Lessons learned from the Amy's Baking fiasco on Facebook

I'll admit it: this post is primarily shadenfreude, only thinly masquerading as helpful advice. In the age of all-access internet, I find the actions of this couple quite hard to believe. The truth is that most of you are probably already aware that you shouldn't yell at people, call people names or lie on your company Facebook page. If I needed to tell you that, we would have a lot more work to do together before you typed one more keystroke in publicly available social media.

However, some Samy and Amy Bouzaglo never got that message. The owners of Amy's Baking Company Boutique and Bistro were kicked off the TV show Kitchen Nightmares for being too difficult to work with. Fans of the show and netizens took to their Facebook page with some downright nasty comments.

And let's face it: it is really hard to read nasty accusations and commentary posted about you, publicly, from people who don't know you personally. That being said, if I were to give the Bouzaglo's one piece of advice, it would be not to respond to negative comments at all. Responding to negative comments, much like responding to bullies, is pointless and exhausting. And, much like wrestling with a pig, nobody wins, and everybody ends up dirty.

In this case, however, the two simply couldn't leave well enough alone. They took to the page and blasted out self-righteous messages in all caps, calling the commenters "sinners," claiming that they themselves were "of God," and commanding everyone to "shut up." A full account of their tirades and users' responses are recounted in grisly detail on Buzzfeed.  The article reports that the owners even doctored a Facebook post to make it appear as if the police were calling users before calling everyone "punks" and claiming to have "God on [their] side."

All of the negative comments from Amy's Baking have been removed from the Facebook page, an action which in itself is a major social media faux pas. And, incredibly, the latest post belatedly claims that the all-cap negative vitriol was the result of a hack rather than the voice of the owners. They claim the FBI is checking it out. (Yeah, I'm sure the FBI will get right on that.)

How to respond to negative comments on Facebook

Schadenfreude aside, let's make this post something useful. It's possible that you might receive negative comments or be called names on your own Facebook page, even if you aren't crazy bakers who were so terrible you were kicked off reality TV, which has notably low standards for human behavior to begin with. So what have we learned from this worst-of-the-worst Facebook meltdown?

1. Not all comments require a response Just like your momma taught you, if folks are calling names, just ignore them. Feel free to correct factual errors or engage in friendly conversations, but don't feel the need to respond to negative comments. Remember: pig wrestling.
2. Never post when angry An addendum to the "never post when drunk" rule, keep in mind that everything you post is public. Even if you deny it and delete it, netizens will cache your content and call you out. Count to ten. If you feel you must respond, wait 24 hours for the anger to subside before composing a response.
3. Use this opportunity to show your character Never pass up a chance to be the better person. If you absolutely must respond, make sure that everything you say is a reflection of your core values with respect to how you believe people should be treated. Look at it this way: what would you say if there were a camera crew filming your reponse to this situation for the evening news, and you knew your grandmother was watching? Because that's kind of what Facebook is. Use negative commentary as an opportunity to represent your brand in a way you can be proud of.
4. Never, ever lie The internet will find you out and mock you endlessly. Don't pretend that it's illegal to be mean on Facebook and that police are contacting mean people. Don't say that your account was hacked when it wasn't. No one will believe you, anyway, and some will go out of their way to prove it.
5. Never remove comments or posts Unless a commenter uses a slur or threatens violence, leave the negative comments up. And if you have posted something that is less than flattering to your brand, let it stand as well. It looks better to make a mistake and then make an apology than to make a mistake and try to cover it up.

In short, know who your brand is, know what it values, and make sure that every comment and post reflects that brand.

Added 7:01 PM Pacific: Great PR advice for Amy's Baking from Mike Schaffer

Social Media Today reports Justin Rose has been called in to fix their PR nightmare

At the GartnerCRM summit, an enlightening session using real customer case studies and data to show the trends and techniques for winning customer service on social media

Jenny Sussin, Principal Research Analyst at Gartner with a primary focus on social for CRM, gave this informative session on not only what is happening in terms of social customer management but also how to start initiatives and what to expect when you do. A brief summary of her presentation follows, with some of my own editorial comments thrown in.

Approaching Social

Considering that 340 million Tweets are exchanged every day and that a company like Disney gets as many as 111,000 mentions in one day, it might not be possible to read and respond to every social media mention. However, keep in mind that consumers tend to expect fairly immediate responses from social engagement; some expect responses within a few minutes, and 25% expect a response within 24 hours.

Quantifying the value

So what is the value? It's important to realize that a lot of these interactions will be handled offline. And other results are harder to quantify. For example, a positive interaction by Sussin on Facebook with Eggo waffles may not be tied to a specific increase in sales, but several of her friends noted they hadn't had waffles in a while and would be toasting up more Eggos this week!

However, Sussin reports that 75% of social media projects that don't show a definitive result will be cut off this year. And we can measure elements such as call deflection or speed of response. For example, one retailer quantified their savings in terms of call deflection, calculating that they saved $8 million by responding on social media rather than answering calls in their call center. Another company, Husqvarna, experienced a 24% decrease in call volume due to their social media engagement. Another organization, Odeon, experienced a 61% reduction in negative sentiment in one year with a social customer relationship strategy.

Social Customer Service guidelines

• Keep in mind that unlike other customer service, this is public. Don't ask participants to post private personal information publicly.
• Never delete a post. The community will notice and punish you.
• It's OK not to respond to every comment or post.
• Be strategic in dealing with negative sentiment. Remember the Applebee's kerfuffle? The error was in the organization posting the response as a comment in the long thread, which got buried. Make sure key information is in a new post.
• Don't use templated responses. While this works great in private email or chat, keep in mind that followers can see everything you post. A string of copy-and-pasted boilerplate responses makes the organization look robotic and disinegnuous.

How do we implement?

Sussin shared three key initiatives:

1. Peer-to-peer communities These are communities that replace technical support with fans and other users. Keep in mind that 75%-90% of users will be lurkers and never interact actively in any way: no Likes, no posts, no comments, nothing. Another segment, usually 9%-23%, might engage minimally with a Like or a comment but will not post original content. These are the users to target for more active engagement. And in any community, 1%-2% of users will create the original content; these are the super users. Reward them with badges and other social capital.
2. Social media engagement for customer service Tips for social customer service include avoiding automation, identifying your internal subject matter experts, developing an escalation policy, establishing workflow and creating customized agent desktops to facilitate tracking and analysis. Get started by observing analytics dashboards and determining the proper workload by agent. Identify trending issues and develop FAQs. Determine best practices of high performing agents.
3. Enterprise social networks These are real-time, employee-to-employee collaboration tools, such as Chatter or Yammer. These are best used for a case or a specific issue and are linear and historical. Make sure that the information and case records are searchable for future use.

How to get started

On Monday Find out what your organization is already doing for social. Decide what customer service business value you seek to extract from social: without a goal, you will not be able to measure success or direct your new initiative.

In 90 days Decide who leads the initiative and monitor brand-related feeds to budget resources for social customer service.

In 12 months Select your technology partner and create a standard of service document.

The session at #shesgeeky Seattle on writing your own user manual.

Three days ago, Dove launched a new part of its Campaign for Real Beauty: a forensic sketch artist drew women as they described themselves and then a second time, as others described them. The differences are shocking.

Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty has been running successfully since 2004, sporting images of women of all colors, shapes and sizes celebrating their life, experiences and wrinkles as beautiful. This week, the company ran a campaign showing the results of a recent experiment.

Dove's PR firm, Ogilvy & Mather, hired Gil Zamora, an FBI-trained forensics artist, to sketch women as they described themselves and then a second time, as other women described them. As you might imagine, the sketches were vastly different. Women often described themselves using negative attributes, such as "freckled," "scars," "fat," "starting to get crow's feet" and so on. However, when they described others, the terms used were more neutral or positive.

The video and sketches have been making the internet rounds today, and many women are finding the portrayal of women's deprecating self-talk moving.

However, others didn't. Some critiques of the campaign have arisen. They seem to take two major forms of objection:

1. The women portrayed aren't diverse enough.
2. Self-esteem is all well and good, but the focus is still on physical beauty rather than intelligence or talent.

The most popular reaction piece making the rounds on Tumblr was posted by JazzyLittleDrops, who makes both of the above arguments articulately:

When it comes to the diversity of the main participants: all four are Caucasian, three are blonde with blue eyes, all are thin, and all are young (the oldest appears to be 40). The majority of the non-featured participants are thin, young white women as well. Hmm… probably a little limiting, wouldn’t you say? ...Out of 6:36 minutes of footage, people of color are onscreen for less than 10 seconds.

Objection #1: lack of diversity

From the 2006 Campaign for Real Beauty

And I'm going to make an unpopular argument here: in order to make the point that all women are harsh critics of their own appearance, it's optimal to show traditionally attractive people doing that very thing. In fact, I would argue that showing women who are traditionally attractive criticizing their own appearance brings home the point: every woman needs to have compassion in her self-talk. What does come across loud and clear is that even thin, white, blue-eyed blondes describe themselves in negative terms and have something to learn about the damage that does to oneself.

There is power in realizing that the women you envy for their attractiveness experience the same negative self-talk as you. And this often leads to the realization that hey, maybe my own self-critiques aren't as accurate as I think they are.

Story: I used to spend my summers working at a chainmaille booth at the local Rennaissance faire. (Yup. I was a Rennie geek. Commence the mocking.) I spent all day putting fantasy chainmaille on moms, sisters, new wives and older women. I loved it, and I'll tell you why: for almost every woman I dressed, I saw an immediate transformation in her face as she looked in the mirror. It was as if, suddenly, she remembered that she was more than a mom, more than a competent project manager, more than the sum of her task list. I would see faces turned on by a kind of joy, and I'd say, "Yup. You are beautiful. You always were. That's not the chainmaille. That's YOU."

Women can get a hard rap in this life--we shoulder a lot of responsibility and often forget to take care of ourselves. My job was to remind women that, in addition to being capable and responsible and talented, they were also allowed to think of themselves as beautiful and have that be OK, too.

This isn't about you. And I'll make a second argument here: this particular campaign is about how women see themselves, not about how you see them. You see a lack of color; I see real women discovering the limits they are drawing on their own self-esteem. You see a lack of age representation; I see one real woman questioning the perception of herself she's held for years. You see a lack of body size diversity; I see a woman realizing that she is harder on herself than she would ever be on anyone else, and that she's been teaching that principle to her daughter.

Objection #2: Beauty is still physical

Because the message that we constantly receive is that girls are not valuable without beauty. 

Brave, strong, smart? Not enough. You have to be beautiful. And “beautiful” means something very specific, and very physical. Essentially every movie and tv show and commercial shows us that, right? It doesn’t matter what other merits a woman posses, if she is not conventionally attractive, she is essentially worthless (go watch Miss Representation for more thoughts on this). And my primary problem with this Dove ad is that it’s not really challenging the message like it makes us feel like it is.

Yup, it's been a while! My position at the rapidly-growing startup Spoken Communications leaves me very little time to indulge in writing up blog posts.

However, I'm still quite actively coaching and speaking, and today, I had the honor of speaking to a group of OS developers at the Hewlett Packard brown bag lunch.

I have to admit that I was nervous: what could I teach developers? In my experience, these are some of the smartest and most creative thinkers on the planet. When I asked Mark Atwood, my friend who made the speaking invitation, he said, "We just want to know what you people do all day."

Ah, yes! Because, like developers, we make it look easy. So the talk is focused on what social media marketers care about more deeply than anything else: relevant content, engagement and measuring success.

An argument in favor of Twitter customer service

The Financial Brand recently asked if it is wise for financial institutions to offer customer service through social channels such as Twitter and Facebook.

The post posits the dangers of establishing social media accounts for customer service. The drawback, it points out, is that engaging with users on Facebook and Twitter will only encourage them to air private complaints about the bank in a public space:

Using social media as a customer service tool could be likened to putting a problem resolution desk in the middle of your town square. Set up the desk, hook up some loudspeakers, and broadcast every customer’s beef to everyone within earshot.

Do you really want the whole community to hear customer after customer grouse about problem after problem? No. That’s why banks put those small, private offices in the back of their branches — so prickly customer issues can be resolved quietly.

Riiiiight. Because if the banks don't participate on Twitter, no one will ever complain about their institution there. After all, don't people rush to join Twitter because they found out their bank was on the service?

Customer Service via Twitter

Of course not. People join Twitter for a variety of reasons, almost none of which are for the express purpose of following their most (and least) favorite brands. And if you believe that ignoring social channels will mean that all your customers will obediently take time out of their schedules to meet with you in that small, private office, I have three words for you: United Breaks Guitars.

The truth is that no one is going to agree to handle a complaint in your small, private office. Consumers voice complaints wherever they feel like it, and that includes Twitter, whether banks acknowledge it or not.

Conversation (even via DM) has value. The post goes on to detail that, since most banks are simply asking the customer to send information via DM or call in in order to resolve the issue, social media engagement adds an additional step to the customer service process and is therefore inefficient. But is Twitter "a redundant (and costly) layer in the customer service process"?

Efficiency vs engagement. While it's true that most customer service on social channels does lead to a separate, more private interaction, is that a reason to dismiss one of the most powerful outreach channels that can help to build customer loyalty? With banks on Twitter, it's true that there may be a few DMs (direct messages) exchanged, and yes, there could be a time lapse. In my past interactions with @comcastcares, this was the case: I'd make a public complaint; a Comcast team member would respond with a public @ message; I'd reply back publicly; she would ask for information via DM; we'd continue via email.

So is this level of "inefficiency" tolerable?

Depends on your point of view. The Financial Brand folks say no and propose live chat as a solution instead, since the issue can often be resolved in one sitting:

... live online chat is superior in almost every way to support through social channels. It’s faster, with response times averaging under a couple minutes for online chat vs. 2-48 hours on Twitter or Facebook. It’s more secure, so a wider range of transactions and inquiries can be accommodated. And most importantly, it results in a higher rate of “one touch” resolutions.

Put the customer first. That is all well and good, but that list of benefits are all benefits to the brand, not to the customer. Brands and banks care about the range of transactions that can be accommodated; customers only care about the ONE issue we're having right now.

Let the customer choose the space

If we are truly to look at the customer's point of view, we will consider swimming in their pool rather than making them come to ours. As I've said before, it's wise to go to social sites for customer interaction and marketing simply because this is where your customers prefer to interact. The reasoning is the same here: brands (and banks) should offer customer service on Twitter and Facebook because THAT IS WHERE THE CUSTOMERS ALREADY ARE.

Brands should be prepared to go to the customer's preferred channel rather than making the customer come to them. Don't make your corporate website (even with chat service) your only point of contact. Why not?

• Because users spend an average of 38 daily minutes on Facebook. How long do they spend daily on your corporate website?
• Over 100,000 Tweets go out per minute. How many of them are about your bank, whether you choose to perform customer service on Twitter or not?
• Because users care about themselves and their issues, not your cost efficiencies.

In short, no one is going to go to that small, private office to hash out their issues with you because, while it's convenient for the bank, it's not convenient for the customer. Organizations who really care about their customers will engage with them where they are: on social networks.

"A real business needs to drive traffic to its own website, not Facebook."

When I hear this, I chuckle, reminiscing about those who in 1990 said, "We need to drive customers to our stores, not to our website. That's just crazy!"

Times, they are a' changin'. And while the marketing and sales goals stay pretty consistent (brand awareness, engagement, increase sales), the tools used to accomplish them do change. Saying that real businesses must host all information on their own website and neglect the social sites seems born of more stubbornness than practicality. With over 845 million Facebook users each sharing 3.5 billion pieces of content every week and spending an average of 38 minutes per session, why wouldn't a simple corporate website want to take advantage of this communication channel? Or Twitter, with 100,000 Tweets going out per minute? Most corporate web sites are lucky if a user spends two or three minutes at a time on the site. Why not fish where the fish are?

One may state, "A real carpenter always uses a hammer, not a nail gun." Social media is a tool that can be used to accomplish certain goals. And just like sometimes a nail gun is the best tool for the job, sometimes a Facebook or Pinterest campaign might be the best tool for any certain marketing outreach effort.

Why consider social media at all?

As one Twitter friend asked, why would you want to drive traffic away from the corporate site? The answer lies in a truism: no one cares about your brand. No one cares about your site as a destination any more than they care about the coffee shop that is six blocks out of their way to work. Or the giant ball of string that they may visit once on vacation but won't ever visit again. We are going to use the coffee shop right next to the office, because it's on our way, we go there anyway, and we'll run into coworkers and friends where we can chat a bit before starting our day. You could run a campaign all day long to get these folks to the out-of-the-way coffee shop, but it will likely fail.

Why?

First, because we are social creatures. The reason social sites such as Facebook and Pinterest succeed is because they appeal to the inherent human desire to connect and share with those like us who share our interests. The average Facebook session is over 38 minutes, and 2.2 million users visit Pinterest on a daily basis. What is driving that is connection, communication and affinity. Social media sites are like a second home where users can hang out, share ideas and chat with friends. It's leisure time, not focused shopping time. What is the reward for going to a corporate web site? Maybe you get a coupon or a discount. Big whoop. It's like visiting the giant ball of string: you might stop by once on vacation for curiosity, but you're not going to hang out there and tell your friends every week how great it is.

Second, because we are creatures of habit. Anyone who has ever tried to convince anyone over the age of 12 to floss daily will understand how difficult it is to create a new habit without intense amounts of inner personal motivation and drive. The amount of inertia that must be overcome in the target market in order to create the motivation to form a habit of visiting a corporate web site is phenomenal.

However, social site such as Facebook and the rapidly-growing Pinterest are ideal for marketing campaigns simply because people are already there and already habituated to sharing their brand affinities in that space. The habit is already created, so significantly less initial momentum is required for a call to action.

And plenty of wildly successful social campaigns took place outside of the corporate site. Remember the 2010 Old Spice video campaign? Highly interactive, riveting and held in a place where people had already created the habit of enjoying and sharing engaging content. And to celebrate its 60th anniversary, Holiday Inn Europe just announced a new campaign: they are placing diamonds under selected guest pillows in some Euorpean hotels. Guess how you get clues? Not the corporate site. Through social media.

Why your corporate site isn't a destination

Why host a campaign on a social site? Because it's like going to the mall on Saturday: everyone is already there and involved in leisure time activities. Because if you're looking for brand affinity, it's the best tool for the job. Because if your demographic is already engaged on social sites, it's easier than forcing them onto a new, unfamiliar  location. Because it's already set up for easy social sharing and public declarations of brand affinity.

Oh yeah, and because no one cares about your brand.

Klout has changed its influence algorithm again. But does anyone care?

Yesterday, Klout changed its influence algorithm again in the face of user complaints that the online measurements didn't accurately reflect real-world influence. And critics have been strangely silent of the change. Can that be because no one cares about Klout anymore? (Probably.) Or is it more likely that most key influencer's Klout scores increased this time instead of decreasing like last time, so users can't be bothered to be outraged?

I was amused to see that my Klout score went from a so-so 54 to a more respectable 66 (and I have no entry in Wikipedia, FYI). Spoken's Klout score likewise saw a respective uptick, even though we don't have a Facebook presence and only just initiated a Google+ presence.

The changes

Klout now takes into account Facebook mentions, likes, comments and subscribers; Twitter mentions, lists, followers and replies; Google+ +1s and comments; LinkedIn connections and recommendations; Foursquare tips done; even +Ks and Wikipedia mentions. The full list is here; over 400 signals are included in the super-secret, mysterious calculations this time around.

Much has been made of the fact that those with real-life influence are now more accurately graded as opposed to those who have simply gathered a lot of Twitter followers. Obama's score is now a healthy 99, higher than Justin Bieber, 92. And all is right with the world.

The change is credited to the inclusion of Wikipedia as a signal, which begs the question: now will everyone have a Wikipedia entry to increase their Klout scores and get better customer service?

The results

The truth is that some people care about Klout; most don't. As long as the metric is owned and operated by a private entity that has a vested financial interest in people attibuting value to their scoring system, it will not be considered an impartial and accurate tool for measuring influence. It's a nice number, and it's not bad as a motivation to participate more actively in your social networks of choice.

But let's not lose any sleep over it, shall we?

The guide to gaming Facebook's EdgeRank

I'll admit that I've been advising brands simply not to use Facebook as a marketing tool unless they are willing to shell out cash for ads and Promoted Posts. Gone are the days of democratic distribution of your message; Facebook's EdgeRank now determines which content users will see and what they won't.

That being said, BuddyMedia has created a useful whitepaper to... well, not exactly game the system, but being aware of which content is more likely to increase Facebook engagement and therefore your Page's EdgeRank. It turns out that Facebook users spend 27% of their time in the News Feed, so if you want your Page's posts to be seen and engaged with, it's important to maximize their exposure.

What is EdgeRank

The quickie summary: Facebook shows two feeds, "Most Recent" (the timeline) and "Top Stories" (EdgeRanked posts from the person's Friends and Page affliations). As BuddyMedia summarizes the EdgeRank system:

How to improve your EdgeRank

Fortunately, the advice on improving your EdgeRank is pretty simple and intuitive. BuddyMedia recommends:

• Ask questions. More comments = higher EdgeRank. Even negative ones increase the ranking. Plus, people love to give their opinions; don't you? And here's some more statistical fun: posts with keywords “where,” “when,” “would” and “should,” show a higher fan engagement. The word “would” drives the highest spike in Likes. So ask what fans would like to see or do.
• Post games and trivia. Games that ask fans to caption a photo or answer a trivia question increase engagement. We all love to show off our wit and knowledge, right? Anecdotally, one of my most engaged Facebook posts was a request for podcast fans to write limericks. Over 50 very fun responses!
• Reply, reply, reply. The longer the reply thread, the higher the EdgeRank. Respond to comments and interact with fans. Keep the conversation going.
• Post photos and videos. Visual content such as photos and videos tend to garner more engagement and responses than text content or links alone. And fans tend to love photos of the brand's staff in casual situations, so posting a pic of a staffer about to go on stage usually becomes popular.
• Ask about current events. It turns out that 51% of users who get news online use social networks such as Facebook. Generate conversation by asking about related current events and news. Remember, more comments equals higher EdgeRank.
• Tell fans what to do. Studies show that fans follow instructions quite well. Tell them simply and sweetly to share the photo if they agree or to comment with their opinions.

So, while I personally am becoming less and less a fan of Facebook, there is still value in engaging with fans through a Facebook Page. And there is no need to pay for ads or posts--keeping engagement high will affect EdgeRank and keep your Page's posts at top of mind and top of feed.

When is the best time to post to your brand Page? 7:00 AM or 11:00 PM

After a series of mostly unwelcome changes, Facebook brand Pages have become even more difficult to administer and to derive value and engagement from. I don't know about you, but with most posts remaining all but invisible unless organizations pay the troll to promote them, Facebook is becoming less interesting as a tool for organizational engagement every day.

However, a new report from Buddy Media shares some insights as to underutilized techniques for content and post timing that heighten engagement without paying the sucker fee for promoted posts. The report is pretty interesting and carries information breakdown by industry; download the full report here.

Study methodology

The report analyzed Facebook posts made to brand pages in a variety of industries (entertainment, retail, fashion, food and beverage, authomotive, healthcare and beauty and more) and evaluated success metrics based on comment rate per post, Like rate per post and "engagement rate" per post (a combination of comment and Like rates). As with most studies, times are reported in Eastern Standard Time.

General tips: keep is short (except for URLs) and be direct

Best keywords. Give simple instructions. The keywords "like" and "post" return the best engagement, indicating that if you want fans to Like a post, just say so. If you want them to post comments, just say so.

Ask a question. Posts that end with a question have a 15% higher engagement rate, so when you ask a question, make sure it is at the end of the post.

Keep it short. The study added fuel to the fire of the philosophy that social media is making us dumber: the most engaging posts were short, 80 characters or less. Posts of that length returned 27% higher engagement rates than longer posts. And, despite the popularity of URL shorteners, the study discovered that engagement rates were three times higher for posts that use full-length URLs versus shortened ones. This might be the reason behind the recent discovery that Facebook posts generated from third-party applications return far less engagement than those posted directly to the Page: I'd like to do some A/B testing of full-URL posts from HootSuite, for example, to see if the engagement level is higher than the dismal rate usually experienced from third-party apps.

The report has a theory on the discovery:

Why? It's likely because the "indicators" a user noramlly gets from reading the text in a full-length URL are missing with a shortened URL. For example, inserting www.buddymedia.com into a Post clearly indicates to the user that clicking on this link will take them to the Buddy media website. With a shortened URL like http://tinyurl.com/yhlw3c6 there is no indication to the user where this link will direct them, so they are less likely to engage with it.

When to post: outside business hours

Not surprisingly, most brands post during business hours. This is a big no-no, according to the report. Why? Because consumers turn to Facebook when they don't want to be working. So they check Facebook more often before 8:00 AM, after 10:00 PM and on weekends.

The best day to post may vary by industry. In general, user engagement peaks on Thursday and Friday: "The less people want to be at work, the more they are on Facebook," says the report. Engagement rates across industries are 18% higher on these days. A quick run-down by industry:

• Retail: engagement spikes sharply on Sunday.
• Automotive: engagement spikes sharply on Sunday.
• Business/Finance: engagement is highest on Wednesday and Thursday.
• Food/Beverage: Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday are best for posting.
• Healthcare/Beauty: engagement peaks on Thursday.
• Sports: sharp spike on Sunday.

Conclusion

If you don't want to pay for promoted posts, make the most of your Facebook presence by asking directly for Likes and posts, post on weekends and weeknights when engagement is highest and use the full URL when posting links.

In a recent study, Buddy Media reports on when brands should Tweet for maximum engagement

Buddy Media recently produced a report analayzing engagement trends for brands engaged in social media marketing through Twitter and Facebook. Engagement was measured with three factors: the Reply rate as a percentage of followers, the Retweet rate as a percentage of followers and the Engagement rate, which combined both replies and retweets while factoring in the number of followers.

Some of the information was surprising, such as

Twitter engagement rates for brands are 17% higher on Saturday and Sunday compared to weekdays, but most brands don't take advantage of this trend.

Really? I'd always read that weekdays were best for brand engagement. But to be honest, whenever I Tweet on behalf of a brand over a weekend, I'm always surprised at the response. This report found that most brands Tweet mid-week, when engagement is lowest. Much better to schedule a Tweet for a weekend and use some type of notification tool (I use the free Boxcar iPhone app) to be notified immediately of Retweets and mentions via smartphone.

Best time of day for engagement: day or evening?

It turns out that when brands Tweet during the "busy hours" of 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM Eastern, they enjoy 30% more engagement than during off-peak hours. Interestingly, the reverse is true for Facebook: the study showed that posts on non-busy hours (between 7:00 PM  and 8:00 AM Eastern) get 17% better engagement than during busy hours. So for an always-on strategy, Tweet during the day and schedule Facebook posts to appear during non-busy hours.

Relax; brands should only Tweet four times a day

Interestingly, the report indicated that brands that Tweeted more often than four times a day got diminishing returns in terms of engagement. From the chart below, it would appear that even just Tweeting once a day (with good content, presumably) can result in a very high level of engagement.

Keep it short

Shorter Tweets are better, the study found:

Tweets that contain less than 100 characters receive 17% higher engagement than longer Tweets.

It's always been considered polite to keep a Tweet under 140 characters to allow space for the retweeter's account name and comments, but this study shows that it's more than a best practice; it actually drives better results. Plus, it's a good exercise in condensing your message into a concise little chunk.

Link it or lose it

Again, it's always been a best practice to link to interesting articles and videos, but now there is data to back up the practice:

Tweets that contain links receive 86% higher Retweet rates than Tweets with no links.

So while it's good practice to Tweet your opinions and questions, for a high level of engagement via clickthroughs and Retweets, make sure you're linking to good content. This not only drives traffic to your destinations and increases your credibility when you link to external authoritative sources, but it allows the possibility of amplification of your brand and its messages to additional followers.

Was it unethical for Melissa Stetten to Tweet about Brian Presley's hitting on her during a flight?

Last week, young model Melissa Stetten Tweeted a conversation she had on an airplane with a handsome man named Brian, during which the man had a few drinks, claimed he had called off a recent engagement and proceeded to hit on the young model, saying their meeting was "like divine interception."

When Stetten reported that the man next to her was working on a movie with McConaughy, a follower Tweeted her a photo of actor Brian Presley to confirm the man's identity. When Stetten Tweeted that Presley had imbibed three beers, a follower replied with a link to an article in which Presley is described as a recovering alcoholic, now sober for 18 months. When she Tweeted that he said he was engaged but broke it off, a follower replied, "Ask him how his wife Erin and son Jackson are." See her Tweets as reported by the Huffington Post.

It turns out that Presley is actually married with a son, and Stetten's funny-turned-annoyed Tweets to her 30,000 followers resulted in an uproar in his personal life followed by talk show appearances to address and defend his actions.

Not the first celebrity to be caught with his pants down, this seemed to be just another story of a

celebrity case of boys behaving badly. I wonder if fictional Seinfeld character George Costanza were out and about today, would he have been able to perpetuate his alter-ego Art Vandelay? Probably not. One Google search, and any woman he was talking to could Tweet, "This guy told me he's an architect--HA!" Sorry, George!

But was Stetten wrong to Tweet her experience as it happened?

Where can a celebrity go for a private conversation?

A thought-provoking article came out today on Social Media Today in which Stetten's social media ethics were questioned. David Amerland writes:

Now here comes up an entire truckload of issues including the sense of implied expectation of a measure of confidentiality of what is a private conversation, the responsibility to perhaps stop a self-acknowledged recovering alcoholic from having a drink by at least asking if he thought that would be a good idea, and a display of a lack of empathy for one person, however boorish, simply wanting to connect with another for the duration of a flight.

Let's take a look at these, the final two first:

• Stopping an alcoholic from drinking. I have a few issues with putting this ethical imperative on Stetten. First, she didn't know he was a recovering alcoholic until a follower Tweeted her such. Second, in our society, it is socially inappropriate for a stranger to say, "You've had too much to drink" just as it is to say, "Really? A second slice of pie? Aren't you a little tubby already?" or "You're fat enough to be diabetic--should you be eating that?" If Presley were acting inappropriately, it was up to the flight attendant to stop serving him, if anyone. For a passenger, it is an inappropriate and possibly dangerous confrontation to have with a stranger.
• He simply wanted to connect during a flight. Perhaps it's because I'm a relatively attractive woman and have been hit on in a variety of ways during my life, but I find it hard to believe Presley was "simply [wanting] to connect." Puh-leeze! It's highly unlikely that a man who is speaking to a model about their meeting being "divine interception" and lying about being married is looking for anything other than booty. If he was simply looking for a polite conversation, why lie about his marriage, huh?

Now Amberland's first point, about the conversation having an expectation of privacy, has some legs. Is there an expectation of privacy on a plane? On the one hand, I would hope so--I've had some weird conversations on planes in which I probably revealed too much about myself. Have you? There is something about talking to a complete stranger that is somehow liberating and can inspire bizarre and inappropriate confidences.

On the other hand, with at least a dozen people within earshot, can a conversation really be considered private? If so, why do so many people have privacy screens for their laptops to avoid prying eyes seeing confidential information? And why are people required to wear headphones to listen to music or movies? It is precisely because the space isn't entirely private, much as we would like to pretend it is.

The ethics: to Tweet or not to Tweet

Next, Amberland brings up the ethics question: was it wrong for Stetten to Tweet the conversation at all? Was she unethical for not trying to stop the drinking or lying but rather for reporting it? He writes:

Social media however is a tool which has the ability to create radical transparency in every situation it is applied in. As a tool, it should not be exempt from the same degree of responsibility which governs our use of almost any other tool in our world and this means accepting some ethical standards.

Let's be clear on this count: any ethical standards that were broken were by Presley, not Stetten. Stetten simply reported on something that was happening to her live in a truthful and somewhat opinionated manner. That is what Twitter is for. Could she have chosen to be discreet and not report the conversation? Sure, that's always an option. But it's not an obligation. Stetten reported what she experienced while her followers fact-checked for her.

Presley is the one who was caught in a lie. He is the one who chose to drink even though he was a recovering alcoholic. If we question anyone's ethics, we should question his.

No one is questioning the veracity of Stetten's Tweets, only whether it was ethical to post them. I say yes, absolutely. She doesn't have any obligation to save the marriage of someone she only just discovered was lying to her--that's his job.

Mirror, mirror on the wall/Who's the coolest SNS of them all?

Pinterest, as a new report from ComScore recently indicated. Since reporting began about a year ago, the image- and video-sharing site Pinterest has experienced exponential growth of 4,377%. Yes, that was percent growth. Facebook may have more U.S. users at 155 million, but no one can argue Pinterest's growing attraction among social media users.

Why Pinterest?

Why the rapid growth? A few factors might be in play.

• Acclimation to social sharing When Twitter hit the stage in 2006, the world hadn't yet become accustomed to rapid information sharing and 24-hour social networking. Barriers to entry included a personal inclination towards privacy and the lack of a smartphone. Today, however, while many consumers filter the information they share publicly on Facebook or Twitter, the concept of sharing personal likes and dislikes online has become part of our cultural moeurs.
• Simplicity While Facebook has continued to complicate its privacy settings and added a vast array of new ad streams and features, Pinterest is relatively simple to use: see something pretty, pin it. Setting aside the copyright issues, which are still cause for concern and still quite serious, the basic utility of Pinterest is something your grandmother would be inclined to do.
• Self-expression While other sites are designed for users to share location, activities and even family information, Pinterest tends to focus on items and ideas that stir the user's interest. It is less about what we had for breakfast and more about what we are inspired to make of our lives.

Buying Power

Hold on to your seats; there's more. Pinterest users are second only to LinkedIn users in terms of the Buying Power Index. Pinterest users, it turns out, spend more money more often on more items than on any of the other top five social networking sites.

Not on Pinterest yet? If you have a highly visual brand, take a look at what your competitors are doing on Pinterest. Here is what other brands are doing on Pinterest, plus a well-done SlideShare on using Pinterest for business.

Think you know how to network? Do a quick check to make sure you're not That Guy.

My now-podfaded podcast was titled Diary of a Shameless Self-Promoter. The reason I chose that title was because back in 1998 or so, I had started my own consulting businesses as a spokesperson and presentation consultant. And I was (a) a little shy about promoting myself and my business at networking events and (b) turned off by smooth and sleazy networkers with a thin veneer of social politeness covering a thick layer of self-servicing goals.

People, not prospects

I was convinced that networking could be more than business card distribution, honing the perfect elevator pitch and seeing everyone as a prospect. After all, networking doesn't have to be something shameful: pretending to listen, pretending to be nice but in actuality only listening for entries to promote your own products and services. Successful "networking" is in fact just the process of meeting people, having real conversations, and getting to know people, even those that might never be a prospect for your business.

Keep in mind that my first networking experiences were long before the days of social networking: no Facebook, no Twitter, nothing to blur the lines between the personal and professional. Sure, you may have lunch with someone from your networking club, but the goal was often to get a targeted prospect or another lead.

Don't be That Guy. Give first.

Did you ever "smell the Amway coming off that guy?" Some networkers give off that vibe: they only ask about you so they can eventually sell you something. They treat people like prospects and cease interactions when the people in question don't pass the prospect qualification process. Euw. That was never how I did networking, and quickly stopped attending groups or events with that focus.

It's been a long time since I ran across someone with that People Are Prospects vibe, and I had an extremely unpleasant experience with one last week. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and took the meeting, much to my regret. Forty-five minutes into the meeting, I was in the midst of some sales pitch that was most likely an MLM program, but the guy still hadn't told me what his business, passion or project was! When I asked him to tell me simply how I could help him, he slammed shut his book and refused to speak any further, saying I "wasn't ready to hear this."

Hear what? More mysterious sales pitch leading nowhere? The guy ended the meeting abruptly, having obviously decided I was of no use to him and therefore not worth speaking to any further. Yuck! What a waste of what could have been a pleasant conversation and the beginning of a good relationship.

Have fun and help out

My attitude toward networking is simple. It doesn't have to be self-serving and shameful. You don't have to be That Guy. Networking can be fun and a natural extension of your natural social inclinations. After all, "networking" is really just talking with interesting people. When "networking," ask yourself three questions in every social interaction:

1) Is he/she interesting?

2) Do I know anyone that might be fun for him/her to meet?

3) Is there any way I can help him/her along with anything?

In a social setting, the answers might be "send her the recipe for my raspberry-chocolate coffee cake" or "introduce her to Bill for a date." In a business social setting, the answers might be exactly the same! Or they might be "tell him about HootSuite" or "introduce him to Rod Brooks." That is, it's less about trying to forward a specific business goal or gathering leads than about listening and being a generous, helpful social person. Absolutely nothing shameful about that! (For more information on this, read this wonderful book by Bob Burg, The Go-Giver.)

Social networking is social

So if you fear networking, you're probably smelling too much Amway in the folks you're meeting. (One friend called these guys the "Have I got a deal for you!" folks.) Being obviously targeted as someone's sales lead makes me uncomfortable. It makes everyone uncomfortable. No one likes to be sold to.

Sure, sometimes I want to buy something, but no one likes being befriended only due to one's affiliations and market prospects. Networking should really just be meeting and getting to know interesting people.

It may sound counterintuitive, but I often don't ask about business at networking events. My favorite question is, "What is the last good book you read?" I'll take about the Avengers movie, the latest Twitter kerfuffle or what I learned this week on This American Life. If the business comes later, fine (it often does, oddly enough, without any pushing or prodding). If not, you have a cool person in your life. Even better.

Bit.ly, the popular free link-shortening service, just added new features. Unfortunately, those features mean that the beloved one-click link shortening is no more.

Much like Facebook, Bit.ly has chosen to go with complexity over simplicity. The link-shortening service recently rolled out new sharing and bookmarking features. However, in the Facebook-like move, the Bit.ly folks assumed that everyone would want the new features. Judging from the user response, the new features get in the way of the tool's primary mission: shortening links.

Now, to shorten a link, users must click at least three times and are forced to save the link to a bookmarking service, "bitmarks," and have to reject the option to share on Facebook and Twitter before receiving the shortened link.

Take a look. In order to shorten a link, the user must go to the Add a Bitmark box, now hidden in the upper right corner instead of smack dab in the middle of the page:

Once the long URL is entered, the user must then annotate the saved link and click Save and Share. Nope, you still don't get the shortened link. Not yet.

That step takes you to a sharing step. There, at the bottom, almost as an afterthought, you can click Copy to copy the shortened link.

For users who yearn for simplicity in a world too full of sharing, this new feature set is cumbersome and counter-intuitive.

I'm assuming that the Bit.ly folks figured that people generally shorten links in order to share them, so why not save users the step and allow them to bookmark and share right away? Makes sense, I suppose, but for users like me, I'm not inclined to suddenly use Bit.ly as my bookmarking and sharing service. I use Diigo for highlighting and bookmarking articles, and I use HootSuite to schedule my sharing. I'm unlikely to switch those functions to Bit.ly just because the company made link shortening more complicated and decided to start promoting sharing.

In fact, since HootSuite does such a good job of tracking shortened link analytics when you use their native link shorteners, users would do well just to switch to the HootSuite shorteners and cut out Bit.ly entirely.