The person who sets up your Fan page can delete, or hijack it!

It’s hard to imagine the impact Facebook Fan pages have had in a little over a year.  In March of 2009 Facebook, ramped up the Fan page to provide more tools and services and make it easier for businesses to create and maintain it.

Now, nearly two million organizations have created Fan pages to communicate with, listen to, engage and gain access to their fans’ networks of friends. These organizations are working hard to use Facebook as a marketing channel.

However there is one little known secret that few are aware of.  Are you ready?  That secret is…

The personal profile that sets up the organization Fan page, owns the Fan page!

That’s right.  So if you are the administrator of a department and you turned to the most Facebook savvy

person in your department or neighbor kid to create it, they own it.  You might be an administrator on the page, but you don’t own it.  They can make you the administrator, but they will always own it!  That presents some significant, security, branding and marketing issues!

Google, ‘Facebook Fan pages deleted’ and you’ll find examples like:

• Both of my company’s Facebook FAN PAGES WERE DELETED without warning or explanation. Does anyone have experience with this kind of problem? How can we get back our pages which have accrued more than 3,000 fans?
• Hi all, I just had my business page reinstated yesterday after an employee who left the company deleted it. Source, Facebook Help section

As your Fan page becomes a more important asset you don’t want to have to go to your boss and let him or her know you need to fire an employee, but you are concerned that employee who created the Facebook Fan page might:

1. Delete the page
2. Take everyone else off as an administrator and high jack the page
3. Ask a fee to get it back!

You’d be lucky if the employee deleted the page because there is a way to get it back.  But imagine the damage someone could do if they high jacked your Fan page! They know the inside story about customers.  They could use the fan page to:

• Tell customers what some employees have said about them (demanding, pain in the ass, idiot!)
• Share problems the company has covered up
• Start promoting competitors products and services

Ouch!  Sounds a bit messy doesn’t it.  But it’s already happening.  See for yourself, Google - Facebook Fan page deleted -and you’ll find your own examples of companies who’s Fan page has been deleted.

There are two ways you can solve this issue:

1. Have the person who created the page, add you or someone in the organization, as an administrator.  (You must be friends with that person first)  Then have the creator of the page delete themselves as an administrator of your page.  You can continue this process to pass it on to the next person.
2. Include in your employee and social media use agreement that any employee that creates a social media site for the company, will pass ownership of the site over to an administrator when requested by company officials

These are relatively painless and easy steps to take to prevent rather embarrassing and or costly situations later.

Here’s what to do if your Fan page is deleted!

But if you find your Fan page deleted, here are a few steps you can take.

1. Visit http://www.facebook.com/developers/developer_help.php
2. Share the following information

• Full name of the Page(s)
• The username of the Page(s)
• Web address (URL) of the Page(s)
• Full name and network of any other Page admin(s)

Also, if you’ve received weekly reports from Facebook about your website, that will also help Facebook staff identify your specific Fan page

Kelli Brown of PixelPoint Express also reminds us:

As Facebook’s Terms of Use prevent you from having multiple personal accounts or having a business registered as a personal account, there isn’t a way, within the rules, to avoid the “creator owns the page” issue. The issue becomes even more complex if the company hires a social media company to do the page building process for them. When hiring a company, ensure that the contract stipulates how the accounts will be managed, transferred and maintained, especially when the monthly retainer ends.

Summary

You are investing time, talent and treasure into your Fan page.  As it continues to become more important to your customer service, product development and marketing efforts, make sure you have a transition plan in place!

Got a story to share?  Let us know!

FBI, Electronic billboards, Social Media & MORE “wisdom of the crowds”

The FBI is at the beginning phases of using social media and the “wisdom of the crowds” to solve crime.

I was working out today and watched as the FBI unveiled a new crime fighting strategy.  They unveiled on Time’s Square a massive electronic billboard that will list America’s most wanted!

NBC did a great job covering the story and providing additional background to show how their strategy emerged.  It appears they picked up on the Amber alert technique and started working with Clear Channel and other electronic billboard companies to post information about wanted criminals.   The program proved effective for them when they posted an image of a South Carolina bank robber that led to his identification.  They then posted his name and information which led to his arrest.

So let’s fast forward this and go “back to the future”

In my book, Engage Customers Online I shared a story how the car company - Mini Cooper used RFID to communicate with Mini Cooper owners through select billboards.  (They called Motorboards).  Mini owners that were interested completed an online profile and were then sent a “key fob”.   When the driver came within range of a Motorboard, the LED readout on the Motorboard displayed a customized, often humorous message that related to the owner’s profession, name, or roof design. Examples: “Nice roof graphic, Rocket!” to an owner with a car nicknamed Rocket, or “Moving at the speed of justice!” to a lawyer.  That was about 3 years ago!

Fast forward to today and imagine that you are driving past a billboard that is using Facebook Connect and RFID.  As you approach it, it instantly taps into your social network to see if you are in some way connected to one of America’s most wanted (or anyone wanted for that matter.  It might include child support payments, parking tickets outstanding - who knows where it will stop)

If it finds you are connected in some way, the billboard or an electronic dashboard system  instantly (says or posts)  “Don, George Lucas is wanted for making science fiction movies,  you are connected to him by Angie Dickinson.  We’re dropping an alert in your News Feed to let us know any tips you may have that will bring him in safely.”

This automated system would feed tips back to the control center where they are instantly validated and checked out.

All of us are trying to figure out how to play and use Social Media for our businesses.  There are good and bad signs we need to be paying attention to as we move along.  Those that are living “The Truman Show” on Facebook, need to rethink what they are doing.  And, those responsible for creating strategies, need to keep in mind basic civil liberties and privacy norms.

It’s an exciting time to be involved in Social Media.   You need to help shape it for the good of your organization and your customers.

Crowd sourcing spells trouble for wedding photographers

You might have noticed that I’m writing more articles on crowd sourcing lately.  It’s because I’m beginning to see how fundamentally it will change the way our businesses are structured and our society if functioning.

Web 2.0 tools like Flickr and YouTube started to teach us how we could interact and engage with each other around photos and video.   As our behaviors changed and we understood the value the technology provided us, the next stage of innovation is using Web 2.0 thought processes to develop ways where people can share ideas, concepts and effectively get work done faster with less effort.

Today I ran across a site called Kedai, “smile, snap, share”.  (Would love to know what Kedai means)  Kedai and future incarnations of it creates enormous financial pressure on wedding photographers.

Now a wedding with 100 guests can have the power of 100 cameras snapping away capturing their unique view of the day/night/week for the wedding party, friends and family.  It’s a shared experience.

Here’s how it works. (…More…)

Who do you believe?

What’s social media, excessive content and entertainment news doing to us?

What is the proliferation of news and information doing to us?  What is all this content coming from all different sources, that has been repackaged, regurgitated and driven through wires, microwaves, satellites doing to us?

A new survey by the Pew Research Center show that trust in the news media has reach a new low, with record numbers of American saying it is inaccurate.   This year’s poll suggest 63 percent of the respondents said news articles were often inaccurate. Seventy four percent said news organizations favor one side or another in reporting political news.   News (entertainment) programs are starting to align with party lines.   If you are Republican, your news fix probably comes from Fox.

There’s something happening today that is making a growing majority of us skeptics and not sure what to believe.  The public is starting to lean toward the feelings John Lennon shared in his song “God”.  In it he says:

I don’t believe in magic,
I don’t believe in I-ching,
I don’t believe in bible,
I don’t believe in tarot,
I don’t believe in Hitler,
I don’t believe in Jesus,
I don’t believe in Kennedy,
I don’t believe in Buddha,
I don’t believe in mantra,
I don’t believe in Gita,
I don’t believe in yoga,
I don’t believe in kings,
I don’t believe in Elvis,
I don’t believe in Zimmerman,
I don’t believe in Beatles,
I just believe in me,

While John was working out a painful breakup of the Beatles and trying to move on with his life, my interpretation of the polls are this;  there is so much information available through so many different channels that ALL pose as credible news sources, that it’s hard for anyone to know what to believe. (…More…)

Life is too complicated. No one person or group has the answers!

You know how-  from time to time - you get a song stuck in your head, and it just keeps playing over and over and over!  I’ve never looked at it too seriously, occasionally I have wondered if the content of the song was something my psyche or soul needed to help it adjust to a situation or to get an “attitude” adjustment.

If you’ve been following my blog, you’ve noticed that I’m stuck in a rut writing more and more about the “wisdom of the crowds” or as some refer to as “crowd sourcing”.

I’ve been greatly influenced by Don Tapscott’s book, Wikinomics, (not just because he’s also named Don) because it really awakened the reality of how the Internet has changed the way we run our lives, businesses and organizations.

In the past, the person at the top of the organization had a phone to the outside world, a very small group of advisors and his or her gut to make decisions.  Today, that same person at the top has a Twitter account,  Facebook account, etc,  which provides them a million points of view on a subject or feedback on a proposed idea or new product. (…More…)

Over the past year I’ve been watching the drama unfold in the  Netflix one million dollar contest.

Netflix spent millions writing software code that would analyze their customer interests and likes and then use that information to recommend movies they would like.  If I give a thumbs up to the movie The Terminator, along with a number of sci-fi movies, the program will present me with additional movies that match what I am interested in..

The Netflix philosophy is simple.  The more movies I see that I like, the more I will order.

In October of 2006, Netflix caught onto the “wisdom of the crowds” thing and developed a contest that offered a million dollar prize for the individual or group that could improve the inhouse software they had developed.  (called Cinematch).

The winner would design a software program that would be 10 percent more effective and take away a million dollar prize.

The three year event has kept many in suspense, received a great deal of publicity and attention and has gone a long way to help their customers understand their passion to better serve them.  As a Netflix user, it caught my attention!  And to the participants who put hundreds of hours into the project, they just couldn’t let go.

The program started out with individuals around the world working on the problem on their own.  Then an interesting thing happened.  Individuals’ realized they didn’t have the expertise in areas that others who were actively working toward the solution had.  They realized they needed to merge or they were out of the race.  And as time continued, after one or two people came together, groups started coming together.   A group that realized they were slightly behind another team, then merged with a team that had code that would give them another 2 percent advantage.   And so it went until on Monday a seven person team of statisticians, machine -learning experts and computer engineers which called themselves the BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos was announced the winner of the one million dollar prize. (…More…)

Speed Trap is beat by the “wisdom of the crowds”

My wife shared with me an article the other day that appeared in the Akron Beacon Journal that had gotten a great deal of comments.

Apparently a group of 8 motorcycle officers were dispatched from the Columbus State Highway patrol and assigned to conduct a massive ticketing campaign on a stretch of Interstate 77 near where I live in the Bath, Ohio.   While I’m not sure why they were assigned from Columbus, the fact that they were could become a problem for the state in making the tickets stick.

The four day campaign was very successful and resulted with over 800 tickets issued to motorists. (I’m glad I was working on a update to a new Webinar because I didn’t leave my office for nearly a week and if I had, I’m sure I would be one of the 800).

The comments to the article ranged from individuals chastising the state for creating a situation where 800 families in these hard economic times are now going to be forced to pay a $150 to $250 fine.   Other comments from the reporters indicated a near majority of the tickets were issued for going less than 10 miles over the speed limit. (…More…)

What does Facebook mean to you?

And what does it mean to your college or organization?

About 4 years ago I was conducting a focus group at a New York state college.

Apparently the yearbook was no longer produced at their college. (A combination of cost and lack of interest among graduating seniors.) The alumni director was concerned because she found herself ever more dependent on yearbooks to find out which alumni were in groups and organizations so she could hold campus reunion events around their participation. In phone conversations I had with her, I suggested she consider taking the yearbook online. As more students spend more time online and share more content, I suggested, all we need to do is organize the data and she would have instantaneous access to al l the data she needed.

There were 20 people in the room, faculty, students and administrators. When the discussion came to Facebook, one of the students said, “Facebook is like God to me”. I learned later that she came from a small town that graduated less than 100 students each year and didn’t appear to be the type of person that fit into the most popular click at the school. She went on to say she had over 600 friends on Facebook that she was able to connect and engage with at anytime. (Keep in mind this was in the spring of 2005 and Facebook had only been out of the gate for about a year.) (…More…)

Everyone benefits, a pizza shop, candy store, small business and large corporation

Over the weekend I wrote a 30 page white paper called, Facebook 101 for the Executive Suite.  A friend and a CIO I’ve been working with the last couple of months thought the “executive suite”  would benefit from having a overview of how Facebook could be used in their firm.

After reflecting on how to present the opportunities to VP’s, Presidents and the C level administrators, I came up with:

• 4 fundamental changes in consumer behaviors they need to be aware of
• 4 ways a firm can tap into an anticipated 300 million user base
• 5 ways an organization will benefit by developing a Facebook strategy
• 12 best practices and proven Internet strategies
• How various departments in your firm can benefit by participating in Facebook

As usual, for me, it’s hard to write a 8 page whitepaper.  This baby came in at 30 plus pages.  At any rate, over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be sharing this information with you.

I’ll start by explaining the 4 behavior changes that will drive how you lead and manage your business in the coming decade.  We’ll first examine Community, then follow up with looks at Content, Collaboration and Communication.  The four C’s!

Leaders need to adopt social media and “wisdom of the crowds” to compete today

About 15 years ago I was volunteering in the Akron Public Schools.  I was part of a group of business leaders who were partnering and adopting classrooms and schools to help encourage students, reward and motivate students to do well in school.

When asked by administrators what kind of employees I needed, I suggested creative students. I told them I didn’t need students who could memorize dates and pass the typical tests they were giving them, but that I needed students who could analyze a situation, collaborate with others and create a solution.  This surprised them as the curriculum and testing they offered  focused on graduating a student who could show they had a mastery of memorization.

Today I was talking to a colleague about what kind of leaders our organization need in the future.  I brought up a position that Don Tapscot’s, author of Wikinomics, has been suggesting for years - that successful leaders in the future will not be the “genius” personality who can make gut decisions and move an organization of 10 or 10,000 successfully in one direction but a leader that knows how to use mass collaboration tools that tap into the “wisdom of the crowd”.    His book offers a number of examples.

Just this morning I saw another example.  In doing research for a Facebook white paper I’m writing, I came across a post by Fred Wilson a VC and principal of Union Square.  Fred had worked on a presentation over the weekend that he had been asked to give at Google, and just this morning posted his power point online asking for thoughts and suggestions.     By half past noon EST, Fred had 45 thoughtful suggestions from readers all over the world.  By the time he does his talk, he’ll end up with enough input and suggestions to write a book!

It’s just a small example on how we are all beginning to learn how to change our behaviors and reach out to others for input and advice using social media.

What can you do to use Fred’s example?   Think of something you can do today that builds on this idea!