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?

Kahn Media in the News

From the latest issue of The Green Sheet, the weekly trade newsletter for the automotive aftermarket:

RED LINE OIL RETAINS KAHN MEDIA FOR PUBLIC RELATIONS, OUTREACH

Red Line Synthetic Oil Corp. (Benicia, CA), which manufacturers a line of motor oils, gear oils and additives, has engaged Kahn Media of Woodland Hills, CA, to provide Red Line with North American media outreach and P.R. assistance. This includes targeted media outreach, social media marketing, new product debuts, events and special projects.

More specifically, Kahn is working with Red Line’s management on strategic planning initiatives, as well as the development and implementation of a social media marketing campaign. Kahn also will promote Red Line’s motorsports initiatives, including drag racing, sports car road racing and more.

You can read the whole issue here.

Promoting Yourself/Clients Through Facebook

I'm not going to spend time in this post talking about "web 2.0" or the importance of leveraging social media as a means to market your brand. I've said it all before, and frankly if you're a)reading this post, or b)anyone born after 1980 you already know it.

Instead I'm just going to point out a fantastic article Charles Hull from Archrival wrote for MediaPost about developing Facebook apps to promote your brand. He's right-on, if you can develop a fun, easy-to-use app that promote your brand without bombarding people with constant updates and notifications, it will become viral and produce the desired effect.

I can't tell you how many brand-promotional apps I've tried that ended up making me angry because they either harvested my profile info to push content to my friends that didn't opt-in, or slammed my inbox with junk. Those have the opposite effect and should be avoided. In any case, a good article so enjoy!

Facebook Promotion: Fast Company "Involver" Profile

My friend and fellow PR-dude Fazel turned me on to this vid. For those of you who don't know, Robert Scoble is a major pioneering tech blogger and author of the Scobleizer Blog, which made a lot of headlines when he was the main marketing maven at Microsoft.

Scoble shot a series of videos for Fast Company on a fantastic startup called Involver, based in the Bay Area. Basically they have developed a facebook app that allows companies to promote their videos to specific demographic groups using a filtered push tool they've developed. Awesome stuff, check it out:

Ford Social Media Guru Scott Monty on Adam Carolla Podcast

I'm a Stern fan. Always have been. So when Howard left regular radio for Sirius three years ago, I followed him. However I'm also an Adam Carolla fan, and used to love his rants on "Love Line."

So for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, radio host Adam Carolla took over the Howard Stern slot. Then the network switched all the talk stations to a Top 40 format and they kicked Adam off the air... and he took to Podcasting.

Now, thanks to my friend (and fellow auto-file) Tony Huntimer, I'm hooked on the Adam Carolla podcast. Adam's a car guy (I met him a the Monterey Historics a few years ago) with a BRE Datsun 510, a '72 911 RS and other cool rides in his garage. He's also a social media fan, even if he wouldn't say it like that. He has a fair number of "maven" types on his program... even though I don't like using that word.

You're probably saying: Podcast? People still listen to those? In fact, thanks to his built-in audience from the radio show, Carolla's show is consistently the #1 podcast on iTunes. He has managed to maintain his profile using a garage studio ranting about stuff he thinks is interesting. The perfect example of how anyone can be their own media outlet.

Which brings us to my point. Adam's most recent podcast features Scott Monty, who runs Ford Motor Company's social media program. They're doing some pretty cool stuff at the house of Henry, including the Fiesta Movement I've blogged about before. So on this podcast you get: Carolla, car talk, marketing insight, Ford's social media plans, a little sugary PR-speak and some occasional profanity. Enjoy!

Adam Carolla Podcast w/ Scott Monty

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.

The web as a global "hive mind"

An interesting story landed in my inbox this morning. Thought I'd share it.

It's a column at Forbes.com written by Joshua-Michele Ross, called The Rise of the Social Nervous System.

In the column, Ross argues that since more than half of the earth's population is now connected in one way or another to the internet (1.6 billion by computer, another 4 billion on mobile devices), social media has transformed the web from an information source into a "hive mind" where common knowledge and information is shared by billions across the globe.

Ross tries to make the point that this rapidly expanding global social media network will eventually help end war and disease and better all mankind.

"The social nervous system makes us aware of a broader context of relationship with humanity. My immediate relationships--with my family, my city and state--begin to span the globe. We can leverage the ubiquity of communications to coordinate real world activity--and just about anyone can do it. Even a kid with a mobile phone can capture a revolution."

A noble and lofty idea, but one I doubt will come to fruition. While I'm sure the social media wave (blogs, facebook, etc) will create major change in our world, from the end of the newspaper business as we know it, to a radical departure in how government and businesses relate to the people, I think that in the end, left to their own devices, people will use this new technology to catch up on gossip, learn about their neighbors and find out about the coolest new stuff to buy.

It's human nature. In the end, everyone wants to hang out in their living room and shoot the breeze with their friends. That living room is now an online web app, and their friends might be 1,000 miles away, but we still want to catch up, read about the topics that interest us, and buy cool toys. And that's not a bad thing. What do you think?