John Paul Titlow at Read Write Web wrote recently about the new free document from Facebook, “Best Practice Guide: Marketing on Facebook.” It is available for a free download in PDF format.
Although the advice is specific to Facebook, the document’s “five guiding principles” are a good framework to follow for just about any social media effort: use an authentic voice, be interactive, nuture your relationships and use reporting tools and feedback to continuously adapt your strategy.
Ron White is a mediator in California that has a blog dealing primarily with construction defect litigation, called The Critical Path. He took a moment away from construction disputes to address the Winkelvoss/Facebook litigation which recently came to an end.
What struck me most about the opinion is how well the Court was able to simplify a complex case using plain English. I was also impressed how important it is for clients to know what they are getting into when they sign a release. Courts will interpret release language broadly to effectuate the public policy that encourages settlements. In this case, "the Settlement Agreement grants 'all parties' 'mutual releases as broad as possible'; the Winklevosses 'represent and warrant' that '[t]hey have no further right to claim against Facebook' and 'no further claims against Facebook & its related parties.'"
Finally, it is important to point out the key role the confidentiality agreement had in the reasoning of the Court. The Winklevosses attempted to demonstrate fraud in the inducement of the settlement agreement by introducing evidence of what Facebook said during the mediation. The district court would not consider the evidence because of the protections afforded by the confidentiality agreement.
Matt Mullenweg is the founder of Automattic, the company behind WordPress – arguably one of the most popular blogging platforms, and my own personal preference. Mullenweg has been blogging longer than most and weighed in on an article published recently in the New York Times that suggests blogging is being replaced by Facebook, Twitter and other services:
The New York Times has a pretty prominent article today called Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter. The title was probably written by an editor, not the author, because as soon as the article gets past the two token teenagers who tumble and Facebook instead of blogging, the stats show all the major blogging services growing — even Blogger whose global “unique visitors rose 9 percent, to 323 million,” meaning it grew about 6 Foursquares last year alone. (In the same timeframe WordPress.com grew about 80 million uniques according to Quantcast.)
As Mullenweg points out, the actual text of the article seems to diverge from the headline. Here is my two cents: Facebook is great for keeping in touch with friends and family. Twitter is an excellent short-messaging service for keeping up with what is happening. LinkedIn is great for keeping in touch with professional contacts. By a large margin, the vast majority of messages that catch my attention on these services includes links to articles and blog posts. In other words, these services are great for getting the message out, but for the real “meat and potatoes” of an idea or piece of news, longer-form articles are irreplaceable.
I view Twitter, Facebook and other social messaging sites as a stream of headlines. But a headline is just a tease. I too saw the headline from the article above in the NYT, and had a similar reaction as Mullenweg. Thus, the old cliche is still true – you can’t judge a book by its cover, nor can you judge an article by its headline.
Content is still king, in my book. While younger people may use social media similar to how most people used telegrams and postcards, that doesn’t negate the relevance of longer-form content. I know that my life and experience is much richer thanks to the advent of blogging. While I do enjoy writing and creating content myself, I gain much more from the content that others produce. For me, blogs are like the “eyes of the world.”
Update: TechCrunch blogger, MG Siegler, has offered his take on this subject as well.
John Warrillow, at the Globe and Mail, discusses a plot device in the movie, The Social Network, wherein the Winklevoss twins allege that Mark Zuckerberg “stole their idea” for the facebook. But as he points out, the idea behind the business is the least important part. What matters is how the idea is executed.
If you run a business, you know that your idea was the least difficult part. My guess is that your idea has evolved considerably since you first conceived it.
The myth of the “killer idea” leads young and wannabe entrepreneurs to protect their concepts as if they had discovered the cure for cancer. They request that investors sign non-disclosure agreements before they reveal their ideas, which serves only to ensure those ideas never get funded.
I might argue the idea is the least important part of building a valuable company.
You don’t have to be a fan of me either. Due to Facebook’s privacy issues and other concerns, I’m disabling the Facebook page for BLHill.net. But if you like what’s here, please by all means head over to BLHill.net’s Facebook page. (And yes, I like Wolfe Law Group and I’m a fan.)
When I logged onto the Wolfe Law Group page on Facebook this morning, I was greeted with a message that the page would no longer have “fans,” but instead would invite users to “like” our practice. It’s an effort to be more “lightweight” to users, and hopefully, increase a pages fan base. It just might work too.
Before logging into our admin page, I stumbled upon another businesses FB page and saw the “become a fan” button replaced with “like.”. It confused me for a few seconds, but then I just passed it off as someone knowing a little more than me about Facebook, and knowing how to change the call to action on the fan pages.
Low and behold the change was made on my page, too…and system wide.
With all of this said, let’s take this Facebook change our for a spin. No need to become a fanatic for Wolfe Law Group or anything. After all, we’re just a law firm. Borrrr-ing.
But, you can at least like what we do, eh? That ain’t so hard.
Via: Wolfe Law Group
My name is Brian L. Hill.
More From Less isn't just the name of this blog - it is central to my philosophy of business and life. It means improved results through reduced resources. More revenue, market share, mind share, quality; Less expense, time spent, time wasted, hype, and hassle.
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