and more information on the conference and seminars, as well as a way to register online.
• Blog. There is an official conference blog on the Web site where we’ve been posting some conference information. Also, an AFPPA member is blogging her thoughts as well while she’s attending.
• Facebook. I recently launched the AFPPA Facebook page. While this is a page for membership and not specifically for the conference, I’ve definitely been keeping it updated with conference information. The page literally just launched last week, but we already have a small following that has been steadily growing since the conference began yesterday.
• Twitter. This is my absolute favorite! We set up @AFPPA on Twitter, and have been tweeting updates along with people at the conference. Like with Facebook, the Twitter feed has a small but growing following – and they have been very interactive and entertaining! One follower in particular has been very enthusiastic in conversing with @AFPPA, and also is graciously posting pictures he is taking at the conference.

The great thing about all of these tactics is that they will translate very well beyond the conference – Twitter and the blog will be a feed of important association and medical news while Facebook will be a great tool to quickly communicate with members.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am obsessed with both Facebook and Twitter, and I truly  believe that they are great ways to make your conference/convention an interactive and engaging experience for all of your attendees.

Have you recently attended a conference that utilized social networking in a positive, effective way? What were the challenges?

WAIT! Don’t get me wrong. I’m obsessed with Facebook and Twitter. I’ve recently discovered Tumblr, and I’m a WordPress fanatic. I post regularly to various forums and blogs that appeal to my interests. I love the Internet and being able to connect with people in a variety of ways.

But sometimes all of the above is a bigger pain than an asset.

This is mostly because, due to rapid growth, both Facebook and Twitter have a tendency to run slowly. Also (again most likely due to growth), both sites are prime targets for hackers. Sometimes I just want to see what my friends are up to without having to wait thirty minutes or being hit on by someone in the adult entertainment industry.

Here are my five suggestions on how social networking sites can make their services simpler. Keep in mind this is based purely on my personal opinion.

• Keep it simple. Facebook and Twitter keep testing new interfaces in an effort to keep up with their growing memberships. This doesn’t really bother me either way, but just to stop everyone else from complaining – uh, guys? Just leave well enough alone.
• Have customer service! Obviously this is a big deal for me. So far, Twitter seems to be somewhat decent in this department, but when my Facebook account was hacked earlier this year, I was not impressed by the slow, impersonal service provided. Hello, Facebook? You’re a social site. Try showing some personality and caring for those who made you successful! (WordPress has AWESOME customer service, FYI.)
• Make it personal. For many of these sites, the personal profile is the main part for subscribers. Allow more options to be added so that personal profiles can become as, well, personal as users desire.
• Make it searchable. No site I’ve been to offers a good search function. Maybe Google needs to take over. For many of the searches on these sites, you have to have the exact term, or you won’t get what you were looking for.
• If you want to grow, and you expect growth, then plan for growth. Twitter, I’m looking at you. I love the Fail Whale, but don’t always love seeing him.

Now, most of these sites are free so I shouldn’t be complaining. And as I mentioned earlier, I’m not really complaining – I use these sites constantly. But these are my suggestions on how to turn a positive experience into the simply sublime.

What are your likes and dislikes about social networking sites? How would you improve?

1. Ashton Kutcher. We totally helped him beat CNN in the race to one million fans.
2. Google. O’Neill Communications uses a variety of Google services, including the Calendar and Analytics functions. We follow them on Twitter to learn of their NEWEST innovations, which not only helps us to be a great asset to our clients, but … we just like knowing things before anyone else.
3. macTweeter. O’Neill Communications also uses Apple products – we follow them on Twitter to make sure we’re up-to-date on technology.
4. Any news agency. ABC, CNN, FOX … we check news outlets constantly so that we always keep our clients up-to-speed on what’s going on in the world and in their particular market.
5. Martha Stewart. (Because O’Neill staff member Carly loves her.)

Let us know – are YOU in on the Twitter phenomenon? Who do you follow? Or are you an anti-Tweeter?

One of the best ways to use Twitter is to see what other people are saying about you and your business. For example, let’s say you own a bakery. (Mmm, yummy!) You can sign up for a Twitter account and use its search function to see what people are saying (or “tweeting”) about your company. Do people just love your cupcakes? Or do they find your chocolate chip cookies not chocolate-y enough? Twitter can help you get a handle on the general impression of your brand.

Once you have a good handle on WHAT people are saying, it’s time to start tweeting yourself. The important thing to remember is to have fun with it! This is designed to be a conversation between your brand and everyone else. For example, the popular grocery store Whole Foods tweets from their headquarters in Texas, informing their followers about upcoming sales, information on organic food and drink, and answering questions about specific stores.

Companies are still trying to get a handle on Twitter, and as it has grown in popularity rather rapidly there is still a question as to whether or not its here to stay or is just another passing fad. However, when looking for ways to incorporate social networking and more personal communication into a developed marketing plan and brand strategy, Twitter is a Web site that should not be ignored.

Some links that help explain Twitter:

1. 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business
2. Twitter.com’s aid to small businesses
3. Twitter’s Corporate Message (a really great column from Forbes!)

Please note that O’Neill Communications is not responsible for content on any outside site.

What are you waiting for? Go forth and tweet!