This is just a quick thought but…

I was just scrolling my Facebook page and saw the following headlines and thought: Bully! Instigator!

Neighbors Facebook Fight Leads To Arrests: Police in Manchester, N.H., say some angry Facebook postings between two neighbors led to a confrontation and a burglary arrest.

Facebook Passwords Must Be Shared in Divorce Case: “ The judge issued the order in response to the husband’s revelation his wife wrote incriminating posts on Facebook about her feelings towards the children and her ability to care for them on the couple’s shared computer. “

And this very literal translation:

Bullies use anonymity provided by Facebook and social networking sites to torment their victims. But social networking websites are being used by children and teenagers to bully each other on a disturbing scale, new research has warned. Not only are they “posting” hostile and threatening messages, some are even using the technology to send anonymous abusive messages.

I”m sure everyone has a Facebook drama to share – downside of being connected to people you barely know and seeing what they are doing/thinking/saying all the time. Pre-Facebook you would never have expected to know what the girl that sat next to you in the third grade was serving her kids for lunch yesterday…you may never have known that your neighbor was a Jersey Shore freak,  or that your ex-boyfriend joined a drum circle and moved to Alaska, or that the girl from the third grade feeding her kids cheese sandwiches legally changed her name to “L’il Miss Sunshine”.

With great knowledge comes great responsibility.

You were not intended to know so much. Use your knowledge wisely, like these guys:

Erlanger police use Facebook to fight crime. “Starting Tuesday Erlanger police will be using Facebook to get the community’s help identifying suspects. They will use Facebook posts to ask for information to help solve open cases in the Erlanger Criminal Investigations Division.”

Facebook plays role in store robbery arrests. “Local police have formally charged a Beverly man in connection with the September and October robberies at Skip’s Country Store on Route 133, and a Facebook posting has led to even more charges against him and his girlfriend.”

How A Sheriff Uses His 10,000 Facebook Fans To Solve Crimes. “When a rash of air conditioning thefts hit the county, where they can go for $500 a pop resale, Sheriff Al posted about it on his Facebook wall. His over 10,000 Facebook fans saw a description of the suspects and the make of their car. Within two days, a homeowner called up 911 and said, “I think they’re at the house next door.” Police swooped in and made four arrests.”

OK –  I’m not saying that Facebook should be hailed as a crime-fighting superhero either. I’m sure there are some other ways we can use our Facebook knowledge for good… Like selling Balsamic Vinegar Ketchup…

… Right?

I graduated from Suffolk University this past May with my Bachelors of Science in journalism degree, concentrating in advertising (Say that 5 times fast). I’m extremely lucky to have found my first job not only shortly after I graduated but with such a great company! Everyday I am faced with new challenges and I look forward to learning a lot more in such an exciting industry.

There’s one last thing you should probably know about me. I love sports…Watching them, that is. I spent my college years waitressing at a sports bar connected to Fenway Park called Game On and it is ultimately what got me to where I am today. I met some truly fabulous people and had the time of my life. You might be asking yourself, “Why is she telling us this?” The answer: My first official blog entry is based on the wonderful sport of baseball.

As some of you may know, tonight is the 2011 Home Run Derby on EPSN. What is already considered an exciting event for baseball fans across the globe just got more thrilling thanks to social media. This year, players like David Ortiz and Justin Upton among others, will be interacting with fans via twitter and Facebook during the competition. This will definitely be awesome if there happens to be a brawl like last week between Big Papi and whoever’s pitching because let’s face it, who wouldn’t want to hear a little bit of trash-talking between the players?! It’ll also be interesting to see what fans ask and the responses they receive on top of pictures and live videos from the Derby.

It’s amazing that something like this is even possible today and I think MLB will get a lot of positive feedback as a result. Of course, part of me secretly hope it turns into too much of a distraction for everyone except for Ortiz so he can win but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!

Tagging pages in photos enable Facebook users to share stories with friends about the things they interact with in the real-world, such as businesses, brands, celebrities, and musicians. For now, only pages within the Brands & Products or People categories, can be tagged in photos. Facebook claims to be looking to expand this functionality to more page categories over time.

To tag a single photo you are viewing: Click the photo you wish to tag and select “Tag This Photo” below the photo. Type the name of the people or product page you wish to tag. Repeat this process for every page in the photo that you would like to tag. Click “Done Tagging” in the bottom left corner.

Learn more about photo tagging for page here.

So is there a benefit to having the ability to tag a Facebook page in an image? I think so. Photos count as great content and can help to contribute to your marketing efforts. If your Facebook page is listed in the supported categories, encourage your fans to upload images related to your company and tag your page in an effort to reach new, potential Facebook users.

Strategis has worked on an inordinate number of social communications campaigns for Higher Education. Through testing and tracking we found some great successes, but most importantly we have found some failures. These failures can turn a great idea into a great waste of time and do more harm than good. Especially in the eyes of the folks in the Presidents Office.

1.  Having the wrong expectations

When starting any campaign we strongly suggest setting some expectations and goals. It seems when it comes to social the expectation is that it can solve all our student recruitment problems. A well planned social communications campaign should not be meant to replace your student recruitment campaign 100%; it is there to augment it. Your expectations should be to increase engagement through current students on the networks. By highly engaging those students you will drive awareness through their friends. As a byproduct of having a social communication campaign that is engaging you are able to increase enrollments, but not as a direct correlation to the campaign.

2.  No segmentation

Facebook and Twitter can’t be everything to everyone audience. You must keep in mind that what interests your Alumni won’t necessarily interest your Undergraduates. It is imperative to have segregated channels and content to match those channels. Alumni, Graduate, Continuing Education and Undergraduate should all have their own pages.

3. To much sell sell sell

We have found this is the quickest way to see your fan base quickly decline overtime. Your fan base is attempting to engage with you on a social level and doesn’t expect to get barraged with a sales message all day. They want to be informed, so provide content rich information that is useful (school events, closings, registration hours…). Your audience knows who and what you are and what you have to sell.

4. Bad customer response

This is a simple one. If someone posts to your wall or tweets you respond back quickly. They probably are looking for some quick information and would like a quick response. There is no one single best way to stop engagement in it’s tracks than bad customer response.

5. Don’t push… Pull…

Social communications is meant to be conversational and engage your audience. You should appear approachable through your content. You must foster an environment where your fans feel comfortable in interacting with you on your channels. These interactions will drive awareness which in turn drives consideration and ultimately drives sales.

As the social communications freight train turns in to a high- speed locomotive C-Level Executives are being forced to truly embrace the idea of positioning their companies in the social space. Not just for the short, but for long-term growth and sustainability. I have seen way to many general posts that speak about the utilization of social and rarely any addressed to Senior Executives. We all know their buy-in is critical! Here is my attempt to bring some light on what the C-Suite should keep an eye out for and consider.

1. Follow the crowds

You must position your company where the people are. Twitter and Facebook both have a significant amount of random content, but there is a serious side to these networks that shouldn’t be over looked. Simply said your time and financial investment must be put where people are spending their time.

2. It’s all about relationships

The day when a CEO would/could spend all day on the phone has passed us by. Electronic communications is here. Social gives you a great opportunity to build relationships and drive brand. Building meaningful engagements through corporate channels and through your own personal handles. A simple link on your email to your blog or twitter account would work. But I don’t have the time? Sure you do and you must.

3. Be an expert

What easier way to establish yourself as an expert in your field. Individuals hang onto every world of an expert and take it as gospel. A well crafted strategy and schedule will put you on track to do so.

4. Get personal

The C-Suite has been known to keep the stern corporate image up at all times. We all know you are human with a heart and would love the opportunity to see you open up. For those of you that don’t know me I work with my wife Dolores. Dolores is our CFO at Strategis and my CEO at home. I have written several posts and have been interviewed countless times on how to balance working with your spouse. My answer is always, I do what I am told. Honestly our skill sets complement each others extraordinarily well so there isn’t much overlap in responsibilities and over the years we have settled into a great rhythm. I firmly believe my transparency in both written word and face-to-face interaction has helped bring insight as to what Strategis as a company is all about.

5. Beware of internal social communications

Just as the power of external social communications can transform your business so can internal social communications. The quick delivery of ideas and instant feedback are speeding up the creative process and cutting time spent. That hour meeting can now be gone and ideas can be shared with the click of a mouse.

Some tools to consider: Google Buzz, SAP Streamwork, Yammer and how about Foursquare.

You would have to have lived under a rock over the past few years not to have realized advertising has changed.  And it’s not just due to shrunken budgets.  With the advent of the internet and digital technology, clients can now customize their specific message to a specific person at a specific time.  There’s just one catch.   Figuring out how to do this is very complex.  Marketing and advertising has jumped form 6 channels to thousands which then often spawn other channels.  Likewise, consumer attention has never been so fragmented.  Think Ipads and mobile phones.  And as if this weren’t enough there is now real-time two way communication with consumers yielding significant might.  Think Yelp.  Gone forever are the days of one-way controlled messaging.

Alas, there is a silver lining in the chaos.   Smart and nimble agencies who understand, stay abreast, and dare I say, stay ahead of internet marketing and digital technology will thrive.  The one caveat is that agencies must be able to educate clients about the new realities of advertising.  Sure client can do it themselves.  But do they have the immense amount of time and energy necessary to acquire the expertise and stay abreast of the new marketing technologies and then implement them effectively and consistantly or do they want to run their companies?

According to reports from The New York Times and USA Today, Goldman Sachs and Russian partner Digital Sky Technologies have reportedly agreed to invest $500 million in Facebook.

So what does this mean for Facebook?

Well with an investment like this, Facebook has more power to steal away valuable employees, develop new products and possibly pursue acquisitions – all without being a publicly traded company. The investment may also allow earlier shareholders, including Facebook employees, to cash out at least some of their stakes.

Is there a catch?

According to resources, The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun an inquiry into the increasingly hot private market for shares in internet companies, like Facebook. Some experts suggest the inquiry is focused on whether certain companies are improperly using the private market to get around public disclosure requirements.

What will this mean for the future of Facebook? Only time will tell.. Though Facebook is in no rush to go public, it may be pushed to do so once it reaches 500 shareholders.

Facebook announced its plan to release the new “Facebook Messages” late Monday afternoon. CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighted the need for an enhanced system with the mind-blowing statistic that more than 4 billion Facebook messages are sent each day. One can only imagine that number will continue to grow with the site.

Despite plans to distribute facebook.com email addresses allowing users to send emails from their accounts, Zuckerberg did clarify that this modern messaging system is not e-mail. The three part system of seamless messaging, cross-platform conversation history and the social inbox will center around the idea of user friendliness. “People should share however they want to share” says Facebook project leader Andrew Bosworth.

A key difference from e-mail is the absence of subject, CC and BCC lines, though this is also been the case with Facebook’s currently standing messaging system. It is the second time in less than 6 weeks that Facebook has made a major announcement about a service that they technically already offered, the first was Facebook Groups. The two features have however been significantly improved.

One of the breakthrough aspects to this feature is its platform-agnostic design which allows users to message through IM, Facebook or their mobile device. Finally, in typical Facebook fashion, this system will allow users to organize messages by people you care most about and minimize spam.

Though Zuckerberg has assured major e-mail competitors such as Gmail that “it’s not email”, that statement may leave many wondering if it will be something better.

This morning they  announced on blog.postrank.com that they are launching a new Facebook analytics application that will solve posting issues on any page from the application (similar to Hootsuite) and gather detailed analytics on who commented and liked your content on Facebook.

PostRank will take care of fetching new content from your site, pushing the updates to Facebook, and gathering all the metrics about your content in the background.

The redesigned Groups allow users to essentially build a space dedicated entirely to a group of people, whether it’s their soccer team, family, high school class or book club. Once a Group is created, members can be invited and information can be easily shared among them.

Enough already, how does it actually work?

The new Groups are, by default, closed, meaning anything posted in the group is only visible to the people in it; however, users are also able to designate a new Group “open,” in that members and content are public, or “secret,” where members and content are completely private.

And gone are the days when the group administrator held all the power. Now, all updates (including posts, links, photos, videos, events and, yes, even documents—more on that later) to a Group generate notifications and result in emails being sent to all members. As a result, control of the group is now spread amongst members instead of focusing on only one or two administrators. Via the Group settings, each member can determine how and when (or if) they would like to be notified of happenings in the Group.

Facebook has also introduced the ability to post and share Docs in the Group. Although it only accommodates basic text documents, documents have a revision history which users can navigate back through. While this is no Google Docs product in terms of robustness, it’s definitely a useful feature.

And finally, the feature you have been waiting for (and the one which Facebook states was the most requested): Group Chat.

Until now, users were only able to Facebook chat with one person at a time. Now, all members of the Group have the ability to participate in a single chat window, meaning that Facebook officially offers “chat rooms.” What’s the difference between these Group chats and the ones we used to use on AOL? Well, for one, a user’s identity is no longer a secret. Users are now posting under their real names instead of a screen name. And secondly, depending on the size of a Group, the Group chat could be pretty ginormous. The word is that Group chats max out at about 250 people, but that’s yet to be confirmed. Either way, Group chat is certainly a great feature and one that Facebook has needed to introduce for a while.

So, well done, Facebook. It appears that new Groups surpassed many expectations and will prove to be a well utilized and much appreciated new feature. What do you think?