Alison Driscoll

Finally got the Facebook chain letter hoax that had people so “worried.” Nearly 2 years ago. And, to be honest, I didn’t actually receive it, a profile I manage did. Nevertheless, my first reaction was to laugh–to myself though, this was not actual LOL quality humor. It was more of a smug, internal chuckle that people still believe these things and continue to pass them on without thinking, or out of fear that the big bad email will magically curse their love life or mysteriously delete their account.

Here’s what the Facebook message said:

Attention all Facebook members.
Facebook is recently becoming very overpopulated,
There have been many members complaining that Facebook
is becoming very slow.Record shows that the reason is
that there are too many non-active Facebook members
And on the other side too many new Facebook members.
We will be sending this messages around to see if the
Members are active or not,If you’re active please send
to 15 other users using Copy+Paste to show that you are active
Those who do not send this message within 2 weeks,
The user will be deleted without hesitation to create more space,
If Facebook is still overpopulated we kindly ask for donations but until then send this message to all your friends and make sure you send
this message to show me that your active and not deleted.

Founder of Facebook
Mark Zuckerber

My first thought: if this was really from Mark Zuckerberg (notice the misspelling of the supposed author’s own name), why didn’t he simply put it on everyone’s news feed? Or be annoying like Mr. MySpace, “Tom,” and send a message to everyone? Or post it on the Facebook blog?

My second thought, as I pasted this here and actually read it more carefully, was who would believe something so poorly written and edited came from a legitimate company? The structure and wording of these chain letters is what is almost always a dead giveaway that they are, in fact, fakes. And while a well done hoax can be amusing, even if you get taken by it, a poorly executed fake is just annoying.

Facebook used to be immune to chain letter shenanigans, fake friend requests and hacked wall postings but I’ve noticed a lot more of this MySpace-like behavior lately. There are a lot of people talking about the subtle shift on Twitter, and Facebook groups and apps against this Fbook spam trend are popping up.

The “Stop Facebook Chain Letters” app caught my eye, but I wonder if this just perpetuates their reach by keeping people talking about them. If you are so annoyed by an email forward or Facebook chain letter and talk about it or install an app, even to say how you much you hate it, you have still helped it spread. This app only makes more people aware that these chain letters exist, and, assuming this was the creator’s intention, are doing their job of annoying people. To that end, this post is further spreading the hoax as well.

Dan Zarrella talks about the viral nature of content and why people forward chain letters in his series of Protoviral posts. His research has shown that “those who typically forward chain letters are typically less savvy users” and, essentially, do not know any better.

My question is, are chain letters and rumors inevitable as something becomes more popular? And why didn’t I see this until now, and never on my own profile? Is that a testament to the types of users on Facebook? Are we seeing Facebook become overrun by chain letters and spam accounts because it has reached a certain level of popularity, or because it’s time as the “it” site has run out and it’s now fallen prey to the same antics as MySpace?

By now, a lot of businesses have figured out that there are a ton of social media tools that can boost business tremendously. Using social media at all will make you look like you “get it;” using social media effectively can help gain you more clients, better employees and a bigger brand.

So where should a potentially social media savvy business start? Facebook is relatively easy to learn, so I’d recommend starting there. However, to create and maintain a good business profile or page you need a few other things first. So, uh, I guess you really need to start somewhere else.

Start a company blog. And use it. There’s not a whole lot left to say about blogs; if you’re reading this you know what they are, so I’m sure you know all the benefits as well. The only advice I have is to make sure you know what you’re talking about before you start; a bad blog is worse than no blog.

Set up a Twitter account. Use that, too. Twitter is great for reputation management, seeing what people are saying about your brand, product, company, CEO–whatever. Use a tool like TweetScan to see who’s talking about you and what they’re saying: the good, the bad and the blah. If you want to be really adventurous you can respond as well. It can also be used as a recruiting tool if you’re looking for new hires.

Of course, you can set up a Facebook account without either of those, but my must-have apps integrate both of these things so… My point is your profile, and therefore your image online, will look a little sparse if you don’t do more than slap a generic Fbook profile up.

Assuming you have a blog and a Twitter account in place, set up a Facebook profile AND a business page, then add these:

• Twitter App You can set this to automatically pull your Tweets into your Facebook status, and it puts a cute little Twitter-themed box on your profile, so everyone knows you’re cool enough to be on Twitter. Also saves you time in updating AND ensures profile activity to keep you relevant. 243,450 total users; 4,869 daily.
  
• Blog RSS Feed Reader I tried a ton of blog and RSS apps out and I found this one offered more functionality, better customization (you can pick an image to make your Facebook mini-blog look like more your actual blog) and a greater sense of control. 28,350 total users; 567 daily.
  
• TwitterSync App Works pretty much like the real Twitter app, which I prefer, but has one advantage over Twitter; you can add it to your page, whereas the Twitter-sponsored app only works with profiles. You can also specify your own propend verb so your status says “is twittering:___.” 14,300 total users; 429 daily.
  
• 30 Boxes Really, any decent calendar app will do, but I found this the easiest to use. If you have (or set up) a 30 boxes account you can sync the two to update the app with all your actual events, as well as any Facebook event invites. Very handy if you host or attend a lot of business events. 222,000 total users; 2,220 daily.
  
• Something fun Add some personality to your profile with a fun or silly application that shows you’re not all work and no play. Facebook is about connecting with your audience, so make your profile look like a real person’s, someone that other users would want to friend.
  

Once you’ve got all that set up, you just need to monitor and maintain everything. It doesn’t need to take a tremendous amount of time, but it does need to be done; you can’t just set these up and let them go. If you can’t manage them and you’re lucky enough to have an intern, see if they can help. Or hire a freelance social media person. I know of at least one

So a little while ago (like, literally 5 minutes ago) I’m doing my morning Facebook check to see what my friends have been up to in the last 9 hours or so (Greg wants to be my friend, Courtney wants to see the ballet and 12 more of my sorority sisters are attending chapter dinner tonight, if you’re interested), when I had the greatest idea ever: Christmas decorations for Facebook.

There are a few apps that have their own take on this idea, but it’s the standard tree or decorations constrained by a box. It’s the same problem that has plagued developers since Facebook opened up its platform; applications must fit inside a small box on the left or right side of the profile. This has stifled the creativity of many Facebook developers, but I never fully understood how frustrating it was until I realized I could not spread holiday cheer to my Facebook profile.

However, being a very festive person, I persisted in my search, but to no avail. All the Christmas apps were made by outside sources, so they were subject to the same restrictions. The only apps that have the potential to go outside the boundaries of the box are those designed by Facebook itself.

And so I am begging, pleading, suggesting, hinting, challenging Facebook to make a special, limited edition holiday decoration application that will let me string garland and holly and shiny stars around my profile. Or maybe put a huge tree along one side, or a little snow village along the bottom. I want to decorate my profile the way you decorate a house. No one I know puts a candle in one window and calls it festive; you put candles in all the windows, and garland around the trim, and a wreath on the door.

Many people spend as much time on Facebook as they do in their dorm or house or apartment, so why shouldn’t we be able to decorate our online home as we would our real home? Macy’s has a very strong brand identity and image, but they decorate for the holidays. Let Facebook spread some cheer.

I am confident that this would catch on like crazy, so I’m calling on Facebook employees to help me. Leah Pearlman, Andrew Bosworth, Jared Morgenstern, Dave Morin, Joe Hewitt, Randi Zuckerberg. Chris Hughes and of course Mark Zuckerberg to develop a profile decorator for the holidays. Call it an early gift to all those loyal users who so naughtily sneak on Facebook all day at work…and so nicely blog about how Facebook is so much better than MySpace.

So now my mom is on Facebook. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about with my boss and potential employers digging through my profile, now my mom can virtually check up on me too. Looks like I’m gonna have to learn the Facebook privacy settings a little bit better.  

I’m thinking I could leverage my ability to persuade a soon-to-be retiree to join Facebook into a job offer as a Facebook marketer. No, seriously, from a college (err, college-ish…I graduated in 2006 but have been known to pretend that I’m still in school) kid’s point of view, I know the average “heavy user” inside and out, but it seems I can reach another demographic too-the baby boomers, aka my mom’s generation (give or take a few years). The key is to grab them on a more personal level, make them feel individually invited. That’s how I got my mom, albeit indirectly; she reads my blog and wanted to a) know what the hell I was talking about and b) check out my profile and see what all the fuss is over.

Not to be ageist, but this generation didn’t grow up with the technology we 20-somethings are so comfortable with, leaving many hesitant to join a lot of the social networks because they feel like intruders. Enter the newest crop of social networks, all of which are designed with a slightly older crowd in mind.

Sites such as Eons, Rezoom and Boomj are well-designed sites that play to the wishes of their audience. They are visually appealing and easy to navigate, managing to look high tech while maintaining an intuitive sense of what each function and link does.They capitalize on the fact that most boomers prefer to get comfortable with one site and familiarize themselves with all of its aspects:

“This prospective and relative stickiness are helping to drive a wave of new investment into boomer and older-oriented social networking sites that offer like-minded and like-aged individuals discussion and dating forums, photo-sharing, news and commentary, and chatter about diet, fitness and health care.”

I’m really glad to see more social networks opening up to the older crowd that are actually social, and I hope they live up to my high expectations. If I’m lucky, maybe I can get my mom to switch over so I can unblock her from viewing my photos. Just kidding mom, I’m still the good kid you know and love.

I was discussing Facebook and some of my ideas for applications we should develop for clients with my boss at the 9-to-5er yesterday (after my very pro-Facebook post), and I realized part of the reason why I’m so protective of it-I practically grew up with Facebook (yes, I’m that young, or it’s that old, you pick). He was saying how it’s a hard sell for a lot of clients, because they don’t see the value in an app or widget for their products, to which I countered that that is exactly why they need one (and us)-because no one is doing much with it yet.

Older generations bash Facebook because they just don’t get it and feel left out by the culture it has created (like in the  Dave Walker cartoon at right); in response, they hold on even tighter to old methods that won’t work for much longer. I know I have a personal bias towards Facebook, but beyond my own adoration for this obsessive time-waster turned marketing gem, I honestly believe Mark Zuckerberg’s creation is revolutionizing social media and word of mouth marketing (WOMM).

Just look at all the new ideas coming out around Facebook every day: Stanford will now offer a classon Facebook App development, raising the bar for all new profile pimping programs; Google will begin indexing profiles much like MySpace; and Facebook has finally realized it’s place in targeted marketing with a new advertising scheme that is poised to change the way advertisers use the web.

This last piece of news is a few weeks old, which, to me, only makes anti-Facebook rants more amusing. As a BU alum, the first non-Ivy to join Facebook, and long time Facebook user (that’s my CartoonYou self at left), I can boast that my profile ID# is under the 1 million mark), I’ve seen just how powerful this website can be. When Facebook first started opening up, there were two opposing views: the skeptics who saw no value or amusement in it (not me) and the awed undergrads with penchants for procrastination (definitely me).

With 85% of college students now using Facebook, it’s clear that most students eventually came around (or graduated and gave up). But for those of us who watched it grow from the ground up, Facebook is not a new phenomenon, but a social network that realized its potential and came into its own.

When companies finally come around, anyone who took a chance early on and listened to “some kid” about the opportunities that Facebook presents will be way ahead of the curve. My advice to anyone looking for a cool, new way to get your message out there is to listen to those of us who’ve been there from the beginning-we knew it was coming, Facebook just had to catch up.