Let me start this out by saying that I’m the guy who typically makes fun of people for complaining about chances to the user interface of their favorite website or social service. I understand that human beings typically don’t like change, and even if the change will eventually be beneficial to them, it is uncomfortable and something to rebel against.

Today, I’m going to be that guy and put forth an argument against Facebook’s latest user experience overhaul. Why? Because my Facebook feed just became inundated with updates from brands and businesses. Facebook has spun it in a different way, and perhaps this wasn’t their intent, but my user experience was drastically altered for the worse when I logged in this morning.  

Past Redesigns Resulted In Better Feed Optimization

As Facebook rolled out past redesigns (which were often met with user backlash), I didn’t blink. I trusted that these guys knew what they were doing, and when the “top news” and “most recent” filters were introduced, my feed became optimized. Frequently interacted friends showed up in the “top news” feed and all other updates showed up in the spam feed (otherwise known as “most recent news”). It was smart, it was efficient and I rarely missed the updates I cared about.  Unfortunately for Facebook, it also meant that I spent a LOT less time on the site, generating WAY fewer impressions (and ad dollars) clicking around to various pages. It also meant that brand page updates (the people holding those valuable ad dollars) were essentially filtered out of my feed. I was getting value out of Facebook, but I don’t think Facebook was getting much value out of me. 

“Smart Lists” - A Pre-Cursor To De-Optimization

After the introduction of “smart lists” last week, I suddenly noticed WAY more updates from random brands (and people) that I had friended or liked at some point, but rarely interacted with. While it was annoying, I recognized that I had made the choice to “like” those brands or “friend” those people, so instead of complaining, I simply utilized the new user interace to recreate my former optimization. 

For the people I had “friended,” I was able to adjust my subscription settings (all updates, most updates, only important updates) and add them to the proper lists - essentially creating silos to filter the noise. When it came to the brands and businesses I “liked,” I was faced with a tough choice - on or off. Officially, the options for brand updates became: “hide all updates” or, if I wanted to click through to their brand page “unlike.” Filtering types of posts I’d like to see wasn’t an option, and adding them to a list wasn’t either. Still, I held out hope that with enough tweaking of subscription settings for real people and by putting the right people in my “close friends” list, my “top news” feed would eventually be optimized. 

Interesting News Any Time I Visit? Not So Much

And then today’s Facebook user interface overhaul was unveiled. Suddenly, my spam feed (“recent news”) was gone forever, replaced by Facebook’s supposed curation of “top news” (based on the status updates they think I want to read based on the timing of my last visit). Facebook explained the changes, calling them “interesting news any time you visit.”  All I see is a bunch of news that I don’t want to see, much of it from brand or business pages that I follow. EDIT (9/21, 11:30 AM): I just realized that there is another new option for posts that appear in the newsfeed “mark as top story.” I assume this is an attempt at allowing some control over brand status updates, but there still isn’t a “mark as uninteresting story” option. Does “hide story” train my newsfeed? That is yet to be seen. 

I still have the ability to utilize my lists to see what is important to me, but by definition, it is less efficient, because it is an extra click. In addition to the unoptimized feed, I was also bombarded with an always on, real-time news ticker as part of the chat sidebar. This is good in theory - maybe I’ll see a conversation a friend is having and want to chime in. Unfortunately, it is essentially a fire hose, and one that prominently features all of the brand page status updates that are happening in real time. Sure, users can simply hide that sidebar with the click of a button, but then the chat bar also disappears.  

Solutions, Not Problems

I’ve done enough complaining, here are some solutions for everybody: 

For Users: 

• Take some time and go through your friends list. Adjust the subscription settings. Facebook is “giving you more control” (instead of just being smart), allowing you to define who you want to see more of. Take advantage of it. 
• Sort through ALL of the pages that you’ve liked at one point or another, and decide if you still want to “like” them (it isn’t easy to find the place to do this, so I offered step-by-step instructions in a Facebook post back in August). Unfortunately, there isn’t a place on the brand page to “hide all posts,” so if you’re not ready to “unlike” them yet, you’ll have to wait until a post from that brand shows up in your news feed to take that action. 

For Brands: 

• Consider posting less frequently for the next couple of weeks.  Sure, more eyeballs are going to be on your status updates in the near term, but you also run the risk of people “hiding all posts” by your brand if they’re like me and want an optimized news feed. 
• Make your status updates count. Put forth the most engaging content you have right now and get people interested and interacting with your page. Don’t give them any reason to “hide all posts”

For Facebook: 

• This is a SOCIAL service, where humans want to connect with humans (and some also want to connect with brands that somehow offer value to their lives). Allow users the ability to adjust their subscription level for brands, and also add them to lists. On or off isn’t user friendly, and it forces tough decisions. That’s not social. EDIT (9/21, 11:30 AM): As I mentioned in an update above, “mark as top story” is now an option for all status updates, including those by brands. While this is a step in the right direction, it still doesn’t allow complete control of the newsfeed. If “hide story” works to train my newsfeed, this needs to be made more clear. 

I love that Facebook is always looking to move their service forward and keep it fresh.  They’re not afraid to fail, and as the saying goes, “if you’re gonna fail, fail fast.” Today, Facebook failed, but with a few tweaks by everyone, order will be restored. 

I came across a blog post by @LaurenFisher of “Simply Zesty” this morning and I felt compelled to chime in with my two cents. The crux of her piece: 

The idea of privacy, I believe, will be a completely outdated notion in just a few years time as the days of being able to hide behind a pseudonym or do anything in our day to day lives without it all being trackable, archived and searchable.

Privacy itself isn’t an outdated concept, but we’re all witnessing a shift in what I call the “privacy paradigm.” As a society, technological advances and the foray into a digital existence have led us to a point where privacy has a completely different meaning for us than it did for most previous generations of civilized human beings.

This obviously has far-reaching and significant impacts across the spectrum of life from culture to commerce. In some previous blog posts here on “My Digital Soapbox,” I’ve touched on this new privacy paradigm, especially as it relates to marketing, journalism and chronicling our lives. In a post about potential social media marketing speed bumps, I had the following to say about this new privacy paradigm: 

We’re getting to a point in society where a new paradigm of “privacy” is being created. People are slowly but surely seeing the benefits of an open and online social graph (what Facebook is doing with their “like” button and partnerships across the web). There are some obvious benefits to a decreased level of what we formerly considered “private” information, but there are some pitfalls as well.

New societal norms are being established based on social media and the digital world. We’re all actively participating on Twitter and Facebook and other digital forms of communication. Whether we realize it or not, we’ve also established sets of rules for what is OK and what isn’t OK to say and do in the digital world. The most savvy social media users are able to manage their online presence without a set of privacy controls instituted by the service they are using.

As much as social networks are working to “govern by the collective” and form new sets of rules for a digital world, profit-seeking entities threaten to slow the process. Brands are understandably monitoring social media, but the bubble risks being popped when brands actively invite themselves into online conversations without observing newly founded societal norms in the digital space. As much as a cable company thinks that they’re helping by barging into a conversation on Twitter or Facebook to tell us about an upcoming network dispute, they’re not. All they’re doing is being rude.

If we were in our local Starbucks with a friend talking about ESPN, we wouldn’t expect a cable company representative to randomly interrupt our conversation and tell us that ESPN might not be carried on our cable provider soon. It would be creepy. It just isn’t what is accepted in society. The privacy paradigm is shifting and digital norms are being ingrained into society as a whole.

I also mentioned the new privacy paradigm in response to the way minor league baseball reporter Josh Norris found out that a player he covers had surgery. The story went something like this: 

A minor league beat reporter for the Yankees announced an injury update via Twitter, someone else asked for an injury update about another player. It turns out the other player’s injury only became public because a fan was friends with the player on Facebook. The reporter didn’t realize this, and the conversation progressed to whether or not a beat reporter should “friend” minor league players on Facebook [to gain access to potential stories].

(be sure to click through to the link if you missed that post, as I used Storify to curate the interesting debate that unfolded).  

Finally, my strong feelings about the new privacy paradigm were the centerpiece of a glowing review I gave of the new social media archiving website Memolane: 

As the digital age privacy paradigm becomes more ingrained in the public conscience, tools such as Memolane will become important educational tools. Back in 2010, when the Library of Congress acquired Twitter’s entire archive, LOC’s Matt Raymond wrote “Expect to see an emphasis on the scholarly and research implications of the acquisition. I’m no Ph.D., but it boggles my mind to think what we might be able to learn about ourselves and the world around us from this wealth of data.” Perhaps if teenagers become more aware of how permanent their flippant tweets can be, incidents such as the recent one involving Washington Nationals draftee Zach Houchins will be avoided in the future.

No, privacy isn’t an outdated concept, but a constantly evolving one. As we witness our family, friends, loved ones and even strangers having different experiences with the idea of “privacy,” we will adjust our expectations and behaviors. Privacy will always exist, as long as we are conscious of the societal norms and fully understand the technologies and tools at our disposal. 

Last Monday, I had the opportunity to attend a very interesting event, organized by Advertising Week and the branding agency Team Epiphany. The subject of the panel discussion was “The New Consumer Engagement Model,” featuring an interesting group of speakers (hyperlinked names lead to their Twitter accounts):

• Marc Ecko (founder of Complex Magazine and Marc Ecko Clothing) 
• Stephanie Agresta (EVP, Global Director of Digital Strategy and Social Media at Porter Novelli)
• Bonin Bough (Director of Digital and Social Media at PepsiCo) 
• Garth Holsinger (Business Director for Klout.com) 
• MODERATOR: Coltrane Curtis (CEO Of Team Epiphany) 

The panel discussion kicked off by reviewing why everyone was there: “To effectively engage millennial consumers, brands must learn to move at the speed of influence.”

Highlights From The Event

Please note: the crowd was standing room only and I didn’t have a seat, making it very difficult to take accurate notes. If you were one of the speakers at the event and I misquoted you or misrepresented what you said at all, please contact me @RossSheingold and I’ll correct any inaccuracies.

- Marc Ecko discussed the idea that consumers always have a desire to connect to their favorite brands in a counter-culture way and the digital world is a perfect place for that. He mentioned that social media has democratized the relationship between brands and consumers.

- Stephanie Agresta was asked about the role that “traditional PR” plays in our increasingly digital world (traditional PR was not defined, but my assumption is that it means broad, press release-based PR outreach).  To paraphrase, her answer was that in a vacuum, traditional PR can no longer exist. Digital and traditional integration is key in advertising, PR and marketing. The power comes from working in tandem.

- Bonin Bough talked about how much time he spends trying to turn consumer insights into brand innovations. He used their Gatorade brand’s “Mission Control” as an example. Mission control is an area of computers in a central brand space containing real-time data visualizations of online consumer sentiment about Gatorade. This ensures that everyone sees the “heartbeat” of the brand on a day to day and can focus their time and energy on products that consumers want.

- Garth Holsinger of Klout introduced the service they are providing and explained how the idea of consumer “influence” is becoming measurable and scientific. The question was asked how these consumer “influencers” don’t lose credibility when they are connected with brands. The general consensus was that “influencers” need to be open, honest and transparent, which wasn’t exactly groundbreaking information. They didn’t touch on my questions about Klout. 

- In general, it was discussed how silos within organizations prevent brands from optimizing the tools at their disposal.

- Marc Ecko spoke about a recent philanthropic project he was working on that caused frustration. The not for profit organization wanted to dabble in social media, but wanted metrics for everything, which held up the entire process. He made the point that it is difficult for a business or brand to innovate when adoption of a new idea depends on metrics.

- Bonin Bough chimed in about PepsiCo’s approach to new opportunities in the digital space. They jump on the opportunity to try new platforms for consumer engagement (he used the example of Foursquare), essentially because they can. He said that a lot of brands balk at the idea of embracing Foursquare because they “only have 2 million users.” His response is that PepsiCo has a large-enough user base to contribute to the success of a platform, If it becomes another channel for Pepsi to listen to compelling consumer insights and enhance user engagement, why would they need metrics to prove its worth before jumping in?

- Bonin Bough also said that his goal is to get every one of PepsiCo’s over 200,000 employees communicating via Twitter. He said that everyone in the organization needs to be human and held accountable and Twitter can do that. I contacted him via Twitter after the event for some more clarity on the topic. I wanted to know if his goal was for everyone at PepsiCo to discuss their role at the company, or just contribute to Twitter in general. His response:

- The event ended with some of the panelists “looking into the crystal ball” at trends in the digital world that will continue to disrupt the consumer engagement model:

1.  Marc Ecko discussed geofencing location tools. This is essentially Foursquare on steroids, where people can only “check-in” and unlock rewards if they are within a certain distance from a location. This can lead to hyper-targeted consumer engagement, based on where people are. He also mentioned IPTV, which is essentially television over the internet. We’re already becoming more familiar with this in the form of Netflix, Boxee and Apple TV. He said to keep an eye on the space because the traditional cable powerhouses like Comcast seem asleep at the wheel and don’t realize the power of IPTV. 
2. Bonin Bough mentioned the idea of philanthropy and doing good with social media. He made a powerful statement: “social media is transformational and has big implications that we don’t yet realize.” He also referenced a stat about 10% of South Korean youth being at risk for internet addiction, I’m guessing to prove that the internet is shaping lives? 
3. Stephanie Agresta discussed the integration between advertising and social media and believes that it will get even more interesting in the next 6-12 months.

Additional Thoughts

Marc Ecko was the most “famous” person in the room, and a close friend of moderator Coltrane Curtis, so he ended up dominating much of the conversation. This led to a lot of banter that took time away from specific examples and campaigns that Stephanie Agresta and Bonin Bough brought to the table.  Still, Ecko was very entertaining and you could tell he has great chemistry with Coltrane Curtis. Speaking of Curtis, I hadn’t heard of him before this panel discussion, but I’m glad I got to see him in action. He seemed genuinely loved by many people in the auditorium and is committed to creating authentic connections between brands and consumers in a fresh new way. What’s not to like about that?

Garth Holsinger didn’t do a great job of selling Klout’s services. I have become very familiar with Klout and many of his off the cuff answers to questions from the crowd weren’t well thought out, or consistent with Klout’s messaging. On the way out the door, I heard multiple people discussing how unimpressed they were with the Klout contributions (I actually overheard someone saying that his Klout score would be a 10. Ouch!) That being said, Garth had a crowd of people surrounding him during the impromptu networking session after the discussion, so he seemed to be doing just fine. In my opinion, Klout knows he isn’t the best live speaker, but he is just carrying the message that “Klout is measuring online influence.” He is an older gentleman and doesn’t seem as looped into the social media world, so he is much easier for traditional brands to approach about Klout’s services, especially since they are offering all-important metrics. Don’t get me wrong, I have met Garth and communicated with him via email - he is a good guy. I just think that others on the Klout team would have been better suited for speaking on this particular panel. 

As you might be able to tell from the recap, I was most impressed with Bonin Bough from PepsiCo. He obviously “gets” the social media and digital marketing space and almost everything he said was insightful or thought-provoking. If you have an opportunity to attend an event that he is speaking at, I’d highly recommend it.

The event was held in a large auditorium at the Paley Center For Media and the crowd was standing room only. At the end of the event, they mentioned that it was one of the most well-attended ad week events, proving that businesses are eager to understand how to engage “Consumer 2.0.”

Most would agree that we’ve reached the saturation point of major brand social media marketing immersion.  Fortune 500 companies are holding “digital days” for management, Twitter and Facebook are key facets of corporate strategy and every company wants to reap the rewards of social media involvement. Unfortunately, there are speed bumps ahead.

Many see the warning signs.  Eric Fulwiler at Social Media Today calls it the social media bubble, describing the inevitable backlash of “inauthentic and unoriginal presences and promotions.”  There is a bubble, and it may burst, but what will lead us to that point?  I have some ideas. 

Businesses Are Involved In Social Media For The Wrong Reasons

These days, corporate entities and businesses get involved in social media without stepping back and understanding what they’re getting themselves into.  Anyone even remotely involved with social media or digital marketing would stand to benefit from viewing this presentation by Nicolas Christakis, professor of sociology at Harvard University (h/t Simon Mainwaring). At the heart of the fascinating presentation is the idea that humans form social networks to do good. He refers to social networks as living things or human “superorganisms.” These “superorganisms” are “governed by the collective” and the sum is greater than the individual parts. He concludes by saying “overall we form social networks because the benefits of a social networks outweigh the costs.”  

Social networks have always existed in society, but they’ve never been as prominent as they are in the digital age. With each passing day, it becomes easier to find like-minded people.  It has also become easier for profit-seeking entities to force their way into social networks. They see groups of people that might be interested in their services and they see dollar signs.  Unfortunately, far too many of these entities will fail in their attempts at social media immersion when they try to force their way into social networks without offering benefits to the collective.  

Failures are in it for the wrong reasons. Potential profits will overwhelm the ideals of engagement and innovation.  The power of social networks is the wisdom of the crowds and the successful brands will leverage that power.  In short, if a business is getting involved in social media, it better be for reasons other than increasing profits. 

The Rise And Inevitable Fall Of The Online Influencer

There is no buzzword quite like the online “influencer” these days. Savvy brands are quickly realizing the power of these social media influencers and are working to isolate them and use them to their advantage.  Services like Klout are measuring online “influence,” and it speaks volumes that leading brands such as Starbucks and Virgin America are partnering with them to connect with influencers.  

The idea is that consumers have become wary of brand messaging and fellow consumers are more likely to sway their opinions. In general, online influencers are individual entities who have an engaged audience but don’t have a profit-seeking agenda. More than ever, brands are reaching out to these influencers in order to reach their highly engaged audience.  This is positive when brands do so to open up lines of communication with their target audience, but there is also a dark side.  As this strategy becomes mainstream, brands will do more and more to win over influencers, and the influencers will lose their credibility.

We’ll call this the “influencer bubble.” The most successful brands will seek out influencers who have gained a following because they have valuable ideas and insights.  The key to engaging these influencers won’t be money or gifts, but transparency and idea sharing. On the other end of the spectrum, so-called “influencers” will get greedy and will leverage their power with lazy brands that don’t take the time to understand the power of an influencer relationship. They’ll quickly be exposed as shills and their influence will diminish, leaving the brand worse off. The “influencer bubble” will have burst. 

Misunderstanding Of The Shifting Privacy Paradigm And Societal Norms

We’re getting to a point in society where a new paradigm of “privacy” is being created. People are slowly but surely seeing the benefits of an open and online social graph (what Facebook is doing with their “like” button and partnerships across the web). There are some obvious benefits to a decreased level of what we formerly considered “private” information, but there are some pitfalls as well. 

New societal norms are being established based on social media and the digital world. We’re all actively participating on Twitter and Facebook and other digital forms of communication.  Whether we realize it or not, we’ve also established sets of rules for what is OK and what isn’t OK to say and do in the digital world.  The most savvy social media users are able to manage their online presence without a set of privacy controls instituted by the service they are using.  

As much as social networks are working to “govern by the collective” and form new sets of rules for a digital world, profit-seeking entities threaten to slow the process.  Brands are understandably monitoring social media, but the bubble risks being popped when brands actively invite themselves into online conversations without observing newly founded societal norms in the digital space. As much as a cable company thinks that they’re helping by barging into a conversation on Twitter or Facebook to tell us about an upcoming network dispute, they’re not. All they’re doing is being rude.  

If we were in our local Starbucks with a friend talking about ESPN, we wouldn’t expect a cable company representative to randomly interrupt our conversation and tell us that ESPN might not be carried on our cable provider soon.  It would be creepy.  It just isn’t what is accepted in society. The privacy paradigm is shifting and digital norms are being ingrained into society as a whole.  Successful brands are adapting to these cues, but as more and more become involved in social media the nuance is lost. Brands see potential consumers to influence and pounce on the opportunity without thinking of the ramifications.  

 ——

As brands harness the power of social media, marketing and engagement opportunities will inevitably arise. Stepping back and understanding the broader idea of social networks and digital communications is the key to avoiding pitfalls and setbacks. 

Have you heard the news??? Location services are all the rage!  Stop the presses! This is gonna be big. 

Of course, to the tech and social media savvy, Thursday’s introduction of Facebook Places piqued some interest, but it was something we all knew was coming. We’ve been using Foursquare and Gowalla for almost two years now, checking in for every cup of coffee at Starbucks, burger at Shake Shack and trip to New York Sports Club. It was only a matter of time before Facebook (and their 500 million users[!] got on board). 

For the majority of our society, however, location services were still on the periphery of mainstream culture.  Now, everyone with an IPhone and the Facebook app has been force fed location services, and the ubiquitous press coverage has forced others to pay attention, too. The idea (but not yet the act) of “checking in” when you go out is well on it’s way to saturation point.   

Still don’t believe the hype?  On Thursday, Foursquare ended up having the most successful day in the history of its service in terms of new signups.  This on the same day that the largest social networking site in the world launched a feature that was supposed to put them on the same fast track to social networking obscurity experienced by Friendster and MySpace. 

And with all of this hoopla, Facebook has delivered a service that is the definition of mediocre.  

On the surface, it does everything that Foursquare does, but when you dig deeper, it simply doesn’t.   While waiting for my drink at Starbucks this evening, I broke out my IPhone (sidebar: what else do people do while waiting for a drink at Starbucks?!) so I could check in on Facebook’s new Places feature.

I was greeted by a bare bones screen that did the job, but didn’t wow me. There was a list of nearby places for me to choose, and it was straightforward how to choose them. 

Unfortunately, I was immediately at a loss. The list didn’t seem completely accurate (the top result was a couple of blocks away), and to make things worse, there were no addresses listed with any of the places. The lack of addresses doesn’t seem like a big deal - unless you’re checking in at a Starbucks.  

As anyone living in a major city knows, there is pretty much a Starbucks every two blocks.  So, if my Facebook Places feature shows the closest business as one that is a couple of blocks away, how do I know which Starbucks to choose?  I’ll occasionally run into this issue on Foursquare, but I simply scroll down the list, check the address and select the proper location.  That isn’t an option in Facebook Places.

For a moment, I was surprised by Facebook’s mediocre effort. Then I realized that the bare bones experience is most likely intentional, and part of a bigger strategy.  Facebook realizes that a large number of Places users are going to be new to location services, and will need some time to get acclimated.  What better way to do this than with a bare bones, straightforward execution?  

Of course, power users are going to realize the same shortcomings as I did, and they’ll stick with Foursquare, or Gowalla. For now. Once Facebook gets the ball rolling with their 500 million users, the training wheels will come off.  You can be sure that the type of features and innovations that Facebook is known for will be rolled out, and eventually they’ll win.  

For now, Facebook is concentrating on feeding the hype machine and using Foursquare as a pawn on their way to social media domination.  They’ll let users dabble with what is now their direct competition, but as soon as the act of “checking in” heads down the path of updating a status, or “liking” something, they’ll swoop in and offer something better. 

Maybe I’m giving Facebook too much credit, but this mediocre rollout of a game-changing feature just seems fishy to me.