I didn’t get a ticket into the secret room where everyone get’s to buy golden shares of Facebook either. But throwing stones at Facebook feels a bit premature.

It seems like everyone and their mother, and by that I mainly mean the Wall Street Journal, is laying out the case for why Facebook is a sinking ship.

That Mark Zuckberg and his hoodie don’t know the first thing about building a 1 billion person social network.

That we have all been fooled these past several years into believing that we should log into Facebook every day.

That entire demographics use Facebook as a primary social and communication center.

Thank goodness for these great journalistic exposes to help us see the light.

GM and Their Ever Loving Facebook Ads

Yes, GM is pulling their Facebook ad budget. Guess what? Companies pull ad budgets. A lot. Pepsi pulled all their TV ads last year in favor of digital spend. Companies experiment. And they should.

Especially when they are tightening their belt. Earlier this year, GM said it would review its advertising budgets to save $2 billion over the next 5 years. I suppose this gets them 1/40th of the way there.

PS. They also pulled their ads from Yahoo News, the largest online news portal. It feels to me like they were looking for a few large buckets to empty across the web. But who knows. It is probably just a sign that Facebook is dying. Oh yeah, except that GM is still keeping the rest of their Facebook budget, 75% to be exact.

So maybe they just need a new Facebook ad agency?

Can I Get A Few Sides Of Doomsday with my Apocalypse?

But wait, there’s more.

Facebook has no idea how to monetize mobile.

And Facebook’s stock price is going to bottom out, never reaching the epic predictions.

And Facebook pages don’t really work.

Here’s the thing. As the world keeps on a spinning, we all keep using Facebook. And Facebook continues to innovate, unlike it’s predecessors. These two facts alone create a strong business.

Other Refuting From A Smart Cat

But let’s get more specific. Justin Kistner chimed in on these same points yesterday over at VentureBeat.

Here is a breakdown of all the attacks he has seen against Facebook with Kistner’s thoughts of why we should all just chill out a little. Read his full take via the link above.

1. Facebook And Mobile

Kistner rightfully points out that no one understands mobile yet. Mobile ads are not just absent on Facebook mobile, they really do not do well anywhere yet.

And Facebook is poised to move quickly on the mobile front. See the Facebook App Center as well as their recent purchases of Instagram and Glancee.

2. Facebook Ads 

Facebook is just getting started when it comes to ads. They are maturing their product have a lot of untapped potential.

Kistner points to one example. Facebook sends one ad per day per user into the newsfeed right now. A cautious step for sure. If they add one more ad in the newsfeed each day, they have a potential $3.6 billion in added revenue. Or approx. 60% of their total projected 2012 revenue.

Facebook also has untapped ad potential on mobile and off of Facebook.com with a Google Adsense style display network.

3. Facebook Credits

Kistner points out that Google has never made any money from anything but ads to date. While Facebook is already making 15% of revenue from credits. For games mostly. Come to think of it, Facebook does have those little Facebook Credits gift cards in every Walgreens I walk into.

4. Asia

I’ll add one more small detail under the column of Facebook’s potential and future growth.

Asia.

Namely China and India.

Facebook seems to be reaching audience saturation in countries when about 50% of the country is on board. In India, 3% are on Facebook. In China less than 1%.

China alone has more people online that the US has people. These are challenges, yes, but Zuckerberg didn’t learn Chinese for nothing.

Originally published on JeffHilimire.com

If you find yourself moderating a panel, and I hope you do because it can be a lot of fun, here are some tips that I’ve found useful along the way.

1. Always be checking with the conference organizer in case they are trying to alert you to something (like if the speakers can’t be heard, if there are questions, if you need to speed someone up, etc.). Make a conscious effort to frequently make eye contact with that person. Unlike when you’re giving a solo presentation and you know you’re timing, a panel can get away from you and checking with the conference organizer periodically is a good idea.

2. Have a conversation. Anyone can stand up there and ask questions, one after another. Instead, a good moderator reacts to what the person who just spoke said, not going to their next question regardless. Too many moderators do that, go question to question rather than building dialogue.

3. Don’t let your speakers pile on.  The last thing you want is every question asked, every panelist answers. Some moderators even push that, making sure everyone gets a say.  That will kill a session.

4. Quickly get to the audience for questions, and make sure to restate the question so everyone else knows what they asked (unless they get a mic).That’s a big one and easy to forget. But always be checking the audience to see if questions start to pop up.

5. Kill the filibusters.  There will be panelists that go on and on and on and…you get the picture. Politely stop them somehow, interject and then change direction. Fake a seizure if you have to, but don’t let them dominate your panel.

6. Try to watch the vibe of the audience.  If people are getting bored, checking their phones a lot, etc, figure out a way to make it more interactive. Move around, change up the questions, call on someone in the audience that you know has similar issues/ideas and ask if what was just said vibes with them.  Make sure your panel is engaging and exciting.

7. Make sure your opening remarks are tight and prepared, and set up the panel appropriately. A rambling 15 minutes can make everyone check out before you even get rolling.

8. Shoot for some early humor, maybe through a personal story or two, right out of the gate. You set the vibe, so bring the energy and enthusiasm right out of the gate.

With Facebook set to begin trading publicly on the stock market this week at somewhere between $34-38 per share, a lot of talk has been going around about if they’ll be able to sustain the traffic and momentum necessary to support such a large public offering.

Followed up with reports that GM is pulling $10 Million in Facebook ads, and a new report that says “half of Americans think Social Media is a Fad,” if you were Mark Zuckerberg (or his hoodie) you too would be trying to figure out new ways to keep users engaged.

If you check out your personal Facebook page lately, you may have seen quite a few changes. Besides the obvious change to timeline, Facebook has been experimenting with a number of new features designed to make your sharing more intuitive and more personal.

Look at your friend list now, it not only shows their profile photo, but their name as well.

The activity feed, which has always been a personal point of contention against the new Facebook Timeline, is now cleaned up, more streamlined, and truly showcases the activity online.

If you look, the new stream pulls everything from new page likes to foursquare badge checkins to Instagram photos and even activity from new Spotify apps into a compact window with a sample of the content.

I think this is a HUGE upgrade for the user experience, and will allow more content from apps and 3rd party sites using Facebook Connect to be seen.

What do you think about the new change to the Facebook activity stream? Let us know in the comments below!

Editor’s note: According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, General Motors is stopping all of their Facebook advertising. Their Facebook ad budget was $10 million a year, a big bankroll to say the least.

There is little in the way of facts about why GM is pulling their ads, but plenty of commentary.

‎7 things that came to mind in 7 seconds but took me 7 minutes to write down:

1. Seriously? GM thought Facebook ads were going to result in car sales… just like that? 20 seconds, 20 minutes or 20 months later? And how exactly did they determine that it was or was not helping anyways? Did they poll people to ask them “Excuse me, since you last saw one of our Facebook ads, did you or did you not buy one of our cars?”

2. Facebook is awesome but it’s a business and this business’ advertising solutions have been optimized so that brands do PAID + EARNED + OWNED. You can’t do one without the other. At least not if you hope to compete with the other Fortune 500 trying to do it right, even if with minimal budgets. Does GM know this?

3. Has anybody told GM that Facebook ads can be done with just a few bucks? I mean, small businesses spending $10 a day in Sponsored Stories are going to get more targeted reach on Facebook than one of the most iconic US brands of all time.

4. Ok, ok I get it. GM has a cool + innovative campaign unlike anything we’ve ever heard of and they’re doing it soon so this is their way of saying “We got this.”

5. Wait. Maybe this is just a STUNT. PR stunt. Could it be? This is easy buzz on Facebook IPO week. Right? I mean this HAS to be temporary. It’s not like someone at GM can say “We shall never ever advertise on Facebook and so be it!”

6. Where is Christopher Barger when you need him? Hopefully they have him on speed dial because they might need some help from the guy who led their social + community engagement during the 2009 crisis.

7. Did I mention I spent 7 minutes typing this? Well, congratulations to you American Express because your always-on ad strategy on Facebook might be paying off. I just spent 7 minutes with this post.. and one of your sponsored posts. Maybe I’ll go and get a new card from you simply because we’ve spent so much time together.

What did you think?

But what happens after sometimes can ruin it all.

You might have an amazing social media presence, and then the customer sees your website, and all that momentum is lost.

Bad Web Design Is Killing Your Business

While there is no limit to the amount of cringe-worthy design elements you can find online, these are some of the biggest mistakes businesses make on a regular basis.

What makes most of these mistakes even worse is the fact many of them can be easily avoided by planning ahead and implementing a simple design strategy.

1. No clear call to action

What do you want users to do once they arrive on your website?

Are you looking for them to contact you?

Do you want them to buy now?

Do you want them to request more information?

When you set up your website, you likely established it with a purpose in mind (or at least you should have). You should make it incredibly easy for visitors to complete the desired action once they arrive at your website.

Having a clear call to action, whether it’s a request for proposal in the margin or a “Contact Us” button in the upper right hand corner of your site, will help ensure you don’t leave visitors wondering what they should do next.

2. Confusing navigation

No one should ever wonder, “Where am I?” when they’re on your website.

Make it easy for people to find their way around your website, as well as ways for them to go back and forward from their current location.

Think about the feeling you get when walking through a big department store: There are always signs letting you know where you are and pointing you in the direction of where you might want to go.

Make sure your site visitors get the same feeling. Don’t just place them on a landing page and leave them wondering, “How did I get here?” and “Where do I go from here?”

By including the “reset” button in the left hand navigation of this website, I can easily eliminate filters or add additional filters to my search results to find the perfect pump.

3. Not testing different browsers

Sure your design might look great in Internet Explorer, but how will it look in Chrome or Safari?

Before launching (or relaunching?) your new website, make sure you test how the design looks from several different browsers.

Your home page might look fine to anyone using Mozilla, but what happens when there are design breaks when Chrome users visit your site? Those visitors might leave your site and head right to your competition – your competition that tested their site across all browsers and devices.

4. Poor readability

While orange and red might be your business’s signature colors, how will they read online?

Will people be able to read the text on your website if you choose those colors?

When thinking of color choices, make sure you are incorporating colors that provide enough contrast to make your words easily legible. Also avoid using small font sizes or using text over images that might results in white text on white space, which eliminates readability entirely.

White text on a white background is hard for anyone to read. By either changing the background image or selecting a different color for their text, this issue could have been avoided.

5. Incorporating way too much Flash

Sites that use a lot of Flash, or that feature important information within Flash elements, will likely run into several problems.

Kind of like dinosaurs trying to make it out of the Cretaceous period.

The first problem is the design will be harder to read.

Using Flash elements will also slow down your site’s load time, which could cause people to leave before the page is done loading.

Another negative aspect of using Flash is it’s not good for SEO purposes, so anything you include in there won’t be indexed by search engines.

Also, they are rarely as mobile friendly as other, more modern options.

While this doesn’t mean you should never use Flash in web design, if you decide to incorporate Flash elements into your site, just make sure you use them wisely.

—-

While this represents a small sample, all of these issues can be avoided by taking a proactive approach and carefully planning out both your web design and online marketing strategy.

By utilizing some common best practices, you can increase the traffic to your website, as well as improve your chances of obtaining more online conversions.

Image source: BigStock.com Big mistake

Wikipedia articles on a company get more views, shares and syndication than any company fact sheet.

Wikipedia articles on executives are read more than their official bios and product pieces often see more consumer eyeballs than their corresponding product webpages or brochures.

I spend a lot of time telling clients what type of content Wikipedia’s community will appreciate, but many Wikipedia article writers are customers.

Am I really telling them what this nebulous, large and complex communal entity Wikipedia wants, or just what their customers actually want to read?

What Can We Learn?

Why do so many people read Wikipedia and how can we emulate that?

Here’s ten things about content, marketing and community we can learn from Wikipedia.

1. How to share: Sharing an article about your own company with thousands of anonymous internet volunteers just might be more intimate than sharing toothbrushes and challenging than kids sharing toys.

2. Free content: Free text AND images are one of the top reasons Wikipedia is so successful. Want people to share and use your content? Make sure it’s free.

3. Encyclopedic tone: Wikipedia’s requirements for encyclopedic tone brings most marketers to their knees. Just when you think you’re steering away from marketing speak, you’re only halfway to encyclopedic tone.

4. Convenience > authority: Factual mistakes on Wikipedia have been well documented, but the truth is readers favor convenience over authority and rarely double-check misinformation on Wikipedia.

5. Content is King: But you already know that

6. Get Underground: One of the great things about Wikipedia is it gives the reader this underground perspective on how customers and other stakeholders perceive the brand.

7. Create an Internet Mosaic: Wikipedia brings together tiny colored shared on a topic spread all over the internet and puts them together in a single place to create a complete mosaic. The internet is a messy place. Putting everything in one place has value.

8. You Don’t Own the Brand: Your customers do. At least on Wikipedia they do. You can say whatever you want about your brand. So can your customers. Earn your brand from them.

9. Work with Others: We’re not use to collaborating with outside individuals we have no control over or affiliation with, but welcome to Wikipedia. A valid skill for any kind of community-building.

Image source: Bigstock.com Baby with book

The weekly summary will feature “the most relevant Tweets and stories shared by the people you’re connected to on Twitter,” according to Othman Laraki, Director, Growth and International at Twitter.

The email will be in digest format similar to their “Discover” feature with their 140-character signature.

The digest will feature tweets and links to articles and blog posts shared on Twitter by people you follow, even if you do not follow the original writer of the post and articles.

Users can also see what has been favorited or retweeted by people they follow by clicking on “view details.” You can then favorite, retweet, or reply to those tweets from there as well.

Here is a preview of what the new Twitter Stories email looks like. Many Twitter users will have already received their first email form Twitter.

Stories is based from technology from Summify, which Twitter acquired back in January that allows for the creation of personalized social media digests.

This announcement is also right on the heels of Twitter’s acquisition of RestEngine, which will further improve the digest over more time.

So what are the big takeaways here? Why did Twitter add this feature?

And more importantly, what are the potential benefits for marketers?

1. Advertising

For Twitter, this is another potential place to advertise.

While Twitter users include about 10% of adults in the United States and while Twitter is growing at a rate of about one million users a day, it still wants more reach. With this new feature, Twitter can reach inactive or less active users.

And of course, not only will Twitter reach less active users, but your ads could potentially reach them as well.

2. Email Is Important

Consumers trust it, we always return to email in some way or another. This is good for marketers. Your message can reach more people.

3. Content Research

Via this new Stories feature, your team can learn what kinds of articles are popular in your audience, not just in your industry. You can also learn how much of what is being shared is relevant to your business and to recent news.

4. Content Lifespan

An even bigger reward for this is that your content and your tweets could get very popular and ultimately have a longer lifespan online. As it is a weekly digest, your content will continue to gain hits longer rather than getting an email a few hours to a day later after it is posted.

5. Find Conversations

Another advantage to this is that you can find popular conversations to participate in and contribute to. You have the opportunity to be seen, add blog comments, parallel conversations on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms. You could even take this opportunity to respond to the featured/popular content on your blog.

Last week, thinkJar and Sword Ciboodle released a whitepaper, We Are Social: The State of Social Customer Service, and in it identified the top 5 primary benefits of social customer service:

1. Increased Customer Satisfaction
2. Meet Customer Expectations
3. Intangible Benefit
4. Increased Loyalty
5. Reduced Cost of Customer Support

Other benefits included increased revenue and deflected phone calls coming into the call center.

One data point that I found interesting is that a little over 20 percent of those surveyed reported that they are not using social channels just yet.

Other interesting findings that came from this report include:

• 35% of organizations between 100 – 500 agents have not started to implement social customers service
• 40% of those organizations with more than 1,000 agents have deployed social customer service for the past 2 years
• Two thirds of organization that are piloting social customer service are doing so with no defined process
• 59% of organizations have adopted Twitter as a channel for social customer service; and 60% have adopted Facebook

Omaha Steaks is bucking the trend toward Facebook store abandonment and has opened a store to offer fans access to exclusive merchandise, a move that is considered a no-brainer by company senior vice-president Todd Simon.

“I think not having a Facebook store would be kind of like saying we don’t have to have a retail store,” stated Simon in a recent Adweek article. “We sort of held back really getting into this until the technology was there that allowed us to develop a shopping experience around the social platform and really create a social experience as opposed to just trying to rubber stamp out what we’d already been doing in other channels,” he added.

The store, tabbed as “Fan Exclusives,” offers specially-priced merchandise, as well as items that can only be found on Facebook.

Other ways the company attempts to lure fans to purchase products is through badging and points. Users can earn a Steak Lover badge for shopping in the store, a Steak Advocate badge when friends click a shared link that directs to the store or the First Time Buyer badge for an initial purchase said Adweek. And for every $10 worth of merchandise purchased, customers receive 1 point that equals to $1, which they can apply toward their next purchase.

This approach bodes well for three reasons:

• Exclusivity – One way to get fans shopping on Facebook is through the use of exclusivity. Give fans something they can’t get elsewhere and they will buy. But, the offer has to be compelling enough to incite a response; otherwise, sales won’t happen.
• Incentives – Incentives, such as Omaha Steaks use of rewards points, inspires loyalty and keeps customers coming back.
• Status – Gamification techniques such as badging appeal to some people because they serve as a status symbol. A basic human need is to “stand out,” to be recognized as having attained some type of special status. Concepts like badging help people achieve “social” status.

Simon’s understanding that shopping on Facebook requires a different way of thinking is key to the company’s potential for success, as is his willingness to wait until the dust had settled on previous, less successful attempts by other large brands.

Of equal importance to Simon, according to his statement, is having the right technology. For its store, the company chose social commerce platform provider ShopIgniter.

The store is Facebook-inclusive in that the purchase transaction happens inside Facebook rather than pushing customers to Omahasteaks.com. It also makes use of the extended real estate now afforded through the new Timeline format.

There is one point of concern, however.

Adweek says that Omaha Steaks is “looking at its Facebook store as another commerce channel” rather than how it relates to its existing e-commerce site. For example, comments and reviews do not cross-populate between Facebook and the e-commerce site, and while users can register on Omahasteaks.com with their Facebook account, a user’s shopping cart on the e-commerce site will not be linked to the one on the Facebook store.

Rather than view social media as a “channel,” it’s much better to see is as a “layer.” Integrating the two sites to enable social sharing between both the .com and Facebook, something Facebook’s Open Graph certainly facilitates, makes sense.

But, rather than rain on Omaha Steaks’ parade, I’ll refrain from judgment until some numbers are reported. The use of exclusive merchandise, combined with incentives in the form of rewards points and gamification techniques such as a badging are certainly steps in the right direction.

This isn’t a bunch of reasons how you can be more “green” at your next event.

This is three ways you can eliminate paper using text messaging.

These ideas will save you hassle, create better event, and make your attendees, or the people your brand meets at that next event, happier at the same time.

Every one of us, when we attend a seminar, meeting, conference, whatever — we bring our phone with us. We are adept at using that phone to take notes, respond to emails, and Tweet about the live event we are at.

Why not incorporate those skills to improve everyone’s experience?

1. No more fishbowls

Not only do they collect needless paper they look tacky.

Are you having attendees drop their business cards in a fish bowl to win a prize or get more information?

And then who is wasting their day manually entering those business cards into an Excel file or CRM?

Have attendees send a text message to enter the giveaway. Ask them for their email address too.

Now you have two pieces of information, instantly. You can even have that information pushed into an Excel file or CRM, automatically.

Why not have an email sent to them right after the event thanking them for their attendance?  What can you include in that email while the event is fresh in their mind?

2. Take all those clipboards and pens and throw them away

If you’re still collecting information on clipboards you’re doing it the hard way.

Instead of asking your attendees to wait around for someone to pass them the clipboard have them pull out their phone while the speaker is still talking, send a quick text message, and signup.

In seconds you will have saved all that hassle of waiting for the sheet, trying to find a pen that works, and then trying to decipher their writing.

Remember, you can ask them for their email address too.  Then a welcome email can ask them to complete other information that will be helpful to you.

The email can also link them to your social media sites.

3. Nobody likes to count votes

Does your event involve some type of voting or survey?  Are you still using paper ballots?

Text message voting isn’t just for American Idol.  Have your attendees send a text message to cast their vote.

Not only is it easier for them, they won’t be wondering around looking for the ballot box.

It’s also easier for you and your event staff because the votes are counted instantly.  You can announce the winners right away without rushing to count a stack of paper ballots.

You can even screen the votes so each mobile number can only vote one time.

Don’t Forget – Events are Great Place for Mobile Marketing

In the end not only do these tactics save trees and make your event run smoother, they also open up a few really good opportunities for mobile marketing.

In any of these situations the event attendees mobile number could be saved (with consent) for future messages.  In addition, the confirmation response messages could include links to a mobile landing pages and videos.

For example, “Thanks for entering to win! To get a behind-the-scenes look at our latest product follow this link …”