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5 ways to create a successful Facebook page

4 March 2010 in Case Study, Toolkit by Anya | View Comments

Anya Woods is the Director of Advancement Communications for Lesley University and has shared her thoughts on a recent Facebook page development project.

I recently collaborated with our friends at Thought Labs – fantastic Facebook gurus – on the creation of a Facebook page for Lesley University. We just launched the page this week and have already seen great results, but the success of the page comes after weeks of hard work to make sure we got it just right. I thought I’d share five things we did that were instrumental in ensuring that the Facebook project wasn’t just something we could say we tried, but instead something with enough planning and strategy that we would see real and tangible success from it.

We did our research. In approaching the Facebook project, we started with the idea that we wanted to create a space for our Lesley alumni only. But that was just the beginning… a lot of schools have alumni pages. What was going to make ours special, what was going to make it work and keep our alumni engaged and coming back? We decided we’d need a lot of different kinds of content, not just news and events. So we created a home page with many different functions. It has events, alumni highlights, access to our library resources, photos of alumni, announcements and news, video features, and ways to donate. We give people a range of content to interact with, and a lot of reasons to keep coming back.
We researched and developed a strategy around our various audiences. Lesley is unique in that thousands of its alumni graduated from remote programs called cohorts, so many alumni relate to their program, but have never been to our campus in Cambridge, MA. In equal numbers, we’ve got traditional alumni who spent fours years on campus. How do we reach both audiences? How do we give them relevant information? Many schools face similar issues when trying to tie alumni chapters from other states back to the larger university. Others are looking for ways to bridge the young and more adult alumni. In any case, alumni bases are a highly disparate groups for any university. In our case we focused on the issue of connecting locally, and addressed it by creating tabs for each of our local regions and tied all those tabs to an Alumni Chapters section of our Facebook page. By doing so, we’ve given alumni a way to communicate with each other directly and locally, while keeping that interaction within the overall alumni page. Alumni are also able to post to the main wall tab, so they can communicate locally or with the larger group depending on preference and topic.
We tapped the expertise of people on campus and beyond. To understand what our alumni are looking for, we spoke to alumni, staff who have worked with alumni for years, offsite coordinators from other states who deal with remote programs, and administrators who are looking for specific outcomes from the cultivation of relationships with alumni groups. We even changed, significantly, our original plans and designs for the site based on the advice and input of these various groups. Without their help, we wouldn’t have been able to produce a page that worked for our audience and really served their needs.
We used fresh content and update it frequently. The page is not stagnant. And I’m not just talking about the wall. We post new information to the wall, but we also have dynamic pieces in the main landing page that will be updated frequently with new content, creating new reasons for alumni to come back and interact with the site.
We promoted our page everywhere, and will continue to do so. Not just because we want people to become fans, but because we hope that the content on the page will be relevant and that by providing a place for our alumni to interact they will see value in their continuing interaction with the institution. It’s not about numbers, it’s about quality relationships. Nowhere else can our alumni message us directly and publicly and receive a candid reply from a real person quickly and openly. The value in that alone makes our Facebook page an incredibly important part of our communication with alumni. That’s why we didn’t throw up our logo on a page and start posting news items. We did our research, and created something dynamic and interesting, and devoted specifically to our alums.

In the end, we created a unique page that is tailored to the needs and wants of our alumni groups.

To check out the Facebook page, click here. If you’ve got questions about what we did, feel free to get in touch. If you love the page, contact Thought Labs to get your own!

Organizing social connections

5 October 2009 in Networking, Toolkit by Kate | View Comments

I decided it was a good time to rein in on the many social connections I have and that we’ve set up for the Other Side Group. I started out by going through the list and drawing it out…. it’s a little messy, but it got the job done.

I wrote down every outpost (and threw in blogs there) and drew arrows to determine where the connections were. From there, I was able to get a better picture of where all the content was going and coming from.

A few things I was able to do:

Clean up (I don’t use Jaiku or Tumblr, so I deleted the accounts)
Find overlaps (For instance, I have Twitter fed into Friendfeed, but I also had Twitter fed into BrightKite, which fed into Friendfeed, so it was posting twice)
See what I use the most (I use Twitter and Facebook)
Find holes (Could we maximize our company LinkedIn page more?)
Identify hidden potential (I’m thinking Posterous might play a larger role in the future)
Ask questions (I have a lot of stuff going into FriendFeed, but don’t ever actually use it… is it doing me good? Is that best practice for social media usage?)

It was a fun exercise, and I was able to learn a lot, and get a grasp on what all of my social media tools were doing for me out there. I’d highly suggest it for all of you heavy-users!

If you want to connect to me or to Other Side Group on any of these platforms:

Other Side Group

Website
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
YouTube
BlipTV
Other Side Notes (Anya’s blog)
Anya on Twitter

Kate Brodock

Today and Tomorrow (website/blog)
Twitter
Facebook
BrightKite
Google Reader
FriendFeed
Posterous
Delicious
Disqus
Portfolio (Still needs work)

The Facebook “@” reply and what it means for business

16 September 2009 in Toolkit by Kate | View Comments

Anya and I have been excessively excited for the “small” change that Facebook made the other day that allows you to use the Twitter-esque “@” symbol to add contacts, pages, groups etc to a conversation pretty much anywhere you would normal post content on Facebook.

For example, on our Facebook page, you’ll see that once I inputted “@,” a drop-down menu pops up where you can choose from your contacts, your groups, your pages, etc. I was posting up Anya’s post on academics having open access to scholarly work and wanted to attribute it to her, and I also got to let her know that I did so. You’ll then see the prior post, citing Adam’s thoughts on social media ROI, and his name has been tagged.

Since I’m pretty interested in what this means for viral capabilities, I was playing around with the Walls today. Here’s what I’ve seen so far just using Wall postings.

Personal Profile:

You can post a status update with a contact name and/or a public profile (businesses/organizations) and your update will show up on their or its news feed. [Note: It does not seem to update on a group page]
If it’s a contact, they will be notified via email, just as they would if you had tagged them in a photo in your own album (assuming they’re set up for email notifications). [Update: if you go to our FB page now, you'll see that Adam has already commented on the link we posted. Most likely because he was notified that we posted it.]
Your tagging allows people to click on the contact/group/etc directly from your newsfeed, or their own home feed.
You can only link to contacts that you’re friends with, groups that you’re a member of or pages that you’re a fan of.

Business Public Profile/Page:

Much the same as a Personal Profile.
You can post an update or a link with the same information as above, and tag someone you’ve mentioned. Again, groups do not seem to be affected.
It it’s a contact, they will be notified that they’ve been tagged.
Other fans of the page are able to click directly through to the tagged party, whether it’s the author of a posted link or a group that was mentioned.
Any fan can post something that is tagged with a contact/page/group that they are connected to.

Implications for business:

You are in front of more people, in places more removed than your page. Being tagged allows you to reach people one layer out, by being able to be mentioned in a way that’s interactive on profiles and pages that are not your own. Because your fans also have these capabilities, anytime you’re mentioned by them, you’re exposed to all of their contacts in the same way.
It draws people back to your page more easily. If your page is tagged “somewhere else” it is much easier for new eyes to connect to your page, click, and be there. No one has to actually interact with your page directly for that to happen now. If a person is tagged on your page, they’re notified of that discussion, which isn’t directly on their profile. This will ideally bring them to your page. All-in-all, you’re drawing people back to your content from further away and in an easier manner.

Still playing around, I’ll update when/if I find new features.

Did I miss anything? Any other cool features you’ve come across that increase virality? Do I have anything wrong?

HOW TO: Use Facebook’s @Mentions Status Tagging (mashable.com)
Twitter’s Tough Week: The Social Media Recap… (Mashable … (jonggunlee.tistory.com)

Facebook buys FriendFeed

11 August 2009 in From the Field, Newsworthy by Tyler | View Comments

An important piece of news was revealed yesterday, as Facebook purchased FriendFeed for a total of $50 million – $15 million in cash and $35 million in Facebook stock, which Mashable reported is worth about $6.5 billion. Facebook has apparently discussed joining forces with Friendfeed since 2007 and this deal only came about after an acquisition attempt by Twitter reportedly fell through. Though this joining of forces cost quite a sum, according to TechCrunch, Facebook also acquired the Friendfeed team, which includes ex-Googlers such as Paul Buchheit, Bret Taylor, Jim Norris, and Sanjeev Singh.

Though Facebook has already based many aspects of the News Feed off of FriendFeed, FriendFeed is superior in several ways and will certainly enrich the News Feed experience for Facebook users.

On FriendFeed, stories appear and then re-appear at the top of the feed as new users make comments on them, and updates occur as they happen. Facebook’s feed has to be manually refreshed.This acquisition allows for the integration of popular social networking sites, including Twitter, because it enables users to continue conversations or exchanges from Twitter to Facebook, or even use the two interchangeably.

People are now able to comment on a tweet through Facebook and leave a longer comment than they could on Twitter due to the 140-character limit. Instead of Twitterers and Facebookers using one or both separately, users can also publish their Twitter stream to either FriendFeed or Facebook, which means Facebook and Twitter can pretty much be used interchangeably.

According to Marketing VOX, it is likely that Facebook will see improved integration between its community of users, as well as Twitter users, through Friendfeed’s more open interface and the flexibility Facebook offers. It will be interesting to see if these two social networking communities will maintain some level of distinction, or continue to merge.

Facebook Acquires FriendFeed. What’s Next? (livecrunch.com)
Facebook Buys Sharing Service FriendFeed For Reported $50 Million (contentsutra.com)
Facebook buys Friendfeed to slow the advance of Twitter (telegraph.co.uk)

Social media isn’t about numbers, it’s about the value in your numbers

2 August 2009 in Explanation, Random Thoughts by Kate | View Comments

I recently had a conversation with someone about numbers and social media. It was not unlike many conversations I’ve had before. I was asked to defend my mere 2,000 Twitter followers against someone else’s 5,000 or so. Doesn’t that make them better at social media? To his credit, he was merely playing with me, and was not necessarily a numbers guy himself, but many people DO base your skill level on this!

My answer is flat out no. I’m a huge proponent of value. Value, value, VALUE. I can’t even say it enough. And that’s why I’m very picky about my own numbers and my company’s numbers when it comes to what that audience means for me and Other Side Group in the long term.

As an example, let’s talk about my Twitter following.

So firstly, I don’t think 2,182 is so paltry in terms of followers. Secondly, I feel that over 75% of my followers (basically, the ones I’m following back) are of high value.

I have not actively sought additional followers since I reached the 300 mark or so. Which means almost everyone past that followed me. Which then means that, as mentioned above, the 75% that were not spam, found me worth following in the first place. I’m offering them something.

What type of qualities in a follower or fan do I define as valuable? Everything that we say is important in social media:

They are seeking value from the people they go to
They engage in discussion and conversation
They seek two-way communications
They are actually listening to the people they are following – in this case me – because of these things.

I follow people that I know will have great ideas, pass along great articles or resources, respond to me when I’m seeking advice or answers, be receptive to my discussion and advice-giving, and want to have “meaningful” online relationships. That’s what I’m here for.

Fred Wilson had a great post about total users versus active users in which he said:

“Your best advocates are always your most active users. So focus on them, make them successful in your service, focus on growing that number, and the non-active problem will take care of itself.”

In my opinion, you should work from the get-go to get users that have the most chance of remaining active and engagement in the long-run, which further lessens you having to “deal” with the problem of non-active users.

A few more numbers that I would be interested in, or that I’d love people or potential clients to be asking me (and that I care about when people tell me their social media “numbers”):

I am regularly “nominated” by at least 5 people each week for #followfriday. Now, some people will scoff at it, but at the very least I feel this is testament to the fact that I am offering them at least some reason to follow me. Yes I have to work at it, but it’s worth it to me because they’re loyal and I know I can go to them when I need to.
When I need answers or advice, I get responses to questions within minutes from people following me. They are engaged in their community (of which I’m a part) and they want to give back. I love this, and I thank them.
When I invited people to the Other Side Group Facebook Page, I could have easily sent it to every one of my 700+ friends and Boom! I would have an envious fan following for a firm our size. But I didn’t. I went through each of those friends and decided who I thought would actually value what we were doing and providing, who might interact with our content, etc. That’s all that matters to me. We’re at 113 fans right now, and it slowly grows every day with new people who are being exposed to our information through those initial fans.
I was able to organize – which means find speakers, find sponsors and promote – an event that brought 150+ attendees in the short span of about three weeks using almost solely my following on Twitter and Facebook. I’m not tooting my horn, I’m highlighting how darn powerful that is! (Thank you guys!).

These are just a few examples, but my biggest question remains. Why don’t people ask more about the value of these networks rather than just the numbers?

We talk a lot in marketing about Reach (R), Frequency (F) and Impact (I). From my observations, too many people are focusing on just the R and F when it comes to social media marketing.

R and F cater to the 0.5 second blasts that people send out, which are usually memorable for perhaps 1 second total by the majority of “listeners.” This can be useful for general brand awareness. But what about the I? The brand IMPACT?

More emphasis needs to be placed on the I and how to achieve that, because that’s really all that matters in the long run. This is the only way to achieve long-term brand loyalty.

I would venture a bet that my 2,000 Twitter followers have way more Impact than someone who went out and aggressively sought followers from anywhere just to get their numbers up, which is what I see time after time again. [I've met so many people at social media networking events that say things like "yeah I just reached 5,000 followers." Great, I say, what's their profile? What are they doing for you? Will they still be around in and paying attention in six months?

This may not matter as an individual (although it may), but it becomes poor strategy (or no strategy!) when it comes to business.

Case in point:

I recently spoke to a company that was marketing the fact that they were "social." What this meant, to them, was listing on their homepage the number of Twitter followers and Facebook fans that they had.

Well, that could be great if it weren't for the fact that the way they GOT those fans was by running a promotion for a giveaway of a prize completely unrelated to their product offering. The "fans" rallied behind the brand for the prize giveaway, and once the prize was given out and the contest ended, the majority of the fans were completely uninterested in the product offering, and those that may have been were left idle because of a lack of sales follow-up on the part of the company.

This is a waste of money and a missed revenue opportunity. Period.

Yet they still tout their numbers on their homepage.....

So let's start talking about value more when you're both increasing your own social media presence and when you're analyzing others.

What do you think about numbers? Are you getting value out of your numbers? Are you wishing you got more value? Have you found a straight numbers approach to social media useful in anyway? We'd love to hear from you!

Social Media Resistance

8 July 2009 in From the Field, Random Thoughts by Tyler | View Comments

It’s a different world out there as more people are tweeting, meeting and friending left and right. The explosion of social media has brought a lot of light to the online community for purposes beyond practical use. However, some people are very hesitant to get involved because they are wary of sharing personal information.

Any internet user should definitely be smart about what information they are displaying, but to cite a great point from a fellow social media user, Mattan Ingram, there is a difference between privacy and security. Before you put up the paranoia guard, there are a few things to keep in mind:

You get what you put into social media
If new media is being used solely for purposes that the general public is not interested in, then it’s not as much of a concern that you will be “discovered” and “passed on”.

Viral marketing is only really successful if many links on the communication chain are interested in passing the information on. If someone is too paranoid to be followed by or chat with a stranger on Twitter, then it will be impossible for them to really understand and utilize social media effectively because that is the beauty of social media. The rise of social media increases open two-way communication. As Mattan said,

“The more transparent society is, the better and healthier it will be. We just have to get through the adjustment period. Transparency is not just top down, Big Brother style. It goes both ways.”

This applies to many areas, from consumer-business relationships to government-citizen relationships. The paranoid resisters are actually the ones that could benefit the most from social media; yes by putting up a profile on Facebook, you allow others a snapshot into your life, but in turn you’re also allowed access to theirs. Again, this can apply to individuals, businesses, or government.

We are not lost behind the computer screen. You still have your identity and it is an extension of your being
In a different vein, some people use social media interactions to hide behind a computer screen and act in a completely inappropriate fashion…Ever read YouTube video comments? It’s best not to if you want to keep faith in mankind. To be honest, many of these people probably would never say those things face-to-face, but for some reason have a really nasty internet alter ego.

Be it comments on other peoples’ blogs, YouTube videos, or other opinions, some people really take their comments to the level of just blatantly offensive. This deters a lot of people from using social media because they just don’t want to deal with arrogant rude people, or are afraid then of voicing their own valuable opinions.

Now with more streamlining, such as Facebook Connect, where a Facebook user can use their account to log in to other 3rd party websites, instead of making a separate one for that site, our identities are following us online. This may again strike a note of paranoia in some, but if you think about it, it could actually make the internet community closer and safer.

Of course there will always be weirdos, people who make multiple fake accounts, hackers, etc, but isn’t that say the same for face to face interactions? There will always be people who cut you in line, people with road rage, criminals, etc., but as long as you are smart with what information is put online, just the same way you lock your car door, then we can continue to be comfortable in the online community. For example, if you are reading a review on Citysearch, it has more merit when you can see their Facebook profile and know there is a real person behind it, even if it is a stranger. It eliminates the internet unknown, which is what strikes fear in some.

Where does this leave social media?

While not everyone is on board, there are plenty of people who see new media and internet services as an opportunity for information and positive communication. I consider E-mail, Instant Messaging, and other internet based communication as an opportunity to think about what you say before you open your mouth, instead of saying something completely distasteful, and not having to deal with repercussions, or anyone seeing who the person behind the screen is.

I must say that opinions are great. I like when people don’t agree with me because that is the basis of a good conversation (read: conversation, not a YouTube comment battle). However, when people take disagreements out of context and make personal insults, they are not going to get anything of value from their social media presence, and will also deter others from interacting.

Even though social media is being stunted by two angles, paranoia and terrorizing others, by nature, social media is working on breaking down these barriers. Paranoia is being resolved as more people begin to see that these platforms are used for listening to others, gaining insight/opinions, and communicating with people they normally wouldn’t. Online bullying is being battled inadvertently by creating more ties between different internet platforms. There will always be some resistance, but ironically it could be that as social media grows, it has the potential to resolve some of the current oppositions.

How do you feel about social media? Have you embraced it yet? How can we help make the online community more constructive? Please feel free to share thoughts, comments, ideas.

5 Non-profits who know how to do social media

17 June 2009 in From the Field by Tyler | View Comments

We like non-profits and socially responsible organizations here at Other Side Group. Being a non-profit, community involvement is especially important, and it seems a natural progression that non-profits would become more involved in social media outlets.

We’ve highlighted five non-profit organizations that are not only involved in but effectively using social media:

1. The American Red Cross has an established presence on both Facebook and Twitter. With over 70,000 fans on Facebook and 18,000 followers on Twitter, they not only have successfully reached members of the community, but they are doing several things right: When directing traffic to their Facebook page, all visitors land on the photos tab. This may seem like a minute detail, but so much of the support for the Red Cross comes from community involvement. Without fail, any page visitor will see, even briefly, the photos taken of real-life volunteers from blood drives, disaster relief efforts and other community events. The Red Cross Facebook page has even set up the Causes application to accept online donations directly from their Facebook page. They also are communicating with their followers well on Twitter. Being such a large organization, it would be incredibly difficult to track down all the tweets regarding the Red Cross, but they do a good job of individual retweets. Also, to support community involvement, they post relevant tweets to their blog feed with a short personalized message: Red Cross Blog.

2. Babson College is also on both Facebook and Twitter, and managing the two quite well. Their Facebook content is dynamic enough that fans are consistently interacting with it by posting comments etc. Additionally, they have content fed into Facebook from many sources: the blog, manually, notes, fans, etc. As for Twitter, while they could be posting more frequently, they are responding to people directly and creating conversation. They’ve even set up a blog for students to share their summer internship stories with the community (All fed into Facebook of course).

3. Share Our Strength interacts on their Twitter with members of the community and other organizations with a similar agenda. They tweet very frequently, (even on the weekends!) which is the best way to stay involved and current.

4. The Livestrong Foundation has a very interactive Twitter account. They create a close community by responding to individual tweets, and interactions are based a lot on personal experiences, support and sharing. Because they have created such a strong community foundation on Twitter, it is a good way to spread information about events and fundraisers.

5. The National Wildlife Federation is also active on Twitter. They have the NWF main account, and other accounts for their other campaigns, such as Green Hour, which gives tips about being active outside. This allows them to reach different niches with appropriate information.

There are many ways non-profit organizations can use social media to their advantage: fundraising, recruiting, spreading their message, etc. Depending on each organization’s needs and goals, social media interactions can be different for everyone, but the above organizations are definitely using these outlets effectively to their benefit.

Interested in seeing what social media can do for a non-profit you’re involved in? We’re having a contest, and the winning non-profit organization gets a free social media report!

26 Charities and Non-Profits That Tweet (mashable.com)
4 Ways Social Media is Changing the Non-Profit World (mashable.com)
SXSW: Social Media Nonprofit ROI Poetry Slam – Slides, Links, and Poems (long) (beth.typepad.com)

Twitter fTags and Social Media Outlets

2 June 2009 in Explanation, Toolkit by Tyler | View Comments

After reading the recent Mashable article about Twitter fTags, I’ve got one concern: Is Twitter turning into Facebook?

These new Twitter fTags are an alternative to Twitter hashtags. Hashtags are keywords that allow users to find relevant tweets on a topic of interest, and also if desired, to have their own tweets easily found by others seeking discussions on that topic. Simply entering a hashtag into the search bar pulls search results from other tweets containing the same hashtag, similarly to organic search results from a search engine.

This is obviously a good feature, as social interaction is the very essence of being a social media outlet. When I first joined Twitter, I was surprised at its simplicity. Unlike Facebook, which provided personal information, pictures, quotes, favorite movies, groups and countless other applications, Twitter didn’t have those search options, so it was more difficult to find discussions or people of interest.

Before hashtags and trending topics on Twitter, you could search for specific terms, but if that exact phrase did not show up in any tweets then the search would not pull any results. This would be further limited by tweet context; say you were looking to tweet about photography tips, a search for “photography” would pull results for anyone who had mentioned the word “photography” in a tweet, name or description.

Hashtags bring it one step further, allowing a search term to pull results from other tweets that authors deemed relevant by putting in that hashtag to their tweet. Twitter fTags are even better than hashtags. fTags are real-time streams about any topic (already created or an original discussion), but is best for niche discussions, as the fTag discussions can be very specific.

fTags are also great because, unlike a hashtag, which is usually a keyword related to a topic, fTags are labeled so it is not obvious what the discussion is about. This way, in order to participate, a user must actually understand what the stream is about, and as a result, fTags can help cut down on spam tweets, where every word is preceded by “#.”

Despite the obvious interactive benefits of fTags, I think there is a potential vulnerability. While it is good to be able to find specific discussion topics, these advancements are very reminiscent of Facebook Groups. Are these fTags eventually going to have the option of private discussions or invite only scenarios? Will these fTags evolve into Twitter Groups, as this author has pointed out. What originally set Twitter apart was the openness and lack of privacy; not a lot of personal information was asked for, but the whole point was that everyone sees everything. Facebook too, has been blurring the lines between the different social media platforms with their addition of “status updates,” which is very similar to a tweet.

I am curious to see how fTags and subsequent applications are received. fTags are a great application because the discussions are still interactive and communication based. Twitter and Facebook have not yet lost the fundamental essence of what makes them social media outlets, but they need to be cautious about maintaining the qualities that keep the social media platforms distinct. We are able to do so much with social media today, because there are many channels to go through, but if they all eventually have the same exact capabilities, we will not have accounts for more than one platform. You will either have Twitter or Facebook, not both, which could undermine the growth of social media and limit its user potential.

What are your thoughts on fTags?

Other Side Group Welcomes Emily Anderson

1 June 2009 in Company News, From the Field by Kate | View Comments

We want to welcome Emily Anderson to the Other Side Group. Emily will be working with us over the summer as a content producer. She will be posting on Ad Your Comments Here throughout the summer, and we look forward to hearing about her thoughts on the field. For more information, check out her full bio.

Below are her initial thoughts as she begins her work with us.

Over lunch yesterday, I was talking to my friend about how companies, organizations, or brands market themselves on Facebook. Advertising is prevalent on the site, appearing in the margins as you shift from page to page.

What frequently goes unnoticed to the average user, who is often engrossed in messaging or picture uploads, is the very tailored approach to marketing. As a vegetarian, avid runner, and former intern for a non-profit, often the small advertisements that appear when I am logged in are in support of walks or runs for different non-profit organizations, animal welfare, animal and environment friendly apparel, or even work-out routines.

Interestingly, my friend was an Art History Major in college and is currently an Art Education Masters student. On Facebook, she often views advertisements for art museums or art supply stores. The images are very systematically displayed, and tailored to the profile of each user. Is it invasive or non-invasive to take information from a personal profile in order to display specific images?

In a recent blog, Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb writes that pictures have been used as a new form of marketing on Facebook. Users will be notified that they have been tagged in a photo, when really they have been tagged to a new product or service. I think that this is far too invasive because Facebook users are individually contacted, and probably inconvenienced for the purpose of marketing. However, a recent article at Duct Tape Marketing advocates tailored marketing via Facebook because all companies, local or national, can target specific locations, genders, or age groups, etc.

Ultimately, I see no problem with using information from one’s publicly displayed profile if images are merely appearing on the margins of the screen, giving the user an option whether to engage with those images. This approach helps raise awareness for all types of causes and products, without deeply inconveniencing or irritating Facebookers who use the site as a means of keeping up with friends.

I do wonder though, if marketers will abuse Facebook as Sarah Perez notes, or respect the space of individuals.

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