Facebook Recovers, Advances With Stores

The time has come for facebook to advance to the next stage of internet domination. Now, users have the ability to shop on stores through facebook pages. This means that all of that viral attention you have worked so hard for can now directly be turned into sales, and not just website traffic.

Buy From Here, Or There

My favorite feature of these stores is that inside while shopping one can actually do a search in all stores on facebook. This means if I am looking for bumper plates from TechPlatesDirect.com and then decided to add something for my wife, by simply typing in my search facebook will return a list of products for me to look at..... all of which I can toss into the same cart!

So let's say that your page only has a few dozen fans, but another has 100,000+. If any of their users do a search for a product that you sell, there is a possibility that you will appear in their search, thus giving you greater amounts of traffic.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

This means that the people who are fans of your page are now locked in your store. Before people were simply idle in your parking lot and your job was to convince them to come inside. This is huge for any company that has a product that they can sell online. Make your facebook page earn you money, get a store installed today before your competition does!

Will The Barrage of Complaints Lead to Facebook’s Decline

Facebook has been under attack from its users for a few months now, all due to their reduction of privacy security. The most recent change, that automatically shares users’ information with selected third-party sites, drew in so much criticism that privacy advocates and government officials got involved.  On Tuesday, the European data-collection authorities organized under the Article 29 Working Party sent a letter to facebook calling the change “unacceptable”.

To correct this mistake, facebook held an all-hands company meeting yesterday to discuss the issue. Before the meeting spokesman Andrew Noyes stated, “We have an open culture and it should come as no surprise that we're providing a forum for employees to ask questions on a topic that has received a lot of outside interest” but declined to comment on what, if any, policy changes might come from the meeting.

The European data-collection authorities called on facebook to allow users to create profiles and log in under pseudonyms, and suggested that the sharing of personal information with Facebook’s business and partners without obtaining “free and unambiguous consent” would violate the European privacy laws. Facebook officials claimed that though they agree with many of the points the officials made, they are unwilling to entertain the suggestion of allowing the use of pseudonyms to protect users’ privacy.

It is becoming clear to users that facebook is no longer the simple networking site that attracted them there in the first place. Facebook now has grown into such a profitable company that it seems more interested in satisfying its clients than the users who gave them their popularity and power. These issues share similarities of MySpace, which fell rapidly as its users quickly rushed to facebook as soon as they began to abuse their advertising privileges. What I find to be the most concerning is that most facebook users seem unaware of these changes and continue to leave their profile susceptible to privacy infringements. I highly recommend going through your account settings and make sure all your privacy settings lock out to limit visibility to friends. Also be sure to remove you phone number and address.

Thousands of “Followers” Kidnapped On Twitter

Yesterday Twitter was embarrassingly caught with its pants down, as a bug was discovered that allowed users to essentially kidnap other users and make them their “followers” on their Twitter page. The only thing more incredible that it took so long for this huge glitch to be discovered was how could such a popular website have such a weak security flaw?

Saying the glitch was easy is an understatement, all you had to do was tweet, “accept [username]” and wait a few seconds….. … and now Conan O’Brien follows you.

There was no effort involved in discovering this bug; in fact the Turkish user admitted in his blog that he found this by accident. So Güntekin (Turkish guy) contacted Gizmodo who posted the message on their blog, soon after Twitter Armageddon set forth.

Messages were updated on Twitter informing users of their epic mistake, so if you this yesterday, now you know why:

Unfortunately there hasn’t been a source (that we have found) that provides the quantity of kidnaps yesterday, but we do know the glitch no longer works. Twitter headquarters was working frantically to repair their gigantic flaw and successfully corrected their program. But what we DO know, without the need of a source, was that no one from Twitter had a good day yesterday.

Reddit, Facebook And Others Are Becoming “Work”

There you are scanning the front page of Reddit, or stalking old flings on facebook, when out of nowhere your boss pops over your cubicle wall from behind your shoulder. Nervous panic sets in, you rapidly think of every excuse possible, you give thanks to God you weren’t looking at a NSFW image, all the while you are damning the height of your cubicle’s walls. We have all done it, and still do it on a daily basis. Fortunately for those in marketing, social media has grown into an excusable, even encouraged work practice.

You can drive through the middle of nowhere and see “Hank’s Towing – Follow Us On Twitter!” signs anywhere you look. Companies everywhere are learning that there is a big party going on that they weren’t invited to, and they are trying to sneak in. Very few bosses understand the actual definition and purpose of the social media networks and their ignorance opens new doors of excuses for employee procrastination. Somehow watching the Epic Beard Man fight instantly becomes consumer research for demographics 14 to 65 as one can spend hours reading thousands of comment fights after watching a senior citizen punch his way into internet infamy.

Before when we only had Best of Craigslist, it was nearly impossible to fire off a probable excuse when caught in the act. Now thanks to such a vast social media network that has led to its own “For Dummies” book collection, employees can spend hours “researching” and “looking for new consumer interests”. For those who haven’t mastered the skill, here are a few methods that can save your employment:

Excuses That Are Proven Through Field Testing

YouTube surfing – have a tab of a competitor’s video. That way if you get caught you can say, “I am looking for other videos that promote our competitor. Look at this one I found earlier, I am trying to see if they have any more.”

Facebook surfing – have a tab of any business page with many fans. Excuse, “I’ve been noticing that this company has a really strong rapport with their consumer base. I am trying to see what kind of people they are attracting and am isolating similarities. My thought was maybe we could find similar methods so that we can attract more traffic.”

Reddit or Digg – “Did you know that there front page links can get millions of views? I am reading through all the comments to figure out what is it about this article that so many people feel compelled to read. Can you image how great it would be if we could create an article to make it to page 1!”

If you have any others that you have field tested, be sure to include them below so all can add more power to their excuse arsenal.  Safe surfing!