Blueye Blog » Social Media

Like Button? Old News

Jennifer — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:41:10 +0000

Do you remember when Facebook first gave us the “like” button? It was the biggest, new feature to hit Facebook in a while and completely changed the way we used the social network.

It’s going to happen again, and this time, it’s even bigger.

Facebook is now letting its users do more than just “like” books, television shows, brands, etc. Now, with Facebook’s Open Graph Changes, we’ll be able to say things like, “Susan wants to read ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’” and “John watched ‘Arrested Development’”.

There’s so much more value with these changes. Doesn’t it make you wonder what the “like” button even means now?

The changes with the Open Graph have already been so successful when it comes to music on Spotify. Facebook took music– inherently social–and let people discover new songs, listen and share with friends online.

VentureBeat makes the argument that the “want” and “own” actions will be two of the most important indicators people can use. Advertising efforts will be more exact than they are now by targeting Facebook users’ wish lists instead of bombarding them with ads that are irrelevant. In the long run, it’ll be less annoying for Facebook users and less wasteful for advertisers.

It’s been real, “like” button. It’s time for newer and better things.

Websites Protesting SOPA With Design

Jennifer — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:40:39 +0000

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or were just offline the past two days) you know that a lot of sites chose to “black out” in protest of SOPA and PIPA. Obviously these movements would greatly change how we interact with the Internet, but I was also interested to see how sites would use design to “black out”. I don’t know about you, but I was pretty impressed.

I collected some examples of how all different kinds of sites chose to display their SOPA protests and came across some pretty cool examples.

I’m sure Google’s design approach is no stranger to you. Still, I felt the need to include it.

Did you check out TechCrunch‘s form of protest? Their site remained pretty much the same but they changed the logo.

Wikipedia‘s black out was publicized days before it actually happened so I was interested to see how the site would look on Wednesday. They did a really great job with both their messaging and their call to action. A simple zip code and you’re on your way to stopping SOPA.

Buzzfeed supported the SOPA cause by using black censorship bars across all of the text on their header. It’s a great way to get the censorship message across while giving people a chance to learn more about SOPA and contact their representative if they choose to.

WordPress took a similar approach with the censorship bar but it’s all over their homepage. It sticks with their simple design and is definitely eye catching.

One of my personal favorite blogs, allthatinspires.me also blacked out its page. It was nice to see that even smaller blogs took the time to make a difference. (Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t get my daily fix. Anything for a good cause!)

Cheezburger went with a lightbox approach. The pop up tells you everything you need to know and when you close out of it, the site goes back to normal.

Chris Brogan, very well known social media marketer, took a simple and informational approach and even added a video on the movement which I thought was a great touch.

In case you’re wondering how this helped, check out this article from Business Insider.

What were some sites that really stood out to you? Were you surprised to see some sites not take action?

Facebook Privacy Concerns Are Everywhere

Jennifer — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:50:20 +0000

With Facebook’s new Timeline feature launching for the general public very soon, Facebook Privacy concerns have been all over social media news sources. Discussions on the lack of privacy have come up in many different forms like infographics, video spoofs, polls, etc. In case you haven’t yet seen some of this, here’s a list of interesting things about Facebook privacy that have been posted in the past few days:

Privacy & The CIA:

The Central Intelligence Agency reads public posts on Facebook and Twitter as part of the effort to compile reports for President Barack Obama.

- via AllFacebook

Privacy & Facebook Ads:

This is a pretty funny video pointing out how detailed Facebook ads can get with their targeting.

In my opinion, this aspect isn’t such a bad one. If there are going to be ads on Facebook, they might as well pertain to what I’m interested in. Would you agree?

Privacy & The Past 6 Years:

Mashable has a great infographic on Facebook’s privacy missteps in the last 6 years. It’s not the first and most definitely not the last infographic to outline Facebook privacy flaws, and yet many people still spend hours every week on the site and Facebook still hasn’t perfected privacy settings.

Social Enterprise Summit Chicago

Jennifer — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:37:21 +0000

“The Social Enterprise Summit is THE gathering for social practitioners and experts who are using business methods to solve the most pressing human, social, and environmental problems.”

The Chicago 2011 Summit is next week from October 30^th through November 2^nd and we’re proud to say that Blueye’s Abby Ross is going to be speaking at the event!

Heather Williams and Jenn McTigue will be there as well live tweeting from the event under @SEAlliance and @BlueyeCreative where you can keep up with great talking points that come up throughout the summit. You can also follow the conversation with the #SEASummit hashtag on Twitter. Keeping yourself informed about the summit is easy. You can also check out the Facebook and LinkedIn pages for the latest conversation surrounding the event next week.

It’s not too late to join us at the Social Enterprise Summit and do some live tweeting too. Tickets are still available and you can save $50 by entering the code: BUZZ50.

Feel free to let us know what you’re most interested in learning about and we’ll try to keep you updated on those topics.

Hope to see you there!

Twitter and Customer Service

Jennifer — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:55:47 +0000

It’s hard to find a brand today that isn’t somewhere on social media. What is a harder to find are brands that interact with customers that reach out on Twitter with complaints. Before social media came along, customers had to rely on interaction either face to face or over the phone. When those were the most important forms of communication, customer services reps were expected to listen to and answer any questions and concerns customers may have had. What about social media changed that?

The answer to that question may not have been answered yet, but what we do know from a recent study held by Maritz Research Company, is that 71% of people that have complained to a company via Twitter did not receive a response. Think about what that would be like long before social media came along.

A takeaway point from this information is this: Just because the medium has changed, doesn’t mean the sentiment behind it should.

What have been some of your experiences with Tweeting with companies in the past?

Change is Timeless

Jennifer — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 16:52:46 +0000

Every time Facebook comes out with some minor changes to the home page, or new buttons to click and ways to comment, there are always mixed reviews. Some people welcome those changes with open arms and can’t wait to be the first to figure everything out. Then there are those people who dedicate their statuses and Tweets to letting everyone know why they hate the changes so much and how they’ll never use Facebook again.

Now the Facebook community has another thing coming. With the timeline right around the corner, people have a lot more to get used to than just a few small changes. Timeline is going to change everything about how we Facebook everyday. Obviously this isn’t news, but it’s more so some motivation for people who don’t know how to deal with change.

“Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.”

- Arnold Bennett

I thought this quote was a perfect one to think about how the Internet and Facebook is always changing. Sure, change is going to challenge your comfort zone. It always has and always will, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. That’s why I think this video of Don Draper introducing Facebook Timeline is a great one. It shows how change is timeless and it’s something we have to get used to.

It also wouldn’t hurt if everyone had the presentation skills that Don Draper had, maybe then we wouldn’t be so hesitant whenever we heard Facebook is going to change everything that we’ve grown to know.

Video: Don Draper Presents Facebook Timeline

Facebook & Relationships

Tania — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:28:05 +0000

Even if you have not joined, the network, Facebook can still affect your relationships. My cousin, who somehow still isn’t on Facebook, faked sick to ditch one of his friends in order to have lunch with another. He thought no one would ever know, but a GoRoma check-in post with a picture of my cousin taking a bite of pizza was all over the ditched friend’s mini-feed. An article on Mashable outlines the different ways Facebook interaction can affect people and their relationship. Having Facebook and knowing that you have friends, superficial or genuine, automatically enhances self-esteem. It’s the types of interaction, such as overanalyzing, checking updates frequently, and documenting a chronicle of your life on Facebook that creates anxiety and stress.

The article notes that 50% of active users spend 700 minutes per month on Facebook. Spending that much time on Facebook has to influence how you feel about what you read, comment and share about them. Break ups alone are hard, but checking how great your ex’s life is without you makes it even harder. The article gives advice for those that get emotionally riled up. Check it out and tell me what you think!

Blueye Live at F8 2k11

admin — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 13:00:30 +0000

We’re blogging live from F8 for the day! feel free to leave comments, ask questions and engage!

Twitter Web Analytics & Social Business Index

Jennifer — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 17:24:36 +0000

Two new social tools launched yesterday and both claim to change the way we think of social media: Twitter Web Analytics and Social Business Index.

First, let’s talk about Twitter Web Analytics.

As of now, it’s in beta and only available to a small group of people. It’ll soon be released to all website owners in a few weeks. Twitter claims that this analytics tool will help answer the question of how the high volume of engagement on Twitter effects company websites. The Twitter Developers blog states:

The product provides three key benefits:

Understand how much your website content is being shared across the Twitter network

See the amount of traffic Twitter sends to your site

Measure the effectiveness of your Tweet Button integration

It’ll be really interesting to see the concrete answers that this analytics tool will be able to provide not only to marketers, but also to people who are still skeptical of Twitter’s capabilities on a business standpoint. Who will ultimately be proven wrong? Will this tool be able to help us answer these questions? Time will tell.

What does Social Business Index have to offer?

The Social Business Index makes it pretty easy to get started. It’s free to register then you get a variety of information on specific businesses and industries and where they fall on a social ranking system. While the homepage automatically lists the top 20 social businesses, you can also type in the name of your own or any other business you can think of. Where’s the data coming from? Virtually all over social media outlets ranging from Facebook posts, tweets, comments on review sites and forums, etc. It’s no surprise that Facebook is the top company on the list.

The Earthquake Heard Around Social Media

Jennifer — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:55:05 +0000

If you were to ask someone what his or her number one news source was 10 years ago, the answer would more than likely be very different than today. For instance, how did you hear about the earthquake today on the east coast and in Colorado? I first heard about it from a friend in New York. When I told her I hadn’t heard the news she said, “Check it out, everyone is tweeting about it.”

It’s very telling that my friend’s first thought was to direct me to social media and not a specific news source. Then again, that seems to have been the right move. According to AllTwitter, Twitter was the first outlet to break the news from all of the live tweets with people’s first-hand experiences. #Earthquake was a trending topic not too long afterwards followed by a few more earthquake related topics.

It’s no surprise to me anymore that social media is the go-to news source for a lot of people. Outlets like Twitter give people a lot of variation in the tone of the news for every big event as well, instead of the inverted pyramid ways of the past. On that note, check out this list of the Best Twitter Reponses To The Earthquake.

How did you hear about the earthquake or any other notable news events?