Five Types of Facebook Users--Which One Are you?

The whiner, the narcissist, the clever one, the secret stalker… What type of facebookers populate your friends list?

If you’ve been using Facebook for some time, you’ve probably noticed that most of your friends have developed a particular usage pattern in posting content to the popular social networking site.

Some of your friends might be sarcastic or cynical all the time, while others might have a tendency to be helplessly optimistic about everything.

A number of people might argue that the different usage styles of facebookers are mostly associated with demographics but age, gender, education level, etc. are not the only factors that affect the usage patterns of facebookers.

In fact, based on our research and findings, personality trumps demographics in determining what kind of facebooker people become. In other words, whether you like it or not, your Facebook comments and posts reveal much about your personality and thought process!

So, what kind of Facebookers populate your “friends” list? See if some of your friends fit the Facebook profiles described below.

The Clever One

His witty comments and funny remarks spark entire Facebook conversations, while his entertaining links provide for great repost material. The clever facebooker is probably our favorite kind of user, bringing color to dull pages and laughter to rainy days.

The Whiner

Probably the most annoying kind of Facebooker, the whiner contributes very little to the Facebook experience. This kind of user utilizes Facebook as an outlet for his misery and bitterness, constantly complaining about the oh-so-horrible things that happen to him in life. Now, there’s nothing wrong with posting a pet peeve here and there—we all need to share some of our frustration every once-in-a-while— but some facebookers just make a profile out of it and that’s a definite turn-off.

The 40-Year-Old Who Acts Like a Teenager

This kind of user is more entertaining than he is annoying. His cryptic posts all stem from his desire to fit in with a community that used to be dominated by teenagers. Of course, Facebook is now populated by users of all ages and backgrounds but that doesn’t stop him from posting SMS-style, acronym-heavy comments and status updates. Sometimes we wonder if he even understands them himself. His posts, however, never fail to entertain and he brings much life to the Facebook world.

The Secret Stalker

This kind of user is difficult to spot. In fact, this facebooker is protected by Facebook’s privacy settings and policy, which blocks people from finding out who has been checking out their profile. But we all know they’re out there! Former girlfriends, insecure husbands, jealous exes, secret admirers… they’re all checking out your profile on a regular basis, enjoying the ability to peek and peep without having to worry about getting caught. If you’re one of them, be happy that you’re not one of the 80 million Chinese using RenRen (the Chinese Facebook equivalent), which let’s users see who’s visited their profile.

The Narcissist

The narcissist is the kind of user who uses Facebook as a vehicle for shameless self-promotion. Often boasting about how awesome his lifestyle is, this user loves to update his profile picture with the latest snapshot of his good-looking self and constantly monitors Facebook for photos in which he might appear. Carefully making sure to “untag” himself from any snapshots that don’t show his best side, this user spends much time perusing his own profile to make sure that his Facebook image is as perfect as his hair.

The Passive One

Shy and quiet, the passive facebooker rarely posts links, submits comments, “likes”, or otherwise contributes to the Facebook community—even though he’s as addicted to the site as the rest of us are. He checks for updates multiple times a day and knows everything that is going on in his friends’ lives, even though he would never admit to it. While this kind of facebooker doesn’t bother anyone, he also contributes little to the community and generally brings little entertainment value to the Facebook universe.

The Ideal Facebooker

So, what is the ideal facebooker like? Obviously, he is different for all of us but there are a number of things Facebook users can do to make sure they don’t get “defriended”.

1. Participate. Facebook just wouldn’t be the same if its users never posted any funny links, cool videos or hot photos. We all like witty comments and interesting posts that kick-start entire wall conversations. Don’t be afraid to contribute—that’s what social networking is all about!
   
2. Involve your friends. Facebook is about the social network that you share with your friends. Submit content that you believe they would enjoy and share information that would be of interest to them. If you just use the platform as a soapbox for your accomplishments, you run the risk of getting “hidden” from your friends’ pages.
   
3. Don’t argue. Public spats look bad for all parties involved and lead to lose-lose situations. Facebook and the Internet being public forums, it’s best to avoid getting into catfights or meaningless disputes. If you have an egg to peel with someone, handle it like a grown-up and don’t do it online. Remember, what is on the web can haunt you for a very, very long time!
   
4. Be your best self. “Be yourself” is popular advice but in the case of some facebookers, may not be good advice at all. While the popular cliché is 100 percent valid for likable people, it’s terrible advice for facebookers who are racist, sexist or just plain bigots. Rather, be your best self and contribute to the community in a good way.

Any Facebook types you’d like to mention? We’d love to hear about them, so feel free to leave a comment!

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Study: Twitter Score of 15 Major Tech and Web Companies

With all this talk about social media adoption and the meteoric rise of Twitter, we decided to venture into the Twitterverse to gauge the activity levels of some of the world’s largest and most established technology and Internet companies. Surely, these tech and web leaders would be advanced in using social media, including Twitter, as a way to communicate with their early-adopter audiences—right?

Here is what we sought to find out:

1. As indicated by the number of Tweets, which companies are the most active on Twitter?
   
2. As indicated by the number of followers, which companies are the most popular?
   
3. Which companies do not have a customized, branded profile?
   
4. As a whole, which companies are the most social?
   

To find answers to these questions, we picked 15 well-known technology and Internet companies and looked at their profiles for basic things, like the number of tweets issued by the profile or the number of followers they had. We expected to find that the vast majority of these businesses would, at the very least, be actively engaging their following on Twitter with regular tweets, news updates and possibly even customer service. We also expected every single one of these tech and web bellwethers to have a personalized, branded profile page reflecting their business’ brand feel.

Findings – No Branded Backgrounds?

The results of our query were a bit surprising. While a number of the companies we researched are clearly actively engaging their audiences on Twitter (including HP, Microsoft, Google, Symantec, Oracle, Sony, Yahoo! and Apple), several companies came up short of our expectations. In fact, a shocking number of companies didn’t even have a customized or branded Twitter background. Shouldn’t a branded background be a given for any leading business?

Surprisingly, companies like Cisco, Baidu, Nokia, IBM, Juniper and McAfee only use default or non-branded backgrounds for their Twitter profile and rely solely on the small space provided by the profile photo to display their logo. Backgrounds provide the opportunity for businesses to include contact information to customer service, product promotions, links to the company’s website and other landing pages, so not utilizing this space seems like a bit of a waste. In fact, with a little extra effort, any company could easily change its background for special occasions, as Google has been doing with its homepage for years.

In terms of popularity, as indicated by the number of followers, Google came in first by a very large margin. With more than 1.57 million followers as of September 14, Google has more than 23 times more followers than the second company on the list, Apple, which has 66,374 followers. Sony came in third, with 65,953 followers, Google’s rival Microsoft was fourth with 40,772 followers and Yahoo! rounded out the top five with 21,681 followers.

On the low end of the list were Chinese Internet company Alibaba, with 475 followers and networking company Juniper Networks with 485 followers. In addition, Baidu’s top profile appears to be handled by someone not linked to the company and features links and tweets to content inappropriate for children. It is unclear whether Baidu handles any of the profiles that pulled up through our profile search using the company name.

With regard to engagement, as indicated by the number of tweets issued by these company profiles, Apple leads the pack with 3,280 tweets, far ahead of number two Microsoft, which posted 1,592 tweets. HP comes in at number three with 1,576 and Cisco and Sony round out the top five with 1,340 and 1,165 tweets respectively.

Correlation Between Tweets and Following

What is interesting about these numbers is the fact that there is clearly a correlation between a company’s engagement on Twitter and the number of followers it has. Four out of the six companies with the most followers are also the ones with the most tweets. Uber-cool Google, which ranks number 10 in terms of tweets but number one in terms of following, is one of the few statistical outliers in this study, where the correlation between number of tweets and number of followers isn’t strong. Nokia and HP are the other two statistical exceptions, with a disproportionate number of followers compared to their tweet rank. The remaining 12 companies in the study show a strong correlation between number of tweets and number of followers, as illustrated by the graph below. In other words, the more you tweet, the more followers you will attract.

So, if there is a strong correlation between Twitter engagement and the number of followers, why are some companies still posting few Tweets? Why aren’t more businesses, especially in the innovative tech and Internet industries, putting more effort into building relationships on Twitter and doing a more concerted effort of using social media as a channel for communications? Maybe these companies would answer that: 1) They don’t believe they could see the ROI from putting time and resources to work on social media activities; 2) They don’t currently have the time, budget or resources available to do it; or 3) Why now? This is, after all, a time when money needs to be spent on programs with immediate return on investment.

To those questions, we would respond: 1) There are several quantifiable ways to demonstrate ROI, including tracking the number of customer leads and sales generated through social media and Twitter. Other quantifiable numbers include website traffic generated and metrics based on specific social media campaigns 2) Large companies have an entire army of employees at their disposal for Tweeting. Every single employee is a potential tweep and could be contributing on behalf of the company, so there are definitely more than enough resources available for tweeting. Get your workforce to engage in social media! 3) If you’re not already engaging in social media, you are losing ground to the competition. The real question is not, “why now?” but rather, “why not?” In addition, whether you like it or not, people and competitors are talking about your company on social media like Twitter, so it’s in your best interest to be part of the conversation.

Conclusion

Clearly, more and more companies every day continue to join the social media movement to actively engage and communicate with their audiences. But this practice isn’t yet pervasive and many businesses, including some of the world’s largest technology and Internet companies, still aren’t putting much effort into effectively using social media as a communications tool. Until they do, these companies run the risk of being at a disadvantage from a communications standpoint.

About the Study

The companies in this study were selected randomly. All numbers were recorded on September 14, 2009. The study is meant to provide anecdotal evidence of technology and Internet companies’ activity levels on Twitter. The company profiles were found by performing a simple Twitter profile search. When the search delivered multiple profiles, we selected the one with the largest number of followers, as long as it was clearly linked to the company in question.

Study Findings

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Twitter Reality-Check

Earlier this summer, HubSpot published a report containing eye-opening data about the meteoric growth of the Twittersphere. With all this talk about Twitter’s massive expansion (sign-ups increased 900% over the past year), HubSpot dugg a little bit deeper to unearth the truth beneath the gross sign-up numbers. The findings lead to an unmistakable conclusion: Twitter’s growth needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

Let me be clear: I am a firm believer in social media. They have already started playing, and will continue to play, an important role in the way companies brand themselves and market their products to end-users. There is no doubt that social media are here to stay and that they cannot be ignored as a marketing tool.

But presenting social media as the end-all-be-all of marketing would be as much of a mistake as ignoring them. HubSpot’s State of the Twittersphere report provides a great illustration of why this is true. The report shows that most of the people who sign up on Twitter are inactive and never really engage with the application. This indicates that most new members register primarily because they are curious about the trendy application but then quickly abandon it because they don't find value in it.

Here are some of the findings around the activity levels of Twitter accounts:

• 55.50% who sign up for Twitter don't follow anyone
• 54.88% have never tweeted
• 52.71% have zero followers


Image courtesy of Mashable.com

As a fervent Tweep, I know that Twitter is only half the fun when you don’t use some of the applications that have been built around it. TweetDeck, for instance, makes the Twitter experience a hundred times more meaningful by allowing users to manage their followers by groups, topics and searches. But many people never get to that point before abandoning Twitter.

What this means is clear: Twitter is not the end-all-be-all of marketing. Social media programs are most effective when they are part of an integrated marketing strategy—perhaps, as an extension of it. Results from social media efforts will be optimal if the content generated and shared is in line with a company’s over-arching communications messages and goals. Traditional marketing tools, like public relations and advertising, are excellent content generators that can help companies to fuel conversations and initiatives in the social media universe.

Therefore, before you pull a Skittles campaign on your company (or client) and turn over your entire website to social media, keep in mind that Twitter numbers must be taken with a grain of salt. Otherwise, you might end up with a bitter taste in your mouth.

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Social Media: New Vehicle for Public Scandals?

News surfaced today that Miley Cyrus was having a very public Twitter spat with her boyfriend, Justin Gaston. Cyrus and Gaston reportedly tweeted the following dialogue, cautiously avoiding the use of the direct messaging function:

Gaston -“People mistake stupidity for bravery way to [sic] easily.”
Cyrus -"Yeah. I love when people mistake bravery with writing a few stupid tweets trying to make it seem like they don't care. You're afraid to love.”
Gaston -“Sorry, Miles. But you can't work a stripper pole one day; and then pretend to be an innocent, scorned teenager the next. At least not via Twitter.”

Some media covered this public twitter exchange from the angle that Cyrus needs to learn the basics of social media communication (i.e. use the direct messaging function). I disagree with this view, as the entertainment business thrives on almost all kinds of publicity—positive and negative.

In this respect, the entertainment business is quite different from the regular business world. Most of the time, even negative publicity leads to increased iTunes downloads and movie ticket sales in the entertainment business. For those who disagree with this statement, feel free to ask Paris Hilton how she feels about it.*

Of course, the business world is different. Scandals and public spats between businessmen are damaging to businesses and definitely lead to lose-lose situations. It is never recommended that business executives start airing their laundry out in public.

But the news today that Cyrus and Gaston chose Twitter as the medium for their argument only cements social media’s place as a mainstay in our society. And that is good news for any business that is considering the use social media for marketing purposes.

*Notable exceptions to the argument that all publicity is good publicity for entertainers includes Tom Cruise’s bizarre behavior on Oprah and his spat with Matt Lauer as well as Mel Gibson pegged a racist after being arrested for drunk driving.

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More Chinese Companies on Fortune 500 List Than Ever

The number of U.S. companies listed is at its lowest since the magazine began its list in 1995

In its latest annual ranking of the world’s largest companies by revenue, Fortune Magazine this year listed 34 Chinese companies and 140 U.S. companies. While China set a new record, increasing its total from 25 last year, the U.S. set a new record of its own with 140 companies, the lowest number since Fortune started its list in 1995.

Now, American companies still handily dominate any other country by far but this year’s ranking continues a noteworthy trend: China is catching up on America in the world of business! And in case you were wondering, India and its 1.1 billion people are probably going to come knocking next.

Perhaps what is most alarming about the recent growth spurt of Chinese companies is the fact that western businesses that fare very well at home are far from dominating their respective industry sectors in China. Companies like Google, for example, which owns about 65 percent of the search market in the U.S., is dwarfed by Baidu in China, which owns 62 percent of the search market. Interestingly, while English remains the most-used language on the Internet with 427 million websurfers worldwide, Chinese (Mandarin) comes in second at 233 million.

Google is not the only western company that struggles in China. The likes of eBay, Amazon, AT&T and many others all lag behind their Chinese competitors. This is due to a number of reasons, including China's protectionist policies, which I shall discuss in my next blog entry.

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Small Texas Newspaper Charges for Content

Stop the presses: The Associated Press recently reported that the Valley Morning Star, a small newspaper in South Texas, this week would start charging for access to its website, explaining that the days of giving away content for free are over.

Does anyone think this will work?

While I praise the paper for its gutsy move, I’m curious to see if anyone would actually be willing to pay for content, other than the people who will have automatic access as a virtue of already being a subscriber to the paper.
The business model for newspapers has been flawed ever since the Internet made it possible for users to post free ads online in a more effective way (i.e. faster, more extensively and for free) than newspapers. Charging for content is not what will make newspapers profitable.

So, what business model would make papers profitable? Stopping the presses, as the first sentence of this piece suggests, might help. The high cost of printing and distributing newspapers makes it today very difficult to make money given the reduced amount of ads placed in papers. So far, only the Wall Street Journal and a handful of publications with specialized content (trade publications) have been able to successfully charge for content.

While it can be argued that the Valley Morning Star’s local content makes it “specialized” to the community, I doubt that users would pay enough in aggregate to make the paper profitable unless it stops printing.

Critics will argue that I am putting down attempts from a company at changing the status quo (which I admire) without providing an alternative solution. The reason I’m not providing an alternative solution is that I don’t believe there is one for print newspapers. In a not-too-distant future, most content will be online and as long as hordes of bloggers continue to publish free content, it will be expected to remain free.

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FTC To Monitor blogs. Why Not Social Media?

In an article that surfaced earlier this week, Associated Press Business Writer Deborah Yao explains that the Federal Trade Commission might soon start monitoring blogs for “sponsored” reviews. In other words, the agency plans to crack down on bloggers—and the companies that compensate them—for any dishonest claims or failure to disclose conflicts of interest when posting reviews on a product (FTC guidelines on Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising)

While the FTC’s attempt at reducing bogus reviews is commendable, the agency’s guidelines are far from groundbreaking and to my surprise, don’t even include social media. Many businesses today use social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and others, as a new communications channel to build their brand, promote products and otherwise market their solutions. So, why would the FTC not include social media in its new guidelines for endorsement and testimonials? It’s just as easy, and not uncommon, to post bogus reviews touting the merits of random products on SNSs as it is on blogs.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The last thing I want is for the FTC or any other government body to start monitoring my every tweet. But the fact that the agency is leaving out of these guidelines the Internet’s fastest-growing and most exciting communications channel—social media—just shows that a lack of recognition for, and understanding of the power of social media still exists. That needs to change!

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Monetizing Social Media

In the same way the dotcom boom from the late 1990s gave birth to countless Internet start-ups, the Web 2.0 era has led to the development of a large number of social media sites—some informative and entertaining, many not. What resulted after the tech bubble burst in 2001 was a shake-out of the most irrelevant companies and businesses, and I predict that the same will happen to the litany of SMSs online today.

The main reason why this shake-out seems inevitable is that social media have failed thus far, like the dotcom businesses of the Web 1.0 era, to find a business model to monetize the traffic from their members. Even Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, three of today’s social media leaders, have failed—to date—to find a compelling business model to profit from the millions of visitors and members they hail.

So, does this mean all social media are bound to die? Of course not! Social media remain one of the most exciting things to happen to the Internet these past few years. As long as users continue to be entertained by SMSs and find value in building online identities, social media will continue growing.

In addition, while SMSs have yet to discover how to capitalize on the fickle social media user, it is clear that there is value in having millions of visitors and information about their habits, likes/dislikes, interests and access to their friends. In fact, a number of organizations, such as Adobe, have already successfully used Facebook to market to their audience.

So, even though SMSs have yet to figure out how, there is no doubt that they will one day find a way to make money. The company that can figure out how to unleash the underlying potential could very well become the next Google.

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Social Media Considerations and Caveats

Most of the coverage around social media in the past year has been favorable to this new channel, which indeed provides a promising way to interact with, and learn from new audiences. Most of the people who have written about social media fall into one of two categories: 1) Critics who don’t quite understand how social media work 2) Advocates who see social media as a valuable new tool for marketing and communications professionals.

While I clearly fall into the second category (I thoroughly believe that social media can provide new ways for companies and consultants to share news, provide customer service, receive feedback, promote products, sell services and more), I also believe that companies need to use social media cautiously to avoid getting results that backfire.

Gauging customer sentiment: Look at patterns

To illustrate this point, let’s take as an example the use of social media for gauging customer sentiment about a product or a brand. While social media provide unprecedented access to direct feedback from customers and are a valuable way to gauge favorability for products or brands, going through the huge amount of comments, posts and Tweets can feel like trying to catch raindrops in the middle of a storm. In addition, comments vary a lot in length and content, with some comments being long and detailed, and others (many of them, in fact) being short and futile.

The key to getting the most out of social media customer feedback is to look at patterns. Some communications professionals recommend listening only to select voices—the ones from the “real influencers”— but marketers who do this run the risk of subconsciously (or not) picking the voices that best fit their own preconceived notions.

I advocate, instead, looking at patterns. Taking into account patterns of comments that have statistical significance (i.e. ones on a large scale) is much more effective in providing information about a brand, product or service to an insider who has a biased point of view.

Over-representation of certain groups

While patterns always deserve attention and consideration, they should also be analyzed with care. Is there a correlation between the comments and demographic of the people leaving them? Are certain groups over- or under-represented in certain social media? Are certain groups using social media passively and ingesting information without ever voicing their opinions?

While Facebook has become increasingly mainstream, its user-base is still primarily composed of teens and young adults aged 18-24 (this age demographic represents more than 50 percent of Facebook’s users). And among these people, some are more prone to actively voicing their opinions than others. In other words, it is important to avoid weighing certain opinions more heavily simply because they are louder. In the same way, companies should make sure not to dismiss certain groups or voices just because they are quieter. Make sure to analyze patterns in conjunction with associated demographics to ensure a more meaningful analysis.

Use social media as a supplemental tool

For the reasons outlined above, social media are best used as a supplemental tool in the context of market research and customer feedback. Unless the demographic of the audience a company seeks to reach is exactly the same as that of the social media being used, social media are best used in conjunction with other research methodologies to corroborate or reinforce findings from these sources.

So, go ahead and venture into the exciting world of social media. Use it as a tool to poll your audience and find out how people feel about your brand. But make sure to look at patterns, and make sure to carefully analyze your finding within a context, as failing to do so may lead your company to a set of wrong conclusions. This would in turn do your company more harm than good, and would give critics of social media only more fodder to argue.

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Five Articles for Social Media Marketers

Innovative marketers continually find new ways to communicate and engage with their constituencies. One of the latest channels available to marketers is social media (or social networking sites), which allows access to small but targeted audiences.

For those who are still new to social media marketing, I’ve compiled some of the best recent articles and posts I have found on social media and SNS marketing do’s and don’ts.

1. In the article, The Importance of Social Media Marketing: Why You Should Learn and Master it, Maki lays out the reasons why social marketing is increasingly important. The post explains how, when done properly, it can lead to increased web traffic and tangible benefits.


2. Steve Coulson’s 5 Tips for Optimizing you Brand’s Presence on Facebook provides useful tricks to help businesses improve how they market themselves through social media, and more specifically SNS giant Facebook. Mashable.com is a good resource for news and information on social media and should be visited frequently by those interested in social media.


3. In 10 Things You Must Know Before Using Twitter, hilzfuld sums up what is most important to know about Twitter if you intend to become a more adept user. hilzfuld provides Twitter terminology, dos and don’ts, and useful applications to use in conjunction with Twitter.
   
4. eConsultancy’s in-depth article, 10 ways to measure social media success, provides a great list of ways to measure success and results from social media activities. A must-read for marketers challenged by their bosses or clients to provide measures and metrics to justify marketing spend.
   
5. To close the list, here's an article about using caution when Twittering. The article from Jim Andrews zeroes in on a specific case of someone Twittering recklessly and ruining his own reputation as well as the reputation of his firm. The article teaches us that, like traditional online media, social media are far from being private.

If you feel this article is useful, feel free to leave a comment or to forward it to your peers. After all, it's the "social media" thing to do!

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Social Media Reshape Financial Communications

Social media’s disruptive approach to communications will be interesting to follow as it relates to financial communications and investor relations. While social media offer new ways of reaching investors, they also entail a certain amount of risk for publicly-traded companies with respect to fair disclosures and legal compliance.

Wouldn’t it be absurd for a company to have to tweet CYA legal disclosures when Twitter only allows for communication in spurts of 140 characters? Well, that’s exactly what eBay will be doing next time it tweets earnings information to avoid getting into trouble.

Companies also run the risk that someone communicating through social media might affect the company's stock price by focusing only on positive information or jumping ahead during earnings calls.

According to a recent Financial Times article, next time eBay tweets information during an earnings call, it will first send four legal disclosure tweets, including one to the effect of: "The presentation of this financial information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for GAAP financial measures."

While there will be growing pains, and even though the SEC will certainly keep a close eye on developments in financial communication, there is little doubt that companies will continue to tweet their way to communicating with new audiences. And social media are just what will allow them to do that.

Are you aware of any companies running into fair disclosure trouble from social media? I’d love to hear about it.

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Twitter for Marketing

Last year, I blogged for help in understanding why Twitter was such a big deal. As a marketing pro, I wanted to understand why so many users were touting Twitter as a promising marketing tool when it appeared to be nothing more than yet another social networking site.

Since then, a few things have happened. An airplane landed in New York’s Hudson River; an earthquake was reported in California; and more recently, a Turkish Airlines plane crashed at Amsterdam's Schipol airport. Each time, Twitter was the medium that broke the news and the preferred way to share initial photos or thoughts publicly.

But these catastrophes and tragedies are hardly what businesses want to be associated with. So how does a marketing pro recommend the use of Twitter or other social media to a skeptical executive, especially at a B2B company?

Many reasons exist and I will discuss them in upcoming posts. But until then, here is one that by itself should suffice: Twitter has grown to more than 8 million users as of March 2009 and keeps growing very quickly. In fact, much has been written recently about SNS giant Facebook taking inspiration from Twitter in some of its newest features and layout.

So, while some may philosophically never understand why Twitter is a powerful marketing tool, the debate is moot. Social media are here to stay and Twitter is already one of their leaders.