Cutting Through the Social Media Hype

As we’ve rolled out our corporate social media program over the past two months – the first process-driven, enterprise-wide service available – we’ve heard two things from marketers, executives, industry analysts and the press:

1. DBE is, indeed, the first to approach social media across all business units with a smart, clear and proven adoption process
   
   
2. We’re the gazillionth company this week to talk about social media and all the super-awesome things it can do for brands

Here at DBE, we, too, are bombarded with news and info about social media every day, and we’re constantly talkingwith companies, many of them start-ups, pitching the newest social media tools. So we understand the challenge that businesses face in wading through the hype around social media to get to the information and resources that will actually help their bottom line.

So, here are some tips to help marketers and executives get information they can use:

Take a step back
You can pretty much ignore all the pitches, tools and articles that tell you what you can do until you’ve built a framework that informs what types of social media activities you should do.

Stay in the adoption “safe zone”
Let the early adopters handle the trial and error when it comes to new social networks and tools. Check back 3months or so after you first hear about the “next big thing” and work the learnings gleaned from early adopters into your own strategy. Get started when it makes sense for your business while avoiding being a late arrival or missing the boat

Partner with a social media firm
Unless you have a full-time social media expert on-staff, it makes sense to partner with a firm that specializes in this area. Social media experts like Digital Brand Expressions that take a test and learn approach are continually examining, researching and vetting the value of social media tools and services. Your social media partner should have a thorough understanding of your business and be able to pass along insights and ideas specific to your brand and your company objectives.

Visit http://www.digitalbrandexpressions.com/services/index.asp for more information on Digital Brand Expressions’ social media services.

Google TV

Google has recently announced Google TV. Here is a video that explains Google TV.
Google TV will become available in the US in fall 2010 in television sets, Blu-ray players and set-top boxes through partnerships

Google TV brings the search browser to the television. Consumers searching the Web on Google TV will see the same results and ads that are visible on their computers.

Impact on SEO


The fact that your website will be viewable from TV with the use of Google TV opens up a whole new type of audience. Hence the number of searches and the number of visitors SEO can bring to your site will increase.

Since user can toggle between search and TV, they would want to do the search quickly and will most likely not go beyond the first page of results. SEO is going to be needed more than ever to bring your website to the top of search results and make it findable.

Content will still be the king, and some changes and design elements will be needed to make the TV viewing experience better.

Changes in Design Elements

To get the website to display properly on TV’s, websites must be simple, easy to navigate, designed for big screens.

• Text must be readable from a distance.


• Sound is now a viable interface element.

Group your content, controls, and interactions by priority.
Make other onscreen actions few and prominent. Don't hide key features in a menu.

• Always display an easy way for users to return to their previous location. Don't rely on the back button.


• Limit vertical scrolling


• Avoid highly saturated and very bright colors.

Google provides more guidelines for the web developers here.


Conclusion

Success of Google TV will lie in consumer satisfaction. Others such as Apple and Microsoft have tried connecting consumers to the Internet through the TV, servers and set-top boxes and have failed. How Google TV will fare in the wild, we might only be able to tell when we test the real thing.

Facebook & Your Privacy

When I first joined “The Facebook,” much of the allure of the social network was that it was only available to a handful of people. You could only create an account if you had an email address from certain schools (starting with Harvard and other Ivy League institutions, and eventually any college or university). It was a big deal for users when they opened the site to high school students, and a bigger deal when Facebook opened registration to anyone over the age of 13.

Since the early days, Facebook has always pushed to become more inclusive (and, some might say, more intrusive). Each step of the way, users have complained, yet most have gotten used the changes. But where do you go after welcoming in a global audience? A natural next step is to make those profiles more public, so that you don’t even have to be a Facebook member to access some or all of a person’s information – and that’s exactly what Facebook has done.

The social network’s most recent round of changes, which include Instant Personalization of partner sites and an updated Privacy Policy, have met with harsh backlash from privacy advocates and concerned users. In fact, earlier this month, public interest groups lodged a formal complaint against Facebook with the FTC.

One of the most persistent complaints is that Facebook makes it too difficult for users to understand and control their privacy options. While Facebook does offer granular control of your privacy settings, the following infographic from the New York Times illustrates exactly how user-unfriendly this system can be:



People want to be able to decide what they share on the Web, not have companies dictate it to them. Part of the challenge Facebook is up against is the expectations it created by beginning as a Walled Garden. People join Twitter with the understanding that what they’re posting is shared to the world, but most Facebook users didn’t sign up for that type of exposure. It’s a bait-and-switch if you don’t make these changes easy for users to understand, and force them to opt-out rather than allowing them to opt-in.

To counter its critics, Facebook will supposedly hold an all hands meeting today at 4pm PST to discuss user privacy issues. It remains to be seen whether this will result in the rolling back of some of the social network’s newest features, adjustments to its data sharing policies, or the addition of new tools to help users protect their information.