Social Media « Michael Walmsley: Freelance Web Designer Based in Blackburn, Lancashire

Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

Murder Victim’s Family Find Out About Death Via Facebook

Monday, January 2nd, 2012

In the early hours of Boxing Day 2011 Anuj Bidve was with a group of friends visiting Manchester when he was murdered. The identity of Mr Bidve was not announced until his next of kin back in his homeland of India had been informed by the police. Unfortunately the family did not find out about Mr Bidve’s death via the police but through Facebook.

At first sight this fact is shocking, my thought was that the police must have been very slow at tracing Mr Bidve’s relatives. In reality it would be very difficult to beat the speed of the Internet in general and social media sites in particular. The key here is that Mr Bidve was out with friends. Those friends are almost certainly on Facebook and it will probably have been via a message posted by one of them that the victim’s family discovered the awful truth. The police would have been trying to track down the exact location of Mr Bidve’s next of kin, then contacting the local police who in turn would have to dispatch somebody to tell the family of what has unfolded in Manchester. Meanwhile any of his friends could have posted a status update on Facebook that would have been visible to his family in a matter of seconds.

This is just another example of how social media is changing the world. Those of you on social media sites are probably already aware of the speed at which information is shared and that information can be transmitted far more quickly via social media than through TV, radio or newspapers.

Just today I learnt about the death of former Liverpool and Everton footballer, Gary Ablett, through Facebook rather than through traditional media outlets. The Arab Spring has been documented on Facebook and even more so on Twitter. Social media sites allow us access to information that at one time we would never have known existed. You Tube is alive with video clips of repression from many countries. It is little wonder that many of the more repressive regimes in the world look to censor the internet. During the riots in the UK during 2011 social media was blamed as being part of the cause of the riots, allowing people to communicate and organise themselves. However, it was also responsible for organising some of the clean up operations that took place in the shattered city centres.

Many technology journalists now see Twitter as a legitimate news source. I wonder how many news organisations use social media as a way of discovering news stories? By this I do not mean having a Twitter account and asking people to contact them with news. Rather I am talking about journalists scouring Twitter for news that is breaking. Twitter provides a virtual timeline of world events as they happen. In the US Andy Carvin of NPR (@acarvin) does just this. He is collating the Arab Spring and his Twitter feed can be very moving. I saw him interviewed on TWiG with Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis and Gina Trapani during which he revealed that he searches Twitter for words and phrases that people might use in a Tweet about a particular type of event. So he might search for the word “explosion” and then see what results he gets.

The world is changing at a phenomenal pace and we are all being swept along with it whether we like it or not. Our more inter-connected world provides us with opportunities to make new contacts and maintain old contacts in a way that would have been unimaginable 10 years ago. Along with the benefits there will be drawbacks such as the Bidve family have discovered this week. My condolences go out to them in this most painful of moments.

Tags: Anej Bidve, Arab Spring, Facebook, Gary Ablett, Social Media, Twitter, UK Riots
Posted in Internet News, Social Media | No Comments »

Google Incorporates Weather Into Google Maps

Wednesday, August 24th, 2011

The search giant Google has now added weather conditions to Google maps. Simply go to http://maps.google.co.uk and you will see a map of your world region.

Opening screen of Google Maps

In the top right of the screen is a drop-down menu with the word “Traffic”, hover over the menu and you will see there are other options, select “Weather”.

The drop down menu in Google Maps that shows the weather options

Choose "Weather" from the drop-down menu

Now you will get a weather map showing cloud overlain on your map. In addition you can see current weather conditions for major locations on your map.

You can see the weather front with the cloud formation

You can also click on the weather conditions for a location and get a four day forecast

The four day weather forecast for Blackburn

How accurate the forecast is I cannot say but Google say that it will help you plan visits to locations that you might want to see.

There are configuration options on the left side of the screen that allow you to change features such as temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius or wind speed from MPH to KPH. You can also disable clouds as well.

It is another way in which Google are trying to keep you locked into Google. I believe that they have realised that when it comes to dominance of the web that Facebook has an advantage because people live in Facebook while they use Google as a start point to their web travels. Google still needs to find a way to fully integrate everything into one seamless ecosystem although the black menu bar at the top of the screen when you are logged into your Google account does go a long way towards achieving this. Google still dominates the web in many ways and search engine optimisation nearly always refers to ranking highly with Google. The rise of social media has produced a new frontier on the Internet and gaining control of it will be worth billions of pounds in the coming years. Google have realised that they cannot just sit on their laurels and are now actively pursuing the social market.

Google have produced this video to introduce this feature:

Google Maps introduces weather

My only real concern with this is the amount of rain Blackburn is going to get over the next couple of days. Ah well, it’s set to clear up for the weekend!

Tags: Blackburn, Facebook, Google, Google Maps, Social Media, weather forecast
Posted in Internet News, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media | No Comments »

Facebook Unveils New Features That Look Like They Were Inspired By Google+

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

Facebook has announced a number of new features today that are all aimed at their user’s privacy. A number of them look as though they have been “borrowed” from Google+. The first change is the introduction of inline profile controls. Until now Facebook users have had to make several clicks in order to change most privacy settings. With inline profile controls you will be able to choose who is able to see a variety of your data from your profile info to individual posts. So those Facebook users who always think to themselves “If only there was a way that I could post updates to my friends without my work colleagues seeing them” can now do so. On Google+ all your contacts are automatically arranged into groups, known as “circles”, whenever you post anything on Google+ you have the option to choose which of your circles can see the post or you can make it public so that anyone can see it.

The next change is the profile tag review. In the past if you were tagged in a photograph you had no control over it. You could detag yourself from it but only after the photo was online with yourself tagged. If you were away from your Facebook account for a couple of days then a picture that you did not want to be made public could well have been seen by all of your Facebook friends. Under the new system Facebook users will have to approve a photo that they have been tagged in before it will appear in that users profile.

There is also a content tag review that means that you can approve or reject posts that you have been tagged in.

There used to be a feature on Facebook that allowed you to see how your profile would look to another Facebook user. This was withdrawn after it emerged that not only could you see how your profile looked to a specific person but that, through a bug, you could also read their inbox. Once the bug was fixed the setting to use this feature was hidden away, now you will be able to see it in the top right of your page.

You will now be able to change who can see your posts after you have posted your content. This is also a new feature as previously you were able to choose who could see your content but once it was posted you could do nothing to edit those settings.

Anyone who is already on Google+ will realise that they have been using these same type of features on the Search Engine’s very own social network since it was launched six weeks ago. It would be easy to say that Facebook is just copying Google+ but in fairness there are many features on Google+ that originated on Facebook. What we are seeing at the moment is the evolution of social networking as new features are introduced. One thing that it does show is how seriously Facebook takes Google+ as a potential rival. Every time commentators have hailed some feature on Google+ as being something that is either better than Facebook or something that Facebook does not have then within a matter of days or weeks that same feature is available on Facebook. Think about how excited everybody was getting about video “Hangouts” on Google+, almost immediately Facebook retaliated with Skype integration to provide a video chat facility.

There is a long way to go in the war for dominance of the social sphere.

Tags: content tag review, Facebook, Google, inline profile controls, profile tag review, Social Media, Social Network
Posted in Internet News, Social Media | No Comments »

Google Updates +1 Button Making It More Social

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

Update your Google +1 button to make it more social

Google have quietly made an improvement to their +1 Button. For those that do not know what the +1 button is it works in a very similar way to a Facebook Like button. When you are on a page that you like, and you have a Google account, then you can +1 the button (assuming that it is present) to say that you are voting for this page to say that the information on it is useful.

The improvement that Google have made to the +1 button is that now you can see annotations about which of your other Google friends have liked a page when you hover your mouse over the +1 button. This means that the +1 button becomes more social than it was before.

This at first sight seems to be a very minor change but is likely to help increase the use of the +1 button on websites. If the +1 button starts to gain more traction on the web then it is also likely to help increase the uptake to Google+ as well.

This is just another step towards Larry Page’s vision for Google to become more of a social company. Google are probably going to build more social signals into their search algorithm so that we, the users of the web, have a greater say in what the highest ranked sites are in organic results. It does make sense to use the pages that your friends have +1ed appearing higher in SERP’s than they would possibly have done otherwise asy our friends generally have the same interests as yo and so the pages that they like on the Net are likely to also be popular with yourself. It’s a win-win for Google and their users.

I have already updated the code for the +1 button on my site. You would need to do the same to take advantage of this feature. You can get a Google +1 button from this Google Webpage. If you are not sure how to do this then feel free to drop me a line on my contact page and I will do my best to help you out.

Tags: +1 button, Facebook, Google, Google +1, Google +1 button, Larry Page, Social Media
Posted in Internet News, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media | No Comments »

Facebook Allows Pages to be Tagged in Photos

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

Facebook has today revealed a new feature for business pages. From now on you will be able to tag a business page in a photo in the same way that you can tag an individual. Like an example? Imagine that you sell a product, and you have a photo of somebody holding one of your products then you would be able to highlight the area around the product and tag your business page.

Once your business page has been tagged then the picture can be seen among your pages photos. It will not appear in the news feed of those that have liked your page. I assume that this is to ensure that users do not get their news feeds spammed to death with photos from brands.

One other interesting feature is the fact that anybody can tag a page. So if I see somebody with a UFC T-shirt on then I could tag the UFC brand even though have not liked their page. This means that for clothing stores they could effectively harness a whole army of page fans to start to tag pictures of people wearing their brand to build their presence. Although the pictures will not appear in users news feeds they will appear to the friends of the user as they look through the users pictures. At this stage the feature is restricted to Brands & Products and People categories but will be rolled out to the other types of page in the coming weeks.

One possible way that brands may start to utilise this feature is to have a competition where people have tagged the brand in a photo. All of those pictures that are tagged with the Facebook page of the brand will appear in the business page’s photo’s and a winner can be picked from them.

There will doubtless be many new and innovative ways of using this new feature that will emerge of the coming weeks and months. This is one enhancement that businesses have been crying out for and should be well received.

The social media giant has also announced a couple of other features for businesses. The first is the launch of the Power Editor for creating, editing and managing Facebook ads in bulk. It is designed to replace the current bulk uploader tool. Brands and agencies should also now be able to manage their ad campaigns more effectively using Account Groups, this will allow you to group together multiple accounts which Facebook claims will allow seamless accessibility.

While these features may not have much effect on the general user they are likely to be well received within the business community.

Tags: Facebook, Facebook ads, facebook business page, Social Media
Posted in Internet News | No Comments »

Juror Faces Prison Over Facebook Contact With Former Defendant

Tuesday, June 14th, 2011

Legal history has been made in the UK today when a former juror admitted contempt of court. What made this case ground breaking is the way that the crime was committed. Joanne Fraill was a juror in a drugs trial. She made contact with a recently acquitted defendant, Jamie Sewart, via Facebook. They discussed the progress of the trial in which a number of defendants were still awaiting to hear the outcome of their own cases.

At the time of the contact in August last year the jury was in the process of deciding verdicts against a number of alleged members of a drug gang. Sewart’s solicitor informed the judge that the contact had been made via Facebook between his client and the member of the jury. The case was stopped and collapsed as a result.

This week both Fraill and Sewart have appeared in the UK’s High Court to answer charges of contempt of court. Under UK law they face possible imprisonment for up to two years if found guilty.

The reason that the pair have been accused of contempt of court dates back to a speech given last year by the UK’s Lord Chief Justice in which he said that if somebody used the Internet to try to find information about a case they are trying then they may end up in prison.

The judge in the original trial had already told the jurors that they could only base their decision on evidence that they heard within the court. Fraill has admitted that she contacted Sewart via Facebook and discussed the case, including the jurys deliberations, while the jury was attempting to reach decisions over various alleged members of the drugs gang.

The case once again raises concerns over the ways that individuals use social media and social websites. There hardly seems to be a week goes by without news of people losing their jobs over the way that they have used Facebook or Twitter. In spite of the chorus of disapproval that seems to take place every time one of the social media giants implements some change or other that it is alleged breaches our privacy I would argue that biggest danger to privacy are not the social networks but rather the people that use them.

This is an emerging technology that is as game changing as the Internet was just over a decade ago. Individuals and organisations alike are having to learn the rules as they are going along. I can see the day will soon be upon us that during a new employees induction they will be given guidelines on what is and is not acceptable for them to share on their social media channels. Privacy campaigners may argue that an employer has no right to dictate what an employee can or cannot do outside of the employees contracted hours but most companies have clauses in their employment contracts that state if you bring the company into disrepute then you may face a charge of gross misconduct.

The etiquette of social media is still evolving and while much of it may be seen as common sense I would just point out that in my experience there is nothing common about sense.

Tags: Facebook, High Court, Jamie Sewart, Joanne Fraill, Social Media, Social Network
Posted in Internet News, Social Media | 1 Comment »

Yellow Pages, Search Engines or Social Media, Who Do You Trust?

Tuesday, June 14th, 2011

Yell, Google, Bing, Facebook and Twitter

Who do you trust when searching for local businesses?

I read an interesting article today that claims that people trust The Yellow Pages more than they do search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. It is a US based survey but it claims that 84% of those who took part in the survey used The Yellow Pages to find a local business in the last year against 76% who used a search engine. Only 32% said that they used a social network such as Facebook and Twitter.

So why would this be? I think a lot of it might come down to The Yellow Pages being a longer established brand. If we are honest if you were looking for something back in the mid nineties then pretty much your only option was to use The Yellow Pages. Search engines were still a relatively new idea and it was relatively easy to manipulate their results. Add to that many local businesses did not have a web presence in those days so you had little option but to go for The Yellow Pages.

As time has passed then search engine algorithms have become more sophisticated and so their results are more relevant. Local businesses are all waking up to the fact that having a website, even in its most basic form, is a requirement nowadays. The Yellow Pages have not been idle though and they now have a strong online presence through yell.com.

The statistics quoted earlier are for both online and print versions of The Yellow Pages so that perhaps skews the figures slightly as you cannot get a paper version of Google or Bing. I think that it is a valid figure though as I have to confess that last year I needed a tree surgeon and I had already picked up The Yellow Pages and was thumbing through it before I thought to myself “Why am I not looking for this online?”

I should hang my head in shame at the reason I did not go online initially to conduct my search. My thought pattern was that I probably wouldn’t find a small business online and a quicker option would probably be to use The Yellow Pages. The point I am trying to make is that even though I work in new media and deal with local businesses every day, help to promote their businesses online every day I still thought I would have a greater choice out of The Yellow Pages. Oh, and it was the paper copy of The Yellow Pages, not the website that I was using. I did put my copy down and start to search online instead, with a good result I might add.

This shows how much we are creatures of habit. I used the paper copy because that is what I have always done. I had never even thought about searching on line for a local company prior to that. I do now always search online when looking for goods and services, but if it has taken me this long to get round to using the web how long will it take more casual internet users?

One other thought I had on these figures was that of trust. Figures are constantly being bandied about that only about a third of users will click on the paid for ads on a search engine result page (SERP). Yet The Yellow Pages is full of nothing but ads. The Yellow Pages do not do anything to check or endorse companies it is simply a directory and the company pays for their ad and chooses which section they want to be listed in. We all know that when we use The Yellow Pages we tend to choose the companies whose ads stand out the most. This is no objective way of choosing a company, Company A have a more eye catching ad than Company B and therefore Company A must be better than Company B. I wonder if over time people will start to trust paid for ads on SERP’s? One comment I heard a few weeks ago was from somebody who only clicks on the ads and their rationale was that if a company is prepared to pay for me to click on their link then they must be serious about wanting to do business with me.

Perhaps this sort of view is going to become more prevalent in the coming years and it may very well be worth local businesses start to consider using services like Google Adwords or Microsoft adCenter for Bing. The advantage for advertisers is that you can choose which search terms you want your ad to appear under, meaning really targeted advertising.

Only 32% said that they used social media to search for a local company. I believe that this is primarily because social media is where search engines where ten years ago. People know that they exist, they use them, but they do not yet trust their search results enough to go to these sites first when looking for goods and services. People are still more interested in being sociable with their friends rather than with brands or businesses. It will be up to businesses to offer something in return for liking their Facebook page or following their Twitter account. It is also fait to say that while most household names are on one or both of the major social networks many smaller businesses have not yet moved into the social space.

The growth of mobile may spur the development of local searches on line. Often when you are searching for a local product you are searching for a telephone number to speak to somebody and so it follows that having your telephone number in a clickable format on your ad or webpage is likely to help contact rates from prospective customers. They can find your business via a search engine and then being able to click on the telephone number will be easier than keying it in. Of course yell.com can also provide this functionality via their website too.

I have been so intrigued by the results of this survey that I have set up my own on my home page. You will find it half way down the page, please do answer the single question and let’s see if our results are the same here in the UK.

Tags: AdWords, Bing, Facebook, Google, Microsoft adCenter, Social Media, Twitter, Yahoo, yell.com, Yellow Pages
Posted in Internet News, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media | No Comments »

Ecommerce Expo Manchester 2011

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

Old Trafford, Theatre of Ecommerce Dreams (for one day only)

I arrived at Old Trafford, Manchester on an overcast morning and followed the steady stream of visitors to Ecommerce Expo into the show. While this may not be the biggest show in the calendar it is certainly an interesting event. There are also some advantages in not being the biggest event, the main one being not getting frustrated at having to queue for up to an hour to get into a seminar that lasts less than 30 minutes.

There were a good variety of exhibitors, mainly offering ecommerce solutions. If you went thinking anything different then I would suggest that you look at the title of the event and just think about it for a moment. There were also three theatres that held keynotes and these were in use throughout most of the day.

I managed to get to three of the talks in total and took something of value away from each one

Think Mobile – Nicholas Kuminsky (Google)

Nic Kuminsky, Google

Nic Kuminsky gave a great talk on that perennial subject “This is the year of mobile”. He made a lot of sense in saying that there will be no one year of mobile but rather this will be seen as the decade of mobile. At the start of his talk he showed a publicity video for Google explaining the concept of online advertising and I did notice that one of the companies mentioned was JC Penney.

In a nutshell Nic argued that companies will have to have a mobile strategy in order to survive and that simply expecting a website to render on the small screen of a smartphone will not be good enough, that users prefer to interact with a site that has been optimised for mobile when browsing on a smartphone or tablet. He also pointed out that with the GPS capabilities of smartphones that location is becoming a major factor in peoples search habits.

Smartphone usage is being aided with the rise of cloud services with phones like Android, BlackBerry iPhone, and Windows Phone 7 providing processing power while the cloud provides the data for the phone to crunch.

As a result of what I heard I have now committed myself to producing a truly mobile site by the end of June. Stay tuned for progress reports.

Top Tips for a Strong Social CRM Strategy – Duncan Ward (SagePay)

Duncan Wood, SagePay

My next talk was from Duncan Ward from SagePay who gave some useful pointers for creating a CRM strategy using social. As his talk progressed I found myself nodding more and more frequently in agreement with the points that he was making. Social is very much a buzz word at the moment and there may well be a bit of bubble developing around it just as there was around websites a decade ago.

In many of these types of talks or online articles you hear about the social success stories without any real analysis of why they were successes and this leads to a belief of “We have a Facebook/Twitter account why aren’t we millionaires?”

Duncan focussed in on identifying the metrics so that you can gauge how successful your campaign is. Some of the useful points that he made included:

Define a measure of success (number of followers, click through rates etc)
Don’t use everything, use the mediums that will be most successful for you
Empower your staff, but set guidelines
Add value by providing something in return for people liking or following you

One of the points that he made that really struck a chord with me was regarding monitoring. Duncan suggested something that I already do for a number of my clients, create a social media team where part of the team monitor what is being said about the brand and identify possible leads or equally those that are not happy with the brand. These leads are then forwarded on to the experts in the team who have knowledge about the industry who can then engage with the leads/complainers.

What’s in a Postcode? – Guy Mucklow (Postcode Anywhere)

Guy Mucklow, Postcode Anywhere

Guy is the founder of Postcode Anywhere and if you ever wondered why we have postcodes then by the end of this talk you would be in no doubt at all. Guy gave some background, such as the first UK postcodes where created in 1959 in Norwich (note to self: remember that fact it is bound to come up in a quiz at some point). There are now approximately 28 million addresses registered in the UK with postcodes.

Some of the reasons why postcodes are useful include:

Deliveries – They make finding addresses easier
Geocoding – allowing an address to be added to a map
Speed – You can access an address in just seven characters

Guy also advised what the advantages of having software on your site that allows an address to be traced via the postcode. These included:

Address Capture
This can speed up the transaction process as the user does not have to enter all the details themselves. The quality of the data will be more accurate. It provides your business with a more professional image. Delivery times are improved as the address is easier to find.
Clean Address
Having accurate data means that you will get consistent data, this will lead to better Business Information. You can improve the targeting of advertising campaigns as you can tie individuals to specific locations and you are likely to have fewer returns
Customer Profiling
Again this is likely to lead to more accurate targeting and is also a major factor in reducing fraud.
Work Out Distances
By knowing exactly where an address is then you can work out the mileage to that address from your own premises and makes it easier to exclude households that are outside of your delivery area.
Show Your Nearest…
Again by knowing where a visitor is based you can then show them where your nearest branch would be.
Locate Customers
You are able to analyse your customer addresses to identify hotspots allowing you to identify areas where you might want to increase your brand penetration.

Obviously being a trade show there were a lot of exhibitors present and I thought I would give you a quick rundown of the most interesting or eye catching exhibitors with my awards, cue fanfare and drumroll “And the award goes to…”

Best Ecommerce Product

Advansys, Best Product at Show

There were lots of products available for display but to my mind the best Ecommerce product goes to Advansys. They offered a feature rich package that really has to be seen to be believed and guess what you can see it at their website. If you are looking for a product that is scalable then this really is the system that you want to adopt.

Best Use of Technology

Skuuudle, Best Use of Technology

This award goes to Skuuudle, and no I have not misspelt the name. Skuuudle allows you to check out all your competitors to see what price they are selling the same products for. This will allow you to be constantly ahead of the market. There is a huge amount of customisation that is available within their back office. They also have a variety of price plans, so even if you are a small business then you will find a plan that suits you. You can even try a free trial for 30 days so that you can really get a feel for how useful a business tool this can be.

Brightest Stand

B2B Marketing, Brightest Stand

This had to go to the people from B2B Marketing. They offer a range of services to the B2B marketer including a monthly magazine, which I have read and think is packed with great articles. They also provide members with Best Practice guides, bench marking and technical evaluation papers and business cases. If that is not enough for you then they also arrange training courses and networking events. They were even giving a 20% discount on membership to attendees of the show. Their stand certainly made you think “The future’s bright, the future’s B2B Marketing” or something like that.

Best Talk

I had a lot of difficulty making my mind up about this one and as time has passed since the show my view has changed and changed again. However, I have finally decided that my award for best talk should go to Nic Kuminsky from Google. His talk was enlightening and perhaps has had the greatest impact upon me.

I also have a special mention to make to a gentleman who I got talking to waiting for Nic’s talk to begin. His name is Chris Brassington of Starfish 360. Chris is heavily into mobile development and has been for 10 years and so fully understands all things mobile. If you are currently looking for somebody to provide you with a solid mobile strategy and implementation then do contact Chris, I don’t think you will be disappointed.

Final Thoughts

I had an interesting day at Ecommerce Expo Manchester. I know that this is a much smaller show than the main show that will be held in London in October but I do feel that it was a show that was well worth attending. If you are in the North and you are into Ecommerce then I would definitely recommend attending next years show.

Tags: Advansys, B2B Marketing, Chris Brassington, Duncan Ward, Ecommerce, Ecommerce Expo Manchester, Google, Guy Mucklow, Manchester, mobile web, Nic Kuminsky, Old Trafford, Postcode Anywhere, SagePay, Skuuudle, Social Media, Starfish 360
Posted in Internet News | 2 Comments »

How Facebook Can Take Over The World… Well The Online World

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

Can Facebook Really Take Over The Web?

There is an awful lot made of the battle between Facebook and Google for dominance of the web and I have argued for some time that Facebook will eventually win this battle. The reason that I have argued that the social media giant will defeat Google is because people live inside of Facebook, people tend not to do the same with Google. I know that if you have a Google profile and you use Google Docs and Gmail then you might argue that you DO live in Google, but the number of people that do that is miniscule compared to those who sit on Facebook all day.

I admit that Google is the most popular search engine and that it is still the most popular site on the web, but Facebook is catching up. At their heart each site serves a different purpose. With Google you are tending to find out about things, you conduct a search and then click on the links that entice you the most. When you look at the Searc h Engine Results Page (SERP) then Google displays the ads that keep Google going. With Facebook users do not leave the ecosystem, they are effectively a captive audience and Facebook keeps drip feeding ads to their users. At this time the Facebook ad click through rate is not very high in comparison to that achieved with Google Adwords, but this may be as much to do with the fact that the ads work in a slightly different way.

With Adwords your ad will appear when specified keywords are searched for and those keywords are highlighted, helping to draw your eye to the ad. By choosing a keyword to trigger the ad you have a very targeted ad campaign. With Facebook advertising your ad is triggered by demographics, location, gender, age etc and none of the text is highlighted which means you are less likely to have your eye drawn to the ad and your ad will appear to a lot of users who will have no interest in your product or service.

I think that marketers have yet to discover the true power of Facebook advertising, personally I believe that the ads that will work are most likely to be for local businesses who can get a message out to their local audience.

We keep seeing a cosier relationship developing between Facebook and Bing, the search engine from Microsoft. This week Bing have announced in a blog post that they will start to give a higher weighting to pages with Facebook “Likes” than they have done before. I can see this integration between Facebook and Bing increasing as it is in both their interests to take on Google. Especially when you consider that a 1% market share of the search market is estimated to be worth $1 billion. I used to think that eventually Facebook would buy Bing to try to provide a full search facility to compete with Google, but now I have changed my mind.

If Facebook could integrate Bing fully into its ecosystem what would the real benefit be? Yes, they would get some of that search market share but does that really help to advance Facebook? Not really, Facebook like you to just exist inside of Facebook, not start going off to other sites, so how can they take over the online world?

The first sign of this may have already happened. On 07 April 2011 Facebook announced the Open Compute Project. This is a project that has created new server technology that boasts that it is 38% more energy efficient and 24% cheaper to build and run the servers than in traditional data centres.

This means that Facebook may eventually start to offer relatively cheap web space to companies. This on its own will not take over the online world but if Facebook could offer a shopping cart and payment gateway then they could. Imagine a scenario where you are offered a hosting platform that allows you to sell online to all those people on Facebook. You might have a traditional business such as being a mens clothes shop in Blackburn. You want to sell online but know that it will be very difficult to compete with larger retailers in a national market but that you have a good name in your local area for offering quality and value. Now think about what I said abolut Facebook Advertising being led by demographics. Our shopkeeper in Blackburn can target that his ads only show to males aged between 18 and 30 who live within 10 miles of Blackburn who are interested in fashion. The people that see the ad may well know about the business already but may not be aware that there is an end of season sale on right now.

With the system that I am proposing you will still have your Facebook business page but as well as the usual features such as your wall and photos you can have a store section that allows you to sell your goods directly to other Facebook users.

From the users perspective as the system grows then you will start to search within Facebook for the goods and services that you require. Over time people will use traditional search engines less and less and more worryingly for the search engines advertisers will buy ads less and less.

Facebook already have Facebook credits that allow users to buy credits from Facebook that can be used to buy virtual goods within Facebook games. All I am proposing is that this system is expanded. Users would pay for their credits and then trade these with the store, the store can then redeem the credits and download the cash into their bank account. This means that there is no chance of chargebacks for the business as Facebook will be guaranteeing the money.

Admittedly this leaves Facebook susceptible to chargebacks, but they can then employ the best security people and deploy the best security systems to help protect themselves.

There is another great advantage for Facebook, people will be handing over their cash to buy the Facebook currency. This means that Facebook get to keep the money for a little while, invest it and earn a little bit of interest on it in the process. On an individual basis this may not be much but when you think about 600 million users then there is the potential for Facebook to get its hands on an awful lot of currency. If Facebook were a country of 600 million then only China and India would have a greater population.

You could potentially end up where Facebook credits become an internationally recognised currency like the dollar, pound sterling, Euro and Yen.

So this is my vision, people get up in the morning and check Facebook, not just to see what their friends are doing but to check the status of the order that they placed the night before. They might do a little bit of shopping before breakfast, they might even order breakfast via Facebook. They will be able to search not just for friends but for specialist businesses such as wedding planners, yoga teachers and insurance without ever leaving Facebook.

One day people might well ask “Do you remember Google?” and the reply “Yeah, what was it they did again?” The Social Network may well become The Commercial Network.

Tags: Bing, Ecommerce, Facebook, Facebook credits, Google, hosting, Open Compute Project, Social Media
Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

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