The best ad agency in Farmington, Utah

What? It's been a year already?

Today, most people are ending their second week of New Year’s Resolutions and evaluating their progress. And this is the point at which many people realize that they may have made some pretty unrealistic goals for themselves. Well, not to be out-done, this is also the point in the year when we like to present our own goals for 2012. We have thousands, but, to save everyone time, we whittled it down to 5.

Our Top 5 Social Media Goals for 2012:

1.     Clean Up Our Desktops They say that cleanliness is somehow related to godliness, and we think that’s a pretty good standard. So, we want to approach godliness by straightening out the documents and toys that cover both our computer desktops as well as the physical workspaces that surround our machines. Let’s revisit the world of file folder creation and, surely, some of this stuff can go in the trash. We may not hit the goal of godliness, but increased productivity would be fine, too.

2.     Make Social Part of Our DNA We understand the power of social media as a separate communication channel for a brand’s customers. Now, let’s integrate social media into our projects, strategies and campaigns from the beginning so that interaction and dialogue are central to our clients’ long-term business goals.

3.      Social is NOT a synonym for Facebook We’ve learned there’s more to social media than Facebook and even Twitter. Let’s introduce our clients to the broader spectrum of social media and the audiences that can be reached through great tools like Flickr, Foursquare, Ustream, Groupon, Tout, Viddy, Instagram, Tumblr, Slideshare, Reddit and let us not forget our old friend, the blog.

4.     Use More Video We learned the power of YouTube in 2011:
- 3rd most visited site in the world, 2nd largest search engine
- 140 million+ unique U.S. visitors per month
- Over 3 billion videos viewed each day
Campaigns like Orabrush and Cheapster have shown that YouTube can actually be the centerpiece of an ad strategy. Video is also the easiest format to spread a message quickly through social media networks. Plus, it’s fun.

5.     Remember the real meaning of “Social” The agency is filled with people, most of our clients live near one of our offices, and EVERYONE has a cell phone. Let’s take a little more time and reduce the amount of emails we’re sending to each other by doing more “real-time interfacing.” We also want to focus more on events during and around the workday where we can talk to the great people we work with that remind us why we chose agency life over, say, working in a toll booth.

Facebook just pulled off its white, satin glove and soundly smacked Groupon, LivingSocial and KSL Deals across their collective faces. That’s right. It’s on. Facebook is now in the group buying game.

Big Blue (totally just stole that title from IBM) announced Facebook Deals this week. Pardon my French, but whoopie-frickin’-do. The world needs another Groupon clone like it needs another sequel to The Land Before Time. I officially ended my tumultuous relationship with Groupon after receiving one too many mani-pedi offers (it didn’t end well) and can’t help but wonder why anyone would want yet another daily deal cluttering up their inboxes? What’s Facebook going to bring to the table that’s different/better/relevant?

From their blog:

While many Deals on Facebook offer discounts, it’s more important to us that you find interesting experiences around you to do with friends.  We’ve worked with partners and local businesses to help deliver the best social activities in your area.  And once you’ve found a deal you like, having the deal on Facebook makes it easy to share, buy and plan with your friends.

I have no idea what that means.

A little digging in the FAQs for businesses revelas that Facebook is positioning Deals to businesses as a “the opportunity to offer people unique social experiences that they can do with their friends. This encourages people to share their excitement about the experience you’re providing, not just the discount you’re offering.”

Hmmm…I’m not convinced. Perhaps I’m in a particularly cynical mood today, but just because someone discovers/buys a deal on Facebook, I don’t think that automatically means they’re going to remember to share their experience on Facebook – unless it’s an amazing experience, in which they would have shared it anyway.

Differences between Groupon/LivingSocial and Facebook Deals? Here’s what I’ve been able to discern thus far:

• There is no minimum number of deals that have to be purchased in order to trigger the deal. There are, however, caps on the number of deals available (only 100 spots available for stand up paddle surfing lessons in Santa Cruz).
• The copy is nowhere near as good as Groupon’s, which I would sometimes read for pleasure.
• It looks lik Facebook isn’t doing all the deals themselves, but have partnered with the likes of aDealio, Gilt City, HomeRun, kgb deals, OpenTable, Plum District, PopSugar City, ReachLocal, Tippr, viagogo, and zozi to offer their deals, too. I imagine Facebook takes a cut.

What do you think? Am I a jaded former group buyer or is this something consumers are going to be excited about? Sound off in the comments.

Mark Zuckerberg attended a BYU Technology Forum with Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. It was the first time he’s spoken at a university in such a capacity. “I’m a little bit nervous. I’ve never spoken to a stadium full of people before,” he said.  Despite that, the nerd prodigy known for his awkward interviews came across much more confident and genuine than the US Senator with years of experience addressing the public.

Autumn and I went and I have to admit I was actually pretty excited to hear him speak. It was a Q&A format with questions being pulled from BYU’s Facebook Page.

It’s not about the company, it’s about the product

A lot of the questions focused on entrepreneurship. The main gist of Mark’s comments? Do what you love. He didn’t build Facebook because he wanted to start a company – he did it because he wanted the product to exist. Even when he moved out to Silicon Valley he didn’t do it to create a business, but to glean from the vast experience there to make the product better.

What classes are most beneficial?

“Well, I wasn’t in school for that long. So I may be the wrong person to ask that question.” (Cheering from crowd.)

He mentioned how he was actually a double major in computer science and psychology. And Facebook is as much about psychology/sociology as it is technology. An interesting insight.

Advice for entrepreneurs

“You really have to love and believe in what you’re doing. That’s the most important thing. If you go to start building something…it’s hard. You encounter a lot of challenges. If you don’t completely love and believe in what you’re doing, the rational thing is for you to stop doing it.”

Zuckerberg firmly believes that the more connected people are, the more relationships they’ll be able to maintain and the more empathic and understanding they’ll become and the world will be a better place. “On hard days I step back and that’s the thing that keeps me going.”

Follow your passions people.

Hatch and Zuckerberg are friends. Really, really, really good friends.

Sen. Hatch must have slipped it in at least three times. “Mark, you and I are good friends.” “Mark, you and I have been friends a long time.” “We’ve been friends for a while now…..” Ugh.

Awkward jokes aside, the biggest cheers Hatch got was when he said government’s role in helping startup businesses was to “get out of the way” and when he said, “But you don’t want to hear from me, let’s get back to Mark.” That got overwhelming applause which, too, was awkward.

Watch it

The entire forum is available streaming on BYU’s Facebook page under the videos tab. It’s divided into three sections to be sure you start on the first one.

Overall, what do you think of Zuckerberg? Did you watch the forum? What did you think?

Mirna Bard over at SmartBlogs.com poses the question: are social-buying sites (Groupon, Living Social, etc.) part of social media?

My opinion is that they are not. Groupon, et al., use social media/networks to grow and prosper, but it in and of themselves aren’t part of social media for two reasons:

It doesn’t have a user-facing network. I don’t have a network of friends based around Groupon.

It doesn’t have user-generated content. Groupon doesn’t allow me to create/share/distribute anything.

These services are basically a giant email newsletters and nothing more. Hugely successful and wildly lucrative email newsletters, but email newsletters nonetheless. Any social interactions regarding Groupon happen through email or social media, but Groupon in and of itself doesn’t fall under that category.

Dissenting opinion

Carlee and I were discussing this yesterday and she disagrees with me. We decided we’d each write a post justifying our relative positions in a Social Media Battle Royale(TM) and in the hopes of getting a good discussion going in the comments.

Carlee’s post will be up tomorrow (Jan. 28) but don’t let that stop you from telling me I’m right, today.

I know. Infographics are so 2010. But there are some interesting Facebook statistics over at Mashable. The one above caught my attention.

If I’m interpreting that correctly, the most popular things searched for in the United States in 2010 weren’t Obama, oil spill or Justin Bieber. They were “Facebook” and “Facebook login”.

This indicates some generalities about folks online (and I say this un-snidely):

1. Even though people use Facebook all the time (+70% of US Internet users), many can’t remember “facebook.com” is where you login to Facebook.
2. People don’t know how to use their browser to get to “facebook.com”.
3. People don’t know how to bookmark pages in their browser.
4. People don’t know how to use basic browser functionality.
5. To many people, Facebook is the Internet.
6. Google should be scared to death right now.

I realize I’m a nerd outlier when it comes to technology. But when the main reason people are going to google.com is to search for facebook.com it has me a little worried. Mainly because I think people are starting to think of Facebook as the Internet.

You know…like AOL was back in 1999.

A threat to the real Internet

If people don’t know how to use their browser to get to the site they spend hours on each day how could we expect them to navigate to other places on the web? If the walled garden of Facebook is truly being perceived as the Internet, it means innovation will be stifled and people will be essentially crippled as far as their understanding of what it is to be online. If these things aren’t understood, it’s also a huge threat to Net Neutrality.

That’s not a good thing. The web is wonderful and great and innovative and amazing because it’s open and fluid and information flows freely. In Facebook, information flows in but doesn’t flow out, ala roach motels. And it’s all controlled by a privately held company which isn’t accountable to anyone.

Google

And why should Google be wetting its proverbial pants? Because Google relies on people linking to things to generate its search results. When people link to things inside Facebook, Google can’t see (most of) those links. So the more people share links, pictures, comments and videos behind Facebook’s walled-off “Internet”, the less relevant Google becomes.

Google is already feeling the heat because they haven’t found a way to crack the social aspect of search: people are searching for things from their friends via Facebook instead of Google’s algorithms. A closed, proprietary and walled-off Internet is their worst nightmare and it’s becoming a reality.

Conclusion

What do you think? Am I getting all worked up over nothing? Or is this something to be worried about? Set me straight in the comments.