social computing

Facebook has a free Event feature that enables you to promote online and offline events to your friends and followers. Not only can you list the event, but you can use Facebook messaging to notify your friends and others who sign up to attend about interesting event features or other information. Since young people think email is for old people, this may be the best way to notify younger supporters about your events.

Many Facebook members don’t know about notes. There’s a note that appears on the left column of your main page, and then there is a Notes tab in your Profile view. Writing a note is very much like writing a short blog post, with the exception that you can tag your friends. When you do that, the first part of your note shows up in your friends’ News Feeds. In addition, tagged friends are more likely to view your page and profile. Thus, writing a Note is a great way to stay in front of your community. Establish a regular schedule of posting notes to let everybody know what your business is up to.

Periodically a question posed through Notes goes viral, like the 25 Random Things About Me[1] question that garnered more than 5 million lists in a single week not long after it debuted in early 2009.[2] A current search via Google shows 235,000 current 25 Random Things lists on Facebook.[3] Even organizations such as the National Museum of Natural History got into the act.[4]

The craze inspired an offline game that actually sounds lamer than the original idea: “During Game play, you’ll try to match fun facts on the game cards with your opponents. Make a match and then add a new, totally random thing about yourself to your list. The first person to complete a list of 25 random things about them wins. It’s great fun to compare lists at the end of the game.”[5] We’ll just bet.

On Facebook your aim is to create a Note that fires the imagination of your community. To help it go viral, be sure to encourage or even require participants to tag their friends.

Create a Facebook Page for Your Business

The Facebook Page has gone through a bit of evolution over the years. Formerly called a Fan Page, in early 2010, Facebook reimagined it as the Facebook Page or Like Page, and with the release of Facebook Places, added a new dimension: location.

Regardless of the name or features, you should create a Facebook Page for your enterprise. It’s easy to do and it’s a great way to provide a central location for your community to gather and comment on your organization.

Get started by going to facebook.com/pages.[1]

Figure 63 — Creating a Facebook Page for Your Enterprise

Decide whether you want to create an Official Page for a local business, an organization, or a public figure, or a Community Page that might eventually be maintained by your community. You can also create a Facebook group, which allows you to assemble a group of supporters that you can message easily.

Let’s say you select organization. Select the category and give the page a name. Make sure the name is unique and memorable, check the box that you’re the official representative, and select Create Official Page. You’ll see a page template like the following figure.

Figure 64 — Facebook Page Creation — Example

Here you can add an image, provide information about your business, and configure other parts of your page. Note the box at the top of the page, which encourages you to create a widget — a bit of interactive code you can incorporate into your main Webpage — to promote your Facebook Page. See our discussion of the Like button, above. Once you have 25 people who Like your page, you can create a user name for the page. This means you can promote it using a simpler URL, for example, facebook.com/SocialMediaPerformance rather than
facebook.com/pages/Social-Media-Performance-Group/125722167476231.

There’s a variety of other things you can set up, and we’re not going to walk through all of them here, but they include setting up your mobile phone so you can post updates to the page, creating a description of your business and your mission, hooking status updates from your page to your Twitter account, and uploading photos. 

[1] Facebook Pages: bit.ly/b0ZBaN

How to Add a Like Button

OK, assuming we haven’t frightened you off the Like button, here’s how to add one to your site.

First off, review Facebook’s Terms of Service (TOS) pertaining to the use of their social plug-ins. Here’s the relevant portion of the current TOS:

Special Provisions Applicable to Social Plugins 

If you include our Social Plugins, such as the Share or Like buttons on your website, the following additional terms apply to you:

1. We give you permission to use Facebook’s Social Plugins so that users can post links or content from your website on Facebook.
2. You give us permission to use and allow others to use such links and content on Facebook.
3. You will not place a Social Plugin on any page containing content that would violate this Statement if posted on Facebook.

The third point refers to Facebook’s restrictions on nudity and other lewd content. We’re assuming you’re in no danger of running afoul of these policies.

With the introduction of Facebook’s Open Graph protocol, you can essentially turn your page into a Facebook page. According to Facebook:

The Open Graph Protocol enables you to integrate your Web pages into the social graph. It is currently designed for Web pages representing profiles of real-world things — things like movies, sports teams, celebrities, and restaurants. Including Open Graph tags on your Web page, makes your page equivalent to a Facebook Page. This means when a user clicks a Like button on your page, a connection is made between your page and the user. Your page will appear in the “Likes and Interests” section of the user’s profile, and you have the ability to publish updates to the user. Your page will show up in the same places that Facebook pages show up around the site (e.g. search), and you can target ads to people who like your content. The structured data you provide via the Open Graph Protocol defines how your page will be represented on Facebook.

You need to create the programming code you want to add to your pages, starting with meta tags. If this sentence just made you want to skip the whole thing, you’ll need to corral a techie to help you. We’ll help a bit by explaining what we just said.

Meta tags are bits of code that inserted into the HTML code of your page, generally at the beginning. There are lots of meta tags that are standard, and Facebook has created some that are specifically used to identify the content of your page to Facebook.

For example, here’s Facebook’s example of meta tags for the movie The Rock:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
      xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"
      xmlns:fb="https://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml">
  <head>
    <title>The Rock (1996)</title>
    <meta property="og:title" content="The Rock"/>
    <meta property="og:type" content="movie"/>
    <meta property="og:url" content="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117500/"/>
    <meta property="og:image" content="http://ia.media-imdb.com/rock.jpg"/>
    <meta property="og:site_name" content="IMDb"/>
    <meta property="fb:admins" content="USER_ID"/>
    <meta property="og:description"
          content="A group of U.S. Marines, under command of
                   a renegade general, take over Alcatraz and
                   threaten San Francisco Bay with biological
                   weapons."/>
    ...
  </head>
  ...
</html>

Those lines that begin with “<meta property” help describe the movie to Facebook. The “og:” portion of the meta tag identifies is as a Facebook Open Graph tag. An explanation of Open Graph is beyond the scope of this post; suffice it to say it’s a way for any page to interact directly with Facebook.

You’ll need to read about adding meta tags to your page at the Facebook developer page at bit.ly/YdhNQY

Basically, any page you want the Like button on has to have the Open Graph meta tags. If you don’t know how to modify the code that produces your page, you’ll have to get a techie involved.

If we haven’t lost you yet, let’s take a look at adding the Like button using the two methods Facebook supports: XFBML and iframe.

XFBML is Facebook’s variant of the XML standard. It’s the more-sophisticated way to add the Like button to your site and is likely to be the method that will continue to be supported in future browsers.

An i-frame is like combining two Websites in one browser view. Your main Website appears just as it usually does, but the i-frame is like a window into another Website, showing you what that Website is displaying. In the olden days, you actually saw a dividing line that showed where one site began and the other ended. There are a variety of problems, some of them security-related, in using i-frames, so talk to your techies before proceeding.

Add a Facebook Like Button Using an I-frame

In general, using an i-frame is simple, and lots of sites do it. Here’s the code you add to the page to get the button to work:

<iframe src="Some Facebook URL" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" style="border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:200px">

You substitute an URL you get from Facebook for “Some Facebook URL” and change the width and height parameters to specify in pixels how wide and tall you want the button, and you’re done. Facebook’s developer’s page has a configurator[1] to help you generate the code (see the following figure.) Press the Get Code button, copy it into the source of your Webpage and you’re done.

Figure 62 — Facebook Like Button Configurator and Resulting Code

The ease of adding the i-frame version of the Like button is a good reason why lots of sites prefer it. A quick look at using the JavaScript version will demonstrate why.

There are other social plug-ins such as the Like Box, so if you’re interested, and have access to a willing techie, you can take a look at the Facebook for Websites manual.[2]

Use Facebook Messaging to Build Relationships

Facebook messaging is a powerful way to build relationships with your Facebook friends. You can message up to 20 friends at a time, but you can also simultaneously message everyone in a Facebook group. This could be a good way for you to distribute your newsletter, for example.

Comment on News Feeds

Your News Feed is made up of activities of your friends. These activities range from simple status updates and picture postings to many other kinds of activities, such as connecting with others, posting on Walls, recommending a link, or requests from within the ubiquitous Facebook games, such as Farmville or Mafia Wars.

If you find a friend’s stream is annoying, you can block all or certain kinds of their posts from your News Feed. To remove all your friend’s posts, hover over any post and you’ll see an X. Click the X, confirm the removal, and that person’s feed will be removed. You can also remove messages generated by Facebook Apps by going to the bottom of your News Feed and selecting Edit Options. Here you can restore blocked friends and manage whether apps’ feeds are displayed, as in the following figure.

Figure 59 — Block Messages from Facebook Apps

One way to build a relationship with a friend is to comment on their items in your News Feed. Often you’ll find this will spawn a discussion involving friends of the friend, giving you more opportunities to connect to more people.

Change Your Status on Facebook

Like LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networking sites, Facebook has a status feature. It’s at the top of your News Feed and your Profile.

At the top of your News Feed is a box containing the question, “What’s on your mind?” When you post in the box, your status appears in all your friends’ News Feeds by default.

If you’d like to restrict who can see a post, click on the padlock at the bottom of the box. You’ll see options similar to the following figure.

Figure 60 — Selecting Who Can See a Facebook Status Post

If you want even more control over who can and cannot see a status post, select Customize. You see a box similar to the following figure which allows greater control, including the ability to select certain people who can see the post and those to exclude.

Figure 61 — Custom Settings for Status Updates on Facebook

Changing this setting only works for the current post unless you check the “Make this my default setting” box. If you want to change the setting permanently, you can also do so on your Privacy Settings page.

You can attach a variety of media and features to your status, including pictures, videos, Facebook events, and links.

You can post pithy, meaningful, or funny statuses. Just don’t post boring (“Today is the 350^th day of the year”), trivial (“Just got up. Looking for coffee”), or obnoxious (“Shots shots shots shots for everybody!!!!!) statuses. Look to post at least one status message a day. If you have trouble coming up with one, there are sites that can help you (you knew there would be).

One such site is FunnyStatus.com. Here are a few of their more interesting canned statuses:

• By the time a man realizes that his father was right, he has a son who thinks he’s wrong.
• Leisure is the mother of philosophy.
• Thinking about opening a center for battered fish.
• My GPS says “Estimated Arrival Time.” I see “Time to Beat.”

If you Like their Facebook page so you can have suggestions when your status well runs dry,[1] or use their Funny Facebook Status Generator.[2]

You can also link your Twitter feed to your Facebook status. Be careful with this if you do a lot of replying on Twitter: People aren’t likely to be too interested in “@somebody You’re right” status updates. To link Twitter to your status, go to the Facebook Apps page and add the app.[3]

Posting on Walls

A Wall is a Facebook members’ public notepad. You can post on your Wall, and friends can post on each others’ walls. The posts will show up in both friends’ News Feeds. With all the other ways people have to interact, actually posting on Walls seems to be becoming less popular.

[1] The Witty Hilarious and Ridiculously Funny Status Updates Facebook Page: bit.ly/bqhD3V

[2] Funny Facebook Status Generator: bit.ly/cluFZq

[3] Apps on Facebook.com – Facebook Developers bit.ly/Z7uWfr – here are several Twitter-related apps: bit.ly/XfOPDl

After you’ve set up your profile, of course you’ll need some friends. Friending on Facebook is a little different from other social networks in that you may not be able to see very much detail about the person you’re trying to friend. On the other hand, due to the changes in default privacy settings we detailed in an earlier section, this problem may be less of an issue these days.

At any rate, this is a problem whether you are searching for friends to connect to, or evaluating friend requests from others, and it’s especially difficult if you or your potential friend have a common name. The following figure shows the small amount of information you can see about members who are protecting their privacy.

Figure 58 — Limited Information Available for Potential Friends on Facebook

Based on this information, would you accept a friend request from Doug?

However, since you’re using Facebook for your enterprise, you need to determine your policy for making or accepting friend requests. While it may seem like a good idea to accept all friend requests, remember that these friends have the ability to comment on your status or other activities on Facebook. If they are opposed to your company, are a troll, or otherwise disruptive, you may be forced to unfriend them, so you’ll need a policy for that as well. Plus, you’ll need to assign someone to monitor your stream and your Like page.

Another reason to choose your friends wisely is the fact that friends can see information about your other friends. Thus you could be the victim of guilt by association, especially if unsavory friends have completely public Facebook profiles, perhaps featuring equally unsavory pictures and comments. Add this to the fact that online customer relationship management software vendor Salesforce.com has a module called Faceconnector[1] that can look you up and see who your friends are, as well as their public information. Perhaps now it’s clear why we made a big deal about privacy earlier in this chapter.

Finding Friends on Facebook

Like a lot of social networks, Facebook will allow you to upload your email contact lists and will use them to suggest contacts who are already on Facebook, and allow you to invite those who are not.

If you don’t want to do this, Facebook does have a search function that lets you search for people to connect with. Of course, if the people you target have non-public profiles, and common names, this could lead to having to message several “Doug Smiths” to see which one is the one you know. Unlike LinkedIn, there is no penalty for spamming people with friend requests. The recipients can select Ignore if they aren’t interested in connecting.

Your friends can also suggest friends and Facebook will often nudge you with messages in the right column of your main page, suggesting that you help a friend connect with more people.

Grouping Friends

Facebook has a feature that allows you to categorize your friends into groups you can create and name. You can then view a custom News Feed by group and also message all friends in a group.

Typically people may have, for example, a group for family, one for friends, and one for business connections. You can create a group from your Friends page, by selecting the Create a List Button.

To create the group from your Friends page, select the Create a List Button.

You see a form to give the group a name and to select existing friends to add to the group. The group will appear on the left taskbar of your Facebook home page under the Friends heading. Selecting it shows a custom New Feed of the group’s activity.

If you’ve read the other posts on getting started with other sites, you’ll know lots of the basics, and we’re not going to repeat them here. If you’re just skipping around, we suggest you read the LinkedIn posts on setting up your profile. Most of the same principles apply to other social networking sites. We’ll just hit the differences in this chapter.

It’s easy to sign up for Facebook. But you should do some planning first. For example, whose email address should you use to sign up? Facebook does allow you to associate more than one email address with an account, but you might want the first address you use to be a generic or group account, something like facebook@myorg.com. Be sure to add at least one more address in case you forget the password, and especially if you use someone’s personal address and that person leaves your org­anization.

Another thing to plan is your name and your profile picture. Among Facebook’s terms of service are provisions that state that:

1. You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission.
2. You will not create more than one personal profile.

4. You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain (such as selling your status update to an advertiser).

7. You will keep your contact information accurate and up-to-date.
8. You will not share your password, (or in the case of developers, your secret key), let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account.

10. If you select a username for your account we reserve the right to remove or reclaim it if we believe appropriate (such as when a trademark owner complains about a username that does not closely relate to a user’s actual name).

Based on these provisions, it’s open to interpretation whether you are allowed create an organiz­ational account, but hundreds of organizations do. Just be aware that Facebook changes their terms on an irregular basis, and you should check them from time to time.

Choose your business’ logo or other appropriate picture for your organization’s profile. If you decide to go with one or more personal accounts, be sure the picture is professional, only of the person, and clearly legible. In fact, you should ensure there are no embarrassing pictures anywhere on your account — this also goes for everyone involved with using Facebook on your behalf.

By the same token, you should only offer information in your profile that you want supporters, prospects, or others involved with your organization to see.

Keep your main Facebook page simple using minimal graphics and widgets. Avoid adding Facebook apps that are not consistent with your business purpose. That means no Farmville!

Post content relevant to your products, your business and its mission. This is no place for gossip or polemic. While your major presence is likely to be your Like page, your friends and fans will probably check out your home page as well, so keep it organized and to the point.

Why Facebook?

[1] Stats courtesy of iStrategy Labs 1/2010: bit.ly/dlB2lg and 6/2010: bit.ly/dlB2lg

[2] Inside Facebook’s Push to Woo Big Advertisers, on.wsj.com/NosIrb

[3] Top U.S. Web Brands and News websites, Nielsen Wire bit.ly/Yv6pP7

[4] comScore Releases September 2012 U.S. Online Video Rankings bit.ly/X59s51

[5] Facebook’s unique visitors slipped in May: comScore | Reuters reut.rs/UYKWlR

[6] CheckFacebook.com: bit.ly/lBSBBN