Carl Setzer

Lately, I've been considering all the changes Facebook has blasted out over the years. Particularly, I've been wondering about the Facebook pages I manage. In particular, the many changes to the way business pages interact with the general user concern me. I first noticed this with my personal page feed. Business page content gets filtered out, rarely appearing in feeds, even MY pages in MY feed. I'm also noticing a drop in engagement: comments, questions, dialog, et al. This video takes that concern and provides some flesh to its bones. Now I wonder about Facebook's value to small businesses in any capacity. If content and connection gets buried, lost, or goes out to irrelevant audiences, there is no value. Well, little. Ok, well, lesser. The value of Facebook is still immense. Facebook is still a key piece to a social media strategy. It's THE place, with diverse demographics and a truly global reach. Or, as I like to say, it's the place with the eye-bal...

I've come up against a unique problem. One of the other admins for a business page I manage is unable to invite her friends to "like" it. When she clicks on "invite friends", her whole list is grayed out. One of the challenges I'm facing with diagnosing the problem is that we're ~30 miles apart, so I'm relying on voice to communicate the visual issues. I've found a few others with this issue, but no conclusive answer. My basic research shows that the main culprit for these issues is that they've already been invited ( like this page mentions ).  However, in this instance, there are people who haven't been invited that are appearing grayed out. These appear to be unrelated issues. A few additional details: 1) my view is fine. I can invite everyone in my network except those who have been invited. In other words, the way it's supposed to look. 2) We have verified that she is logged in as herself, not as the business page. I'm ...

Just read this piece over at PCWorld . Geez, it just seems that the parties involved are hell-bent on damaging their own brand. First, Facebook still is denying that they were trying to smear Google. Please! Gotta call BS on that. If this was about "the people", then do it openly. Facebook seems to think we're stupid. Own up, grow up and move along. And Burson-Marsteller...the "pros". I'm shocked they accepted this project, though give them credit for owning up and giving a mea culpa. But I'm stunned that they went and deleted a negative comment from their Facebook page. At times like this, you must be hyper vigilant and extremely sensitive. Both Facebook and Burson need to grasp they've damaged trust. Angry denouncements only expand that divide. Every decision in the near-term needs to be focused on rebuilding trust. I don't know if they'll find themselves with lost profits or such, but the potential exists. Trust is the currency of the mod...

Finally reading up on Facebook's campaign to smear Google . My first thought was how laughable it is for Facebook to defend this by stating "they're concerned about Google's privacy concerns" just makes my head spin. Let's pretend that this is legitimate. Then it should be done in the open, acknowledging their own issues with managing privacy. Otherwise, you look childish and deceptive. In today's media saturated space, losing consumer trust can be fatal (not that I think this will kill Facebook. It can be one proverbial nail-in-the-coffin, though). My impression? This was an attempt at being hyper-competitive and has backfired. Facebook looks childish and grossly unprofessional. Burson-Marsteller (a whole 'nother post) looks grossly unethical. A bad, bad choice that will add ammunition to the anti-Facebook crowd. There is a point which this energy can obtain critical mass. Facebook needs to work on building up the trust "bank account", not c...

Another of my chums has abandoned Twitter . For him, the problem boils down to communication. The platform blasts out 140 character tidbits, a pretty small droplet of information. Twitter's strength is for the mobile, sending these small info drops from moment to moment, wherever you are. Such things are the FreeRoxana campaigns utilize this amazingly well. For many of us, though, perhaps most of us, Facebook is better. It's easier to control who sees what, you can post more information, and for many of the key platforms, there are robust mobile applications. Twitter is still a valuable tool, but it looks like it is starting to shake out, as far as who it is valuable to.