Brad Wellman
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Last night, Facebook dropped a bomb on social media marketers, small businesses and developers alike: Facebook Pages need to be “authenticated” in order to have landing tabs.

What does this mean?

Any new visitor to your Facebook Page will not able to land on a custom tab, unless your Facebook Page has greater than 10,000 fans or the Page administrator has been working with an ads account representative. The problem with this is that it requires Page administrators to spend money on Facebook ads (and you need to spend a pretty penny to get an account representative), or have a large traffic base to build a large following.

Less than 24 hours later, and after a frenzy of disapproval from the marketing and developer communities, Facebook removed the “authentication” requirement for setting custom landing tabs on Pages. The following was posted to the Facebook Developer Forum at 10:44am this morning:

Hello,

As of last night, we’ve removed the recently-added authentication requirement for setting custom landing tabs on Pages. The requirement was instituted as part of a Pages quality initiative, and we apologize for the inconvenience this caused to our developer and business community. We are re-investigating the situation, and will not make any further changes without first giving our community standard notice and lead-time.

Thanks for all your feedback,
Matt Trainer

The problem that Facebook continues to inflict upon itself is that they fail to be transparent with their audience regarding changes to their platform/services/privacy. This Facebook Pages incident isn’t the first time Facebook hasn’t acted in a social manner.  Also, given that Facebook has more than 400 million active users and it is the 2^nd most popular global website (according to Alexa), I’d think Facebook might think twice about doing whatever it pleases and forcing the community to obey its will.

Facebook, like any other social destination site, is not impervious to being abandoned by the community it helped create. Continuing to roll out drastic changes as they please, they may realize this sooner rather than later.

Jason Douglas
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

While the rise in participation in social media channels has increased greatly for individuals and brands, one area where social media has become useful is for professional sports.

Why is social media right for sports teams? As with anyone using a social media channel, it is another opportunity to connect with people inside and outside of your network. You can keep the loyalists connected, and connect with disengaged fans.

Locally, there are teams using social media better than others. The Minnesota Timberwolves, for example, are using social media closer to its full potential than our other local teams.

On Twitter, the @MNTimberwolves provide injury updates, in game updates, and behind the scenes insight for the casual fan. For the serious fan, the Timberwolves are good at responding to followers, and following back fans as shown with their 7,574 followers and by following 3,357 back (as of the time of this post). The Timberwolves also integrate social media with their traditional and other online marketing tactics by promoting their social media channels as part of Wolves Nation prominently on their website and with in-game promotions.

One team that is not using social media to its fullest potential is the Minnesota Twins. Their job should be one of the easier Twitter campaigns to manage, as they have a brand new stadium, a great product, and of course, Joe Mauer.

However, the @MinnesotaTwins have chosen to establish their channels, especially Twitter, as an elite club. Despite more than 9,000 followers, the Twins have chosen to only follow back 20 users comprised of Major League Baseball accounts, other local sports teams, Twins player accounts, and Andrew Zimmern.

The Twins have largely pushed their own content on Twitter, and they have handed out tickets to users who follow them, but by not engaging or following their fans back, they are essentially shutting the doors on them. Are Target Field’s stands only full of MLB representatives, Twins players, and celebrities?

On the Minnesota Twins’ Facebook page, it is more of the same. While their reach is significantly larger with more than 280,000 fans, the same behavior is taking place. On their wall, it is just the Twins pushing out their own content, and not responding to the numerous likes and comments on each status update.

Now this may not hurt a brand like the Minnesota Twins now, as they are enjoying great success. But, what happens if – or when – the Twins experience a long term losing streak like the Minnesota Timberwolves? It is very possible that the fans they chose to ostracize may not be there in tough times.

It is critical that any brand using social media take advantage of the connectivity that each channel allows. For some, this may be the closest one comes to connecting with the brand. If that person reaches out to them, and receives no response, it will most likely leave a bitter taste in their mouth.

What are your expectations when engaging with a brand? Do you want a response? Do you want to be followed?

What makes you feel connected to a brand?

Happy Web Wisdom Wednesday! In this week’s installment, Luke Kuhlman and Brad Wellman discuss Facebook analytics; using Facebook Insights to assess your Facebook Fan Page.

Be sure to check back on Wednesday each week for the newest installment of Web Wisdom Wednesdays. You can also view our past episodes of Web Wisdom Wednesdays on our YouTube channel.

Brad Wellman
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

News has just been released that Facebook is rolling out its new Ad Conversion tool for Facebook advertisers to track not only how ads are performing, but also to “track activity that happens on your [the advertiser's] Web site as a result of someone on Facebook seeing or clicking your Facebook Ad.”

Sound familiar? If you answered “yes,” you’re correct!

This is all-too-similar to Google Analytics and AdWords. By allowing advertisers to assign specific values to actions on their Web sites, advertisers can get a deeper understanding of a user’s involvement with a particular ad, optimize ads more effectively and determine ROI more effectively.

Currently the tool is in Beta form, but will steadily be rolled out to everyone. This is huge for Facebook, as this will allow it to compete more toe-to-toe with Google in the multi-billion dollar online advertising market.

How do you think this will affect Google?

Glenn Seaberg
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Today I saw an article in the Minneapolis Star/Tribune titled:  “Med-tech is shy on social media use.”

Among other things it praises a  medical device start-up for its innovative and viral use of  YouTube.  However, it goes on to explain that big medical device and other health care related companies are hesitant to use social media.  The writer points to legal concerns, especially retribution from the FDA as reasons for this.

Indeed, it would be foolish for Medtronic, St. Judes and other medical device companies to rush into the social media wave pool. But guess what?  It’s not foolish at all, providing they take the right approach.

With millions of people tweeting, posting to blogs, commenting on or posting videos to YouTube, chances are excellent that each of these channels are ripe with conversation about medical devices.  Just monitoring and amplifying these conversations hold huge value for an entire organization.  I know; I do this for several health care companies.

From the marketing manager to the CEO, the ability to listen to the unbiased conversation between your company’s staunchest supporters and most stalwart detractors provides insight and direction that no focus group or traditional market research investment ever could.

One need not chime into the conversation.  Remember the old adage: “You become wiser by listening than you do by talking.”   And guess what, no one will even know you’re in the room – not even your lawyers.

Am I off base here?  Is engagement the only real goal for a company with regard to social media?  Or does listening provide enough value on its own? What do you think?

Jason Douglas

Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Yesterday, Ric Bucher of ESPN sent a tweet from his personal account stating: ‘The hammer just came down, tweeps: ESPN memo prohibiting tweeting info unless it serves ESPN. Kinda figured this was coming. Not sure what this means but’. On Monday, the Marines issued an order banning social media sites including Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace within its network. Each is an example of censorship, but for two very different reasons.

ESPN, like many companies, have employees that are visible not only on television, but in the social media world. These employees are an extension of the brand that ESPN has built over the last 30 years. With that comes a large responsibility to represent your company as best as possible. There is a fear that within this ‘new’ method of communicating called social media and with information available instantly, if something improper is said, it will spread like wildfire and may have a negative impact on the individual and the company they represent.

There are two approaches to take here: you an either set guidelines for how to approach social media (in this case: Twitter); or you can choose to trust your employees, and allow them to interact with fans, readers, and other athletes who are using Twitter or social media as their platform to announce newsworthy happenings about themselves. We know which approach ESPN went with.

ESPN

Within ESPN’s memo full of guidelines, included were the following points:
• The first and only priority is to serve ESPN sanctioned efforts, including sports news, information and content
• Assume at all times you are representing ESPN

Maybe I am about to react because the above statements are hitting me differently than others. When you are hired by a company, does that mean you are, in a sense, owned by that company? Are you always on call for that company? Are you ever ‘off the clock’?

If this is the way that ESPN wants to treat social media, they are about to miss the point of social media: two-way communication. One thing about us here at Spyder Trap is that we tell clients that social media is all about communication, engaging with fans, followers, etc. Anyone that just pumps out their own content and does not try to engage with people will not be successful or respected in the social media world.

Giving fans of ESPN the opportunity to communicate and converse with their favorite personality increases the brand perception of ESPN. You are humanizing the personalities, and at the same time, gaining more fans of ESPN. This is now no longer possible due to ESPN’s restrictions.

Marines:

Their restriction of social media sites boils down to one simple word: security. This is an easy out for them. Within their memo, the following is stated:

“THESE INTERNET SITES IN GENERAL ARE A PROVEN HAVEN FOR MALICIOUS ACTORS AND CONTENT AND ARE PARTICULARLY HIGH RISK DUE TO INFORMATION EXPOSURE, USER GENERATED CONTENT AND TARGETING BY ADVERSARIES. THE VERY NATURE OF SNS CREATES A LARGER ATTACK AND EXPLOITATION WINDOW, EXPOSES UNNECESSARY INFORMATION TO ADVERSARIES AND PROVIDES AN EASY CONDUIT FOR INFORMATION LEAKAGE THAT PUTS OPSEC, COMSEC, PERSONNEL AND THE MCEN AT AN ELEVATED RISK OF COMPROMISE. EXAMPLES OF INTERNET SNS SITES INCLUDE FACEBOOK, MYSPACE, AND TWITTER.”

Really? In all caps?

This is an example how having certain restrictions can help solve security fears. Instead of banning social networking sites (SNS), implementing some form of privacy requirements, having an approval process for who’s following you, who’s your friend, what groups you are a part of, etc; would be a better solution.

I have a close friend who is in Iraq with the U.S. Army. Usually, we converse by writing letters and sending care packages, etc. Instead, I know he will be on Facebook at the same time nearly every day, which is how we are able to connect, via Facebook chat. I know that since he is able to communicate with myself and his family most every day in real time, his time over in Iraq has been easier to deal with. If that was taken away from him and the rest of the Army, it could be a demoralizing blow to each member.

Does your workplace have any rules regarding social media? If so, I would like to hear about your company’s policy. If your company instituted a policy restricting your use and presence in social media, would that change your perception of your workplace? Would you look elsewhere for employment?

Glenn Seaberg
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

I wonder how many Taylor guitars United Airlines would give to Dave Carroll now that his scathing music video blasting the airline has been viewed 1.4+ million times on YouTube (as of this writing). What’s more, I wonder the level of regret UA has now that the popularity of the playfully acidic video has hit traditional media including big city papers and the major cable news channels.

A nice Taylor costs about $2,500. If I was in charge of customer service at United, I think replacing the guitar broken by baggage handlers with a nice collection of about a dozen new Taylors would be a nice gesture today. I’m sure they could have gotten off much easier had they admitted their apparent mistake and just replaced Mr. Carroll’s Taylor.

Too late.

United Airlines might have been able to ignore the voice of a single unhappy customer in the past. But businesses had better wake up to the fact that the voice of that single customer can now reach millions of potential customers via YouTube, Twitter, FaceBook and other social media channels. And when traditional news media gets wind of that groundswell, look out.

So what can businesses do? Is it enough to just treat customers as if they matter? Or do all businesses need to engage in brand monitoring via social media? Will online brand monitoring ever become as important as market research Or is it already?

Recently I was asked by a client to pull together some high-level social media statistics. I found some interesting facts from several different sources. I thought I would share. These stats are of course changing by the moment but this is a pretty good snapshot of the social media environment.

The next question is always… Why such growth and how should companies best to take advantage of these amazing statistics? Any thoughts? More to come soon.

Twitter:
- From March 08 – 09 Twitter grew at a rate of 2,565 percent – Nielsen. (Ning was number 2 at 283 percent.)
- Roughly 2.4 billion Tweets… on average about 11 million per day and growing – Giga Tweet

YouTube:
- 300 million users worldwide – YouTube.com
- 14.8 billion video “views” as of January 2009 – Comscore
- 147 million U.S. Internet Users watched on average 101 videos per person in January 2009 – Comscore
- Roughly 43 percent market share of video viewing as of January 2009 – Comscore

Facebook:
- As of February 2009 Facebook has the highest monthly active users of any social media site. – Compete.com
- 200 million active users. (Currently closer to 225 million)
- 100 million users log into Facebook daily

Brad Wellman
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Today Research In Motion Ltd (RIM) – maker of BlackBerry devices – launched the BlackBerry App World, the official BlackBerry Application Store as their response to Apple’s iPhone/iPod Touch App Store. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise, as BlackBerry has been losing market share to both the Apple iPhone and Google G1 smartphones, both of which feature an application marketplace.

The BlackBerry App World features several free applications, from Social Media apps such as a Facebook, MySpace and AIM (sorry, no Twitter app…yet) to games, weather, and personal finance to name a few.  Purchasing apps is pretty simple, although users need a PayPal account first, as PayPal is handling all the billing for BlackBerry’s App World.  RIM is looking to work with carriers to allow users to make payments via their monthly bills.

Being brand new, the BB App World offers far fewer selections than Apple’s version. However, this should help BlackBerry grow in the future. Accordign to a post by TheMoneyTimes, “RIM said it expects about 1,000 applications to be posted on BlackBerry App World within a week. It is looking for applications from various partners including CC Media Holdings Inc.’s (CCMO) Clear Channel, Gameloft SA (GFT.FR), Viacom Inc.’s (VIAB) MTV Networks, the New York Times Co. (NYT) and Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM).”

So now that the long anticipated wait for BlackBerry Apps is over, what do you think of it? What are your favorite apps? What would you like to see in the future?

Jason Douglas
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

In recent months, social networking sites Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace, have gained notoriety for their ability to help people connect and interact with each other.  Whether you are connecting with a former high school or college classmate, or talking to someone across the world you have never met about a buzzworthy topic, the sites mentioned above are great at bringing people together.

Not too many people think of using the sites above as a way to generate leads on your job search.  They should, and people are taking notice.

This past weekend, Kare 11 aired a story about how social networking can help your job search.  The story highlighted how it is very important to be part of Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  Many businesses and recruiters are part of these networks, along with many viable candidates for these jobs.  On occasion, employers may not list an open position on a site like Monster or Career Builder.  People that are not part of the social networking scene are missing out on opportunities that may be a great fit for them.

Social media is about being part of the conversation.  The conversation that job seekers want to be a part of is occurring on sites like Twitter and LinkedIn, among others.  In this economy, having every advantage is crucial in having a successful job search.  People that are on these networks are two steps ahead of everyone else.

Before this story aired, some college classmates of mine that were looking for work have come to me for advice.  The first thing I asked is if they are on Twitter and LinkedIn.  The overwhelming response to both was no.  They were not familiar with LinkedIn, which I feel is the future resume.  These social networks, especially LinkedIn, are professionally focused, keeping out the riff-raff that exists on Facebook and MySpace.  On LinkedIn, you are just a couple degrees separated from most people, which allows for a more personal introduction (which you can request).

Last week, I got a request from a college student who is looking for a job at a food retailer to connect her with a contact I knew at this food retailer.  After a message sent by me to my contact, my college student friend and my professional friend were connected and starting a relationship that may lead to future employment.  If both people were not part of LinkedIn, that connection would have been near impossible to create.  It sounds simple, and in most cases, can be that simple.

I have been on all of the above mentioned sites for at least a year, and have met many people that I now consider friends.  Even though my intent has never been to find a job using social media.  There are many people within my friend groups that are hesitant to join these networks, whatever their purpose may be.  Now that large news networks are recognizing the effectiveness and importance of social media and social networking, people may rethink their feelings about social media and become part of the conversation.

Connect with me on twitter: @jasondouglas

Connect with me on LinkedIn: Jason Douglas

Mike Rynchek
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Thanks to Paul Jahn of LocalMN for the article below.

Last week, I had lunch with Paul Jahn with Search Engine Guide. We wound up talking quite a bit about social media and managing-per-objectives and impressions rather than the cost-per-conversions avenue many of us are used to.

Speaking of social media, 95% of this interview took place through Facebook IM.

Paul: First of all, thanks Mike for your time. In a nutshell, can you tell us about your company?

Mike: First, I would like to thank you for the opportunity. It is always a blast to get together with smart online marketers. Spyder Trap Online Marketing is a Minneapolis, Minnesota based full service online marketing agency specializing in online strategy, search engine marketing, social media, web analytics, email marketing and web development.

Paul: You brought up managing for impressions and objectives as different sorts of analytics measurement. I suppose it’s not new, but you have a different spin on it. Can you explain?

Mike: What makes online marketing unique is our ability to target qualified leads, control spend and track/test results on a real time/near real time basis. Marketers don’t often consider online marketing channels as a brand building tool but I would argue it is! Whether talking about organic/paid search, Social Media or Email marketing, these mediums are an extension of the brand. Tracking for impressions not only provides you with another metric in your analytics arsenal, it allows you the variability to test and modify individual campaigns, but also measures the total number of eyeballs who viewed your brand.

Anytime we work with a client we always start with defining their pain points and marketing objectives for not only specific initiatives or campaigns but the overall company as a whole. This allows us to work backwards in our strategy and implementation of the physical tactics. Whether this includes increasing brand awareness through impressions, increasing site traffic or increasing overall leads/conversions, defining and managing based on objectives is an essential methodology for any firm.

Paul: You had a recent client who used measuring per impressions as a non-partisan political measure. Can you explain their amendment?

Mike: Along with our partner Wingnut Advertising, Spyder Trap was charged with providing awareness of a Minnesota based clean land, air and water amendment to help restore and preserve natural resources. If passed, the amendment was funded by a small statewide sales tax.

Paul: Please briefly discuss the marketing situation and what you used in terms of online marketing tactics.

Mike: Our target demographic was the 18-30 drop off and swing voters. Wingnut and Spyder Trap were charged with not only driving awareness of the campaign but making sure voters didn’t just vote for President then exit the ballot. Our goal was to simply inform and educate.

Since the only conversion occurred in the voting booth on Nov. 4th we decided to measure and market for impressions vs. clicks or even conversions. The end result was close to 70 million impressions over a three month time period leading up to the election. Impressions included deploying online paid and non-paid tactics including banner ads, social media (ex. Facebook/apps, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube etc.)

Paul: The Vote Yes Minnesota measure passed too! I suppose you could say that the objective was met.

Mike: It certainly did! Even in a difficult economy Minnesota voters approved the amendment. Anytime we solve a marketing pain point or have a satisfied client we feel we did our job. This was a highly debated and passionate amendment, and our job was to foster that passion and to get our message in front of as many potential voters as possible. It worked, and we’re more than happy to say that it passed at a 59% vote! This is a historic event, and we’re proud to be a part of it.

Paul: You mentioned “real estate dominance” in that amendment. Can you explain more?

Mike: When working on projects with clients, our main objective is of course for them to own the number 1 position in Google for targeted keyword phrases. In most cases our work doesn’t stop there as we generally deploy specific tactics using social media and online media (i.e. Blogging, databases, press releases…)any keyword-optimized, searchable content that can be picked up by the search engines. This not only works as a link-building initiative but also allows our clients to own the entire first page within search engine results page.

As I mentioned, our goal was not only to provide direct and targeted content but a high volume of content as well. We quickly owned page one of Google by optimizing press releases, creating and submitting articles to databases and reaching out to local bloggers. These bloggers created a high volume of content, which showed up in search engine results while also providing us with precious links. Finally we also took advantage of social media sites such as YouTube, Myspace, Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. As I mentioned not only is this another great way to receive additional links but they all show up within search results. (AKA Google Universal Search)

Many don’t realize that certain tweets show up in search results as does Facebook groups and fan pages. Instead most people are used to seeing videos and images from YouTube and Flickr show up in search results. So this not only drove impressions from the physical site but also ensured that we optimized for impressions viewed in Google, Yahoo and MSN search results. I like to call this SERP dominance!

Paul: You have other clients as well that you’re measuring per impressions and objectives rather than per conversions. Without mentioning names, can you provide the SEG readers some information?

Mike: Measuring for impressions are generally counter intuitive to marketing managers who are generally focused on tracking ROI. I have worked with both large and small organizations who often times neglect tracking impressions for not only social media but paid media as well. I know this sounds simplistic but as marketers we must manage by objectives not conversions.

For example I work with clients who only care about the monthly volume of traffic to their site. A different strategy is deployed from someone who is looking to inform and educate about a constitutional amendment versus someone looking to sell a physical product within the ecommerce store.

Paul: You spoke about Social Media at the recent American Marketing Association (AMA-MN) event in Minneapolis. How did the audience react to measuring by impressions and objectives rather than just conversions?

Mike: Social Media is a crazy beast but not unlike any other media, traditional included. There is almost always a case for using social media in some way shape or form. When asked if Social Media is right for a specific case my response was simple. “Does your firm participate in Public Relations?” (Generally people say of course.) My response to that is usually… “Great, Social Media is a wonderful tool to help create additional buzz for your PR efforts, only with adding impressions, and aiding in your search efforts.” This is one of many possible examples but I think it does a good job demonstrating how managing by objectives can change the way people think about marketing.

Paul: Mike, thank you so much for your time, congrats with Spyder Trap and all your new ventures, and we’ll talk again soon.

Mike: Again, I appreciate the opportunity. Of course I have to throw a plug in by saying readers can learn more by visiting http://www.SpyderTrap.com or by following us on Twitter at @spyder_trap. Thanks and Go Wild!

To learn more about Paul Jahn, visit his blog, LocalMN at http://www.localmn.wordpress.com

Mike Rynchek
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Social media giant Facebook recently migrated to their new 2.0 version despite wide based criticism and user backlash.  The new site is set to showcase new user and developer features, such as additional tabs within the user’s profile, simplified navigation, dynamic privacy, and much more.  If you are reading this post, you have likely already experienced these features first-hand.  Instead of focusing on the feature side I would rather discuss the social side of this site launch.  The purpose of this post is to raise the question; did Facebook ignore the outcry from its user base, thus essentially violating the first rule in social media: to listen and communicate with those around you and who participate in your brand?

I was originally intrigued when I provided some constructive criticism to Facebook about their new layout.  The thank you page, or essentially their response, was a bit surprising. They basically said, “thank you for the feedback, we will take it into consideration, but you will not hear back from us.” Wait a minute?  You are a social media site and I just helped you, but I will not hear anything back?  On a regular basis, I tell clients that social media is a wonderful platform to gather user and customer feedback/criticism and to openly discuss and respond to it.  I understand the scalability issues with it being more personal on this level, but these were the same people who made chatting sexy again!

The biggest representation of backlash didn’t so much take place in the blogosphere, on Twitter, in journals or publications. It happened on Facebook itself.  Early on, new, anti-Facebook layout groups began to form, building massive followings.  (Below I have listed some of the top groups, I have seen… okay, and perhaps joined.)  Within these groups is a wide discussion about how much dislike people have for the new layout and how much better the old site was.  Discussion even arose today about applications that still allow you to use the old site.

1.    1,000,000 AGAINST THE NEW FACEBOOK LAYOUT! – 1,977,456 members
2.    Petition Against the “New Facebook”  – 1,353,608 members
3.    I Hate The New Facebook – 1,227,502 members
4.    5,000,000 people who want the option “Back to the old Facebook” to remain – 777,595 members

There are dozens of groups just like these.

So to conclude, I raise the question: Would Facebook have been better off not launching the new site, or even perhaps incorporating new features into the new design?  Also, I thought it would be interesting to list out the violations against social media etiquette that I feel Facebook committed (Again these are only my opinions open to debate or discussion.)

1.    They did not address any of the groups listed above (at least to show that they would like to add to the conversation).
2.    Really lame feedback response or lack thereof.
3.    Going live with the new Facebook prior to addressing user concerns!

Mike Rynchek
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Perhaps this post is meant to be a series instead of a single post as it contains many gray and debatable areas.  Before the debate can even begin, people must first recognize the signs of social spamming, what it is and how this new phenomenon is being handled by social media sites.  With that said lets get started!!

What is Social Spamming?

Communicating with others and sharing information has never been easier than at this very moment in time.  Duh right?  But at what point do these millions upon millions of messages per day become a bother, nuisance or ultimately considered “spam”?  When does forwarding a message on Facebook, or adding constant self-promoting tweets on Twitter cross that boundary into Social Spamming territory?  Martin Bowling (@martinbowling) a fellow Twitterer feels that social media spamming “isn’t about dropping an occasional link, it’s about constantly promoting your message & not giving back.”  I would have to completely agree with Martin.  Whether posting a friend on Facebook, commenting on a blog post such as this one or joining a Twitter conversation, social media is something that is to be shared, collaborated and enjoyed by all.  There are no percentage points or thresholds that must be crossed, rather the common barometer that states you are now adding to the clutter rather than the conversation.  When writing this post I was unable to find a true definition of social media spamming so here is my personal attempt: Social Spamming: The act of receiving or sending unwanted messages and pieces of information via a social media platform.  Hmm… Not bad.

How is Social Spamming being controlled?
Social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace are quickly trying to crack down on social spamming, mostly in the form of reporting groups/users and deleting door-to-door messaging offenders (promoting your page or group by going to random pages and posting your link or message).  Monitoring social media raises even a bigger question:  Should social media sites control what people do within their environments?  Does this go against everything that is so great and powerful with social media and the Internet in general?  Another great example of cracking down on social spamming is Twitter.  Perhaps allowing people to un-follow others is their less abrasive form of controlling social spamming; more-or-less giving the power to the people to self regulate what content they receive.  Aaron Weiche (@AaronWeiche) of Five Technology and avid user of Twitter commented on social spamming via Twitter by stating, “Lots of gray area to consider. I’m following you, so I have a filter to un-follow. Audience, context, control, all factors.”

Where do we go from here?  Not too sure right now, but I do know Social Spamming will without a doubt be a phrase that is used much more as time goes on.  It will also be interesting to see how social media sites continue to control the amount and quality of content that is being displayed and how people react to this regulated environment.

Brad Wellman
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

In this blog post, I want to address how the boundaries of Facebook, MySpace, and other forms of social media and networking sites are becoming more permeable to one another.

With the changing social media landscape, lines tend to become blurred. Such is the case with the social media giants Facebook and MySpace. Although competitors in their own right, there are ways in which users of Facebook link to MySpace, MySpace to Facebook, and both to other platforms of social media.

There are applications on Facebook that enable users to share their MySpace profiles with Facebook users, and vice versa. Similarly, there are applications on Facebook and MySpace that connect with a user’s Twitter profile updates and Plurk updates. There is also an application on Facebook which link information from a user’s LinkedIn profile.

Unlike people defining themselves as a “PC” or a “Mac” user, as “Facebookers” or “MySpacers,” people are now using the various forms of social media simultaneously. The various social media platforms interact, and in some ways, feed off of each other. In effect, the networks are networking.

It will really be interesting to see what the future holds for the social media industry if the major forms of social networking continue to be intertwined more and more seamlessly.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, MySpace, Plurk, LinkedIn, Social Media, Twitter

Brad Wellman
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Social media giant MySpace has been steadily losing ground to rival Facebook in terms of users, with MySpace increasing its audience by 10 percent from April 2007 to April 2008, while Facebook shot up 200 percent in the same period, according to comScore. Much of the cause of the shift from MySpace to Facebook has been due to the overwhelming amount of clutter on MySpace, from difficult site navigation, to users’ music players that play without you asking, embedded videos and flashing backgrounds.

Facebook, which seemed to attract many ex-MySpacers because of the lack of clutter, seems to be facing that same problem. Facebook has been under criticism as of late due to their reported 140 new applications that are added daily, and the number of applications to date stands around 25,000, according to comScore.

Both media giants are in the works of major design changes over the next several months to simplify the user experience and break up the clutter, however the increase of clutter has not come without a price. Many smaller social networking sites are quickly gaining popularity, such as Twitter and Plurk. Both sites allow users to engage with other users by sharing short status updates to their friends, or “followers.” In the UK alone, Twitter has grown 10-fold over the last year to 135,000 users per month, according to Nielsen Online.

The increasing clutter, and the general public’s search for social media outlets without it, hasn’t necessarily made it increasingly difficult for marketers to reach their audience, but rather more difficult to effectively engage with them. And that’s what social media is all about…audience engagement.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, MySpace, Plurk, Twitter