All in Facebook
Yesterday's announcement by Facebook about their new messaging service, dubbed Facebook Messages, proves one thing — that social is still about people.
Despite all the advancements in technology; the connections between services; the ability to create content on the fly; and, the how easy it is to get the info we, as consumers want, social remains to be centered around people.
Services like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Foursquare, Yelp, etc. connect people with people. Yes, people are connecting because of content, but at the end of the day, it's the relationships that we forge via these channels that really matter.
Yesterday's launch of Facebook Deals is big news for business. If you haven't heard, Facebook Deals is tied to Places, the ability to check-in at a location like Starbucks for example.
Despite location-based services being popular among tech lovers and social media geeks, there continues to be two beefs: the first being that they intrude on privacy, especially with the ability to "tag" other users who might not want to be so public with their activity; two, the services haven't really proven much in the way for business outcomes, mostly because the location based services just aren't mainstream enough.
With a half a billion users, Facebook aims to change that second point. Deals is going to be a big winner for both consumers and businesses. The service makes absolute sense, has a low cost barrier for businesses and consumers are going to love it. This much we know.
One thing businesses might not know about Deals is that despite it being a simple yet effective way for business of all seizes to get tap into real time customer interactions, this sales tactic equals more work offline.
Facebook is arguably one of the biggest repositories of photos in the world. Due to their tagging functionality, it could be said that it's the biggest social repository of photos online.
Yesterday, the company announced that they are putting a little more muscle behind tagging.
In a blog post, the company wrote that they are testing technology that would automatically recognize faces in your photos to help ease the process of tagging pics.
Facebook has been getting hammered on their privacy issues as of late, but two news items put the most popular social network back on the front burner. This time, however, it's from a business growth perspective.
The first bit of news comes from the farm — FarmVille that is.
FarmVille is arguably the most popular and successful social game on the web due to it's piggybacking on the most popular social network in the world, i.e. Facebook.
It was reported today that Facebook is sending out window decals with text-to-Like SMS instructions to select local businesses.
Mashable got the tip from B.J. Drums, who works for the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, California. Drums apparently sent Mashable proof that Facebook is taking their "like" feature seriously via a letter and some of the sticker samples.
This move by Facebook is proof positive that online engagement strategies need offline counterparts.
Sometimes you have to put in your boots; somtimes you dont.As PR professionals, we’re trained to think about worst case scenarios and are continually learning and testing strategies and tactics that will help our clients address any crisis situation -- no matter how severe the facts and brand risks may be.
While some of the tactics we employ are just as viable today as they were 10 years ago, including strong, clear messaging, other tactics aren’t, such as relying on traditional media to tell your story.
As counselors, we have to be on our toes more than ever today because of the share of voice and influence that social media channels can create on any given day, at any given time and around any given issue.
Take what’s happening to Nestle for example.