Facebook Changes – THE Social Infrastructure?

The big changes at Facebook, announced today by Mark Zuckerberg at the F8 developer’s conference, are bigger than anythingthe company has done so far. I’ve been reading a lot of analysis about the implication of the changes and I can confidently say that no one, not even Zuckerberg, can fully comprehend the impact this will have on the social web.

Most people are initially talking about the new timeline feature the Facebook profile. It’s like a virtual, visual scrapbook of your life (or your friends life for you to view); an app-generated autobiography of sorts. It goes beyond a static collection of where you’ve been or what you’ve done though.  Eventually Facebook will provide way to see what your friends are doing in real-time AND (here’s the kicker) actually join them right now to do it together, whether it’s watching a TV show together, listening to music or sharing an article.

The engine creating this functionality is the “The Open Graph,” an initiative allowing app developers to create programs that interweave with all conceivable aspect of our lives. The end result could be our own, individual, reality show where everything we do is seen (if we allow) by friends, family and others. Everyone can star in their own version of The Truman Show.

I have found a few articles written by authorities on the subject that I wanted to share with you. If you see any other analysis of the Facebook changes please mention them in the comments to share with others.

Facebook’s Changes—It’s All About the Platform

by David Kirkpatrick – @DavidKirkpatric – Tech journalist, founder of the Techonomy Conference, columnist at Daily Beast

Social Networks Mean New Revenue & Customers

Social networks proving their value as a marketing channel.

Social media, social media, social media, social media, social media. It seems that’s all anyone is talking about these days. And for GOOD REASON, it appears.

According to eMarketer, a survey by office services firm Regus shows that companies around the globe are already realizing returns on their increased social media investments from earlier this year.  In the US, 43% of businesses used social networks successfully for winning new customers in 2011. That represents an 8 percentage point increase over 2010.

• 50 percent of businesses in the U.S. use websites such as Twitter to engage, connect with and inform existing customers
• In the U.S., 55 percent of firms encourage their employees to join social networks such as Linkedin and Xing
• 38 percent of U.S. companies dedicate up to 20 percent of their marketing budget to business social networking activity

Google Piloting Authorship Markup in Web Search

Google has begun its pilot program (announced a couple of weeks ago) to start highlighting the authors creating web content in Google.com search results. Its Google’s way of identifying, verifying and then highlighting high-quality content. They say the logic behind the move is that the web is people-centric and that “people discovering content on the web often want to learn more about its author, see other content by that author, and even interact with the author.” As you can see from the example the author’s profile picture and name appears to the right of the search results.

The new feature will identify quality content if you are familiar with the author. Will content farms be able to game the system? What implications do you think this will have for search users and for content providers?

Resource notes:

Google’s blog post about the pilot program.

How to participate in Google’s new Authorship markup program.

Google Quietly Developing City Pages – Competition for Yelp, CitySearch & Online Yellow Pages.

This week David Mihm wrote (with credit to Linda Buquet) about finding city-specific directories that Google is quietly working on in apparent preparation for a national rollout.  They found city portals that mirror Google’s Offers/Places launches:   Austin, TX |   Portland, OR |   Madison, WI |  San Diego, CA

What does this all mean? Well for starters, Google would advance it’s dominent position in search, create the perfect platform for local social networks, and now will more firmly plant its local marketing flag on the web.

The city portals neatly package many of their local initiatives like Places Pages, interior location photos, Maps, Offers, Mobile apps, local Events into one easy-to-use directory. What catches my attention is the ease with which local businesses will be able to take advantage of the new platform, both with free entries and premium paid features and promotions. It also looks like each city will have a community manager for the portal along with a local blog.

The recurring comments I’ve heard on this subject have universally been, “What took them so long?”  Only time will tell how these city portals will be accepted and how they will evolve. One thing is certain, this has to be making some executives at Yelp, CitySearch, Online Yellow Pages, Yellow Book and others lose a little sleep.  My biggest question is how will this affect popular local and hyper-local sites, many of whom are struggling to grow in the current economy? Oh, and WHERE IS FACEBOOK?  Do they have plans in the works as well?

What do you think? Leave a comment or start a discussion. Or drop me a line and let’s talk about how I can help your business take advantage of these advances and future features.

The Official Facebook Marketing Guide

Reminiscent of the Twitter Guide for Business, Facebook has now released the Best Practice Guide: Marketing on Facebook. It’s the official resource on how to make the best use of Facebook’s advertising products, analytics, social plugins and a host of resources to grow your business.

The introduction states that Facebook “allows businesses to create rich social experiences, build lasting relationships and amplify the most powerful type of marketing – word of mouth.” The guide further defines that they call the Facebook Ecosystem of Build, Engage and Amplify.

The heart of the guide is divided into two parts. The first is the Five Guiding Principles of best practices for Facebook marketing, but they also apply to any Social Business Marketing efforts:

Five Guiding Principles

1. Build a strategy that is social by design
2. Create an authentic brand voice
3. Make it interactive
4. Nurture your relationships
5. Keep learning

The second part of the guide provides key business objectives and for each one describes a five-step process for achieving those objectives.

Facebook By Business Objective

1. Foster product development and innovation
2. Generate awareness
3. Drive preference and differentiation
4. Increase traffic and sales
5. Build loyalty and deepen relationships
6. Amplify recommendation and word of mouth
7. Gain insights

The real-world value come from the examples they give of how prominent brands (Levis, Clorox, M&M’s, Adidas, OnStar, Alamo, and more) have used the Facebook Ecosystem to accomplish their goals. For learning about social business, it doesn’t get any better than that. Well, it does actually, but only if I work with you to do the same for your brand (just let me know if you’d like to talk about it).

Oh, one last thing: Here’s the link to download the PDF file of: Best Practice Guide: Marketing on Facebook .