Recently a couple of people told me they were thinking about unfollowing all of their social network friends and starting over. I’m not sure I understand the thinking behind this. Sometimes it’s done as a “grand gesture” to convey to the world that the quality of social network relationships matters more than the quantity. Sometimes it’s done to simplify one’s online life and eliminate the noise of too many followers. And sometimes it’s done merely to attract attention to one’s self, making it an ironic gesture. (”Having a lot of people follow my Twitter updates isn’t important, so I will do something that attracts a lot of attention, thereby driving more people to be interested in me, to prove that I don’t care how many people are interested in me.”)

Many Twitter users with a large number of followers (and similarly, Facebook users with a large number of friends) have either unfollowed in equally large numbers, or considered it.

One of the first people I recall doing this was Loic LeMeur, CEO of Seesmic. Jason Calacanis also did it. According to the tech news blog, they both unfollowed everyone but “kept” all their followers. I am not sure what that means, since you don’t directly choose or control who follows you. I suppose if you were really serious about recouping your privacy you could block all your unwanted followers, but that’s really inconsiderate and pointless as well.

Shockingly, I have been unfollowed and rarely do I give a rat’s ass. Loic was following me (and vice versa) when he unfollowed everyone. I don’t think I was following Jason Calacanis.

I will say there are a couple people who have unfollowed me on Twitter but have kept me as a friend on Facebook and even added me elsewhere, which is momentarily puzzling but does not affect my self worth.

Mass unfollowing as a gesture is like suicide. If you’re contemplating it just because you want to impress a bunch of people, don’t bother. No one will notice. (Even Loic and Jason had to announce to the world they were doing a mass unfollowing to insure they were noticed.)

Here’s why. Let’s say you unfollow 5000 people on Twitter. It’s not like there are 5000 people in an auditorium who came only to hear you, who are now gasping in amazement and stunned by your maneuver. That 5000 is made up of individuals, many of whom will be oblivious to the fact you unfollowed them and some of whom will be pleased. There is no 5000-person impact. CNN will not report it.

If on the other hand you feel the quality of your social network relationships has deteriorated, then maybe you do want to unfollow a bunch of people. Just keep it to yourself. Anyone who boasts they are going to ignore a bunch of people, essentially snubbing them, doesn’t have very good manners.

Tags: twitter, facebook, follow, unfollow, followers, mass

Several clients have told me recently they don’t think their Facebook pages have as many fans as their brand seems to warrant. They’ve asked me what they were doing “wrong” and how to improve their pages. One executive compared the “coolness” of his brand to a larger, boring brand that drew many more fans to its Facebook page, adding, “I don’t get it.”

I think one of the issues here is the inflation of language so pervasive in social networking. There’s a big difference between a real fan (short for fanatic) of your company, and someone who decides to “Become a Fan,” on Facebook with a single click of the mouse, and who may never again engage with the company.

Still, big business is creating fan pages and a study released in January 2009, commissioned by Princeton, N.J.-based interactive marketer Rosetta, found that 59% of the 100 leading retailers, including Best Buy, Kohl’s and Wal-Mart, are using Facebook. In fact, when I made informal inquiries into what companies had the best Facebook pages, large retail brands were most often cited. Victoria’s Secret’s Pink and Whole Foods were both mentioned.

Among smaller businesses, Boom Boom Cards of Santa Cruz, CA, does a nice job with its Facebook page. The page is frequently updated and makes good use of video and images. On the home page of its regular web site is a link titled Community Hub, which leads to the company’s blog as well as providing links to its Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts. I noticed Boom Boom Cards’s link opened to the Wall section of their Facebook page which is probably the right place to send people. Victoria’s Secret’s Pink on the other hand opens to a tab called The Scoop. There’s obviously some degree of choice and customization available. (For information on the mechanics of setting up a Facebook Fan Page, check out Facebook’s help area on this topic.)

The first step in Facebook Fan Page success is to have a strategy. You have a Web site, maybe a blog, perhaps a Twitter account and a few other social media vehicles. Why do you have a Facebook Fan Page? The answer is not “to engage with fans of our company,” though that may be an outcome. You should have a business strategy, like “grow revenue by 20% in 25-34 year olds.” That strategy will in turn “suggest” communications strategies and vehicles. If you think Facebook offers the right platform and demographic to achieve this goal, the time spent building and maintaining the page might be worthwhile.

While Facebook pages reside within Facebook, they should be thought of as simply Web sites when it comes to attracting and retaining visitors. Many of the same principles apply:

1. Determine the purpose and audience for the page
2. Use it as a standalone communications channel, with a unique charter and frequently refreshed, unique content not available elsewhere. It’s OK to have some content from your other channels, but don’t just recycle content and run it through your Facebook page.
3. Provide something of relevance and value, such as how-tos, schedules of industry events, and informative or humorous videos. People are not going to return to the page simply because they love your company. They need a reason to come back.
4. Use your Facebook Fan Page to launch time-sensitive promotions. This creates a sense of urgency and drives people to the page.
5. Staff your Facebook page with one or more company representatives who can keep it up-to-date, and can respond to comments and questions left on the page
6. Take advantage of the features Facebook makes available, like the ability to upload images, integration with YouTube and Twitter, status updates (which will appear in fans’ news feeds), creation of discussion boards, etc.
7. Watch out for overposting. If you have too much automation through FriendFeed, etc., you might find your blog posts displaying multiple times on the same network, which really bothers most people.
8. Coordinate your Facebook pages. If you have several that serve different purposes, name them and describe them in a way that helps people understand what each one is for, or consider deleting extraneous ones
9. Support independent (non-company owned) fan pages as long as they are largely positive.

Link from your regular web site and your blog to your company authorized Facebook pages (and all other company-maintained social media destination for that matter) to drive traffic and help people know which ones are sanctioned by the company. Ignore most (see #9 above) independent Facebook pages that use your logo and company name unless they are making gross misrepresentations or seriously harming the company’s reputation. Even then, consider the backlash before taking legal action against an independent page. It’s probably not worth it.

For some top, global brands, participation will mirror the enthusiasm surrounding the brand’s actual popularity, but for most, a fan page should not be seen as a direct measure of a brand’s appeal. The top three Toyota pages have about 90,000 fans combined (and nearly half of those are Prius fans.) The top three BMW pages have over 500,000 fans. Apple and Starbucks, predictably, have huge numbers. Apple has1.3 million fans on its main page, and Starbucks has 3,837,365, with another 1,362,237 fans on its Frappuccino page.

So how does this influence consumer behavior? I think many of Starbucks’ 5 million Facebook fans have not modified their habits since stepping up and clicking the “Become a Fan” link. They were already fans of the company and they aren’t drinking more coffee since they joined the Starbucks page. Many of the people I spoke with as I prepared this article said they didn’t pay much attention to the fan pages they had joined on Facebook. Often it’s a gesture, a way of saying, “sure, I like Starbucks.” Sometimes it’s aspirational. Ferrari typically produces 3000 to 4000 cars, so the majority of the 650,000-plus members of its official Facebook Fan Page are just that, fans, and not customers.

A Facebook Fan Page can be a useful part of the social media marketing mix, but expectations should be realistic. A fan page is particularly well-suited to promotions and unfolding stories, like a road trip, or a campaign tied to a sports team, a television program or a movie about to be released. The key is to keep content unique, relevant and engaging, give people a reason to come back, and most importantly, have objectives for your Facebook page and design and manage it accordingly.

Note: This article originally appeared in my September, 2009 Talent Zoo column.

Tags: Facebook, Fan Pages

A piece on Forbes.com titled Are You Practicing Proper Social Networking Etiquette? suggests

“creating rules to cope with the ever-expanding reach of modern communications has just begun, but will be shaped largely by individuals and organizations, not top-down decrees from a digital Emily Post.” (italics mine)

The article goes on to ask, “(is) it wise to accept a colleague or higher-up as a ‘friend’” on a social network?. While some of these questions have been brought on by new methods of communications, others are just plain common sense, and do not need to be thought of in the context of social networking.

This question in the previous paragraph involves both social networking issues and pre-Web 2.0 business etiquette. To answer it, I would consider a number of things:

• Does your company expect you to be available for extended hours? Seriously, the Blackberry was introduced in 1999, so the notion that prior to Facebook your boss was unable to reach you after-hours is a little naive.
• Do you use your account primarily for professional reasons or personal reasons, or has the line disappeared for you?
• Is this person also an actual friend, or just a colleague?

Ten years ago you could have asked these same questions about e-mail, wondering, “Should I give my personal e-mail address to my boss?” for example.

The key for determining social network etiquette is to start by forgetting the social network itself. It’s just a layer of abstraction that makes the question appear new and mysterious. Once you set aside the technology and examine the human interactions behind any question of etiquette, the answers will generally become apparent.

Tags: Forbes, Social Network, Etiquette

My latest Talent Zoo Column looks at Facebook Fan Pages and how to make the most of them. Here’s an excerpt:

Several people have told me recently they don’t think their Facebook pages have as many fans as their brand seems to call for. They asked me what they were doing “wrong” and how to improve their pages. One executive compared the “coolness” of his brand to a larger, boring brand that drew many more fans to its Facebook page, and said, “I don’t get it.”

I think one of the issues here is the inflation of language so pervasive in social networking. There’s a big difference between a real fan (short for fanatic) of your company, and someone who decides to “Become a Fan,” which takes the single click of a mouse and may never again involve engagement between the “fan” and the company.

Still, big business is creating fan pages and a study released in January 2009, commissioned by Princeton, N.J.-based interactive marketer Rosetta, found that 59% of the 100 leading retailers, including Best Buy, Kohl’s and Wal-Mart, are using Facebook. In fact, when I made informal inquiries into what companies had the best Facebook pages, large retail brands were most often cited. Victoria’s Secret’s Pink and Whole Foods were both mentioned.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Tags: Facebook, Fan Pages

What if the preferences for your favorite social network allowed you to pick one or more “blackout days” during which you could not log on? Could you get by for a full 24 hours, or more, with no access to Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed or any of your other favorite social media tools? (And you can’t cheat and use TweetDeck to access Twitter. The API would be shut down, too.)

Recently I’ve had a handful of big projects and some “real world” interruptions and have been spending very little time online. And I don’t miss it all that much.

I’ve always tried not to be overly consumed by anything electronic. In the acknowledgments to my book, I quote my eight-year-old daughter who told me, when I first started bringing my iPhone into the dining room, “Dad, no electronic devices at the dinner table.”

And seven years ago I got fed up with TV and canceled cable. I have never seen American Idol, Lost, CSI, 24, America’s Next Top Model, etc. and I feel no sense of loss.

I’ve been wondering, what would happen if I just quit social networking altogether? How adversely would it affect the quality of my life and relationships?

Maybe quitting completely is too extreme, so that gave me the idea for the social network blackout day(s) feature. If Twitter or Facebook had the ability to shut you out for one or more days, would you enable it? For how many days? Or is your social networking such an important part of your life that the very suggestion seems wrong?

Tags: Social networking, blackout days, Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed