Using Google+ Circles

Online social platforms attempt to force us to map our ever-changing social graph. Google+ uses “circles”, which makes dragging and dropping our connections into animated buckets – dare I say – fun.

Here are some reasons why and how you should use Google+ Circles:

PRIVACY is a key use of putting people in custom circles with appropriate settings to avoid viewing by outsiders. If you are like me, you’re only comfortable with certain people seeing what you’re talking about and sharing. (Now if I can only get my connections to understand that sonograms of the unborn embryos inside them is a private, family topic)

Similar to those thoughts on privacy, RELEVANCY is important if you want to maintain your online connections.  I’m sure that my mother doesn’t care to know that email open rates are dropping year over year, but my online marketing geek friends do. Consider what kind of content you put out and ensure that posts are visible to those circles.

Taking relevancy a step further, some communications require LOCAL CONTEXT and shouldn’t be pushed to the masses.  Consider a “Locals” circle for posts like “Has anyone tried the new restaurant on Main Street?”

An important thing to note is that these tips aren’t only for Google+ users. While it isn’t highly visible, Facebook also has a “lists” feature that does basically the same thing as circles. Unfortunately it is buried in your privacy settings and not many people use this valuable feature.

I’m just getting familiar with Google+ myself, so expect more observations and tips as I dig in.

How I drove 1000+ fans to a new Facebook page in 1 week

Concept: My Fat Pet (facebook.com/myfatpet)
Time period: April 26-May 3 (1 week)
Hours invested: 4.5
Media budget invested: $36.56
Fans recruited: 1,000+
Page Views: 7,280
Page interactions: 84 (comments, fan posts)
Supporting Platforms

• Twitter (@myfatpet)
• Tumblr (myfatpet.tumblr.com)
• Wordpress (myfatpet.com)

While I consult companies and brands on social media marketing, the layers of bureaucracy within their organizations usually prevents them from being as successful as they could be. The internet in general is a fast moving, ever changing environment, so if things are taking weeks or even days to get approval, truly engaging people through social media becomes nearly impossible.

The other thing that I find holds companies and brands back from truly engaging in social media is the hesitation to dedicate resources to the channel. Having an over-worked brand manager engaging with people online is not only a bad use of their time, but usually a doomed project since they can’t truly get their head into the dozens of conversations happening at any given moment. True engagement takes a semi-dedicated resource or an agency with the tools and people to deal with the day to day tasks.

I regularly experiment on my own in order to take down these barriers and gain a better understanding of the levers that I have at my disposal. Here are a few tips that came from this social media experiment. For the purposes of this write up, I am focusing on Facebook, although other integrated tactics were used on other social platforms. Also, I need to point out that “getting fans” was not the primary goal of this exercise, it is simply a byproduct engagement with people on a relevant topic that compelled them to participate.

1. I used an intriguing concept, but was sure to have depth and an underlying, positive message. In this case, fat animal photos can be funny, but pet obesity is a real issue that deserves awareness.
2. I provided an immediate payoff in the form of funny fat pet photos within the filmstrip of the Facebook page.
3. I provided additional resources for people that want to go beyond the “lol” in the form of pet diet and exercise articles.
4. I requested sharing by using messaging with positive connotations, such as “Share this with other caring dog owners” or “If you care about healthy cats…”
5. I manually posted the most relevant and compelling items on other platforms - as opposed to simply tying in all of the platforms to auto-echo one another.
6. I encouraged submissions by immediately re-posting the photos submitted to the Tumblr blog and then commenting back a short link to the photo in the gallery. This not only shows others what you want from them, but also pushes up the story in everyone’s feed (including the friends of the original submitter) since there is more activity on that thread.
7. I toggled between my personal and page account to create even more activity on posted items and push up the story in my own personal activity feed, which is seen by my friends.
8. I used Facebook “social” ads to propel social stories in front of the friends of people posting or liking the page. I did this after I reached ~200 fans so there was enough inventory (200 x # of friends) available to use minimal per-click bidding and still hit my $10/day budget. Cost per fan was about $.18 through this channel.

Over the next week I’ll be experimenting with alternate sharing messages, further repurposing submitted content and attempting to increase interaction time + frequency.

If you’d like to know more about my tinkering with My Fat Pet or other interactive experiments, feel free to reach out via Twitter or good old email (tinkering@williamfernandez.com)

LIKE means SHARE for Facebook users

We’ve all seen it, the Facebook SHARE and LIKE buttons on blog posts, videos and other content throughout the web. Until now, LIKE meant a small story posted on your newsfeed and Facebook could get an idea of how important that content is. 

It seems that Facebook has released an update that changes the LIKE button’s functionality also SHARE the content. Now, after clicking the LIKE button, a full story with a headline, text snippet and thumbnail will be posted to your profile wall and into your friends news feed. You’ll also be given an option to comment on the story link.

I would imagine that Facebook users may not be so whimsical with their LIKEs, given that it will appear on their walls and in their friends’ news feeds, but for publishers with compelling content online, they should get a boost in traffic.

My prediction - forced LIKEs will anger the friends of non-discriminating Facebook users almost as much as Farmville updates. 

How to get lots of followers on Twitter

Almost daily, someone asks me how to get lots of followers on Twitter. In an effort to have a quick response on hand, I’ve jotted down the things that you need to know in order to grow your follower base on Twitter.

Participate
You have to talk to people to really connect with them, it’s that simple. Just like any “earned media” channel, if you don’t put in the time, you won’t see results. Set aside some time each day to find relevant people to engage, follow and re-tweet.

Be Relevant
Decide what you are going to tweet about and stick to it. This doesn’t mean that you have to pigeon hole yourself into an granular topic, but know that someone that is into photography may not care about the latest online marketing buzz. (hence, why I maintain multiple handles @wilfernandez for my photography and @wfernandez for my web marketing consultancy)

Reciprocity
Follow and be followed, re-tweet and be re-tweeted, list and get listed.  Just focusing on outbound tweeting won’t get you followers (unless you’re a celebrity), since a small amount of Twitter users actually use Twitter search, which would be the only real way to discover your tweets. You’ll notice that a certain number of the people that you follow, re-tweet and list will find you relevant/interesting and follow you back.

List Liberally
To expand on the topic of reciprocity, adding people to one of your lists shows them that you really care about what they have to say. If you want to get someone’s attention, add them to a list that is filled with similar people.  The  rate at which these people follow you back will be much higher than getting their attention through follows or re-tweets.

Don’t Sell
Twitter is a place to build relationships and share information - if you focus on being relevant and adding value, people will click your links and look at the things that you have to offer. Just like offline sales, focus on making a connection first - if people like you, they will dig deeper into what you have to offer.