Poked

Facebook's "suggestions" show limits of social media

Since Faceboook made a few changes recently, active users have probably noticed a lot more "suggestions'' prompting you to interact with people you haven't paid attention to for a long time -- and maybe aren't even around anymore.

That's been the case with many of my coworkers, who are mourning the loss of a friend and former Miami Herald editor Mike McQueen, who died two weeks ago.

Last week was his birthday, and many received reminders to send him well wishes. Others noticed even before his birthday that Facebook was prompting them to contact him, via the new suggestions section on the far right hand column of their profile pages.

Facebook doesn't know that someone has died until it's reported -- it has a form that can be filled out by close family or friends that changes a person's page to what they call a "memorial page.'

Facebook spokeswoman Meredith Chin told me in an e-mail that suggestions are based on profiles of people who aren't very active or completely filled out, and that they're made to encourage those users to interact with others on Facebook more. I get that - but wonder if this will also irritate active users who don't want to see the Facebook slackers..anyone else feel that way?

That explains why one of the suggestions I keep getting is my sister. She's a busy mom of three young kids who has barely finished her profile. Still, we talk or text each other every day, but Facebook doesn't know that -- so it keeps giving suggestions to ``get in touch with her."

That's one of the limitations of social media right now, and something that should be incorporated in future evolutions. People are already interacting so much on Facebook that it's become a part of our lives. The next step in social media needs to be an integration of the two.

Until then, be careful -- even if Facebook suggests you poke your boss, you know that's not a good idea.

Broward County considering social media policy

My WLRN-Miami Herald colleague Joshua Johnson did this story on Broward County considering new rules for employees & social media - take a listen.

These days it seems the most popular means of communication, are also free: social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube. Broward County would like to get in on the act too, but it's bound by open government laws. As WLRN-Miami Herald reporter Joshua Johnson tells us, the County is considering new rules to help it navigate the world of social media.

BrowSocial-WR-Johnson-119

Connect your Twitter account with LinkedIn

Today Twitter and LinkedIn announced that they have teamed up to help you cross the social media streams between the two networks.

The feature is slowly being rolled out to LinkedIn users over the next few days, but the LinkedIn blog has a clear description how the cross-posting will work.

I don't support putting every Twitter post on your LinkedIn profile. Niala and I always preach you should be careful when crossing the streams. The network audiences are different, and no one uses the @ symbol in LinkedIn, so the language is sometimes different. Twitter tends to be a mix of personal and business updates, and LinkedIn always keeps a professional tone.

But just by adding a simple #in to your tweet, it can post to your LinkedIn account. And it goes the other way around too -- just check a box while writing your LinkedIn status update to share it with your Twitter followers.

I like the ability to turn it on and off, depending on the message. It's a nice way to save time and make sure only relevant stuff gets shared to both networks, instead of having your Twitter feed vomit all over your LinkedIn page. It can be especially useful when you're looking for input or help from your business connections on both networks at once.

¿Qué estás haciendo? Twitter now in Spanish.

Twitter has released a Spanish version of its site this week, and made the announcement in Spanish on its blog.

Before this, the only languages that were available were English and Japanese. But that didn't stop tons of users already tweeting in Spanish, like my colleague Daniel Shoer Roth (@danielshoerroth) who writes for El Nuevo Herald. (And thanks to Daniel for the heads up on this news.) Twitter said it is seeking the help of volunteers to translate its site in more languages.

To change the language, go to Settings and then scroll down to the drop-down menu for Language.

Eat a virtual sandwich; help out Share our Strength

Tomorrow is National Sandwich Day.  Yeah, I didn't know either, until this morning, when I got a press release about a new nonprofit fundraiser that going on tomorrow between Sara Lee Deli (they make the deli meats, not the yummy baked goods, apparently) and Share our Strength, a nonprofit that is working to end childhood hunger. (I wrote about nonprofits and how they're using social media last week)

For every new Twitter follower they get tomorrow, Sara Lee says it will donate $1 (up to $25,000) to share our strength.

It will be interesting to see if this catches on...

The difference between Facebook's News Feed and Live Feed

First off, I'd like to thank Facebook for confusing its users yet again with a new feature that is hard to decipher and makes users grumpy.

It really makes my job of picking a column topic so easy when they baffle folks with a new layout every couple months.

Last week, Facebook introduced a new home page that shows users a "News Feed'' and a "Live Feed.'' Before, it used to be just one big feed that showed the updates of all your friends and fan pages.

Now, your News Feed is put together by a Facebook formula that calculates what it thinks you would like to see. It will include posts that got a lot of comments and how likely you are to interact with that post.

That means your News Feed can show things that are several days old up at the top if it's really popular -- it's not in chronological order. It also means you're not seeing every friend's update.

That's where Live Feed comes in. Live Feed is everything happening right now, in real time ... well, almost everything.

Here's how Facebook spokeswoman Meredith Chin described it to me: "Live Feed defaults to showing you updates from your top 250 friends and connections [including Pages]. We algorithmically determine those 250 based on who and what you interact with most frequently.''

I just became a fan of the Florida Marlins page, but the updates are not showing on my Live Feed because Facebook doesn't have a history of me interacting with that page.

So basically you have to teach Facebook what you like by throwing a few comments or hit ``like'' on posts on new pages you follow.

I have nearly 600 "friends,'' I'm a fan of 94 pages and a member of 88 groups. There's no way I'll be seeing every update on my feed.

If you want to see all of your Fan Pages, use the left hand navigation menu of your home page to click on the Pages filter -- then you'll see every update.

And for those of you out there running a fan page, keep in mind that there's a chance your posts won't be seen on every fan's feed.

For a really important post that you want everyone to see, it might be good to send out an Update that will show up in every fan's message inbox. But don't abuse your power! You'll quickly annoy your fans if you send messages too often. Use it sparingly and only for big news items.

You can't do much to change your Live Feed, but if you click the "Edit Options'' link on the bottom of the page, you can change what people or groups are hidden from your News Feed.

The two sets of update feeds were created to help the nonobsessed Facebook user. Niala and I check our Facebook multiple times a day, so the News Feed is pointless and stale for us. But it would be helpful for someone who only checks Facebook once every few days, so they don't feel like they're missing out on something.

For the addicted user, it's probably best to just leave it showing the Live Feed, since it's the most accurate real-time list of updates, even if it isn't showing everything.

What are your thoughts on the changes?

Nonprofits and Social Media, Part II

If you've had a friend suggest lately that you become a fan of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Southern Florida, you're not alone -- it's part of a new strategy by the local nonprofit to get involved in social media.

In six months, the group has created thousands of fans and even seen individual giving increase since it established a presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Richard Kelly, 42, the vice president and chief operating officer, dabbled in Facebook for a few months to get an idea of what he calls the ``nuance and power'' behind the site before the foundation created its page.

Kelly said initially the idea was to delve into social media just to create awareness about the organization, which fulfills wishes of children with life-threatening illnesses.

``We understand the demographics and the way that people get their news has changed,'' Kelly said. ``People get their news in many ways and we're going to deliver it that way.''

In the past year, the local arm fulfilled 479 wishes for the children and families it serves in 13 counties in the southern half of the state.

The staff of the nonprofit, based in Fort Lauderdale, modeled its page after the national Make-A-Wish page, which has more than 86,000 fans.

Once the local page was created, Make-A-Wish reached out to a core group of staff, board members and volunteers and asked them to suggest to 10 friends that they become fans of the Facebook page they created. In the past six months, the page has gained 4,250 fans.

``We're looking to share our stories and our mission -- and if fundraising comes with it, that's great,'' said Kelly, who said they have seen a small increase in individual giving to the local foundation in the six months since they've created a social media presence.

The Facebook and Twitter accounts are updated at least once a day by Kelly or other staff, who also monitor the comments and interact with other people.

The local Make-A-Wish Foundation is just one of many nonprofits that have started to establish a presence on social media sites. Recently, an Atlanta-based social media company called EVERYWHERE came up with a fundraising idea: for every mention of the phrase ``beat cancer'' on Twitter, in Facebook status updates and on blogs, they would have sponsors donate a penny.

Over a 24-hour period that started on Oct. 17, the group was able to get more than 200,000 mentions. The #beatcancer hashtag, a keyword that Twitter users use to keep track of similar topics, quickly became one of the most used terms of the day.

EVERYWHERE's Tamara Knechtel said the goal now is to use social media to generate large mass donations: ``If we were able to generate $70,000 in 24 hours, what do you think we could do in 365 days?''

Do you work at a nonprofit? How are you using social media to spread your message?

Oh, and if you made it this far: Kelly was also a guest on my Business Show that I host each week on MiamiHerald.com:

How local Make-A-Wish Foundation is using social media

I spent some time last week with Make-A-Wish Foundation of Southern Florida's Richard Kelly talking to him about how the organization has developed its social media presence. In the past six months, the group has created a local fan page on Facebook, a Twitter account and a YouTube channel.

I'll post the entire Poked column about what Kelly is doing later, but in the meantime wanted to share some video clips of my interview with him talking specifics of how they did it.

Here's Kelly talking about all the practicalities of how they got started, especially with Facebook:

And here, he speaks about how they were able to grow their local Facebook fan base to more than 4,000 people in six months:

Mashable gets a peek at Facebook's new design

It's been what, a few weeks, so it must be time for Facebook to roll out an entirely new look. Ok, I jest. But Mashable's got a details of a new Facebook design.

Among the changes: "The new home page emphasizes on toggling between views and feeds in order to personalize the experience," Mashable reports. "It also decreases Facebook’s load time, which will likely have a major impact on time on site and bandwidth costs."

Probably the most noticed changes will be to the news feed, Mashable said, including adding in a lot of more information that previously had gone away, such as photo tags, new friends and relationships. 

It seems like Facebook has heeded complaints from previous redesigns - but I wonder how many more headaches this will cause.

How have your social networking habits changed?

A year ago, Bridget and I set out on a mission to help two kinds of people: Those who get social media and those who don't.

We've been poking and prodding you (and each other) for a year now to behave better not only on sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but also on the devices we use that keep us constantly wired.

We used data from Compete.com to compare those three sites' traffic over the past year since we began writing this column.

Facebook topped the trio, with growth of more than 200 percent in average unique monthly visitors. (Facebook itself releases data on the number of active users, which it estimates at 300 million, which, if it were a country, would be the world's fourth largest.)

Twitter was next -- much smaller -- at 23.5 million, but with exponential growth of 660 percent. LinkedIn clocked in last at 15 million, and a still-respectable 85 percent growth rate.

All of this shows that our entire communications culture is continuing to evolve rapidly. Networks are converging faster, with Facebook incorporating Twitter-like features onto its site, and more applications are being created to blur the lines between networks for the sake of saving time.

Case in point: I don't even go directly to Facebook's site that often anymore, because all of my Facebook friends' news feeds show up through Tweetdeck, a Twitter application she uses.

And people aren't just sharing news and information via these networks -- they're increasingly making real-life connections there -- especially during work hours.

So where this is all going?

We don't know. What we do know is that social media clearly isn't a fad that's going away, and we want to make sure that people think about how they act online.

Our advice until then is the same we've had when we first started: Think before you post, tweet or tag. When in doubt, use common sense: Treat others the way you would want to be treated. And don't get too mad at people who offend or commit faux pas, because we're all still getting used to the current networks -- until next week, when a new one pops up.

How have your social media habits changed over the past year?