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Facebook Comments Get “Like” Button

June 16, 2010 | Facebook | Comments

Beginning today, Facebook will be rolling out a new feature – a “Like” button for comments. The “Like” feature was first rolled out in 2009 and Facebook states that it is one of the most heavily used features of the site. I’m glad Facebook decided to get more granular with this feature. Now, you can show your appreciation for a good comment instead of having to “Like” the whole status. And similar to the current “Like” feature for statuses, the commenter will get a notification that you “Like” their comment.

So what do you think? Do you “Like” this new feature or do you think it adds even more confusion to Facebook?

Social Media Still Banned in the Workplace

March 16, 2010 | Social Media | Comments

In October 2009, Robert Half Technologies conducted phone surveys of more than 1,400 CIOs from companies across the United States who employ at least 100 employees. They asked one question:

Which of the following most closely describes your company’s policy on visiting social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, while at work?

The results:

Prohibited completely: 54%
Permitted for business purposes only: 19%
Permitted for limited personal use: 16%
Permitted for any type of personal use: 10%
Don’t know/no answer: 1%

Not Understood?

It’s no surprise to me that so many companies are still hesitant to venture into the world of social media. After all, these technologies aren’t fully understood by many of today’s executives. But these new communication mediums cannot be ignored! A fundamental shift has occurred in the way we communicate, share ideas and engage one another. In order to be competitive, companies must become educated and willing to explore the benefits of social media.

Lost Productivity?

Many employers are worried that Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other sites divert employee attention away from the task at hand, and that employees spend time on personal communication. Of course they do to an extent. However, these sites can also become extremely effective customer engagement, retention, and sales tools. My opinion is that these sites don’t cause any more employee distraction than cell phones, email, instant messaging, surfing the web, water cooler chats, and the TV in the break room – all of which are allowed in most workplaces.

Losing Control?

Perhaps the issue is that executives are worried about employees sharing confidential information in the social space. If that is the case, blocking these sites at work doesn’t accomplish anything. Reality is, most employees are using these technologies anyway. Whether it is at home on their own time or at work on a cell phone, an ever increasing percentage of people are logging onto social networking sites and sharing all sorts of content (what they like, what they don’t like, what they are pissed off about, what they are happy about, who said what to who, who did what to who, what they are working on, what they are going to do, and on and on). If an employee’s interaction on social networking sites cannot be controlled when they are away from work, why bother trying to control them while they are at work? The best approach is to embrace social media, become educated, and help your employees understand what is and isn’t appropriate use.

Corporations have to understand that the use of social media isn’t something that might happen. It IS happening! Executives can no longer afford to ignore this fundamental shift in the way we communicate. To do so only hurts the company’s opportunity to engage customers and compete in the global economy.

Which side of the fence are you on? Should social media be banned in the workplace, or should companies embrace and promote the use of social media?

Are We In Control of Our Own Decisions?

March 14, 2010 | Marketing | Comments

Dan Ariely offers insight into our personal decision making processes in his TED talk, “Are we in control of our own decisions?” This interesting talk really made me think about designing calls to action on websites, forms and marketing materials.

Why Social Media, Why Now?

February 23, 2010 | Social Media | Comments

This article was originally posted on cityshift.org. Shift is a New Media Conference coming to Greenville, NC on May 27th & 28th, 2010.

Shift Conference is a free event designed to educate businesses and business owners in the use new media for cultural and economic influence. This event will benefit the growing creative economy in Eastern North Carolina. Shift will feature training and resources to take back with you, and will offer a great opportunity to network with other professionals from our region.

For more information, to register, to volunteer, or to become a sponsor, please visit the Shift Conference website at http://www.cityshift.org.


Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, LinkedIn, Twitter. These social media sites and many others have gained increasing popularity over the past few years. Are you exploring these tools and learning how to effectively utilize them to connect with your customers in new ways? Perhaps you have been reluctant to jump into this space. Newsflash – Social media is not a fad! Just ask one of the more than 400 million users of Facebook, or one of the 75 million plus users on Twitter.

You must go where your customers are

Ten years ago, you would never think about not being listed in the yellow pages if you owned a business. Why? Because that is where people were going to look for you. These days, more and more people are turning to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and others to find you and your company. Gone are the days of thumbing through your local index to find services and local businesses. When is the last time you even remember looking at a phone book? If you are like me, I can’t tell you where to find one in my house – we simply don’t need it. Every service and every product that I want can be found on the Internet, at my convenience, using my laptop or my mobile phone. Wait, will I find your business there? Will I find your competitor there?

When they find you, what will they see?

Don’t think that you aren’t in these social spaces already. Even if you haven’t made an effort to create a Facebook Fan Page, start tweeting, or post a video on YouTube about your products and services, your customers and critics may have. Are they talking about you? If so, what are they saying? If you can’t answer these two questions, I encourage you to stop reading this article right now, and spend the next hour or two combing those sites to find out. You may already have a thriving fan community that your company could tap into. Then again, you might have a PR nightmare on your hands. Not knowing should scare the crap out of you.

You cannot afford to do nothing

Regardless of whether you find yourself or your company in either position, thriving community or PR nightmare, what message are you sending by not participating in these conversations? The opportunity here cannot be ignored. Think about this. If you knew that 150 of your best customers (those that love you and spend money with you frequently) were all going to be in one place, ready to hear from you, would you turn down the chance to connect with them? On the other hand, if one of your best customers was suddenly upset with you and decided to share that frustration with the entire world, how can you afford to not engage and attempt to make them happy again?

The time is now

Have you been reluctant to jump into social media? Perhaps you are worried about losing control. Maybe you don’t know enough about social media, or you are even intimidated by it. If you aren’t willing to take on the challenge of educating yourself and experimenting with these rapidly evolving tools, you are effectively planning to lose. The best advice I can give you about social media is to explore. You will never understand something that you aren’t willing to play with, and you can be assured that your competition is already or will soon be doing this. By the way, it’s free! The only thing you have to invest is your time. So go ahead, do some research and start exploring social media today. Either catch up, or you and your business will be left behind.

Social Media: Don’t Be In a Pickle, Have a Plan

February 10, 2010 | Social Media | Comments

A few days ago, my wife and I were eating hot dogs for lunch. There is something about eating a hot dog every now and then that feels great (even if you know what they are made of). While applying condiments, I realized that what should be an easy task ended up being extremely aggravating. Enter the relish “easy squeeze” bottle. Have you ever tried to use one of these things? A good squeeze yields only juice that infiltrates the bread, giving your bun a soggy, mushy pickled taste and texture. Give it a harder squeeze and a relish explosion ensues (I don’t recommend wearing a nice shirt for this experiment). I thought to myself, “Who invented the relish squeeze bottle?” After further consideration, I realized I wasn’t upset at the guy that invented the bottle. I’m a believer in trying anything once. The real question is why didn’t the key stakeholders figure out that the squeeze bottle doesn’t work and nix the project?

Sure, the relish squeeze bottle was invented for convenience. After all, no one wants to spend their day chasing little chopped up pieces of pickle around a jar with a knife. I’m sure the pickle companies of the world were hoping to capitalize on the success of the Heinz “EZ squirt” ketchup bottle that debuted a few years earlier. But, they forgot one important thing. Just because it works for one product or company doesn’t mean it will work for your product or company.

Social media can be the same way. Everyone is so eager to jump on the bandwagon and create a Facebook fan page or Twitter account. What they don’t realize is that without proper planning you are doomed to failure. What works for one company may not work for yours. You need to think about what you are trying to accomplish with your venture into social media. What are your goals? What sort of content will you share? How do you plan on engaging your customers? What will you do to attract fans to your page? How will you handle negative comments? It is very important to think about these things before you go public with your social media campaign.

Get your stakeholders involved and be prepared to spend some time planning before you send that first tweet or invite all those folks to your fan page. The old saying, “Poor planning leads to poor performance”, is definitely true when it comes to social media. Your plan should provide a steady, concerted effort to your campaign so you don’t have to try to overcompensate later. You don’t want your social media campaign to turn into a relish explosion!

My Idea for Facebook Design Changes

February 6, 2010 | Facebook | Comments

This one is going to be short and sweet. Facebook recently rolled out their new design to about 80 million people, but I wasn’t lucky enough to be one of them and I am frustrated by this. We all know that many people resist change, but I consider myself to be sort of a change agent. I view change as an opportunity and I’m usually optimistic about change until proven otherwise. I also enjoy helping others and guiding them through change. Why does all this matter you ask?

The problem

How am I supposed to help my friends and peers with a change in design that I can’t even experience for myself? Facebook left me out in the cold on this one. I was prepared to do screenshots and blog about the new changes, share some helpful tips for use of the new design, etc. I wonder how many of you wanted to do the same thing?

So here is my idea…

From now on, I think Facebook should give people an opportunity to opt-in to a new design a week or two before it comes out so that people like me can be prepared to help through the transition. This would make more sense to me than rolling it to 80 million people at random.

What are your thoughts?

Could The iPad Become An iFail?

January 27, 2010 | Gadgets | Comments

There is a lot of excitement about the new iPad, but could this product launch turn out to be an Apple flop? I admit that I was really excited when I saw Steve present the iPad, but the more I learn about the new tablet, the less I like about it. It appears to be an overgrown iPhone with limited new features. I find myself wondering what I would do with such a product.

Steve Jobs said that the iPad will be ready to ship within 60 days, and prices will range between $499 and $829. I’m not declaring that no one will buy this thing. I’m sure many people will, especially the hardcore MacHeads. It looks cool, but will buyers be disappointed? In my opinion, there are several drawbacks.

1. No camera

I can’t believe Apple didn’t include a camera on the iPad. So, let me get this straight. To get pictures onto my tablet, I will have to take them with a digital camera, download them to my desktop and then upload them to my iPad? What if I want to change my Facebook profile picture or Skype with a friend. Oh, and how about the apps that require a camera for use? Maybe Apple should block us from being able to download them to the iPad or some people will be sadly disappointed. I can imagine the error now, “I’m sorry, this application does not support devices without a camera.” Even my old Motorola phone had a camera.

2. The AT&T Blues

There will be models of the iPad that support 3G, but AT&T has been selected as the carrier. I guess Apple hasn’t learned anything from all the problems they’ve had with supporting iPhones. Even more disheartening is that AT&T doesn’t offer 3G support anywhere in my area, so it’s pointless for me to get the 3G model. That means I’m still stuck with Wifi only access, which my laptop already provides.

3. No Flash?

How is the iPad going to deliver “the best web experience you’ve ever had” without flash support? Sure, the screen is bigger so that I can see the whole page as it was meant to be displayed, but what about rich media?

4. No Multitasking?

And you expect the tablet to be a replacement for a netbook? Seriously, this is 2010. People expect to be able to run multiple applications at a time. I think this is a major oversight on Apple’s part.

5. Awkward Touch Keyboard

Well, well, the touch keyboard appears to be a larger version of the one on the iPhone. To be honest with you, I think this thing is going to be difficult to type on.

6. Where is HDMI output?

iPad is supposed to be the coolest gadget we’ve ever seen geared towards entertainment, but don’t plan on plugging it into your TV. Yeh, you can stream HD videos on your iPad, but you will be watching them on a 10 inch screen!

7. Screen ratio of 4:3

I saw a video demo on this thing and realized right away that something wasn’t right. Don’t expect your widescreen movies to be up to par on the iPad.

The upshot

The iPad looks cool and I certainly think that the style and sleekness of it are to be admired as all Apple products are. However, I think today’s iPad announcement was a big let down. After all the hype and excitement that has been building for weeks, it turns out that the iPad is nothing more than an oversized version of the iPhone. I do think that Amazon should be very concerned about the Kindle becoming obsolete, but we will have to wait and see how much of a market share the iPad takes.

As for me, I’m still undecided. I think the iPad would offer a very interesting way to present website designs and other creative deliverables to potential clients and would look cool on my coffee table, but I’m not sure what else I would use it for.

What are your thoughts?

The Benefits of Facebook Fan Pages

January 8, 2010 | Facebook, Social Media | Comments

Facebook is the second most visited site on the Internet and has over 350 million members. The opportunity to connect with your customers and potential clients is enormous, but many businesses and organizations still don’t have a Facebook fan page. Fan pages were created for businesses, institutions, organizations and people (public figures, writers, musicians, artists). Let’s take at look at some of the benefits of having a Facebook fan page.

  1. It’s free! That’s right, no startup costs or monthly fees. How many other opportunities can you think of to connect and communicate with your customers that are free? (Note: While fan pages are free to create, you should consider that it will take someone’s time and attention in your organization to properly manage the fan page)
  2. Fan pages are publicly visible. This is good because it allows people that aren’t even members of Facebook to view your page. Google can index the page and include it in search results.
  3. Fan pages offer stats. You can track metrics such as how many fans you have, age and gender, what country your fans are from, and how many likes, comments and wall posts your fans are contributing. This will help you determine what works and what doesn’t work with the page.
  4. Gain access to your fan’s stream. Status updates posted to your fan page will show up your fan’s stream. You may be concerned that you are spamming your fans. Don’t worry, they expect it! They want to see your updates – that’s why they signed up.
  5. Give them the opportunity to interact. Having a fan page provides a place for your fans to engage you and each other, building community. This could backfire if you don’t have a plan for dealing with complaints and negative comments, so be sure to think about that ahead of time.
  6. You can advertise your fan page. You can spend a little money to have your fan page appear in Facebook ads that are targeted to your selected demographic.

These are a few of the benefits of having a Facebook fan page for your business or organization. What are some other reasons you can think of for having a fan page?

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Chris is an information technology professional, entrepreneur, and social media geek with 14 years of experience focused on providing innovative, creative web development and social media solutions. He is passionate about exploring new ways to communicate, business development, sharing ideas, and utilizing social media to build relationships and enrich communities.

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