Gatherings

Ars Technica already has a fairly thorough review of NPR’s new beta “NPR Community,” so for the nitty-gritty on how it all works, I’ll let you read their post.

The NPR Community reminds me a lot of the New York Times social experiment dubbed Times People that debuted several months ago. At the time, I called it a new social network, much like Ars refers to NPR Community as a new social network.

In retrospect, I’d change my verbiage: these are not new social networks.

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I went out to dinner with Baratunde Thuston in Austin last night. This is his third South by Southwest and he’s been teaching me the ropes.

Baratunde is a self-described “conference whore.” He makes the rounds of the geeky conferences every year because, he says gesturing back and forth between the two of us, “you can’t replicate this online.”

Companies looking to build communities online need to be aware of that fact. For example, I’ve long argued that the online “I Love My Dog” community built by Del Monte Foods — the makers of Snausages — to bring dog lovers together around their product needs to have a connection to real world.

If I were working for Del Monte, I would plug into the Google Maps API, and crowdsource my dog loving user base to build a map of every dog park and off-leash area in America. Then, I’d encourage users who had connected in my online space to find one another offline and arrange playdates for their dogs.

The investment here is about giving back to the community that has spent time and money reinforcing your brand. The return is increased customer loyalty and the power of passionate, word-of mouth recommendations.

Yes, things get out of control when online communities meet in the real world. (It’s becoming rapidly clear to me that the primary purpose of SXSW — as “Four Hour Workweek” author Tim Ferriss put it last night — is to get drunk with bloggers.) But in this brave new marketing world, it seems that out of control is where the magic happens.

Here is the Word Document of Lee’s presentation in case you’re interested  in following along on your own screen.

An overview of tips and tricks to use Facebook features for business productivity.

Ellen Leanse will present this session. If you’re interested in leaving a note for her about what you’re interested in hearing, please be sure to leave a note in the comments.

Mari Smith proposed our Unconference Session C on B2B Marketing which will be held at 4:30pm.

If you’d like to join Mari on a panel discussion, please leave a comment below or ping her on Facebook to let her know.

Also, if you see any additional topics under the B2B heading that you’d like covered, let us know.

B2B Marketing: Facebook Tips and Tricks

How to:

• Proactively build your community (Friends list).
• Discern which apps and activities to engage in for professional purposes.
• Use Facebook effectively for strategic business networking.
• Increase your credibility and visibility.
• Manage your reputation.
• Monetize your efforts.
• Track your results.
• Outsource your social media activity.

Mari is a Relationship Specialist and Marketing Coach. She teaches a free online introductory course on using Facebook for strategic business purposes at http://facebookfortunes.com, using the FB app, Podclass.com.

With Facebook’s Platform launch, employers can now tap the Facebook audience like never before. Jobster has helped employers build networks of job candidates on Facebook using the viral social networking features on Facebook since February, 2007. During this period, we learned a lot about what Facebook members want (and don’t want) in a careers service on Facebook, and we worked with dozens of leading employers to understand how to best help them reach the Facebook audience.

We learned that:
Facebook users want opportunities to connect with employers, but this has to be done carefully, in manner that maps to the way that Facebook works.
Facebook users do NOT want potential employers trolling their profiles.
Facebook users want ways to get noticed by employers, to interact with employers, and to get ahead in their career.
Employers are very interested in reaching the coveted Facebook audience.

We’ll talk about tips and tricks to get you and your organization noticed on Facebook.
·         Are you and your company on Facebook?
·         Are you networking?
·         Are you joining groups and commenting on strings?
·         Do you have a company fan page?
·         Are you publishing your company blog on Facebook?

I WOULD LIKE TO ATTEND A SESSION LIKE THIS — BUT I CAN’T LEAD IT.

A session that focuses specifically on paid advertising on Facebook. Strategies, success stories, failure stories, lessons learned.

- CPM vs PPC
– When to use one vs. the other
– Does position matter? CPM displays ads in Ad Space OR News Feed. PPC displays in both.

- Targeting
– Keywords (impact/consequences/benefits of using)

- Images or Not

- How FB Advertising Differs from Search PPC

- Lessons Learned (if any so far)
– Success stories
– Failure Stories

- Social Ads vs. Non-Social

- How FB Could Improve the Paid Advertising Program

1) Trust in Social Environments: what is assumed and what is stated?
2) Best Practices: developing and communicating your privacy point-of-view
3) Why Respect is good for business…especially in social environments
4) Recovering from mistakes: how to respond when “learning opportunities”
arise

Generations share information online for different reasons. Generations X and Y share more information and blend the two in hopes of finding others with shared affinity. Babyboomers tend to share very little.

What are the pros and cons of each approach? When does it become overshare, and is there any risk?

Keynote by Lee Lorenzen

Microsoft’s recent purchase of a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240 million set off a wave of skepticism and debate in the technology community. Most people said that a $15 billion valuation for a company that brings in little more than $30 million a year in profits was astronomical.

Lee Lorenzen thinks differently, and some people are starting to agree with him. He contends that based on where they’re going, Facebook is actually worth $100 billion. In this session, we’ll hear what Lee sees for the future of Facebook and why he thinks Microsoft got a screaming deal.

After the jump, a video of Lee advising Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about valuation…

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Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been spending a lot of time in the attendees-only Facebook group discussing possible topics for the unconference. The conversation has been incredibly helpful and informative.

Here is a table of the topics that I see emerging from this conversation and where I see them potentially being covered.

So what do you guys think? Did I capture everything major here? Does anyone want to get the ball rolling on proposing an unconference session?

During day one of the Web Community Forum 2007, we’ll talk about what makes a great Facebook application. During day two, we’ll hold an open forum to talk about what we like and don’t like about some of the more than 4,000 applications currently running on the Facebook platform.

In the session, entitled “Lessons Learned,” we’ll talk about technical issues:

• When should you use Flash in profile boxes?
• What’s the optimal layout for a canvas page?
• How can you work around Facebook’s requirement that applications not store user data?

and specific problems:

• What is the line between self-promotional applications and spammy applications?
• Which apps make the best use of the news feed?

Marketers who want to make the most of Facebook’s explosive growth are currently working around several barriers:

• Facebook freqently changes the API, FBML language and terms of service. The prospect of budgeting for application development when you might have to turn around and throw more money at the project in six months is daunting for marketing teams used to fixed budgets.
• Facebook’s advertising click through rate is widely regarded as a big downside for the social network. Are advertising campaigns on Facebook ever effective? What would make them more effective?
• Companies that start sponsored groups need to spend more than money. Without effective community engagement and moderation, groups can be overrun by spammers and trolls. Recent criticism of Wal-Mart’s Facebook strategy underscores the need for effective community managers.

What is the optimal mix of these outreach strategies for organizations that want to make a splash inside Facebook? As with business blogging, there is no one-size-fits-all formula.

We’ll be tackling these issues in a session at the upcoming Web Community Forum entitled “Outreach Strategies: Balancing Applications, Advertising, Groups and More.” In this session, we’ll discuss the ways that marketers, web strategists and community builders are developing their own strategies within the walled garden.

Now that Facebook has announced that it plans to include granular permissioning for different types of friends, the question on everyone’s minds is, “What does this mean for Linkedin?”

Linkedin has long been the social network of choice for professionals. But its dominance in this space has been under attack as more professionals spend their time networking on Facebook. This growth has been limited somewhat by the fact that Facebook does not currently have a system for designating how well a “friend” is known to you, or by what means.

This limitation has meant that some content — photos of a Saturday evening spent singing semi-inebriated karoke, for example — might be better suited to an e-mail among friends than a dedicated Facebook album. The restoration of the personal-professional barrier on Facebook is a boon to twenty-somethings like me — who have been on the site since college.

With this type of content permissioning firmly in place, all kinds of people are free to start using Facebook as a professional network as well as a place for friends to congregate. This imbues a number of old questions with new importance:

• How do I manage my professional relationships on Facebook?
• What is the proper etiquette for a friend request?
• What are the special concerns for professional women on Facebook?
• How will these granular permissions play out?
• What features would make Facebook an even better place for professionals to network in the future?

We’ll be asking and discussing these questions and more in a session at the upcoming Web Community Forum conference in a session entitled “Facebook for Professionals.”

What do you guys think? How are you using the site to network professionally? Personally? Where does the divide create conflict?