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Are You Struggling to Keep up with Facebook Changes?

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I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time staying on top of the constant changes on Facebook. There’s a big fuss among the users whenever there’s a major change, but everyone seems to settle down once they get used to them. In many cases, the changes are actually good; it’s just frustrating to have to keep learning new ways of doing things. The most recent set of changes are no exception. It seemed like half the conversations on Facebook last week were about Facebook!

Well, guess what – more changes are on the way very soon!

To learn about the upcoming changes and for help navigating the “new” Facebook, check out the following recent posts.

Five Facebook Changes and What You Need to Know from Social Media Examiner
What The New Facebook Changes Mean For Businesses from Fast Company
Facebook is scaring me by Dave Winer
5 Facebook Privacy Settings you NEED to know by Nicky Kriel

For a more light-hearted look, watch this video from HappySlip:

What I like about the new Facebook:

Smart lists make it easier to follow people from different parts of my life and to share updates with only specific lists.

Posted images are now larger in the newsfeed. Not only do I find this esthetically pleasing, in many cases it saves me having to click through to see the full size image.

Mouseover effect on news ticker means you can quickly see more details and decide whether to click through or not.

What I don’t like:

Based on what I see in my own news feed and the data available to me, I suspect that the people who like my Organized Assistant page are not seeing all of my updates. That’s unfortunate, but reinforces the importance for businesses to not rely on Facebook or any single social media site as their main form of marketing.

A lot more information is included in our news feed now, including comments friends make to people we aren’t friends with – and vice versa. This means once again reviewing our privacy settings, as described in Nicky Kriel’s article. Of course, it’s even better to avoid posting anything you don’t want made public!

What are your thoughts about the recent Facebook changes?

The Price of Popularity

Categories: Marketing Methods, Networking Nuggets

Tags : blogging, engagement, facebook, retweets, social media, time management, twitter

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I became a big fan of social media long before I even knew that’s what it was called. Twitter and Facebook in particular have allowed me to grow my network and stay connected to a much larger group of people than would have been possible even ten years ago. Every week I discover interesting new people to learn from and, at the same time, I’m growing a reputation as an expert within my target market. This kind of recognition is great for both my ego and my bank balance, but it’s not without its challenges.

Like many others, I take advantage of time-saving tools to manage my social media presence, but that can only take you so far. Automated systems cannot take the place of personal engagement, and personal engagement requires time and effort.

For example, based on a couple of blog posts I’d read, I recently concluded that thanking people who retweeted my posts by tweeting “Thanks for the RTs @person1 @person2 @person3″ was just adding more noise to the already-cluttered Twitter stream. I then decided to return the favour instead, giving more value both to the retweeter and my other followers (see my post What Do You Do When Someone Retweets You? for more details). However, it didn’t take me long to realize that browsing their Twitter stream in search of something interesting, clicking on a link for further exploration in most cases, and then retweeting if appropriate, increases the time spent from a few seconds to a few minutes – even more if the first tweet doesn’t prove to be compelling. Multiply that by the number of retweets I receive each week, and I could spend hours just acknowledging my retweets!

I also make a practice of checking out my new followers and personally responding to comments on my blog and social media posts, as well as commenting on other people’s posts. These activities have contributed greatly to the size and strength of my network and brought me lots of additional business, so I’m certain I’ve found the right strategy for my business.

The challenge is that the more people who are reading, sharing, and commenting on my posts, the more time these activities require, and the more business I have, the harder it is to continue giving my social network the same level of attention.

This situation is really nothing new. Even before the Internet became an important resource for entrepreneurs, successful small business owners have struggled to make time for marketing and networking. Yet we know that if we don’t continue to invest time in marketing our businesses, the day will come when we have no business left to run.

How about you? What is your biggest challenge when it comes to social media?

Whatever it is, you’ll probably find the answer, and a lot more besides, at Social Media Success Summit 2011.

The Accidental Billionaires and The Social Network

Categories: Marketing Methods

Tags : book review, facebook, movie review, The Accidental Billionaires, The Social Network

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I joined Facebook just a few months after it opened up to the general public. I was aware that Mark Zuckerberg created it when he was in university, and that it was originally restricted to university students. Other than that, I knew next to nothing about how it came to be or the story behind its explosive growth, so I was eager to watch The Social Network, especially after it was strongly recommended by a relative who has never even been on Facebook.

Books don’t seem to get as much media attention as movies, and when I sat down to watch The Social Network, I was surprised to learn that it was based on a book called The Accidental Billionaires. Not that it’s a secret, especially now that Aaron Sorkin has won the Oscar for ”Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published.”

The Social Network answered a lot of questions I had in my mind, and then some. For example, before watching it, I had no idea that one of the co-founders of Napster was involved, and found the whole story quite fascinating.

Despite the fact that the movie was both entertaining and informative, I found myself wishing that the story was presented in chronological order rather than jumping back and forth in time, so I decided to read the book, hoping it would be easier to get the big picture. I was not disappointed.

Although it’s a fairly light and easy read, The Accidental Billionaires includes a lot more detail than The Social Network. That, combined with the chronological narration, gave me a much deeper understanding of the actual events. Furthermore, I feel the book is a more accurate portrayal. The Author’s Note at the beginning reads as follows:

The Accidental Billionaires is a dramatic, narrative account based on dozens of interviews, hundreds of sources, and thousands of pages of documents, including records from several court proceedings.

A few things are presented differently in the movie, which I’m sure the film makers did for entertainment value. Don’t get me wrong; The Social Network is great, and I’d recommend it to anyone. But if you want to know the whole scoop (or as much as is possible without direct input from the parties involved), you should read The Accidental Billionaires.