Tag Archives: social media Blog

Why Facebook Can’t Be Google

Facebook’s recent privacy policy woes stem from a fundamental flaw in understanding its own platform, as an excellent post by blogger Adam Fields points out. Though phenomenally popular, FB needs a business model. Their hope, like Google’s, is to leverage the data they accumulate from their huge base of users to make money selling advertising. However, these users expect they can trust FB to keep their data private — or at least to use it only in ways they approve. Additionally, users want control over the data they provide, and they want those controls to be easy to use and stable in the sense that the privacy policy doesn’t change every few months.

The fact that FB wants to make users’ data more publicly available, and therefore more valuable to advertisers, forms the basis of the conflict they’ve created with their users. The crux is that FB’s data is social while Google’s is public, and public data is more useful when more people know about it. Social data, however, inherently has much less reach because its purpose is not for widespread consumption but to serve a limited social circle.

From Fields’ post:

“Social sharing isn’t the same as public sharing. When I write something in a public forum, I want as many people as possible to read it. In that kind of forum, Google can make more money if more people see it, as can Facebook (which is why Facebook is trying to turn its entire platform into a more public one). This is at odds with what the users want for social, which is controlled sharing among a very small group. There is certainly an aspect of making new friends and extending one’s social circle outwards, but the object here is generally to share only inside that circle. People tend to resist being forced or coerced by the platform to share more widely.”

Hijacking user data appears to be a bad strategy for FB unless it can persuade users to give up their current ideas about privacy. And just as FB can never be Google, Google will find it difficult to become a social platform like FB because the nature of the data at the heart of each platform is different.

Read full article: http://bit.ly/bOnk5t

Ten Ways for Small Businesses to Use LinkedIn

Today, everyone wants to get on the social media bandwagon. And for a good reason: social sites are becoming the town squares, marketplaces, and gathering points of the 21st century. For business, you need to be where your customers are.

An excellent place to begin is LinkedIn. The following article will get you started using LinkedIn to promote and develop your business. Try some of these techniques and see if LinkedIn is right for you.

When I first blogged about ten ways to use LinkedIn, the site had 8.5 million total users worldwide. I’m told that now there are over twelve million small-business people on LinkedIn.

Read full article

Twitter: Is It For Posters or Followers?

Interesting: according to this CNNMoney report, upwards of 73% of Twitter users have posted less than ten times! It’s hard to include this site in the social phenomenon when most of its 50MM users are not contributing.

But there is tremendous interest in following on Twitter, and speculation is that the site is evolving into more of a news feed than a social platform. If everyone you’re interested in hearing from is posting on Twitter, that’s reason enough to have an account. But does this mean that the site will soon become just another broadcast medium for the media elite?

Full article: http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/10/technology/twitter_users_active/index.htm

Three Important SEO Factors

In the current web economy, SEO (search engine optimization) and social media (Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and the like) are all the rage. Justifiably so. But for the most part, the interest is for the wrong reasons, ie: many tend to think they are free or cheap ways of making money on the Internet. Yes, it can be more affordable than traditional marketing, but it’s far from free! Indeed, a solid commitment of time and finances is required for success in these venues, just as it is in any other worthwhile arena.

Still, there are many things that a website owner can do to improve their search rankings — if not become “number one on Google,” as the spam pitches promise. And some of the easiest techniques to implement can also provide significant results. That’s the point of the following article from ClickZ.com, which shares three simple but effective SEO tips that you can use right away.

1: Use Your Key Phrase in Your Title

2: Use the Target Key Phrase in the Body Copy

3: Cross Link Your Pages Using the Target Key Phrases

Sound interesting? Check out the entire article for details, try the techniques, and see how your site does on Google over the next several weeks.

Full article: http://www.clickz.com/3636405