I like it when things work the way I want them to. I also like when people tell me I am right, I never get enough of that. After spending a considerable amount of time on Twitter and Facebook I have watched updates, changes, complaints, mistakes and promises come-and-go on both properties.
I have plenty of opinions and suggestions, however, because I am going to refrain from making a Top 10 list during the Month of December in the year 2009 (or attempt to refrain– I really do like lists) I will simply offer one improvement suggestion for each brand and why it makes sense. For free. This is valuable stuff people. And I am sure I am the only one who has thought of these, ever. And, I’ll be right… they will be better if they implement my suggestions.
1. Facebook: Give ‘Fans’ the same love you give ‘Friends’
Allow me to see what mutual friends I have that are fans of a brand.
You might say, “that already exists.” I’d then bet you it doesn’t, you would still swear it does and I would win said bet.
To save you the hassle of going to look, see the screen grabs below.
It confuses me why this doesn’t exist. Just today a report came out that 60,000,000 people connect with Facebook connect, 80,000 websites– last week we all learned that there are over 360,000,000 accounts thanks to the blue announcement box that took over our profiles… brands are clambering to make an impact. Paying a lot of money to define strategies, unique approaches, keeping up with changes across Facebook’s policy and running campaigns on Facebook.
Influencer, ambassador, first in the know, generation one, the popular kid, the expert- whatever you want to call it they are the valuable online users brands want to connect with. Facebook brilliantly allows brands to connect with many, many varying degrees of influencers. Perhaps they just influence one friend, but that friend influences 10… no longer do you need to find the one guy that can influence 100 people. Personalized influencers allow for micro-connections to have large impacts.
If the theory of ‘suggested friends’ is that I just forgot to become friends with this person I should know because all my friends know them… why wouldn’t it hold true that, I am easily influenced by my friends to become a fan of a brand and sometimes I just need to be reminded? In grade school I wore ‘skids’ and ‘I.O.U.’ clothing because someone told me it was cool.
I know I can see it for a brief moment on a news feed, or a wall post if they do something they share, but I think it is a missed opportunity. Facebook is a vibrant community that succeeds on interactions. Consumers are more engaged with content, expect to interact with companies and look to express themselves with the assistance of brands.
Connecting your circle of friends with a brand seems like a no brainer. And then, Facebook, you can suggest brands to me, like you do friends. It will give them more credibility– just don’t let brands buy that space, make them earn it.
2. Twitter. Connect conversations. Add a “see the string”
This one is not as easy to implement as the Facebook one, but the folks at twitter are smart. Facebook offers ‘see wall to wall’ – Perhaps Twitter could get rid of that useless ‘retweet’ button and add a ‘respond’ button. That way it would string together multiple tweets and track back to the original. Like an email string. Provide context to the conversations. Maybe it is pretty easy.
Like it or not, conversations happen on Twitter. @s make up a majority of tweets throughout the day. They are used multiple ways. Sometimes they are used to RT something, but a trend right now is to @ someone and just making an open-ended statement with no context. They are more appropriate for text messages, emails, phone calls or even facebook wall posts. On Twitter they are out of context.
If it is a reaction to something someone said, I would like to know what the original post was that you are responding to. For example, “@SomeoneImportant you are sooooo right OMG. That is funny.” Or “@PersonInChicago that was a great tip.”
Wait, what is funny, what was a great tip? I want to know. I try and click on their pages, but lucky me, they tweet a lot and I can’t find anything that is funny or useful. I like to eavesdrop and stalk and share my 2 cents.
It’s like hearing one side of a phone conversation. Not all that interesting. And even worse, if the same person does it over and over, I probably lose interest and tune them out.
In this game of ‘tit-for-tat’ between these two brands, I am surprised they haven’t implemented these features by now.
Anything else?
the world according to schmogel. 