What to do with all of this???

I got this very kind message on my Facebook the other day and I thought it was worth answering here on the blog.

The question is, what do I do with this huge social network once I have acquired it?

First off, Katie proposes a fantastic solution to the question. Send a message to your 400 Facebook friends or post a status update that would refer them all to your gym and you are in the money, provided that they remember to drop your name. I love it!

Social media marketing works in the same way. Amass a large network of personal connections and profit from them. As far as I know, Katie is not a small business or a large corporation trying to sell some outstanding product to as many people as possible so gym membership referrals might sound like a good idea, but there are certainly other things that can be accomplished by a large social network on the web.

My favorite solution is somewhat selfless. Let's say Katie needs signatures on a petition or wants to raise awareness for a cause. A large, online, social network can be the perfect place to get people participating. As long as Katie has maintained strong personal relationships with her online communities they are certainly more likely to listen. It is much easier and more effective than soliciting to strangers on the street.

Big brands are certainly not the only ones benefiting from large online social networks. Much can be accomplished by little people with lots of friends. The key word here is, of course, FRIENDS.

Creating huge social networks without any personal interaction is absolutely useless! I can't stress that enough, especially if you are not big brand, which people expect to sell them stuff. It is in the individual's best interest (as well as the big brand, if you are listening) to keep personal relationships his/her highest priority. A 'Facebook friend' should be no different from a 'friend' and communication should be kept open. You never know when you might need your 400 Facebookers or 3000 Twitterers or whatever connections you have.

Be a nice person and interact with other nice people as much as possible. You will need them eventually and, certainly, they will need you!

Facebook: When To Post Your Big Announcement

Facebook is obviously a really fantastic way to connect to people and with its ever-growing population the connections can get numerous indeed. It is important to use those connections to their utmost potential. The idea, of course, is to get people talking about you as much as possible and it is looking like, timing matters. People Facebook (as a verb) more at some times than at others and capitalizing on those peak moments could mean the difference between selling one widget and selling one hundred.

First, let's talk about good Facebook practice. Facebook can be a complicated beast with many different ways to interact with people. However, some methods can be more effective than others. The News Feed feature is the bread and butter of Facebook these days. It is the first thing you see after login and provides easy navigation through all the updates that concern you. Ideally, you should be updating your profile daily* just to show up on your friends' and fans' news feeds. Notice that I asterixed the hell out of "daily." Updates are helpful, provided you have something interesting to share. Too many updates on what you ate for breakfast will quickly become "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" and when you post "The Wolf" no one will listen. I would rather miss a day of updates than write crap in my status bar.

Great! Now you have some big news you want to share with the world! You want to get people talking about it, clicking through to your website, pushing it on their friends, etc. Awesome! Who doesn't? It turns out there are specific times durring the week that Facebookers seem to be more active. Mid-week (Wednesday to be exact) sees much more activity than any other day. These are not people "checking their Facebook." This is when they are responding to posts, giving thumbs up to status changes, writing on walls, interacting on every level. You want to get on as many peoples' news feeds as possible early in the day (Tuesday evening if possible) and spend the entire day responding to posts, clarifying details, driving traffic, etc. Facebook can easily be run on autopilot most of the time, but if you know that there is going to be a surge in user interaction on a particular day it is certainly a good idea to provide personal feedback and communication.

With more and more social network communities popping up on the web, no one can be expected to devote all of their time to one such as Facebook, but capitalizing on the one day per week that users are at their most interactive can be an extremely valuable use of time.

**A weekly breakdown of online social network activity.

Phase IV Wrap-Up #4

Total Activity

Phase IV Wrap-Up #3

Total Popularity

Phase IV Wrap-Up #2

Phase IV Popularity

Phase IV Wrap-Up #1

Phase IV Activity

Friday, April 3

• Facebook: No activity
• Twitter: 4 new followers
• StumbleUpon: No activity

Nothing from Facebook. Apparently people have better things to do on a Friday than write on my wall. Twitter keeping its constant growth and StumbleUpon is back down to it's dreary self. Well folks, this is it. The end of Phase IV. I will be posting graphs and getting some overall results throughout the day. Thanks again to everyone who read this.

Thursday, April 2

• Facebook: 1 status comment, 2 wall posts
  
• Twitter: 3 new followers
• StumbleUpon: 1 new subscriber

Two days in a row for StumbleUpon! Not bad, eh? Twitter is still on the map and is now finally competing with Facebook. One more day of the experiment. I am officially giving the ok to SPAM the crap out of my accounts to spike the graph at the end. Have fun!

Wednesday, April 1

• Facebook: 4 wall posts
• Twitter: 4 new followers
• StumbleUpon: 1 new subscriber

Yay! StumbleUpon! Better late than never, I suppose. Twitter is still going strong probably because you can't go anywhere without seeing or hearing something about Twitter. I was watching CNN and they were using tweets (displayed as a 'cool' montage) to see student reactions to the UCSD admissions fiasco. I'm afraid I am going to go ahead and call this one a fad. The bubble will burst (hopefully not anytime soon). Anyway, I guess make your connections now while the bubble is still growing.

If the bubble bursts will we find ourselves in a Twitter recession?

Tuesday, March 31

• Facebook: 2 status comments, 1 photo comment
• Twitter: 5 new followers
• StumbleUpon: No Activity

Still nothing from StumbleUpon, but I continue to be surprised by Twitter. Facebook is relatively the same and the more I check, the more I think it bears absolutely no merit to this experiment. However, it makes me feel better about myself, so that has to count for something. I am currently obsessed with Slash7's www.twistori.com so check that out if you get a chance. It is a cute little web application based off of Jonathan Harris's We Feel Fine (www.wefeelfine.org).