There’s a growing trend in online communications, and I – for one – am not too thrilled. With increased aggression and startling frequency, quotients of the brands on Facebook are lowering their standards of communication. You know the type. They use words like ginormous and irregardless, both of which have become so pervasive in the American lexicon that they’ve been entered into the ranks of reverence on Dictionary.com (somewhere, another Wordsmith of some repute is rolling over in his grave, but doing it with a wink and a smile). These are the same folks that start every sentence with  “Actually”, or “I feel like…” and in the spoken word utter every statement with a sickly sweet sense of mild, bland surprise, and a frequently falling intonation (“Oh, really? No kidding.) They have seemingly no regard for the fact that an exclamation point is meant to do just that – exclaim. If you can’t express the sentiment with language, then using !!!!! as a crutch is not an acceptable workaround.

These grammatical slights are not creative. They are examples of lazy, uncreative people expressing themselves in lazy, uncreative ways. Like telling an old joke over and over again to the same person, what once was impactful for its uniqueness has become ineffectual by way of ubiquity.

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Between you and me, I think most people out there don’t understand Twitter. I think they’re confused by the RT #hashtag @mention mumbo jumbo. But truth be told, it can be an insanely powerful business tool and can help spread your brand’s message like a wildfire.

Think of it like this: on Twitter you can chat with someone without being their “friend”. You’ve never been able to do that on Facebook. I’m not hating on Facebook, it’s amazing for so many things, but Twitter is a completely open arena for two-way communication.

The problem with Twitter is that people who aren’t confused by it sometimes abuse it. This is mostly by companies or people trying to sell you something. Realtors are a great example. Do you follow any real estate agents on Twitter? Don’t bother. All they do is Tweet house and apartment listings. Isn’t that what you already do on your website, Facebook page and blog? Don’t show me the same listings on 3 or 4 different channels and expect that to get my click. Say “Hi” to me or link me to an article you wrote on how awesome a particular neighborhood is. Would you ever meet someone in person and just start shouting real estate listings at them without saying anything else or even listening to them? Then don’t do it online either.

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image by katerha

So you know that Facebook Page you’ve got for your brand? Remember the hours you spent thinking about what sort of custom tabs you want to put there? Remember the design comps you poured over, and the slick little graphics you threw together? Guess what – they don’t matter. Because no one goes to your Facebook Page.

Read it again and make certain it sinks in: no one goes to your Facebook Page.

This is a bitter pill to swallow, so here’s some supporting evidence to help wash it down:

• Fact: 95% of Facebook users view only their “Top News” feed
• Fact: Over 20 million people interact with Facebook from an iOS device, which doesn’t display custom tabs (and that was back in 2010)
• Fact: Just 3% – 7.5% of fans see a brand page’s posts

Overwhelmingly & unequivocally, the lion’s share of interactions with your Facebook Page – upwards of 90% – are happening in the newsfeed, and most brands either don’t know, or don’t care. Interactions are not happening on your Page’s wall. Interactions are not happening on the custom tab you spent hours developing so that people can watch a talking, animated snake-oil salesman. Nope. Interactions are happening in the newsfeed, and they are happening with pieces of content that involve simple (but thoughtful) language, and rich media (e.g., pictures and video).

Now that you know this, what do you do? Post too often, and you risk the dreaded unsubscribe link being clicked. Don’t post often enough, and watch your active user base dwindle, and disappear. What you need is The Goldilocks Principle; you need a strategy that isn’t too hot or too cold – it’s just right.

Start by learning about your Page’s fan demographics. Track your impressions against your actual fan count. What percentage are you really getting your content in front of? Where are your fans – active and inactive – located? Figure out what days and what times are best to reach them. That is, don’t post once a day, at 9am, New York time, if most of your fans are in San Francisco, and won’t do their morning Facebook trolling until it’s ~1pm in New York. What time does your audience use Facebook? Is there another audience you want to reach, that operates under slightly different rules?

Sure, there’s more to it than that – but start there. You’ll be leagues ahead of most, and well on your way to a winning strategy on Facebook.

I am, at heart, and uncomplicated dude. Though I went through a rather protracted term of amassing large amounts of stuff, those times spent living dangerously are long behind me. These days, I remain keen on being able to fit everything I own (excluding furniture) into my car. If I can’t move it myself, I don’t want it around. Aiding this not-always innocuous strategy are several things:

• I drive an SUV
• I do virtually all my reading on a Kindle
• I wear mostly jeans and t-shirts, with the occasional custom-tailored, black two-button suit (even us noveau minimalists have to retain some semblance of style)

Understand, this is not some deep-rooted philosophy of engagement with life. This isn’t some quest to rid myself of “things”. What this is, is a preference to keep things uncomplicated. Clutter makes me crazy. The less stuff I have complicating my life, the more streamlined that life becomes (or, at the very least, feels). I am infinitely more effective, creative, and agile when things are kept uncomplicated. Note – I didn’t say simple. Remaining sensitive to the fact that life, inherently, is complex, it behooves one to move through it in an uncomplicated manner. Path of least resistance, ftw.

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image by stevendepolo

As social media becomes more robust and more people adopt various platforms, brands appear to be increasingly interested in taking previously real-world activities and turning them into social media activities. Why talk to your customer on the phone when you can chat with them on a social platform? Why have an in-store event at only one location when you can have a virtual gathering? Why have an in-person meeting when you can solicit responses via some antiseptic community platform?

I’ll tell you why.

Because the REAL WORLD is important. Humans have evolved over a significant period of time to interact socially in certain ways. Our brains crave (and indeed grow from) interpersonal experiences. As much as we like to think that digital replications of those real world experiences are just as good (or better), they are not. Edward M. Hallowell talks about the importance of the “Human Moment.” He defines the “Human Moment” as “an authentic psychological encounter that can happen only when two people share the same physical space.”

The Human Moment is critical, and you can’t have one via Facebook.

Now, I am, of course, a huge proponent of the power of social media. The point of this little dish is not to bash social media and suggest a return to a pre-agrarian society. My point is simply that brands (and, indeed, all of us) should not lose site of the fact that adopting digital experiences at the expense of real world experiences is probably not in anyone’s best interest.

People that claim it’s impossible to calculate ROI in the social space are really just saying that they can’t calculate ROI in the social space, or probably in any space. The truth is, calculating ROI for social media is just like figuring it out for any other media – print, TV, radio. I’m not saying it’s easy. ROI is difficult to calculate across any medium, especially on the “return” side of the things. For example, you know how much that magazine ad cost, but how much business did you see as a direct result of it? It sounds difficult, but I assure you, it can be done! The tips below will help you get a handle on social ROI:
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Late last month, Peter Shankman posted a decidedly sour meditation on the perils of hiring a “Social Media Expert”, insisting that such a moniker is both apocryphal and a waste of dollars.  Mr. Shankman wrote:

Being an expert in Social Media is like being an expert at taking the bread out of the refrigerator.You might be the best bread-taker-outer in the world, but you know what? The goal is to make an amazing sandwich, and you can’t do that if all you’ve done in your life is taken the bread out of the fridge.

Peter Shankman, 20 May 2011

Ouch, Sir. Very ouch. I have never described myself as a “Social Media Expert”. Rather, I subscribe to the philosophy of Bill S. Preston, ESQ., who famously quoted an Ancient Greek of some renown when he said “The only true wisdom, consists in knowing that you know nothing.” and as Mr. Preston’s esteemed colleague Ted Theodore Logan affirmed: “That’s us, dude!” As I see it, the title of “expert” is one that is better given, rather than taken. It is a far, far, better thing to be called an expert, rather than call yourself one. And so on the issue of self-titled “experts”, Mr. Shankman and I are in accord.

Where I take issue with Mr. Shankman’s diatribe is in the misstep of lumping so-called “Social Media Experts” into one big pot. Bearing in mind that true social media expertise is easily identified, but difficult to quantify, when endeavoring to define an “Expert”, it serves to separate the wheat from the chaff. Social media demands a specific set of faculties: command of the written word, an understanding of who you’re addressing, and a zero BS modus operandi. You’ll forgive me, Mr. Shankman, but it is in fact about engagement. It’s about talking with someone, instead of at them. That’s what the arrow of social media has added to the quiver of marketing: a direct, potentially meaningful and easily mismanaged, tool with which to engage consumers.

And so with this squarely in mind, on several points, I’ll agree that Mr. Shankman is correct. Social media is absolutely about transparency, relevance, and brevity. Like Mr. Shankman, those tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand staunchly on-end whenever I encounter grammatical woes in professional correspondence. Just last week a prospective job candidate wrote to me, stating that she was “fluent in both Mandarin and England”. Good grief. But I’m a firm believer that those sensitive to issues like these recognize others of the same ilk. With very little effort, it’s easy to see who is an effective communicator, and who isn’t.

So Mr. Shankman, rather than drinking “the same damn ten-year-old Kool-Aid” (which you say is synonymous with repeating the ills of the dotcom era), take a step back and recognize that like you, there are those of us out here that get it. We understand the value that social media adds to an overall sales and marketing plan, and like you, we find it abhorrently distasteful when the Kool-Aid goes bad.  And as for making the whole sandwich – indeed, serve up a whole, amazing one (as long as you know not to serve a Double Down to the Judges of Top Chef).