Is Facebook Runnin on Empty?

Since he just settled a lawsuit with the GOP I thought it appropriate to kick this post off with a little Jackson Browne. Hope he doesn't sue me. Sorry about the long delay, I've been workin' hard hustling media for a few new clients and I've neglected my little corner of the interwebs.

So here's the deal... I've mentioned in a few previous posts that an uncanny number of my aged-challenged friends and family have been hopping onto the Facebook bandwagon. Even big media outlets have noticed. In a way, that's a fantastic thing because it means all demos are becoming comfortable with social media. However like most trends of the past few decades, where the Baby Boomers go, big business will follow. And, like MySpace before it, Facebook is in the process of revamping its advertising program to accommodate new ad packages.

Facebook actually only became the reigning traffic champ about a month ago, but most marketers started shying away from the platform as far back as a year go, when the NewsCorp buyout caused a seismic shift in who was actually using the site. Until Rupert got his hands on it, Myspace was essentially a gathering place for young people. After the massive ads went up and started alienating people, waves of users started shifting towards Facebook. For a short time record labels and movie studios Myspace pages helped bolster the site's traffic, but the magic is gone and Myspace is essentially a trade show hall filled with companies showing their wares and exhibiting their hipness to a non-existent crowd. So Myspace is essentially dunzo.

Now it looks like Facebook might be going the same way. According to recent PC Magazine/MSN story, people are flocking to Twitter from Facebook. I can't say I blame them. Facebook is still an excellent platform for reconnecting with old friends and promoting companies and/or clients. The problem is the new site design bombards people with so many updates and such a deluge of information that any self-respecting page with more than a few hundred friends can't effectively keep news or updates on the front page for more than a few minutes. So.... unless you're literally sitting at your computer checking your wall all day, you'll probably miss a load of info. Twitter essentially takes the update portion of Facebook and throws away the rest.

Now I'm not a huge fan of using Twitter for PR purposes unless you have a dedicated tweeter that knows what they're doing and only broadcasts relevant, interesting info. It will be interesting to sit back and see how things play out, but my gut instinct tells me that Facebook will be irrelevant in two years, and a new platform will have taken its place. What do you think?

The Day Oprah Tweeted

I'll admit, I'm not a huge fan of Twitter on a personal level. I understand its marketing potential. In fact, one of my clients uses Twitter to keep people updated during races and events to great effect. So it certainly has its purpose.

My issue with the service is that, like every other "hot new trend" in social media, once a few "gurus" start talking about how incredible something is and the masses flock to it, the results are rarely good in the long term for the platform. Need I remind everyone of the original uber-social media site, MySpace, and what happened in the months after Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp purchased it. They sold ad space to any corporation willing to write a check, made the site clunky and slow, and it has now lost the war with Facebook (badly) and just lost its CEO.

So with that in mind, everyone is Tweeting... even people who probably shouldn't be. Ashton Kutcher and CNN had a race to one million followers, and everyone's favorite cougar-bait beat the news network handily. The true winner in that battle, however, was Twitter. The race gave the site major mainstream media coverage - enough that Ms. Oprah Winfrey herself jumped into the Twitter fray.

Oprah's first tweet was less than stellar (in all caps no less... reminds me of a former boss who send every message in all caps, fully knowing it meant he was screaming). It was the Tweet heard 'round the world, and according to HitWise, the site went bonkers. Below is the percentage of internet users on Twitter and what happened the day Oprah logged in.



That's a 24% increase in ONE DAY! Crazy, right? So does this mean Twitter is the next big thing? Sadly, yes... until the general public gets so wrapped up in it that blundering, irresponsible corporate communicators jump in, handle the campaigns poorly (a'la Myspace, see above) and turn off the influencers. Then they'll jump ship for the next thing, and the cycle will repeat.

In the meantime, some advice:

If you decide to sign your company up for a Twitter feed, keep it simple and relevant. No need to send everyone an update every time you get gas or buy a candy bar. Share images. Keep it interesting. Content is always king, especially when you have to compete with Oprah.