Every time I click on a link in Twitter and find myself redirected to Facebook, I move that much closer to having a little Howard Beale/Network moment and screaming “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” into the void.  And, survey says … it’s not just me.

68% of Twitter users are immediately irritated when a link from Twitter leads them to Facebook.  

That’s almost 7 out of every 10 of your Twitter followers. With 107.7 million users on Twitter in North America, that could be 73.2 million people you irritate.

I’m not talking about the “Come Like my Page on Facebook” tweets, I’m talking about tweets with links to Wall posts, images and video.  It happens most often with businesses who try to use a Facebook Page as their website. When they realize they can sync a business Facebook Page with a Twitter account, it seems like a shortcut to the best of two worlds. Post a link once and hit two audiences – doubling reach without added effort.

Here’s an Ugly Truth Alert. You aren’t doubling your reach. With every link to Facebook content, you’re poking 2/3 of your Twitter followers in the eye and conditioning them to bypass your tweets and links without giving either a second look, let alone a clickthrough.  And that golden “retweet” that shares your tweet with their followers?  Forget about it.

56% of people on Twitter won’t retweet (RT) when a Facebook link is included.

Why? It could be that of the 107.7 million Twitter users in North America, 59.2 million of them access Twitter from a mobile device and, usually, a 3rd party app.  When a link pulls me out of my app (I use Hootsuite and Echofon) and launches Facebook, I’m not happy about it.

It could be that your Twitter followers (gasp!) aren’t on Facebook. Mindboggling, I know, but of the 528.7 million people who live in North America, only 150 million are Facebook users so, it’s entirely possible.  I know people on Twitter who aren’t on Facebook – I bet you do, too.

What can you do?

• Get a website. Post links to your website. It’s 2012 and if you aren’t online, you make it hard for people to find you.  When was the last time you used the phone book?  How about Google?  You get where I’m going.  If you can’t afford a full blown site from a professional designer, platforms like WordPress (with no-cost to low-cost options) make building your own site incredibly easy. It’s time to stop building on Facebook’s sand and stake a claim on some ground of your own.
• Disconnect your Facebook and Twitter accounts from each other. Facebook and Twitter can both be valuable tools in your marketing mix, but that doesn’t mean you should mix the two.  Twitter is about a quick, concise exchange of information and Facebook is about a lingering browse through the day’s stories. The audiences are different and your interaction and content has to acknowledge that.

If you have other suggestions or a difference of opinion, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below – thanks for dropping by!

Data sources

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Semiocast
• Wikipedia
• Survey

If you are posting events online – for your own organization, for a Visitor Bureau or for a Chamber of Commerce – I’m talking to you.  Yes, you.  Step away from the keyboard and take a moment to read this.

Let’s agree that those of you in the Travel and Tourism trade post events online to promote interest in the event with the ultimate goal of attracting visitors to your town or region.

Agreed?  Okay then, for the love of every prospective visitor who comes to your website, clicks on your Facebook Events or reads your blog – stop shooting yourself in the foot by publishing incomplete or unconfirmed event information.

Giving people what they need to visit you isn’t rocket science, but I’ve discovered it’s not-so-common common sense.  Here’s a bare bones list to get you started.

1. EVENT TITLE
   Your event has a name; use it everywhere you talk, publish or print about it. Names make things easier to find … on Google, on Facebook, on your city streets and in your town’s coffee shops.  Introduce your event by name, it’s just good manners and stops me from getting it confused with similar events.
2. DESCRIPTION
   Don’t make me guess what’s going on by telling me your event is a community festival.  Tell me about your three-day event that features a 5K Run, a Dutch Oven Cook-off, a 3 on 3 Basketball Tournament, a parade, a giant $1 a plate BBQ, a beer garden with local microbrews and live bands every night for street dancing.  See the difference?
3. TIME AND DATE
   Sometime in June is not helpful here. I can’t make plans to be there if I don’t know when your shindig kicks off. If you don’t have a date or time set, tell me when I can check back for confirmed time and date information. All I’m asking for is a fighting chance to get there on time and have a little fun … isn’t that the whole idea?
4. LOCATION
   The name of your town is not an acceptable answer. Towns – even small ones – are big to new visitors.  Where in your town is the event?  At City Park? At a building with a physical address?  I shouldn’t have to hunt for your event once I hit town.  If you want me to get there, give me a fighting chance with an address I can use to get directions.  Better yet – give me a link to a Google Map with the location marked!
5. COST
   Money is serious business. It’s often one of the main reasons for hosting an event. If you want me to spend money at your event and in your town, I need to know how much I should bring with me. Let me know what admission to your event will be. Go the extra mile and let me know which forms of payment you accept.

BONUS POINTS
If you include a website, contact information, registration forms or images, I’m that much closer to paying you a visit and contributing to your local economy.

An event listing is an invitation to visit. Make people feel welcome, included, informed and expected and they will come … I promise!

~image property of !bourrinlepoulpe

It all starts very innocently. Joe or JoAnne (I’m an equal opportunity offender) down the hall wants to bring The Business into the 21st century by putting it online.

First stop, Facebook. Why? “Well, because EVERYONE is on Facebook! We have to be there, too.”

Excellent. By the way, EVERYONE just called and they want to know when you’re meeting them to shave your head and jump off the bridge. I digress.

With no discussion of the stuff that matters – regulation, strategy, or execution –  someone is named Supreme Ruler of Our Online Marketing Universe, a title endowed with absolute authority to claim or create profiles and publish across the internet on behalf of The Business.

The Supreme Ruler owns the access information, creates the content, represents The Business, carries the conversation. The Business is suddenly popping up in online directories, consumer review sites, and social networks.

Communities are built and there’s a big group of people following everything. It’s all sunshine and lollipops. Until that employee is dismissed or resigns and is, subsequently, disgruntled … and a rogue is born.

“It’s like the worst Groundhog Day scenario ever.” That’s how a new client initially described waking up every morning to see his Facebook page hijacked and pointing his audience to a new, local competitor every day. There’s a button to Press In Dire Situations just like this. Go ahead, I’ll wait …

Okay, moving on …

I spent weeks searching out profiles across the Internet trying to establish ownership and control so correct and accurate information could be repopulated. I was successful with every listing excepting the Facebook presence, which was set up as a page under the profile of the ex-employee, using the business name in the custom URL.

I know – don’t get me started on how adhering to the Terms of Service could have saved a lot of bother. I was able to have the relevant business contact information removed and have the offending page changed to a profile but, ultimately, my client had to kiss that community goodbye and start again. It was a hard lesson but one they learned well.

Three Ways To Help Your Business Avoid Rogue Behaviors

• Have a clear online marketing policy and guidelines in place that are signed by all your employees.
• Create a dedicated email address, shared by the owner, and the Supreme Ruler of Our Online Marketing Universe, which is used to administer all online profiles.
• Develop a log of all existing online profiles, including access credentials. Keep it updated; an audit report must be produced upon request.  Make it clear that if the report provides outdated information, loss of employment is a possibility.

It’s easy to say “hire smarter” but sometimes things (and unethical people) happen. It’s not pretty and, although the public may be understanding, reputations suffer and valuable ground is lost.

What is the worst rogue attack you’ve ever seen? What other safeguards do you recommend to protect businesses from the threat of angry ex-employees pirating online profiles?  Who else gets a migraine every time they see a business using a Profile instead of a Page on Facebook?  These and other questions await your response in the Comments below.

The gentlelady from the Pacific Northwest yields the floor.

Here’s the thing:  If I don’t use the eyeballs this blog gets to help make the world a better place, I’m not being true to who I am.  Bare with me – yes, I have my punny on today!  Today is April 5th and that means that I’ll be barefoot all day long.  Everywhere I go.  I’ve committed to One Day Without Shoes.

Now, if you see me out today, you’ll notice that I’m barefoot and some of you will ask me why.

I will educate you on Podoconiosis – a soil-transmitted disease caused by walking in silica-rich soil – and how easily the painful and debilitating disease can be combatted with the simplest of measures.  Shoes.

I will explain about the massive numbers of children who must walk, barefoot, through silica-rich soil every day because there is a luxury they cannot afford.  Shoes.

I will share that I’m a huge fan of Toms Shoes because “for every pair purchased, Toms gives a new pair of shoes to a child in need.  One for One.”

I tell people about Toms all year long (and Warby-Parker eyeglasses).  One Day Without Shoes is a barefoot global awareness event.  Join us?

Twitter is to communication with the haiku is to poetry.  The constraint of using 140 characters to convey a complete thought requires that we distill that thought down to the very base of what we want to communicate.  Sometimes, try as we might, that’s just not possible and we end up sending 2 successive tweets.  I’m alright with that but it’s not always the best route of delivery for, say, a news outlet who needs their headline and link to be complete in a single tweet.  Enter Deck.ly.

Essentially, Deck.ly allows people to type longer tweets that can be read, in their entirety, within TweetDeck.  Great news for TweetDeck users, right?  For the rest of us?  Not so much.

I currently use HootSuite and every time I see a Deck.ly tweet come through my stream, I cringe a little bit.  I know that if I want to read what’s behind that tweet, I have to click on the Deck.ly link to pull the tweet out of HootSuite then I have to click on the Deck.ly link again to read the complete tweet then I have to click on any info link included in the tweet to see what’s going on.

The ensuing clickfest that follows a Deck.ly sighting is bad enough on my Mac, but it’s torture on my phone and here’s what’s happening:  I’m choosing to ignore Deck.ly tweets from those of you who overuse the tool.  When I don’t read your tweets, I don’t share them.

The danger of Deck.ly is that your lazy over-reliance on a worthwhile tool is losing you my attention and my reach.  Don’t make me work so hard to read what you have to say every time you tweet.  Use Deck.ly, but use it responsibly.  That’s all I’m asking.

~ Image from Creative Commons-licensed photo by cgines

This one time, at Barnes & Noble . . .

Two days ago a smart and savvy marketing person wrote a post called Bigger Ear Marketing For Authors.  Most people who took the time to post a comment to his article agreed that he had shared a particularly brilliant way to use Twitter and Location Based Marketing (Foursquare, in this instance) to market to an individual at the point of sale.

Today, another super smart and savvy marketing person wrote a post called Why Brogan’s Bigger Ear Marketing Is Wrong.  She disagreed with what she saw as a flawed approach to creating sales conversion.  Some of Gini’s commenters mentioned that they viewed the tactic as having a high “creep” factor.

To be clear, stalking anyone with Foursquare is uncool.  Using Check-ins to push your sales message at anyone who hasn’t opted in to receive them is spammy but, I don’t think Chris was aiming at sales at all.  I think he was looking for another way to begin relationships and get people talking with and listening to him.

Chris filtered some search results to identify people who fit into what he views as his consumer profile and used Twitter to reach out to them based on where they were.  The “Hey, have you seen my book there” schtick?  An ice breaker that could just have easily been “I’m at CES, too – come see me” or “I see you ate at Red Bento last week, I love their Miso”.  The opening line to a conversation.

Data mining.  I use it to find my client’s target consumers and begin a conversation before they find or need my clients.  Because people like to do business with people they know. Don’t you?

~image by evilneedscandy

You aren’t telling us where you are.

It doesn’t matter where you’ve chosen to spread your Social Media wings – YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook; your nest is going to be pretty bare if you don’t help the people who visit your website find you there.  Help us help you feather that nest.

Here’s a list of 20 Free Social Media Icon Sets For a More Shareable Website from Mashable.  Find some icons you like.  Have your web designer link them to your profiles and put them them on your website where we can easily find them.

Finding your business on social networks shouldn’t be an exercise in rare bird sighting.  Show us where you are.  You’ll be surprised how fast we flock to you.

~image by brooke27

The Terms of Service. They’re long, sometimes cumbersome and full of sentences so long that you might feel you need a sandwich and a compass to make your way safely through them.

But.

Terms of Service also define the relationship between you and the provider. They tell you how your privacy will be protected, what you can or can’t do while using the service and what happens if you violate the rules you agree to honor.

Facebook’s Terms are easy to understand. And still, every day (and I do mean every day) I see businesses and other organizations endangering the communities they are growing by flagrantly violating the Terms they agreed to when their Facebook presence was created.

What does violating Facebook’s Terms look like?   I’ve provided 3 of the most common examples I see each day.

Building community on a Profile instead of an Official Page
Facebook says, “Profiles represent individuals and must be held under an individual name, while Pages allow an organization, business, celebrity, or band to maintain a professional presence on Facebook.”

Facebook also says, “You will not use your personal profile for commercial gain . . .”

If you are a business, organization or cause currently building your Facebook community on a Profile instead of a Page, you stand to lose everything you’ve gained when Facebook identifies your violation.  All the time and effort you’ve spent collecting Friends, loading images and creating community will have been for nothing when Facebook identifies the violation and the Profile vanishes.  Save yourself the headache, create a Page.

Running an unapproved contest on Facebook
Facebook says, “Promotions on Facebook must be administered within Apps on Facebook.com, either on a Canvas Page or an app on a Page Tab”

No matter how small a promotion, contest or sweepstakes seems to you – from how you can ask users to participate and what prizes can be awarded to how you can contact winners, Facebook has rules for you to follow.  Start here by reading up on Facebook Promotion Guidelines.

Tagging people who aren’t in an image, without their permission.

Facebook says, “You can tag a photo only with the express consent of the user on whose behalf you are doing the tagging, and must only tag images when the tag accurately labels what is depicted in the image.”

Tagging your Friends in the photo logo of a cause to promote awareness of that cause is not only a violation of Terms but can be reported by those you are tagging as abusive behavior on your part – which brings your violation to Facebook’s attention and opens your Page’s content to review.  It’s spammy.  Just don’t do it.

The bottom line?

If you are using Facebook for business of any kind, treat it like a business tool.  Read the Terms before you sign them.  Obtain the necessary permissions and rights when administrating a promotion or contest of any kind.  Understand that you can lose all or part of your Facebook presence if you don’t honor the agreement you sign.  At best, Facebook will remove the content that violates their Terms; at worst, Facebook will remove your entire presence and there’s no getting it back.   A full list of Facebook’s Terms is available for review at any time.

Have you taken the time to read and understand the Terms for Facebook  and other online platforms you participate on?

It’s not that the phone book is dead, it’s just that people are searching for information differently.  These days, most Americans turn to the internet before they grab a copy of the local phone directory.  As a businesses owner, you need to make certain that your internet based information is up to date and easily accessible.  In addition to a webpage or blog and branded social platforms, claiming the listings that make up your digital footprint lets you have some control in how your business is presented on the internet.

According to Comscore’s latest report, Americans used Google search over 10 billion times in August 2010.  Many of these searches resolved with a Google Places listing for businesses that provided what the searcher was looking for.  Claiming your Google Places page (formerly Google Local Business Center) is a smart place to start.  Does your business have a Google Places listing?  You can find it by searching for your Business Name and Location with Google.  I’ll wait while you check it out here.  If your business isn’t listed, don’t panic – you can register and create a listing from scratch, right here!

After you make changes to an existing listing or create a new listing, Google will verify that you are an authorized representative by calling you or post mailing you a code to enter on your Google Places Dashboard.  The process is simple, but if you have questions or need some help, just ask, I’ll walk you through it.

Once you have control of your Google Places page you can use it to promote your business for free:

• Post a special (with a tracking code) that will be visible near the top of your listing for 30 days.
• Add up to 10 images of your products or your business so that people can find you more easily.
• Designate up to 5 categories that your business falls under so that your business appears in refined search results.
• Take advantage of the free coupon option.

Use the dashboard to learn more about the search results your listing appears in:

• See how many times your listing has been viewed in search results.
• Track how many people have clicked through to the listing from the search results page.
• Monitor what terms people searched that resulted in your business listing appearing.
• See the number of times people saw your business listing in the search results for top search terms.

This is just the beginning; there is much more you can do with Google Places, and there are other free business listings on the internet that you’ll want to claim.  GetListed.org is a good tool for finding them.

What free listings do you find most helpful in getting customers to your storefront?