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By Neptune Moon, September 29, 2011 1:14 pm

The web does not need to be homogeneous. Usability is important and making sure your site is meeting visitor expectations is critical, but I think we are losing our ability to create sites that are appropriate for OUR audiences. Case in point – the redesign of the Slate web site. Haven’t seen it yet?

Here’s a look at the new home page layout:

Not so bad or different from how it used to be, but scroll down further and it is a disaster:

I don’t even know where to look?

I am getting a little exhausted by what seems lately like every web site’s attempted reinvention into some type of social media experience. Not everything needs to look or feel or function like Twitter or Facebook. Twitter and Facebook are great tools and can play a really important role in your relationships with your customers and potential customers. A web site is not a social media outlet – why do we keep trying to make them into one?

Even Facebook is arguably trying to turn itself into some strange Facebook Twitter hybrid with its new design.

Enough already.

Today’s web sites should be about integrating your web site proper with your social media efforts. Turning your site into a real time experience with constantly refreshing content and comment streams, well, takes away from the experience most visitors are looking for when they choose to visit your web site – instead of your Twitter feed or your Facebook page. There is still room for a well designed, user-centric web site in your internet strategy. Let’s make the most of what a web site can be and stop trying to make it do everything.

The comments about the Slate redesign have been overwhelmingly negative. Look, I know people aren’t generally great with change, but the criticisms of this redesign really resonate with me. And they should resonate with anyone who is still designing and developing web sites for clients in today’s climate.

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By Neptune Moon, July 27, 2011 3:31 pm

What does it take to really engage with “fans” on Facebook? This has been an open question since Facebook became a part of many of our daily lives. Just how much time do you need to spend in it? How often do you need to post updates? What should be in those updates? What do fans really want from businesses or organizations (hint: discounts!).

ComScore is out with another one of their always enlightening reports this week and this one focuses on Facebook and how individuals spend their time while logged in. Not surprisingly, people spend the biggest chunk of their time on Facebook reading their Newsfeed. Of particular interest are their figures about just how often a Page (or business) needs to post updates to potentially reach even a small portion of their fans. Would you believe that less than 20% of your Fans will see your content in their Newsfeeds – even if you are posting 5 out of 7 days a week?

From the ComScore Report (available for download after you fill out a brief form):

Despite the dominance of consumption in the Newsfeed relative to the brand page, a minority of Fans see content from a brand in a given week. A Facebook analysis indicates that, on average, 16 percent of Fans are reached by branded content by a brand that posts five out of seven days.

That is both fascinating and a little depressing! It is not hard to understand why this is though – Facebook uses a complicated (and closely guarded) algorithm that determines what is actually displayed in any given user’s Newsfeed. Ever wonder why you see updates from some friends more often than others? It has to do with how often they post, of course, but there are other factors that impact what makes it into your feed. The greater the number of Friends or Pages a user has in their network, the more crowded their Newsfeed space becomes.

So what is an organization or business to do if you want to engage on Facebook? Now, more than ever, it takes time and a well planned strategy. Not surprisingly, ComScore suggests that the Friends of your Fans are a great group to target. Engaging your Fans is important, but finding ways to have them share your posts with their Friends is even better. Get creative, but remember to be genuine. And, as always, don’t bite off more than you can chew. Make sure that Facebook is the right social media platform to reach your target audience. If it is, then go for it, but be prepared. Successfully managing a Facebook page and strategy takes a lot of time, creativity and effort.

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By Neptune Moon, July 8, 2011 10:46 am

How do you feel about making purchases directly through Facebook? Are you concerned about the privacy and security of these transactions? If you are, you’re not alone.

According to a survey conducted from May 20 – June 1 of this year by NY advertising agency JWT, people of all generations are concerned about the safety and privacy of ecommerce happening directly through Facebook. Nearly three quarters of the adults surveyed (1,000 total) felt that Facebook was not currently secure enough for them to feel comfortable making purchases. The concerns were pretty consistent across generations, which you may find surprising. We all tend to assume that Millennials (currently 20 – 33 years old) are completely comfortable doing and sharing everything online. Not so according to this survey – it is Millennials who worry most about privacy. I found that surprising.

I am not quite sure that we are at the nexxus of online social activities and ecommerce. Facebook seems to have had too many privacy issues for most people to feel completely comfortable entering their credit card information into their system. It seems that most people, of all generations surveyed (Millennials, Gen X and Baby Boomers) do enjoy browsing for products during their Facebook and social media time online. How will these attitudes change over time? A lot depends on how Facebook and now Google+ evolve.

You can read more about the survey results at ClickZ.

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By Neptune Moon, June 28, 2011 2:19 pm

With technology advancing at what often feels like warp speed, it is easy to forget that on the other side of any type of communication is still a human being. We have so many opportunities to instantly express our thoughts and opinions and so many outlets to post to, I think we may have lost sight of why we engage in the first place – to communicate.

So much of our business communication is decidedly one-sided and often, a little ego-centric. Think about it – how do you communicate most often with prospective clients or customers? Email? Twitter? Facebook? LinkedIn? A blog? There has been a lot of talk in the past couple of years about how push marketing is dead and it is now all about engagement. While I agree that engagement media (think Twitter and Facebook) have certainly risen in popularity and sophistication, there is still plenty of room in your marketing mix for good old-fashioned push marketing (think Email or blogs).

Whatever channel you choose to communicate with your customers, make sure that you are always putting THEM first. It is so easy to forget this simple philosophy and just bombard people with messages that are all about you and not all that interesting to them! I often suggest to clients that they think about their own behavior when we are discussing a new marketing concept or delivery method. Granted, your target market may be very different from your client and those differences are important to recognize, but there are certain types of behavior that are pretty universally annoying.

Are you guilty of any of these?

1. Obnoxious Frequency. Sending the same email blast out every other day for two weeks because your open rates are low. Tweeting about every little thought that comes into your head all day long.
2. The Hard Sell. Are all of your communications all about how wonderful your company or product is?
3. Not Listening. Do you ever reply to people who do try to engage with you or do you leave them hanging?
4. Being Intrusive. Social media can be tricky – just because you or your company was mentioned, does not always mean you need to jump in to a conversation.
5. Not Asking for Permission. Do you add people to your email list, or worse text message list, without asking? Do you get permission for one thing and then automatically sign them up for everything else?
6. Abusing Trust. Do you share email addresses with other companies?
7. Not Taking No for an Answer. Do you make it easy for people to disengage with you if they so desire?

Engaging in great communication starts with you and it is easier than you might think. How can you avoid being guilty of the above offenses?

1. Take a hard look at your email content and/or your email list segmentation. If you have low open rates, ask yourself why. Perhaps your information is not all that interesting or useful. Make it better!
2. Ease up on the blatant sales language. Start to build a reputation as a connector of people or a source of useful and topical information.
3. Build social media listening into your social media strategy – spend time reading what others are writing and when appropriate, join the conversation.
4. Use some restraint and avoid being creepy! Just because you or your company were mentioned in a post does not automatically mean it is appropriate or welcome for you to directly engage and jump into someone else’s conversation.
5. Follow sound opt-in procedures and be clear about your policies when someone is signing up to receive communication from you.
6. Treat your email list, followers and connections like gold – because they are! If you’re not sure about a particular behavior, you probably shouldn’t do it.
7. Make it easy for people to unsubscribe and if you do step over the line in the social space, apologize quickly and sincerely and then go away.

If we all take a moment to think about our audience and put ourselves in their shoes, our communications can’t help but be better!

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By Neptune Moon, May 19, 2011 10:04 am

So Bing upped the ante this week in its continual bid to gain marketshare from Google by beginning to include information about Facebook, particularly Likes, in their search results. To see this type of search result, a user would, of course, need to be logged in to Facebook when performing a search. And, you will have to grant Bing access to your Facebook profile. My question is does this really make search better?

I’m not sure it does. Perhaps for some types of searches – like restaurants in the area or entertainment type queries, but for informational searches, I am not sure that prioritizing things that people in my Facebook network have liked improves my search experience or gets me to the best results. A Like has a pretty low threshold for participating – one simple click. Does it really carry enough weight to start filtering search engine results?

Some people, particularly the Facebook obsessed (and you know who you are!) will probably love this new feature. But what does this mean for businesses and search engine optimization? I am a firm believer in solid SEO practices for any site and I don’t think that will change, even with the integration of more and more social aspects into search results. It does give me some pause though, as popularity via social networks may eventually supercede or at least equal quality, objective web sites and content.

Do we really want the web to turn into a Facebook popularity contest? Think about who’s in your Facebook network – how much influence do you want them to have over the search results you see? Recommendations from trusted friends will always be a very powerful commodity and motivator – I’m just not sure that a Facebook Like should be given that much weight…

AdAge has a great article about Bing’s new feature – you can read it here.

We will definitely be keeping an eye on this and will report back on what we’re seeing in the search space and how it is impacting our clients and others in our networks.

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By Neptune Moon, March 28, 2011 4:08 pm

Just when you thought you had a handle on your online reputation, along comes the site AboutEveryone.com. Haven’t heard of it yet? I suspect in the very near future, you will.

What is this new site, you ask? Well, it allows people to post anything they want about you, based on your Facebook profile link – completely anonymously. Let me repeat that – anyone can post anything absolutely anonymously about you on this site and the link points back to your Facebook profile page. Even if you have your profile privacy settings set pretty high, most of us still allow “everyone” to see our name and profile picture. So, any nasty comments posted on this site will at a minimum link to your actual profile page and show your name and photo, so people will know it is about you.

The site is in beta now. According to AboutEveryone.com’s About page, don’t expect them to help when someone posts awful, damaging or untrue statements about you:

“AboutEveryone is not the author of the posts that appear on the site. Rather, AboutEveryone is the provider of an interactive computer service. As such, AboutEveryone is immune from liability arising from content posted by users. 
Operators of Internet services are not to be construed as publishers and thus not legally liable for the words of third parties who use their services. 

AboutEveryone is still in beta. You will have more opportunities to remove content [in] the future.”

Not sure what those opportunities to remove content will be in the future, but I sure hope they provide some mechanism where you can remove defamatory comments or I can see this site getting seriously out of control. The ramifications for your online reputation are potentially catastrophic. There are a few nice comments posted, but the majority are not.

See for yourself…

We will be keeping an eye on this as it develops.

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By Neptune Moon, January 27, 2011 11:33 am

Facebook is in the news again this week with the announcement of its new “Sponsored Stories” ad product. This on the heels of the rollout and subsequent rollback of granting applications access to users’ home addresses and cell phone numbers. So, what is this latest “feature” and how might it impact you and your Facebook habits?

In a nutshell, this new feature would take various actions, such as Liking, posting a comment on a fan page or checking in and turn them into ads. The program is being piloted with a small set of advertisers, but Facebook has made it clear that this “service” will be available to any company in the future. What does this mean, in real terms, for you, the user? Say you’re at your local Starbucks and you check in. With this new feature, Starbucks could take your check in and create an ad that would appear in your friends feed, with your name and profile photo beside it. You don’t opt-in to this and you can’t opt-out. There are no parameters for how often a company could use your actions or for how long.

Facebook’s attitude seems to be that they are only highlighting information that you chose to share anyway. Which, in a way is true. But, they also fail to see the nuance here, as they seem to do so often when it comes to users’ data and posts. Me, taking an action, such as Liking a company has historically shown up on my profile page and in my friends’ news feeds as a single line – Julie Friedman Bacchini likes Company X, for example. I’m ok with that, I chose to Like Company X. By Liking them though, am I giving them  permission to use me in an ad for Company X as an endorser? I don’t think so, and at a minimum, I should have a choice about that usage of my name.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out…

You can read more about this on:

• CNET
• CNN/Money
• Mashable (Editorial)
• AdAge
• Facebook (announcement video)

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By Neptune Moon, January 18, 2011 11:03 am

It is getting a little tedious writing about Facebook and its seemingly continual issues with protecting user data. The latest privacy issue to arise with Facebook is the news that the social networking giant this week, began allowing applications to have access to your physical address and your cell phone number. Just take a moment and let that sink in… Like with any application, you must grant it permission to access this information, but most users don’t understand what they are agreeing to when they grant an application access to their profile information. You do have the option to not allow access to this information, but the default is, if you grant an app access to your profile, it will have access to this information.

After a ton of coverage and serious concerns about user privacy, Facebook announced on Monday that they will temporarily suspend this service until the can “fine tune the way it works”.

I’m not sure why Facebook continues to move in this direction? Maybe they figure they’ve got enough users and enough marketshare that even if they are cavalier with users’ data people will complain, but won’t actually stop using their service. That seems shortsighted to me, but I suppose only time will tell.

What can you do if you don’t want apps to have access to this information? You could disallow access to this information when you grant an app access to your profile. Or, you could simply remove your address and cell phone information from your Facebook account all together. There is no reason for Facebook to have either piece of information, in my opinion. I’ve already commented on posting your birthday, as it is one of the key personal identifiers used to authenticate individuals. What do they ask you when you call your doctor’s office right after your name – date of birth.

Read the full story at about the program suspension at CNN.com. You can read more about the specifics of the new app permissions, in their previous form, at The Atlantic.

We will continue to follow this issue.

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By Neptune Moon, October 18, 2010 3:09 pm

Not to pile it on Facebook – I know it has been a topic of a lot of my posts, but when news of privacy issues breaks, it just isn’t something I can ignore. Especially knowing how many people use Facebook and how few actually understand how it really works.

I’m not opposed to Facebook, in fact, I find it quite useful to keep up with friends and family who live in different time zones! But I do believe that I, and all users, should be in complete control of the information we decide to post on the site. I am of the belief that whatever you decide to post online, you should inherently understand that you have a lesser “expectation of privacy” (to borrow a Law & Order term!) than you would, say having a face to face conversation with someone. I think we all accept that in exchange for the connectivity these types of programs offer us.

But, when things are happening behind the scenes, without our knowledge or opt-in consent that shares or potentially compromises our information, that is where I think the line must be drawn.

So what’s this week’s issue? Apparently, many of the uber popular apps in Facebook have been capturing personally identifiable information or users and sometimes of their friends and storing it and/or providing it to third party companies. As usual, the Wall Street Journal has a fantastic article on the topic today:

“Apps” are pieces of software that let Facebook’s 500 million users play games or share common interests with one another. The Journal found that all of the 10 most popular apps on Facebook were transmitting users’ IDs to outside companies.

The apps, ranked by research company Inside Network Inc. (based on monthly users), include Zynga Game Network Inc.’s FarmVille, with 59 million users, and Texas HoldEm Poker and FrontierVille. Three of the top 10 apps, including FarmVille, also have been transmitting personal information about a user’s friends to outside companies.

Read the full article here.

To Facebook’s credit, they are taking this revelation very seriously and seem to be making moves to curtail the practice and disable apps that violate Facebook’s privacy terms. In the meantime, now, as always, be thoughtful about what you post online, even if you have your privacy settings set at the highest level. It is ultimately up to you to manage what is even available to a site like Facebook.

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By Neptune Moon, October 13, 2010 11:07 am

The Wall Street Journal has a fantastic series all about this topic – it is definitely worth the read.

The article that originally caught my eye was addressing the topic of data scraping and its pervasiveness. Most of us think that only some of what we might post online is vulnerable to being captured and attributed to us, right? Not so fast! We all know that Google has tons of information in its database about what we search for, and most of us don’t give it a second thought. We also all know that if you create an account with a web site, that company has your particulars.

But what about the stuff you post on a site behind a login, such as Facebook – that is private, right? You have complete control over who can see your postings through the site’s privacy settings… or do you? I’m not just picking on Facebook here, the data scraping is happening over the entire web. I’m using Facebook as an example because it is so widely used. Companies often engage services that help them to find information online about prospective employees, including “private” posts. The WSJ article highlighted a particular case where a marketing company was scraping a private patient discussion board.

Pretty unnerving stuff. I guess the old adage “never put anything into writing you wouldn’t want to have to admit to later” now goes a step further. Don’t post anything online that you don’t want to have to answer for later. To their credit, most web sites are actively mounting defenses against this type of scraping, but much like viruses, it is a constant game of catch up and innovation.

So what’s the bottom line? Most of us know that when we post something online, even if the site is “private” or password protected that there is always some risk of the data being accessed by unauthorized persons. In exchange for easy communication we have ceded some ground on the privacy front – it is a deal we are generally willing to make these days. But it is certainly worth thinking about…

Managing your online data and your online reputation gets more complicated by the day!

Access the WSJ section here.