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 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

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.

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 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 .

As a presenter you want to get tweeted and re-tweeted. The best way to facilitate that is to spoon feed the audience with a Tweet-worthy message. Something akin to the 10 second sound bites that politicians use to drive home their point.  So, for each presentation select about three key points you want to get across and craft them in Tweet-friendly style and length (about 120 characters to allow for the tweeter’s username).  One popular example from today’s presentation was:

RT @griner: When companies respond to negative comments, 33% of customers follow up w/ positive review. -@MackCollier #ALSocMe

In this instance, an interesting factoid caught the attention of the audience, but it doesn’t have to be fact-based. Opinions and quotes can be Tweet-worthy as well.  Next time you’re viewing a presentation’s hashtag search results conduct some research of your own and then see what you can add to your next presentation. I’ll retweet if for you!

He discussed the 7 distinct types of social data available and how they can be used to better understand your customers. The first tier held the most familiar and prevalently used data types: Demographic and Product; then Psychographic, Behavioral and Referrals; ending with Location and Intention data. A quick poll of the audience showed that in terms of what marketers are currently using, his order was correct.

While I’m tempted to walk you through each of the 7 types, I’ll resist and suggest that you instead watch the presentation (check back if archive link is not posted yet). There’s no point in me rehashing Jeremiah’s good points. I will say that there are some practical examples/case study overviews that help bring clarity to the concepts.

What’s the takeaway? You NEED to be familiar with each of these data types, what they measure or show you, and how you can use them to improve your results. It’s a great way to get a leg up on your competition and to help your organization or client understand the value your analysis brings to the table.

What I got out of it was a better way to categorize the data types that I already deal with. That will help me to draw better insights and to better explain my thoughts to others.

Next week I may write my own commentary on each of (or some of) the 7 types to provide a bit more advanced thinking on the subject.

Meanwhile, please take a second to leave a comment here or tell me which of the data types you work with and how you use the information.

With Twitter Analytics, users will be able to see a plethora of data about their account; for example, information about which tweets are most successful, which tweets caused people to unfollow, and who the most influential users are that reply and retweet their messages.

The following screen shots show the details:

The new Twitter Analytics Product is sure to be a hit with marketers and the price is right: FREE! What do you think? Will you use the product? Will the new product harm third party vendors out there who provide similar information but charge for the service? Leave a comment. I’d like to hear what you think.

Well, as I mentioned, Chris is coming to Birmingham Wednesday, August 25 as part of the Green Building Focus Conference & Expo (Tickets still available. See more on Chris in the sidebar at the bottom). He’ll be leading workshops, a presentation, book signing and reception. I’m excited to see Chris because as long as I’ve ‘known’ him, we’ve never met in person. I met him on Twitter and we’ve been conversing on and off ever since.  Chris is one of the top thought leaders in the technology and social media space and I can say without a doubt that he is one of the most thoughtful and helpful people on the Web.

Chris is also one of the most prolific content creators I have ever seen. But sheer volume is not what’s most impressive, its the way that Chris is able to take a complex issue or a complicated theory and simplify the concept for everyone to understand. Chris makes learning and participating in social media approachable to everyone. In my social media consulting I often find that people are uncomfortable and sometimes fearful of getting started in social media. The high profile social media gaffes they see in the news have left them gun shy and full of self-doubt about this new sensation.  Chris Brogan has provided so much useful content-from how-to, to why not–and in the process has taught each of us that we’re all human and social and that we have what it takes to be successful in social media inside each of us. We just need to pull the curtain back on the mystery and move on to mastery.

Welcome to Birmingham, Chris!

Chris Brogan is an eleven year veteran of using social media and both web and mobile technologies to build digital relationships for businesses, organizations, and individuals. Chris speaks, blogs, writes articles, and makes media of all kinds at [chrisbrogan.com], a blog in the top 5 of the Advertising Age Power150, and in the top 100 on Technorati. He is co-author of the New York Times bestselling book Trust Agents, and the recently released Social Media 101.

The most popular networking site among the  over-50 crowd is Facebook followed by MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter.  Kevin Donnellan, the chief communications officer at AARP says the latest data tells us that social networking is becoming a part of everyday life for Americans 50 plus, and boomers in particular.

In terms of news preferences:

• Most adults 50+ prefer to get their news from print newspapers and magazines  (40%) or through a combination of print and online news sources (26%)
• Among adults 50+ who use social media websites, three-quarters (73%) are connected to relatives other than children and grandchildren, three-fifths are connected to their children (62%), and one-third (36%) are connected to grandchildren.
• Among those introduced by a family member, three-fifths (63%) said it was their child.

See the survey: http://www.AARP.org/socialmediasurvey