Are you, like, serious? Facebook abandons “fans” in favor of “likes”

Within the last 30 minutes, Facebook has done away with the “Become a Fan” of button on fan pages and replaced it with a “Like” button. Below is the message you’ll likely see on your Facebook page:

Facebook “hopes” this change will feel more “lightweight” and that it will increase the number of “connection” made across the site. I’m sure it’ll catch on, because, well, let’s face it, Facebook does what it wants, usability be damned.

How long have we been been “liking” status updates on the Wall? Long enough to feel there is a difference between liking an update and liking an organization’s page. Becoming a “fan” of a page meant that you were somewhat invested in that group. Now, Facebook has removed a level of intimacy by relegating “fans” to people with a vague interest.

While this may be fine for most, I strongly “dislike” this change. “Fanning” a page had finally become an accepted term and now, at Facebook’s whim, we’re supposed to tell people to please “like” our pages? Really?

I started a Facebook ad campaign today for one of my sites that encourages people to “Become a Fan!” But, they can’t now. So, do I re-write my ad copy to say, “Like us today!” God. That sounds like a desperate unpopular kid begging people for friends.

What do you think of Facebook’s change?

Anti Social Media Behavior

cwimedia:

I’ve gone dark. I’m off the grid. I’ve become a ghost. Well, sort of. I am speaking, of course, about social media and the ever-increasing privacy concerns that come with posting information about your life online.

It started some time ago with Facebook and MySpace. My profiles were at one time public and anyone could see them. After getting a ridiculous number of unsolicited “friend” requests from people I didn’t know, and even some from people I actually did know, it was time to restrict access to those profiles.

I also had a accounts with, Plurk, Plaxo, SocialThing, FriendFeed, MyBlogLog, Digg, Newsvine, Reddit, Brightkite, Ping.fm and a bunch more sites. Clearly, I was on the social media overkill bandwagon. Well, no more.

In what a friend called a “scorched Earth campaign” against social media, I went through and canceled virtually all of my social media accounts, especially those that I don’t use any more. I was a bit shocked to discover that I had so many different accounts with varying degrees of personal information available to the world - some of it extremely outdated.

Here’s a partial list of the social media accounts I deleted:

• MySpace
• Digg
• Orkut
• FriendFeed
• SocialThing (bought by AOL, discontinued)
• MyBlogLog
• Squidoo
• 12seconds.tv
• Ping.fm
• Plaxo
• Brightkite
• Blogger (two blogs)
• Photobucket
• Plurk

Here’s a list of social media accounts I decided to keep, but with a restricted privacy level:

• Delicious
• Facebook
• Flickr
• Stumbleupon
• Tumblr
• Twitter
• Vimeo
• Wordpress.com
• YouTube

My Facebook is locked down pretty tight. I created multiple friend lists and restricted access to my personal data to less than 90 people, all people I trust. They are either family or friends.

Twitter is set to private and after after pruning my list of “followers,” my list is down to less than 300. So, why the sudden shift in attitude toward social media? There are several reasons, but first, why did I put all that information out there in the first place?

There was a time when I wanted my name, opinions, thoughts and qualifications out there for the whole world to see. I gloated about how I dominated the search engine results pages (SERPs) when you searched for Gary Cope. There was a time when I didn’t even show up on the first few pages. Social media was huge and niche sites were popping up left and right to cater to virtually any audience. Being a web geek and web professional, I felt an obligation to try the new “it” things as they came out.

I still have a personal blog on Tumblr, but I went through all of the nearly 1,700 posts over the last three years and took down any pictures or posts about my son. They’re still there, but are “private” and only I can see them from my admin page. Sure, they might still exist in some search engine cache file, but there’s nothing I can really do about that.

Going forward, however, I have created a password-protected Tumblr site for family and some select friends. It’s a bit of a pain, but it’s better than going completely dark. I also post to Facebook, which is where most of my friends and family are anyway, so it’s not hard to keep them updated.

The recent social media enema was long overdue. I had more accounts than I could remember and more importantly, I felt a need to get my personal info off the web as much as possible. No more pictures of me and my son. Flickr got privatized, as did Twitter and my blog on Tumblr. I no longer feel the need to let the whole world know what I am doing. The world doesn’t really care, but my friends and family do, hence why I locked the sites down.

I realize that I can’t control all of the information available on the Interweb, but I can attempt to limit it.

If you have too many social media accounts to keep track of, or you are concerned about people you don’t know having to much access to your personal information, consider a “spring cleaning,” or “scorched Earth” campaign of your own.

It can be time-consuming and tedious, but once completed, I felt so much more organized and at ease.

If you have questions, comments, suggestions and/or stories to share about your social media experiences, let me know.

Don’t abuse your personal social media brand

We all know one. A person on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn who abuses their status as your social media “friend” by inviting you to join Facebook fan pages every other day, sending out 500 Tweets before lunch, or even worse, sharing links to get-rich-quick schemes.

There are a couple of folks that I know in real life (IRL) and am also “friends” with on Facebook and/or Twitter. But lately, they’ve started to annoy me with their endless recommendations for fan pages and shameless self promotion. The whole thing cheapens the overall relationship and damaged their credibility.

One person in particular has become a shill, not a living breathing human being. Often times they promote worthy causes, but when I get several fan page recommendations a week, I start to tune you out.

Perhaps you are well recognized and have an established personal brand - great! Good for you. Don’t cheapen it by treating your social media friends and followers with disrespect.

Be a person. Be real. If all you do is pimp something or send invites to everyone on your friends list, that’s not how social media works. That’s how spammers work. It’s the fastest way to get un-friended and/or un-followed.

The Power of the the (Social) Media Forces Policy Change

Earlier this week I saw an article on CNETNews.com about the city of Bozeman, Montana and how it requires job applicants to hand over the user names and passwords to their social networking sites and other internet-based sites like Facebook, MySpace, Google and Yahoo, so the city could do a complete and thorough background check. This practice has been in place with the city of Bozeman for several years … until yesterday.

According to today’s edition of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, the city has suspended the practice. City Manager Chris Kukulski said the city “appears to have exceeded that which is acceptable to our community.” Kukulski added, “We appreciate the concern many citizens have expressed regarding this practice and apologize for the negative impact this issue is having on the city of Bozeman.”

Sorry, but I have to call B.S. on that statement. The city and its citizens have been aware of this policy and have accepted it for several years. Only since the news went viral and international did the city reconsider. Not because the townsfolk suddenly thought it was a bad idea. The negative publicity over a questionable hiring requirement stirrred this pot and Bozeman wanted to stop the bleeding.

Is it a bad policy? I think so. People should have a certain expectation of privacy when it comes to their social networking and online activities. Requiring applicants to provide their user names and passwords (which is a violation of Facebook and others’ terms of service agreements) is tantamount to requiring applicants to have surveillance cameras installed in their’ residences. It is an invasion of privacy.

I understand and respect the city’s intent, which was to fully vet potential employees to hopefully avoid embarrassing surprises, but they went a bit too far. The city said they have merely suspended the policy - not completely abondoned it pending “a more comprehensive evaluation.”

So, stay tuned. Until then, what are you thoughts?  Was the city doing the right thing or did they overstep their bounds?

Track Clicks of Shared Links with Bit.ly

Remember Tiny URL? I do. I remember it like it was yesterday … well, it was about six months ago, but in the world of social media six months feels more like decade. I discovered a new URL-shortening tool called bit.ly. I have seen it before and even used it because it’s shortened URL structure was slightly smaller than Tiny URL, but it wasn’t until recently that I discovered additional features that allow you to track how many people click on the links you share and even add a sidebar to make sharing even easier.

Both Tiny URL and bit.ly have browser bar tools that allow you to shorten a URL (Web site) by simply clickling a button in your browser. Bit.ly, however, takes it step further by allowing you to create an account and adding a sidebar that slides out when you click on the browser bar button. From this sidebar, you can send the automatically shortened link via Twitter, Facebook, Gmail or e-mail. Or, you can copy and paste it manually if you are leery about linking your Twitter account.

Once you have an account and are logged in, you can start seeing stats for how many times your followers and/or friends are clicking on the links you share via Facebook, Twitter and e-mail. Cool, I know … but how does this help me?

For starters, it appeases general curiosity. How many people find what I share interesting enough to click on the link? If you aren’t getting any clicks then perhaps you should consider a couple of things:

1) Maybe your followers are not interested in what you have to say.
2) Consider rewording your anchor text (text describing the link) to make it more appealing.

You’ve probably seen the Twitter posts that reads something like…

“OMG! You HAVE to check this out! http://clickhere.dufus”

No way I am clicking on that link. I have no idea what it is and I don’t like surprises (at least not on the Web). I want a heads up about the link I am about to follow. Be more descriptive about the link you are sharing. For example:

“Check out The Lyric theatre in Blacksburg for a cheap movie date! Two tix, large soda & free popcorn (Mondays) for $11! http://bit.ly/uUHYO”

My followers know exactly what they are getting and if they like the “headline” that I have provided, they are more likely to click on the bit.ly link.

There was a time when using a URL condensing tool didn’t really make much sense because in some cases, it actually made the link longer and added more characters to your 140-character limit with Twitter. For example:

http://thelyric.com has 19 characters as does the bit.ly version - http://bit.ly/uUHYO. So, what’s the benefit? Tracking! That’s where bit.ly does a great job of providing incentive to shorten a link even when it doesn’t actually shorten a link.

For SEO folks (search engine optimization) there is the question of whether TIny URL and other link shortener tools pass “link juice” or anchor text value on to the link URL that was condensed. According to some SEOs Google has started following the Tiny URLs and passing anchor text value.

My other concern is that some of these services will eventually shut down and then you are stuck with a plethora of broken links and subsequently an error 404 hell for a Webmaster. Eventually a front runner will emerge from the URL shortener race and will hopefully stick around for awhile so that all our itsy bitsy URLs will remain intact.

For a more thorough explanation of URL shorteners and the various services available, check out Jane Copland’s post at SEOMoz.com. The post is from last September and Jane is no longer at SEOMoz in Seattle, but it’s still a valuable and informative resource.

Who Is Following Me on Twitter?

Since joining Twitter in January 2008, I have posted more than 4,100 Tweets, received more than 500 “follow” notification e-mails and currently have 360 followers. At first, I did my best to weed out (i.e. block) the accounts using Twitter for the wrong reasons such as spamming, shameless self promotion or agressively pushing an agenda. But, with about 10 new follows a day, it became a bit time consuming to go through and block all the bots and jokers that started following me.

With so many new followers every day, why isn’t my “followers” list a little bigger? Well, that’s because Twitter appears to be doing a great job of suspending the suspicious accounts. For example, yesterday I got hit with four new followers whose user names all followed a similar pattern - a woman’s first name, a middle initial and a year. (See the image on the right.)

Though I have no information or research to back it up, my theory is that these Twitter spammers (Twammers) are targeting males by using women’s names and years - presumably birth years - to appeal to an age group that I might consider potential dating material. I believe these accounts are automatically generated and then use an API script to search for a specific demographic within the Twitterverse.

What I cannot understand is how anyone with half a brain could consider these accounts to be credible and return the follow. Any time you have a Twitter account with a disproportionate ratio of following/followers, that should be a red flag. If very few people are following a user, but they are following several hundred, be cautious. There are some accounts, such as CNN, that have a million-plus followers, but don’t follow very many in return. That’s acceptable in my book. Not ideal, but acceptable.

What other signs should you look for before you follow someone that has followed you on Twitter? Excellent question! Assuming you aren’t one of those people that likes to rack up the “followers” total on your profile, and you actually care about credibility and your online reputation; just using a little common sense will point you in the right direction. Here are just a few things that I look for:

Do they have a picture?

If the picture is of some busty woman in a bikini or provacative pose, that’s a huge red flag and grounds for immediate blockage. I prefer to see a face so that I at least feel like I might have the opportunity to communicate with a human and not some corporate mouthpiece. I do follow some Twitter accounts with logos or other non-personal images, but those are generally trusted accounts like CNET, CNN, LighterFootstep, etc.

What does their bio say about them?

This is probably the third thing I look at, right after their user name and profile picture. I want to know if they are real. If their profile is related to my interests and seems genuine, then I am more likely to reciprocate the follow. If there is no bio, 99 percent of the time I will not follow them. Take the time and tell me about yourself (in 160 characters or less) and you will likely get more followers.

What do they Tweet about?

Content, content, content. It’s the Twitter equivalent to real estate’s location, location, location. What are they Tweeting about? Are they pushing links all the time with masked URLs from tinyurl.com, snurl.com and digg.com? If so, that’s a red flag for me. I get enough e-mail spam - I don’t want it showing up on my Twitter stream. Are they interesting, funny or posting informational content? If so, I am more likely to follow. If every other post is “People are dumb,” I would likely include that person in the aforementioned generalization and not follow them.

Also, if someone posts inflammatory or offensive content, I will “unfollow” them. I actually stopped following someone for their derrogatory and ignorant comments about President Barack Obama. I respect people’s right to free speech and the fact that everyone has their own opinion, but I also value my right to not listen. That being said, I don’t unfollow people for posting opinions with which I disagree, but if there is a pattern of offensive posts, you are going to get the unfollow.

How many posts?

This criteria is related to the previous two items in that I want to see how many Tweets this person has under their belt. If I visit a new follower’s profile and they’re following 500+ people, have two followers and only 1 update, that’s a pretty good sign that this is not a legit account. I have had legit newbies follow me and when I see their profile I see they are following 20 people, have 12 followers and a few posts. I will give that Twitterer the benefit of the doubt and see how they do. I am all about encouraging the use of social media, but only for the purposes of good, silliness, frivolity, tomfoolery and of course networking and knowledge sharing.

I think just using a little common sense will make your Twitter experience a little more enjoyable. And don’t be afraid to not follow or unfollow someone or something that you don’t feel comfortable with.