As many voice concerns about Facebook’s face recognition strategy Tim O’Reilly thinks it might be the best way to open up a technology that will be used whether we like it or not.
Face recognition is here to stay. My question is whether to pretend that it doesn’t exist, and leave its use to government agencies, repressive regimes, marketing data mining firms, insurance companies, and other monolithic entities, or whether to come to grips with it as a society by making it commonplace and useful, figuring out the downsides, and regulating those downsides.
… and many more. So get your bookmarnimg tools out, Evernote, Instapaper, Read It Later whatever you cam get your hands on. Then head over and grab the whole damn lot.
If your Facebook friends were responsible for your TV programming would it be an improvement on the current schedule?
You might not have long to find out if Mark Zuckerberg has his way. Speaking at the recent eG8 techology forum in Paris, the Facebook CEO said that TV, music and books being media experiences, stating that
I hope we can play a part in enabling those new companies to get built, and companies that are out there producing this great content to become more social.
7 Tips to Get Your Content Shared More On Facebook
14/05/2011
Here are some great insights developed By Dan Zarella about how you can tweak your content to get more shares on Facebook. All credit for the graphs and research go to Dan.
1. Include Numbers in Your Titles and Stats in Your Posts
People love tangible data. If you can include specific numbers in your posts, such as an impressive statistic, people will want to share that statistic with their friend on Facebook. People also love lists. If you check out the title to this post “7 Tips to Get Your Content…..”, you know exactly how much information you are about to get before you even read it.
2. People Share More on the Weekend
The difference in the number of shares on the weekend compared to during the week is actually pretty huge. This has a lot to do with the fact that Facebook is blocked at many company offices, and for good reason.
3. Certain Words Also get Shared More
Lucky us, the word Facebook is far and away the most shared. After that, people on the internet want to know “How” and “Why”, and they like sharing articles with the words “best” and “most”
We are all still adjusting to a world where everyone with an internet connection is a media outlet. Social Media is bring a raft of changes to the way we communicate and do business.
There are great rewards for businesses that embrace Social Media and do it well. There are also a few train wrecks from companies who have seen opportunity and jumped without developing a sound strategy and policy.
Last year Manpower released a study into how companies across the globe were using Social Media called Social Networks vs. Management Harness the Power of Social Media. The report found that only 31% of Australian companies (which is slightly better than the global figure of 25%) had instituted a Social Media policy for employees. Brain Solis shares some handy tips for getting started with a Social Media Policy for your business.
The Top 25 Best Practices for Drafting Policies and Guidelines
Define a voice and persona representative of the brand’s purpose, mission, and characteristics
People expect to interact with people, be personable, consistent, and helpful
Keep things conversational as it applies to portraying and reinforcing the personality and value of your brand and the brand you represent
Add value to each engagement — contribute to the stature and legacy of the brand
Respect those whom you’re engaging and also respect the forum in which you participate
Ensure that you honor copyrights and practice and promote fair use of applicable content
Protect confidential and proprietary information
Business accounts are no place to share personal views unless they reinforce the brand values and are done according to the guidelines and code of conduct
Be transparent and be human yes, but also do so based on true value propositions and solutions
Represent what you should represent and do not overstep your bounds without prior approval
Know and operate within the boundaries defined, doing so protects you, the company, and the people with whom you’re hoping to connect
Know when to walk away. Don’t engage trolls or fall into conversational traps
Stay on message, on point and on track with the goals of your role and its impact to the real world business in which you contribute
Don’t trash competition, spotlight points of differentiation and value
Apologize where applicable and according to the established code of conduct. Seek approval by legal or management where such action is not pre-defined
Take accountability for your actions and offer no excuses
Know whom you’re taking to and what they’re seeking
Disclose relationships, representation, affiliation and intentions
Refer open issues or questions to those most qualified to answer
Practice self-restraint, some things are not worth sharing
Empower qualified spokespersons to offer solutions and resolutions
Seek the approval of customers and partners before spotlighting their case studies
Take the time to interpret the context of a situation before jumping in with a response
What you share can and will be used against you – The internet as a long memory
If you need assistance developing a Social Media Strategy or Employee Policy for your business contact us at Byron New Media to find out how we can help.
I have a thing for Infographics, I’m working on a couple myself. In the early days of learning Social Media I discovered David Armano via his Logic + Emotion blog. David has a passion and a talent for creating great infographics. David’s influence has grown over the years and he is now the SVP at Edelman Digital. David is still sharing great infographics and although he probably has a lot more support in creating these images, I see his analysis and creativity in this graphic.
We all know by now the tragedy that has unfolded in Japan last week. The earthquake measuring almost nine on the Richter Scale has decimated communities, taken lives and livelihoods and crushed utilities such as phone lines, internet, power and SMS. Amongst those displaced and far from home was a man concerned for his pregnant wife. He was 10 miles from home desperate to connect when he found a way to get through. He used Beluga a group texting application recently purchased by Facebook. So grateful was “Aaron” to converse with his wife who is now 8 months pregnant that he shared their story on the community support site, saying:
“Beluga kept me in touch during the massive Tokyo earthquake yesterday. I just wanted to give a huge thanks for making Beluga. I live in central Tokyo, and the earthquake yesterday overwhelmed all mobile lines. No SMS and no voice calls at all were possible for nearly 10 hours. But for some reason Beluga worked, and allowed me to stay in contact with my wife, who is 8 months pregnant, while we were apart. It took me 3 hours to walk the 10 miles home through Tokyo since all the trains were out, and I could have kissed my phone every time I got a message from my wife. Thanks for making Beluga free, even though after this I’d gladly pay for it!”
You are probably aware that Google has recently been making changes to it’s algorithms to increase the influence of “Social Signal” (that’s Facebook Likes, Twitter shares, Youtube comments, that kind of thing) on search results. This has caused massive problems for some.
It’s become evident that for Google assigning authority to a webpage based on incoming links is a game savvy SEO’s or South East Asian Link Building Factories can play with intensity. For Google results to be relevant, they must turn to those who don’t make it their business to build a link farm to artificially inflate the discoverability of a local restaurant, but instead share with those the care about the virtues of a meal they have just enjoyed.
This does not of course help Google if people aren’t even searching for restaurants any more. But asking their Facebook friends or using location based networks like Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places to find mea recommendations.
Enter Google Hotspot. It leverages Google Places, a massive inventory of businesses that is linked to Google Maps. It makes rating and ranking simple and rapid. It will beget Google a lot of data about which are the most popular places offline. The question is will you use it? Will it keep Google in the ring with Facebook for another round? Or will Hotpot go the way of Google Wave a brilliant concept that failed to get major traction?
Many bloggers and content producers have notices in recent years that commenting directly on there site has dropped away. With many people choosing to share or add commentary via Facebook and other Social Media channels.
This has made it more difficult to build a conversation and a community around your content. While at the same time it has increased the percentage of visitors wanting to comment and share.
Recent changes by Facebook to their Comment Plugin bring together the best of both worlds. Allowing easy Facebook Commenting but also making that conversation more visible next to your content.
Below is an extract from a Search Engine Land story on the New Facebook Comments.
>> If a site owner implement the Facebook Comments Box widget underneath content on a site, visitors who are already logged into Facebook can comment without having to log in again. The new comments box also supports some third-party log-ins. Additionally, if someone who comments keeps the “send to Facebook” box checked, their comment — along with a link to the original content — will appear on their Wall and in their friends’ News Feeds.
Image courtesy Facebook
The unique part of the offering, which differentiates it from other comment provides like Disqus, is what happens if someone sees the comment on their Facebook News Feed, and comments further. The new comment appears both on the wall and on the widget on the original site.
“Discussion threads stay synced across Facebook and on the Comments Box on your site regardless of where the comment was made,” Facebook wrote in a post on its developers blog. “Users will also receive a notification whenever another user replies to their comment. Clicking on the notification will take the user back to the web page where the comment originated, driving more traffic back to your site.”
Web site owners who have a Facebook Page for their sites can comment on a site’s content while logged in as the Page administrator. Then, Facebook users who’ve “Liked” the Page will be able to see that comment, and a link to the original content, in their News Feeds and on the Page’s Wall — ideally sparking more discussion.
The new Comment Box is also designed to use social signals — similar to what Facebook uses in its News Feed — to surface the most relevant comments to the top. Facebook has also added more moderation possibilities, allowing admins to adjust the visibility of comments, ban users and blacklist words.
Image courtesy Facebook
Anticipating concerns about the ownership of comments — in case site owners who adopt the new system decide in the future to abandon it — sites can pull the comments posted on their sites via an enhanced Facebook API.
In the last few days, Facebook has also made changes to its Like button to add more visibility and control for site owners.
The Call And Response device is best known for it’s use in music. Jazz, African Drumming and Classical Orchestral music have all used it’s two part formula.
If you think about a drumming example, one drummer would beat his drum creating a particular phrase of music. Then a second drummer would then respond with a difference phrase resolving the tension created by the first. Musical geniuses like James Brown (aka Soul Brother Number 1) would use this structure in their performance building the crowd up and the backing the tempo down so that the energy of the crescendo could be fully appreciated.
The Call and Response In Social Media Content Strategy
The Call and Response structure lends itself perfectly to engaging your audience with Social Media Content. Whether you are writing a tweet, facebook page update, blog post or sales letter, Call and Response is a framework that cuts through short attention spans and an overflowing buffet of media options.
Contrast allows humans to understand complex concepts rapidly. Think about “Before and After” shots to explain a weight loss product, time lapse illustration of two washing detergents on a TV commercial, a crisp black and white photograph framed by a cream photo matte.
To create compelling tweets, updates and posts break the content you’re trying to communicate into two halves.
Problem/Solution,
Adversity/Opportunity,
Setup/Punchline,
Benefit/Call To Action
Create the tension with the first half and release it in the second. For example if you are creating a tweet or micro blog update to promote a wine bar happy hour you might write;
Too much work, too little play? We’ve chilled the wine, dimed the lights and cued the tunes. http://bit.ly/happyhour.
If you’re penning a Status Update for your Facebook Page to drive traffic to a blog post about writing good headlines you might use;
Do your headlines suck? 10 Killer Headline Ideas http://bit.ly/10headlineideas.
If writing a Tumblr quote to share a patch working tip try;
Can’t find the material you need for that last square on your latest patchwork project? Use a different cabinet for each material color and a different drawer for each pattern category.
Still stuck for Social Media Content ideas?
Take a piece of paper and divide it into three. In the first column list the 10 questions our clients most commonly ask and the 10 things they don’t ask but should. Now go back through the list and against each write a call in the second column and an associated response in the third column for each item in the first column.
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