Sword and the Script

by Frank Strong

Top executives that engage in social media can make a remarkable difference. While I haven’t seen any data, I have a sense there’s a lot of busy executives who in the back of their minds know they should be active on social media but haven’t yet taken the time to learn about it.

There’s a stumbling block too – it’s sociological or perhaps psychological – and it centers on the idea they’d have to ask for help, which means admitting there’s something they don’t know.

As Steve Farnsworth posted today, “Smart people aren’t afraid to ask dumb questions.” Read More…

by Frank Strong

There’s an old saying that people don’t leave a job, they leave a boss.

A LinkedIn infographic, I first spotted on Entrepreneur.com, seems to say the opposite. “Relationship with managers” is ranked as the one of the “least important factors that will get professionals to accept a new job.” The data is almost completely at odds with my own personal views, though it may also be the difference between accepting a new role — and staying in an existing job, which while related, would change the context of a survey question.

 The infographic cites three of the least important factors as:

1. Job title
2. Office location
3. Relationship with managers Read More…

by Frank Strong

With so many tools available for content marketing and social media, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, so when the Social Times ran this infographic on their site, it caught my attention as useful for a weekend share.  PSA:  the Social Times has a fantastic email newsletter that comes out every morning and summarizes the major social media stories of the day.

Typically, I take a bite-sized approach and test out a few tools at a time.  Of the 25 tools on this list, there are four I’ve had some experience with and  here are three that I’d put my name on: Read More…

by Frank Strong

The mainstream media just can’t shake the compulsion to call Google+ a “ghost town.” It’s the type of refrain that if we say it enough times, we might start to believe it. This wouldn’t be a big deal, except for the fact the media is supposed to serve readers and playing out this story-line falls short of that goal…and they are completely missing the point of that little +.

New York Times tech reporter Claire Cain Miller was the latest to apply the ghost town label in a story in a less than loving piece published on Valentine’s Day: The Plus in Google Plus? It’s Mostly for Google. Her lede, which also ran on the front page of the print version, read: “Google Plus, the company’s social network, is like a ghost town.”

The story is more about search and less about social as the media — and I’m not just picking on Ms. Miller here — erroneously, perhaps ignorantly, perpetuates this notion that these two dynamics should be evaluated separately.

As of this writing, the available public information on  Ms. Miller’s Google+ profile indicates she has been circled by 23 people, has yet to post a profile photo or make a single update to the social network. PR types might remember her well-shared 2009 story on PR, Spinning the Web: P.R. in Silicon Valley [sic] which included delightfully salacious phrases such as “‘whisper in the ears’ of Silicon Valley’s Who’s Who.” Read More…

by Frank Strong

If there’s ever been a cliché for a love/hate relationship, for me, Facebook would fit the bill.  Some have compared it to a 10-year-old that needs a “timeout.“ Still, what the company has done is impressive and probably beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.

This infographic, recently published on Marketing Land, spells out why. Here are a few of the statistics that drew my interest:

• 10 percent of Facebook profiles are fake 
  
• 45 million Facebook accounts are duplicates
• 23 million accounts on Facebook are mis-categorized — i.e. personal profiles that should be brand pages
• 14 million accounts spread spam 
• 30 million Facebook profiles belong to people who have departed this world Read More…

by Frank Strong
Since I’ve recently ranted against Facebook’s push for advertising, I thought I’d turn it around and take a fair look at effective advertising strategies. I downloaded white paper pitched by Marin Software titled The Definitive Facebook Advertising Playbook and found it to contain pragmatic advice for Facebook advertisers.

The paper outlines what the software vendor sees as four key advertising trends:

1. Facebook’s news stream functions like native advertising
2. User are increasingly accessing Facebook on mobile devices
3. Social commerce – engaged Facebook fans are more likely to purchase
4. Rotating the creative aspects of an ad avoids user fatigue Read More…

by Frank Strong

The Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth is out with their latest social media report.  Though I’ve followed this series regularly, I haven’t read the full report yet, but spent some time perusing the highlights as presented in this infographic. I’m struck by the inverse relationship between some fans and followers on some social networks and the influence on purchasing.

For example, 62% of millennials follow brands on Facebook, but only 38% say they’ve made a purchase after liking a post.  Contrast that with just 11% of millennials on Pinterest, but 47% say they have made a purchase.  Is Pinterest comprised of early adopters more likely to make a purchase?  Does the visual nature of what some have called a “visual search engine” have a greater influence on purchase decisions?  Are people becoming immune to ads on Facebook? Read More…

by Frank Strong

Jim Tobin of Ignite Social Media recently made headlines with this post about Facebook: Facebook Brand Pages Suffer 44% Decline in Reach Since December 1.

With offices near Raleigh, NC and Detroit, MI, Jim’s company manages social media marketing for a range of large brands.  This provides the firm with unique insights into the results large corporations are finding in the social space.  His commentary certainly has credibility:

Ignite analysts reviewed 689 posts across 21 brand pages (all of significant size, across a variety of industries) and found that, in the week since December 1, organic reach and organic reach percentage have each declined by 44% on average, with some pages seeing declines as high as 88%. Only one page in the analysis had improved reach, which came in at 5.6%.

I’d jokingly point out that Jim may be partly to blame for coining the idea that Social Media is a Cocktail Party, as it’s the title of his first book co-authored with Lisa Braziel.  Last year he published his second book:  Earn It. Don’t Buy It.

While I’d have to confess I haven’t read either of his books, I do read his blog regularly and his other writing on the web.  After reading one of his posts that was referenced by the Triangle Business Journal, I asked him if he’d be interested in answering some questions for this Off Script series and he agreed.   Read More…

by Frank Strong

Did you see the guest post from Mark Zuckerberg on this blog earlier this month?  It was essentially Facebook’s open letter to small business.

It was a fun guest post (haven’t seen any alerts in GWMT yet either) and it gave me some contacts I might not otherwise have had. After reading Chris Penn’s post, Facebook wants you to post more pictures of kittens, I reached out to those contacts for the scoop.

First, the facts as Chris says:

Facebook announced yesterday that they’re applying a News Feed algorithm change that will penalize text-only updates from Pages. Brands, companies, personalities, bands, musicians, politicians, and anyone else who uses Facebook Pages will now have their text-only updates seen less in the News Feed.

That’s write, Facebook is saying words do not matter, so my sources tell me it’s introducing a new feature: the minus like.

Without a thumb, it might be hard to grasp the notion of a minus like Read More…

by Frank Strong

Note:  Written in satire, the following is a parody presented as a guest post by Mark Zuckerberg. It is fictitious. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of this blog or Mark for that matter. But there’s certainly a point.

Dear Facebook Nation:

I built Facebook in my dorm room.  I took a chance, quit school and drove 3,000 miles to a place where I could build this company. I took the risk. And now I’m getting what I earned.

Today, we have one billion people using our service – that’s about one in four Internet users worldwide.  We have more users than many countries have citizens.  We should have a flag because they made a movie about us.

For those that don’t understand this point – Facebook is the world. If you want to reach all those people, or better still, a highly targeted segment of them, you need to bring your wallet.  Traffic costs money. It’s that simple. Read More…