What’s up with people and the Facebook?

7:30 am, Saturday morning.

Don’t take this the wrong way, but people who post daily Facebook updates fascinate me. I don’t know how you do it. Maybe I’m jealous. As a lifelong writer-who-doesn’t-write (much…for himself, anyway), I’m impressed by those whose random thoughts that don’t simply flit across the brain like waterbugs to be eaten up by passing fish before they ever get where they’re going, but instead are netted and captured, or, perhaps, pinned, to find an odd sort of permanence on The Wall.

Or does your far-different-than-mine-brain captures it like lightning in a bottle, turning observation, musing, idea, complaint or bon mot into digital text in seconds? Is it a workplace diversion to post your latest photo? Is Facebook part of the daily checklist…where each day, along with getting dressed, shuttling the kids to and fro, working, making sure there’s food in the house and knowing where your next meal is coming from you fit in answering the question, “What will I share today?”

When you incorporate social media into your life – or into your business – what do you drop? Knowing there are only so many hours in the day, what doesn’t get done?

And why do we share? I’ll tell you why I do. It’s for the comments. And the likes. I admit it. (Is that OK to admit?) I want them at work, too. In public relations, we’re still judged on the media hit, sure, but what really matters is the response. When people post our story or write about us or link to us…what happens next? What do they think now… how have they changed… what are they telling their friends… what did they do?

[My kids just charged downstairs to play their latest obsession – the new Lego Batman game for the Wii. I thought you should know. Gotta go! But...hey...comments?]

One Facebook to rule them all, one Social Inbox to bind them…

One member of my family  informed me that they find Facebook so useful and convenient that they, essentially, only share family news via Facebook.  Which would be great, except that many members of that same family don’t check Facebook regularly, or (horrors!) don’t have Facebook accounts.

In other words, because it’s convenient, it’s OK if the communication itself is unsuccessful.

Which brings us to the new Facebook Social Inbox. As reported by Christopher Heine at ClickZ,

The Social Inbox will include regular Facebook messages, e-mail sent to @Facebook.com addresses, mobile phone messages (SMS), and Facebook Chat discussions.

Not only that, ClickZ reports,

When a brand sends an e-mail or direct message to a “liker” on the Facebook Messages platform, it will appear in an “Other Messages” section that sits directly below a “Messages” folder. In simple terms, the “Messages” folder will house conversations with friends while “Other Messages” will hold messages from entities that users have “liked.”

There is a part of me that suspects that I’ll find this insanely useful and part of me that asks, “what’s the point?”

The “insanely useful”  side sees how bringing email and Facebook comment threads together could be a lot of fun…and a way not to “miss” those vitally important family updates.  This is what my relative wants…has been begging for, in  fact. The Social Inbox is a people-centric system — your messages publish to them they way they want them — whether it’s SMS, email or Facebook chat. You don’t have to keep family and friends’ communications preferences in mind when you communicate.

On the other hand, what’s the point? Facebook already is a big ‘ol social inbox.  Would an enhanced Social Inbox that keeps me abreast of  the stream of social conversation throughout my day enhance my experience of life … or replace it?

I watched the video and I was moved…and I’m impressed.  And a little creeped out. Facebook’s Joel Seligstein talks about how with Social Inbox a couple can have a virtual shoebox of every communication they ever share — from, to paraphrase — making dates over texts to love letters to picking up the kids.  What he doesn’t say is that it’s all supported by the brands you “Like” — friendly folks from cool and useful places that you bring into an ever closer circle in your social orbit.

In the end, I’ll try it out because that’s what I do. Businesses and brands would be foolish not to want to be Facebook Liked, and thus to gain a spot in the social lives of their fans.

But my prediction is two-fold: 1) that heavy Facebook users are going to embrace this and will become even more deeply emeshed  in the Facebook ecosystem; and 2) the intensity of centralizing nearly all social interaction around Facebook will intensify the backlash…hastening the launch of “what’s next” … because you know it’s coming.

What say you?

What Should I Do Today?

I’m reading Amber Naslund’s post on how to do ‘hard work‘ as I try to decide how to start two quite distinct proposals while it’s still morning.  Worth reading if you need a little inspiration and a reminder to get focused, get to work and push the results beyond simply what’s expected (incidentally, it’s also worth a click for the photo of Spider-Man ambling along the sidewalk with his duffel).

This has me thinking once again about one of my favorite client questions on managing communications in a world where there are just too many ways to reach customers — how do I find the time to do social media when I barely have the resources to get the basics done?  The answer, of course, is to rethink “the basics.” But how do you do that?

One of my maxims for clients thinking about establishing their social media and online presence is to re-cast their thinking from “what I have to get done today” — the newsletter, the brochure, the article, the trade show booth, the website redesign — to “what’s going on out there today, what do I have to say about it, and how can I help?”  These questions are likely to lead you toward your audience via communications media and tools that are much more immediate and direct.

For example, the corporate communications to-do list might include:

* Each week, review company news, topics and themes with corporate, marketing, sales and service: what do you want to say today?  Where should we say it?

* Scan industry news, blogs and social chatter — how can we be relevant? What can we learn from customers and influencers today?

* Determine whether and how to respond to social chatter, blog posts, news articles. Respond or elevate where needed.

* Post your news on your website or blog, and on networks where customers and influencers can find and follow.

* Meet with internal stakeholders to ensure in-depth awareness and understanding of what’s happening inside the business. Adjust the message. Take time to review the strategy. What are the tools, media and materials you need to make the message work?

Do all this along with creating corporate presentations, participating in meetings, handling ad hoc high-priority executive requests, communicating across the team, juggling deadlines and actually writing and producing the stories your organization has to tell.

(Are there enough hours in the day?)

If we keep asking questions, the answers should become clear — what works? what doesn’t? what does the customer need? what moves the needle? what are we doing because we’ve always done it?

If you could start over, what would you keep? What would you drop?

Some Social-Tech Industry Standards

Most people … and most companies … don’t live on the cutting edge. In fact, most of us don’t even live in the world of “state  of the art”.  Every so often, admit the hype and excitement over that which is new and shiny, I like to remind myself that not everyone lives out on the bleeding edge, cutting edge, or even “state of the art”.

In technology, we talk about “industry standards” — protocols used by everyone so that one machine can talk to another.  The great majority of people and companies live in an ever-evolving zone of industry standards… doing the basic things that they need to do to live, work, communicate with each other, get things done and do business.

What are the industry standards these days?

The industry standard has a computer and that computer is connected to the internet.

The industry standard has a cell phone; the cell phone is most likely not connected to the internet — but we can be confident that it will be  soon.  Despite what you read, the industry standard does not have an iPhone (read the whole article).

If the industry standard doesn’t have a Facebook page, it’s thinking about it, since about one out of every three people in the US do…but those that do, don’t check it every day.  But the industry standard does have a social network presence on Facebook (if you’re older) or MySpace (if you’re younger).

The industry standard  shops online.

The industry standard checks email daily.

The industry standard gets most of their national and international news from TV.  The Internet helps.

The industry standard sees the front page story, the national or New York Times story, and TV news coverage as a badge of importance (my opinion, based on lots of anecdotes).

The industry standard does not Tweet or blog, or necessarily read blogs. (but those who Tweet do blog)

The industry standard doesn’t know what RSS is (and those that do are in turmoil).

The industry standard uses the phone book (if you believe the industry, anyway).  The industry standard wonders why they get so much junk mail and spam.

Agree? Disagree? What’s on your list of industry standards?

The Coming B2B Bad Service Social Media PR Nightmare

Jeremiah Owyang offers yet another case study of how a consumer brand was engulfed in — and then escaped from — a PR crisis caused by the unfortunate  (for the company) combination of poor customer service to a customer who happens to have significant influence on social media — and wielded her million-plus Twitter followers to great effect.  Add it to the growing list along with Dell, Motrin and Dominos.

Image copyright HowStuffWorks.com

Owyang’s point is worth heeding — that customer service departments need to gauge the relative power and influence of their customers as they serve them — and social media influence — like celebrity and loyalty and wealth — should be a factor that shunts a customer toward a different set of rules.

It got me thinking about the B2B market, and how I can find little of this online barking intended to break service log jams (beyond telecom and wireless — anyone and everyone feels free to complain about internet, mobile and phone service). We have a business culture that shuns allowing employees to call out their frustrations with their companies’ vendors online … with good reason — such behavior could damage large scale contracts and business relationships, and potentially give the complaining business itself a bad name in its industry or community.

Rest assured, there is plenty going on in the back channel. Poor media reviews and frustrated industry analysts absolutely slow sales.  Chatter at industry conferences manages to get around at the speed of gossip.  The many tech folks in IT have no problem telling the world what they think of, say, the quality of their backup system, on online forums.  And a vendor’s poor reputation is usually played out in sales and inside their own niche.

But, so as far as I can tell, B2B based complaints in social media have yet to create a big PR nightmare case study.*

So no worries?  Think again.  It’s not going out on much of a limb to predict that this will happen.  First, businesses are designed to compete — if social media will solve a problem that traditional channels won’t, it will be used.  Second, our world is getting more social, and our business is getting more personal, not less.  In other words, people will talk, even in B2B.   Let’s make sure we’re listening.**

*Am I wrong?  Let’s talk about some examples?  Telecom, cable companies and mobile devices don’t count!

**Which is a clever way to finish the post, but let’s really end with some advice:

1. If you’re delivering great service, keep doing so.

2. Listen to what business and their employees are saying about you online. Use free tools like RSS,  Google Alerts and, say, TweetDeck to start; monitor relevant Facebook and LinkedIn Groups.  Move to paid services to manage higher volumes, get better dashboards, monitor competitors.

3. Be in social media. Establish ‘outposts’ in key social networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and…especially…key forums in your industry.  Participate.

4.  If you identify a problem, escalate it quickly and solve it.

5. If it becomes a broader “PR nightmare” before you knew about it, address it in social media as well as traditional media — your website and those social outposs.   go overboard to solve not just the problem, but the root causes…tell people how you’re going to do it…then do it.