Do Your Social Media Habits Change on Holiday?

Me & Ms 5 goofing around on holiday

Here in New Zealand, we are in the midst of our summer holiday season. A gloriously wet and rainy one (!!)  but still for most of us it's time away from the office and a chance to spend some time relaxing with friends and family.

So what happens to all that Twittering and Facebooking when you are with your Real Life chums?

Some people abandon their social networks entirely and then return after a period of deathly silence to upload 100 or so holiday snaps to their Facebook profile, only 5 of which anyone is ever going to scroll through (apart from your mum). On Twitter they pick up wherever they left off as if nothing has happened and secretly wonder if anyone missed them (which the answer is probably no. And you know it).

Of course, some of it depends on whether you have internet access wherever you are holidaying. I was amazed (shocked?) at how much mobile data I chewed through with only 3G access available to me. And one bar of 3G at that! But that's another story.

When I'm not on holiday I'd estimate I spend 70% of my social networking time on Twitter, 25% on Facebook and the last 5% scattered aimlessly around the other random networks that are left. But when on holiday, I found that I spent the biggest slice of my time on Facebook which is where the majority of my real life friends are. Since I was mainly sharing photos or tales of the holiday I was having with my own family, it made sense to do this on Facebook. On Twitter I don't share much of this as its probably quite boring to people I don't know and also for privacy reasons (but mainly the first reason if the truth be known. Sorry Mum). Also I don't like broadcasting to the whole world that I am away and then come home to a burglary. Telling my Facebook mates is not such a concern as most of them know me, so they are fully aware that there is nothing worth stealing my house anyway. True story.

This does imply that none of my mates on Twitter really know me - which is completely untrue. Plenty of people on Twitter know more about me than ... well.. me (probably). It also implies that I trust Facebook privacy settings which no-one in their right mind should do but as the same time if you don't want anyone to know stuff, then don't put it on the internet.

I have seen some talk lately about people abandoning Facebook after getting a shock at seeing their own new Facebook Timeline saying things like 'OMG Facebook knows too much about me!' Yes that is completely true - Faceboook knows all that stuff that you told them and has helpfully collated it together and put it (prettily) all in one place - and you are shocked by that? I mean - really? REALLY? If you don't want Facebook to know, then don't put it on Facebook. Simple as that really. I bet these are the same people who think nothing of sending to the NZ Herald photos of their kids running nude round the beach in the hope it will be printed on the back page.

So it is fair to say that being on holiday changes your habits in more ways than one, but when the holiday is over, normal transmission resumes.

<end of transmission>

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5 Tips For Using The New Facebook Page Insights

Facebook released their new Page Insights last week which contains a lolly shop of goodies for Facebook admins who are managing a brand Page. The focus is quite clearly and squarely on Engagement with a capital E which is a good move away from measuring just the number of Page Likes - a common yet misleading metric in the past.

Tip 1: Here is the Facebook Insights Guide. Read it. 

Tip 2: Track the People Talking About metric for your brand and your competitors to see how engagement levels fluctuate.
One of the most obvious changes is displaying the number of people who are 'talking about' your page. Its like Klout for brand Pages!

Facebook describes this metric as "How many people are actually talking about your brand or company to their Facebook friends."
It is broken down to each individual post and includes everyone who:
• Liked your Page
• Liked, commented on, or shared your Page post
• Answered a Question you’ve asked
• Responded to your event
• Mentioned your Page
• Tagged your Page in a photo
• Checked in or recommended your Place

Note that this does not include Wall Posts by anyone other than the brand. Data from 19th July 2011 is available on the new Page Insights.


Tip 3: Check if your ads are even working using the Total Reach analysis

The Total Reach metric shows the number of unique people who have seen your post, broken down by Organic, Paid and Viral reach for your post. This will help you track whether your paid advertising is working. For example, if you are getting a high paid reach on a post (via Sponsored Page Post or Sponsored Stories) but your other engagement metrics (below) are not improving, then your ads are probably not targeting the right audience, or are not interesting or relevant enough to that audience..... and so they just don't click on the post. Its unfortunate that the scale on the graph can make your viral statistics seem very low - make sure you hover over the purple viral bar to see how many times a friend of one of your Fans saw your post as a result of the Fan liking, commenting or sharing your post.


The metric Engaged Users is important and tells you the unique number of people have clicked anywhere on your post  -  whether it was playing a video, viewing the full size of a photo, clicking a link, sharing your post, commenting or liking it, clicking on people's names or the timestamp.

The section of this Engaged Users pie called Stories Generated is further broken down in a second metric called Talking About This. This is the number of times your post received likes, comments, shares, event RSVPs or had Questions answered. The total of this number over the past 7 days is the metric visible to everyone on your Page. If you are wondering why the number on your page doesn't add to the total of the posts showing in the past 7 days - it may be due to Questions which are not displayed (but appear in your export data).

Tip 4: Find out where your Likes are coming from.

Under the Fans tab of the Page Insights you can see further analysis of  who your Fans are including age, gender and country. This graph will show you where your Page Likes are coming from (eg via the Newsfeed, on a mobile phone, on your website or elsewhere)

Tip 5: Check who is actually talking about your page. 
You might have one age demographic which dominates your Page Fans, however they may not actually be the age or gender demographic who are engaging with your posts. Find out who is most engaged on your page on the Talking About tab of Page Insights - you might be surprised.



Lastly, here is a quick snapshot of some of the Talking About metrics for a selection of Facebook Pages you might be familiar with - makes interesting reading. Also check these stats again in a few weeks to see how these metrics change over time.

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What You Need To Know About Facebook's Changes To Brand Pages

Facebook has been making a load of changes recently, with the introduction of the Facebook Timeline and Ticker into personal pages, plus the option to Subscribe to a personal page.

But what about the brands on Facebook? When do they get some Zuck-love?

Well, it looks as though Facebook are rolling out a number of changes to brand pages:

Discussion threads - to be filed under R for Rubbish
Discussion threads are a feature that have been long overdue for a rehaul. They were are a hangover from the early days of Facebook brand pages - back in the day when you could 'Fan Us on Facebook' (anyone remember those?).

However, unlike Wall posts, there were no notifications for the Discussion threads meaning Facebook admins had to manually check the threads to see if new comments had been posted or new threads started. The benefit of discussion thread was that they didn't get lost in the sea of posts on the main Wall and therefore they had a longer shelf life than your average post (and could continue on for months). But engagement on them was low, probably because threads didn't post into the NewsFeed the way Wall posts do.

Facebook has decided to remove them from 31 October 2011 as Wall posts and comments are the best way to engage your community.

Can't wait.

There isn't an easy way to export the discussion threads, but some brands may want to investigate this if they have important content captured in them.


Photos
A new format for multiple photos mirrors the layout in personal profile Timeline photos, showing 3 images like this post from Rugby World Cup:

Also, they are getting bigger in your stream and Ticker. You might have already noticed that when your Friends post photos they are much bigger in your stream? Well, this may be being rolled out to brands too - here's one from Air New Zealand as an example where the photo is noticeably larger than previously.

Top Stories and Recent Stories
There is a lot of strange comings and goings with your Newsfeed now - some stories are popping up as Recent Stories, some as Top Stories, and most importantly.... some not at all. Read about how Edgerank has changed and what this means for your NewsFeed optimisation.


Keep posted for more developments. It is an exciting time for brands on Facebook and a great opportunity to capitalise on some of the changes and be a first mover.

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Where Is The Social Media Mute Button?

Photo: http://rayhigdon.com/what-numis-network-reps-dont-want-you-to-ask/

Sometimes you just want to pick up the social media remote and press the mute button so that you can filter out some of the posts or tweets littering your feed. Maybe you are totally over hearing about Double Down burgers. Or maybe your feed is full of tweets or posts about an event thats running or a rugger game thats playing. Or perhaps your fav TV show is screening and you don't want a spoiler on it yet. Or you've just had an argument with someone and you just want to filter them out of your life for a while.

On Facebook its easy. On any post, just click the x on the right hand side and choose if you want to hide just that one post or all posts from that person. If you change your mind (and lets face, don't we all from time to time?) just go to the drop down settings beside Most Recent at the top of your feed, and the list of your hidden pages and friends are all shown there.

This means you don't have to unfriend your friend and then refriend them if you have a bit of tiff. In fact, they wont know at all that you've hidden them - perfect.

Likewise LinkedIn has a similar feature. Bless. Although you can only hide all updates from a connection, not a single update.

Over on Twitter though, things are not so easy. You can unfollow someone which will stop their tweets from appearing in your stream, however they can still mention you (but not DM you). They may also notice that you have unfollowed them, so be prepared for that conversation. Or you can block them but that may be too extreme. You also can't filter out a hashtag or tweets with specific words - so you are forced to endure it in exasperation or abandon Twitter completely for a while.

An alternative is to use the Global Filter setting in the Tweetdeck app (thank you to the person who told me about this - you know who you are). You can select words, hashtags, a source or a specific user. No more mentions, DMs, or tweets in your stream. In fact, its like they didn't exist - blissful silence.

And you can clear the filter when you want to.

So easy! Try it and enjoy the peace that it brings.

   

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My Review of Storify And How I Used It For The Royal Wedding

Last week Storify opened up for public beta. I had an account beforehand but had not really used it, so I was prompted by the public beta to give it a go -so (drum roll) here's my Royal Wedding Story. And now I've used it, I'm in luuurve!

What is Storify? Its a mashup tool that is 'a way to tell stories using social media such as Tweets, photos and videos. You search multiple social networks from one place, and then drag individual elements into your story. You can re-order the elements and also add text to give context to your readers.'


Perfect for journalism or content curation, its a great way to grab the best tweets, pics and videos from an event or topic before they are filed away in the archives of history somewhere. Also useful for case studies or for bloggers.


The drag and drop interface makes it super easy to select and format the snippets you want to grab. You can create a Storify account by using your Twitter login, and then whoopee you are away.


During the royal wedding the tweets on the hashtag #RW2011 were spinning down the screen like a poker machine. I had Tweetdeck, Twitter, YouTube and Twitpic all open. Using Storify I grabbed the tweets and pictures as I saw them, dragged them into a story and sorted them from there. You can also get Chrome extensions for Storify so you can tag content from within any Chrome tab and import into your selected Story (or create a new one).


You can also drag Facebook posts, Flickr photos, YouTube videos, Google searches, RSS feeds, Slideshare presentations and URLs. Adding your own text is easy, as is reordering the content, deleting or adding more later on as I did when the official portraits were released.

One nice feature is that the data is preserved in its original format so that readers can still interact with it eg reply, retweet or comment on the original element - unlike a screen grab which might have been used as an alternative. Here is the Storify demo which explains the features further.



There are a few features that would be useful - such as being able to search for @mentions in tweets,  or have the option for selecting images only in my timeline not just Twitter searches. It also doesn't offer easy embedding of the finished product into Blogger, but does for Tumblr, Posterous and WordPress. It also won't work in some older browsers 'from the last century' so download an update now if you are committing that sin!


Storify provides a Notify feature after publishing allowing you to notify the original authors via Twitter that you have used their content in your story. Its optional, and while there is debate about whether its spam or not, it also allows you to spread your story virally. 


My verdict is that Storify is a fabulously easy tool for blogging, journalism and recording events that happen in social media as the royal wedding did. Here's my final Story of the tweet, photo and video highlights from the day.


And while we are chatting about the royal wedding, wasn't it great to see the royal family embracing the use of social media just as a modern wedding should? We were able to see Clarence House chatting to Westminster Abbey via Twitter on the morning of the wedding, receive announcements on what the Queen was wearing at the same time as the media via the official blog, keep up to date with the events as they happened, even watch the official videos on the royal wedding channel just hours after the ceremony. And watching it live with all your friends on Twitter or Facebook made it very social and adds another a dimension to such a special occasion. 


All the best Will and Kate, thanks for sharing so much of your special day with us.


    

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10 Tips To Keep Yourself Safe On The Interweb

Photo: http://weheartit.com/entry/7159746

Some people live their lives very openly on social networks choosing to share all sorts of details with the world. Others take a more conservative approach and keep their private lives private. Most people are somewhere in between, but no matter where you are on the spectrum there are a few things everyone should be aware of, especially if you are a big user of social networking sites.

Here are 10 tips to make sure you are keeping yourself safe on the web:

1. Check how your profile is displayed to others who are not your Facebook friends, even if you lock down your Facebook profile. Some 3rd party applications used to upload photos or post your Facebook status make these visible to everyone and you may find your Facebook privacy settings have not been applied.

To see how your profile currently appears to one of your friends, take the following steps:

• Navigate to the Privacy Settings page.
• Select the "Customize settings" link towards the bottom of the "Sharing on Facebook" section.
• Click the "Preview My Profile" button that is located in top right side of the page.

When you have reached this preview mode, you will automatically see how your profile looks to most people on Facebook. To view how your profile looks to a specific friend, just type his or her name in the field.

2. Be notified of Facebook logins from other locations.  Facebook has a notification to alert you if your profile has been accessed from a different location (full instructions are here). Go to the Account Settings page and click on the link next to "Account Security" at the bottom of the page. If you select the option to receive notifications for logins from new devices, when you log in, you'll be asked to name and save the various devices you use to access Facebook. 

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Is It Rude To Unfollow/Unfriend? What Are The Rules?

Photo: NZexporter

If you are following a lot of people on Twitter or Facebook then your news feed tends to get quite noisy. And busy. And to be honest, full of quite a lot of stuff that really you aren't all that interested in.

But the problem is, these people followed you, so you were polite and followed them back (or on Facebook you accepted their friend request) so if you Unfollow or Unfriend them isn't that just a bit rude? Just a teeny weeny bit?

Here's a question for you. If you bump into someone at the supermarket who you haven't seen for years - you might stop and have a good old natter, maybe swap phone numbers and say 'we must catchup'. But after that chance meeting, you don't really have much to say to each other. Will you actually call them? Probably not. And why? Because your life has changed and you are into different things now. Doesn't mean you don't like them, just means you have a lot of other stuff crammed into your life already which takes priority.

Same with Twitter or Facebook. If there is someone there that you used to engage with when you first connected, but not so much anymore.... well maybe its just that you are into different things? And if you aren't engaging with someone and you have different interests then really whats the point in being connected?

I do periodic culls of Twitter and Facebook. On Twitter I also use lists - you don't need to be following someone to list them - so that's one way of grouping them off to one side and taking them out of my main feed. On Facebook, I restrict it to keeping in touch with friends and family (sorry to those people whose friend requests I have never accepted - now you know why). Doesn't mean I don't like these people - just that we don't have common interests right now.

Everyone changes - if we all stayed the same then we'd be boring.

Its not rude. Its not the end of the world. Its just life.

And you will probably enjoy checking your Facebook and Twitter feeds a lot more when its not cluttered up with stuff you don't want to hear about.          

    

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