EyeSee

At 4:30pm this afternoon I started down the path to participate in a social media scam. Here’s how it came about….

I was trolling Facebook looking for the latest example of a corporate Facebook Page that had a contest. No sooner had I started I saw a status update from one of my friends.

Well the iPad is a hot topic especially that it’s not available in Canada and people seem very divided about it’s usefulness. Eager to capture the screen shots I happily clicked away. I was led to the Test it & Keep it Apple iPad Facebook Page.

So focused was I on getting the screenshots that I failed to do the appropriate due diligence that I normally go through and Fanned the page right away.

I scrolled further down to follow the directions.

Step 2 was to invite your friends, a standard Fb contest step.

I did poke around on the main page though and found this.

Sure it’s fine and I went ahead and clicked on 30 people that I thought would find this interesting, thought that the iPad was not that great, etc. The thoughts that went through my mind was wow great marketing plan get people to spread this virally by forcing them to add 30 people!!

So I finally continue to step 3 where I register.

Next was the standard contest question. At this point I was thinking, amazing job with the branding, keep it simple and slick just like the Apple sight!!

It had the 16+ in big and I skipped over the fine print. I did notice the Canada logo thinking that is a program for Canadians; after all we still can’t get the iPad here.

This is where I stopped. Why do you care about my service provider and my mobile number? Yes it’s to give me a pin. I am getting suspicious at this point so I stop to poke around the Fb Page some more.

The Info. states clearly that this is for Market Research. Well at this point I am feeling very generous and why not help out those market research companies.

PIN here I come

At this point a friend alerts me via Fb that

Yes I am all for market research and helping those companies make better products. I then continue after this interruption.

A peek at the #of Fans

Well that’s a good number.

Another interruption via Fb mail. A skeptical friend stating that another Fb app taking friends info. Of course I am so righteous that I respond why I picked this individual and that if they won it would be great for the online community that they will build for the winners, well every good marketing company doesn’t just give away the prize but builds another micro site to then get feedback from the winners. They wouldn’t just say why it was good but give reasons why it sucks, how cool is that for better product development.

I then continue to look at the Terms and Conditions.

Well it states that it’s not affiliated with Apple.

In the meantime I Fb mailed the market research guru friend for an opinion, market research or scam?

My other friend proceeds to state that they still feel that it’s a scam. So I respond that I felt that way but not too sure and would participate to figure out if it was great marketing or just a scam.

So investigating further I take a look at the Wall.

And that is where I stop. If there are so many fans then why aren’t they saying anything? Why aren’t there any more wall posts by the market research company? Why no logo for the company?

Finally I take a look at the fine print but where could it be? The back button lead to it.

My earlier scan drew my eye to the 16+ therefore I totally missed the “Subscription service $2 per question”

Had I read that I would have been alerted to the fact that it was a scam.

At this point the market research guru responds with

“Market research does not do contests; marketers may.

If there is a prize draw as an incentive this is done fact the fact and with strict rules (in many cases these are governed by provincial lottery rules)

If you are asked to pay anything. Even a token sum, then ANY contest is a lottery & regulated as such.

For things like product tests, sure they give you shampoo to use & test it, but not expensive stuff that you haven’t rubbed all over yourself

I fear, but have no proof, that it is a scam.”

So there you have it.

Well I was this far in so why not see what happens next in this scam.

I enter my phone and get a text a few seconds later.

Find PIN @ end of msg.

Enter 4 a chance to WIN!

Trivia subscription

$2/Ques, 4Qs/wk, Info

skill2thrill.com, 2 end txt

STOP. Ur PIN: xxxx

The text with the PIN was followed immediately by a skill-testing question

Next Q: How big is the

touchscreen on the new

Apple iPad? 1:9.7inches

or 2:3.5 inches. TEst 1 or

2 to 33456 now!

This was followed by another text

Great! Ur chance to win

starts now! Answer the

questions, and remember!

more correct answers =

more chance of winning!

Help:18666700126

I text the correct answer to the number provided.

I receive a response

Yes! Correct answer! : -)

Next Q will be sent later

this week! More correct

answers = more chance to

win! (2$/Q) Info: 18666700126

I checked my mobile bill and true to the Terms and Conditions I was charged for the text. The $2 charge does not show up yet and I will look out for it and let you know where it shows up.

Let’s do some basic math.  There are 97,470 Fans. Say they each answered one question. Then the “Market Research” company in question should have made a whopping $194,940 in a very short amount of time!!!

Should I wait for the 3 other questions or just call it a day? After all it’s just $8 for the chance to win an iPad for market research purposes!!!

So there you have it folks, I have been SOIAL MEDIA SCAMMED!!!

Now it’s back to finding a great Facebook Page legit marketing example. Come across any?

Everyone has been super concerned about privacy within Facebook for a long time. So here’s the latest scoop on this.

In other words you do have the choice of making content available to friend, friends of friends and everyone.

What these changes mean for you

• You can now control who can see every post you share, from status updates to photo albums.
• Regional networks (like London or Australia) have been removed.
• A common set of information for all users is now publicly available.
• Facebook-enhanced applications and websites now have access to a limited set of information when you use and interact with them: your publicly available information and information you’ve made visible to Everyone.
• No changes whatsoever to ads on Facebook. We do not give—and have never given—anyone’s data or personally identifiable information to advertisers.

From your home page, you will be sent through a transition tool that will help you select your new privacy settings. Remember, you’ll always be able to change your privacy settings from the Privacy page.

So you can customize who sees which post. So take the time to customize your settings based on what you are comfortable with. As always do give Facebook your feedback so that they can improve on this.

Further details are provided in Facebook’s privacy guide.

Although Facebook popularity was exploding globally they were still in start-up mode as a company, with negative cash flow.They had to borrow to expand and maintain their data centers, which cost about $25 million to run.

Sheryl Sandberg came on board about a year ago and things began to take a turn. Facebook was no longer a company run by a bunch of kids but had a COO that was there to turn Facebook into a very profitable business.

So who is Sheryl Sandberg anyway? She is a Harvard graduate who was the V.P. of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google.  I think that about sums it up.

Facebook has finally announced that it is cash flow positive this quarter which means that they are no longer relying on investors to fund their development and growth but are generating revenue themselves.

How are they getting this revenue as Facebook is still FREE. This revenue comes via their ad network, Facebook Ads.

I have tried this a few times and have to say that I quite like it. I have the ability to target very specifically to age, gender, geographic location, profession and more. They have gone up in price from 23cents per click to 43 cents per click, however still much cheaper than most forms of advertising out there. They offer analytics and tools to track various campaigns, goal setting and much more.

The virtual gifts are still a high runner, $75Million this year.

So if you are a traditional business and your target market is on Facebook then it’s worth your while to participate there and run a few ads.

I have seen this message on my Facebook friends profiles.

“On Friday, Facebook will start using your photos in ads that will appear on the profile page of your contacts. It’s legal and is mentioned in the fine print when you create your account. If you want to prevent this from happening, do the following: Settings, Privacy Settings, News Feed and Wall. Then Facebook Ads, choose “No one” and save changes. Copy this and use in a status update.”

I was somewhat skeptical as to this new direction by Facebook so I decided to try it out.

Here’s what happened.

Settings

Privacy Settings

News Feed and Wall

Facebook Ads

The result is Facebook RUMOUR!!!

So this is a very challenging situation as you do trust your friends however how do you know that it’s not a virus that automatically updates their status vs them just passing on a message without checking if it’s true.

The best way to know what’s going on is to go to the Facebook blog.

Last week I spoke at the OCRI Zone5ive event about the must have social media tools to engage customers. At one point one of the slides had these words

“it is social media….. start using the media”

So I always try to walk the walk and not just talk about what others are doing or how to do it. These awesome photos were taken by Victor Turco.

The complete set is on the Virtual EyeSee fan page on facebook.  So the next time you have an event take some photos. If you don’t have a budget for a professional, then take your own.

I presented at the OCRI, Zone5ive event today and I focused on must have social media tools to engage your customers.  As I was preparing for this presentation I needed to figure out a starting point as customer engagement is as vague as being “green”. So I took a look at the websites of companies that typically attended these events to find a starting point.

To explain where I came from I used the analogy of social media being the invitation to the house party and the house being the company website. I went further to stress that if the house either did not exist nor was structurally strong then the party would fail.

So my starting point was reinforcing the house and creating the invitations.

Details are in the following presentation.

My goal was to let the people in the room leave with information that they could use to implement these basic social media tools into their websites and social media marketing mix.

The room was fairly silent with not a lot of questions however I did notice a fair bit of note taking. I guess it’s a very different dynamic from the interactive workshops that I am used to giving.

So if you were at the presentation today and have had time to digest this do you have any further questions? If you do, then drop me a line via this post and we can take it from there. Remember there is not such thing as a stupid question. Also there are other people out there that have the same questions in mind.

What makes a social network great asides from the obvious are the little touches that are added to make updating you status easy. In the age of less is more it’s nice to have these add-ons.

Ok I am going to cut to the chase, it’s the @mentions or new tagging feature from Facebook. If you are a regular Twitter user you are very familiar with the @username, as a way of replying to the people you are having a conversation with.

This feature is somewhat similar to Twitter however it’s not only user name based but contextual as well. Here’s an example of what I am talking about. Say I want to @ a particular friend who’s name begins with A.

Click on the wall tab and type the @ followed by the word you want to use, in this case it’s @a.

A drop down window will be opened with all the relevant info. related to a.  i.e. Pages, groups, events etc.. that contain a. Keep typing the rest of the word until you find the relevant item.

Click on the item. There you have it. It’s very easy.

So if you have been to an event and want to comment on it use the @mentions feature. If you have a comment for a number of friends then this is a great feature to use as it saves you writing on multiple walls at the same time.

Go ahead it and get @crazy in Facebook.

Facebook now has something called Facebook Lite. The way to access this is by clicking on the linkhttp://lite.facebook.com/.

It’s certainly a work in progress however it’s quite a calming feeling when you use this as most of the applications, updates, requests etc. are not there. All the bells and whistles have been stripped out. So if you like this then use it.

Here’s what it looks like so far.

Top menu bar for Lite has the Profile, Events, Inbox, Settings, Logout and Search.

Compared to the regular Facebook which has Home, Profile, Frneids, Inbox, UserName, Settings, Logoug and Search.

The top bar for Lite has Write, Post Photos, Post Video.

Compared to the regular Facebook which has Wall, Info, Photos, Boxes, Video, Yearbook, + (for additional tabs)

The Lite side bar looks like this.

There is an Ad asking you to invite 2 other friends to try it out.

There are no menu items at the bottom, and all the other side bar stuff is gone.

So why a Facebook and a Facebook Lite? Time will tell as to where they want to go with this. Till then if you find it all too confusing then use Facebook Lite.

Traditional advertising is costly and these days it doesn’t seem to be very effective.  So what are the alternatives if you don’t have a large budget for advertising but want to let people know about your brand, business etc.

The answer to this dilemma is Social Media. So what is Social Media anyway? Social Media is a term used to reference sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn and more.

Currently there are 12,381,640 Canadians on Facebook. Statistics Canada’s  population clock estimates that the total population of Canada is 33,760,010.

That’s a significant amount of Canadians on this one social network. This does not take into account the number of people spending their time on social media sites like YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Blogs etc…

Based on all the statistics it’s very apparent that social media is here to stay and is not just a fad. So as a business how do you advertise or market yourself in these sites? It’s through social media marketing.

Then what is social media marketing?

Marketing is about building relationships and social media tools help you achieve this in an online world. Social media marketing is about using sites like Facebook, YouTube et. to create awareness and credibility about a brand. This is indirectly translated to growing revenues for your business.

These sites are free however it’s very important to

• tie your business goals into your participation in these spaces
• not spam your audience
• use these sites the the way they were inende, entertainment
• start a dialogue with your customers (build relationships)
• incorporate this  into your business processes

Participation online takes time, effort and consistency.  If you are spending time online building your business then take time to track your efforts and tie this into your website analytics.

So before you participate in social media start paying attention to who is visiting your website and where they are coming from. This will give you a baseline to start from. Then track the difference between the traffic to your website before and after your participation in social media.Tweak this as you go.

June 25th was an interesting day as there was a flurry of activity online especially Twitter. As the morning progressed RIP Farrah Fawcett and Farrah Fawcett replaced Iran on the top 10 trending topics on Twitter. However as the afternoon progressed there were a number of tweets stating that TMZ had confirmed that Michael Jackson was dead. Soon the trending changed to RIP Michael Jackson and other similar versions. This trend has continued since then.

My newsfeed on Facebook was filled with updates from my friends giving their thoughts on the mpact of his passing to their lives.

The Bloggosphere was filled with content where people expressed their opinions on the situation or the impact of his music to their lives.

So what is going on in Social Media during the Memorial Event.

A social media analysis during the Michael Jackson Memorial Event

From a technological perspective it has stretched most sites like Twitter, Facebook etc.. to the limits as people view, share and post updates from June 25th to the Memorial Event.

Blogs

Well what can I say, there are millions of Blogs out there with everyone giving their opinion since June 25th. Some spread gossip, speculation, rumours, defending their friend MJ, news outlets and finally the every day people giving their experience of MJ in their lives.

Facebook

The activity online has surpassed the inauguration of Barac Obama. His Facebook Page has topped over 7 Millions Fans!!! The most popular application being the free virtual MJ glove.

According to Mashable, there have been over 500k updates posted to Facebook. This is probably why I have managed to get onto Facebook only once today.

There are many discussions started on his Fan Page and it appears that this page is unmoderated. Do check it out, I do have to warn you that some of the content is very offensive.

Twitter

There are various trending topics on Twitter that has been changing at a record pace as the Memorial Event progresses today.

Some topics were M’s, We are the world, Gone too soon, KFC, MJs and much more. So what has KFC got to do with MJ? Majic Johnson shared a story of his dinner invite to MJ’s house where he was blown away that MJ ate KFC.

You Tube

The types of videos on YouTube vary from MJ Memorial Tickets for sale to scenes from outside the Staples Centre. Fans videos and much more. The news channels also posted their videos here as well.

Flickr

There were a lot of updates on Flickr. These images are by various people that were outside the Staples Centre. It gives great insight to what was going on outside.

MySpace

The live feed had a lot of updates

Other

MTV

Provided live streaming of the MJ Memorial Event.

Twitter updates….

Facebook Connect

Online News

The Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail used Coverit Live to provide live coverage of the MJ Memorial Event.

The comments were disabled due to the high volume of participants and offensive participants.

Macleans

Live blogging as well as aMacleans posted the moving video of Paris, Michael Jackson’s daughter.This video was posted on YouTube by CNN Live.

Live Streaming

CBS

CBS provided live coverage of the Memorial event. They used Facebook Connect.

CNN

Facebook Connect to follow the conversations on Facebook. Your Voice, the capability to email your comments.

The online news channels did a great job of quoting some of the comments from Facebook and Twitter.

So what does this all mean?

In the past our only source of news would have been the media outlets possibly with live TV/Radio coverage and the newspapers possibly creating special editions that evening or the next day.

Social Media has now changed all of this with the traditional news channels competing with every day citizens to provide the news. It has also given us the incredible ability to express ourselves, our emotions and connect with each other. It has also enabled us to break down geographic barriers and socioeconomic as well. We can now share information instantly via photos, videos, text and audio as well as give our feedback on what is going on or what we think or feel.

What’s important is not just what the media channels are saying but the news from the eyes of the everyday citizen. This certainly does not make traditional media obsolete but just provides a more balanced perspective.

What’s been great is the way these traditional media have now embraced social media and are finding their own flavor of incorporating them into their reporting.

Since June 25th Michael Jackson has been dominating the online channels and has given people the opportunity to express their sorrow and grief. The flip side is that this topic has overshadowed other news worth events.

Now that Michael Jackson can rest in peace these social media channels will be free to discuss the next big event.

Some further analysis

Michael Jackson’s Massive Impact (On Google, Facebook, and Yahoo)

Michael Jackson Dies: Twitter Tributes Now 30% of Tweets