The Psychology Of Facebook Can Get A Little Bit Crazy

As much as marketers hold on to hope for the promised land of big data — one algorithm to rule them all and in the darkness bind them — the information they covet remains convoluted. Big data can't crack what consumers don't share because algorithms play by the program rules and people never do.

One such study making the rounds even proves the point in its attempt to demonstrate the opposite. Despite some headline capturing claims that Facebook "likes" can assess your personality just as accurately as your spouse (and better than your friends), most people were miffed when they accepted an open invitation to take the algorithm for a test run. It seems that results vary.

The algorithm developed by Michal Kosinski at the Stanford University Computer Science Department, for example, pinned me down as a 25-year-old single female who is unsatisfied with life (among other things). It wasn't the only data fail among other friends who tried it. The model missed and missed and missed. There are reasons why, with mine being the easiest to decipher.

My personal usage of Facebook is best described as treating a few minutes out of every day as casual Friday. My connections are mostly limited to friends, family, and long-time online acquaintances. My principal activities include catching up with what they are doing, sharing stories about my children, and posting the occasional baked goods pictures. Why? Because I don't really do that anywhere else.

I also make a conscious effort to avoid controversy, not because I'm "agreeable" but because that social network isn't a place I want to invite deep discussion, debate, or any drama. And what that means is, in sum, that only a sliver of my personality comes across on Facebook. For others, I'm told, the assessments are wrong for a different reason. Not everyone is completely honest on Facebook, not all profiles are complete, and people "like" different pages and things for reasons you never expect.

Why big data models miss the mark with psychological stereotypes. 

Beyond the most obvious — that any algorithm is only as good as the input it is allowed to compile — there is always unexpected trouble when stereotypes are introduced into a psychological test. According to the aforementioned model, the algorithm assumes people who like "Snooki" or "Beer Pong" are outgoing and people who like "Doctor Who" and "Wikipedia" are not. Men who like "Wicked, The Musical" were defined as more likely to be homosexual and those liking "WWE" or "Bruce Lee" were not. Those who like "the Bible" are said to be more cooperative while those who like "Atheism" are competitive. And so on, and so forth.

Says who? Says some of the data that came from the myPersonality project designed by David Stillwell, deputy director of the Psychometrics Centre at the University of Cambridge. Between 2008 and 2012, myPersonality users agreed to take a survey, which asked participants about their personal details and personality traits. Their answers were then assigned to buckets such as openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and emotional stability. (The new test delivers those results too.)

But no matter how those results are derived, the best an algorithm can do is capture a data point and put it in a bucket. It has a much harder time recognizing intent, realizing something a human might notice like, let's say, that Joey isn't pregnant but his cousin June might be. The baby shower is coming up and he has been searching for and liking pages that might give him an idea of what to buy.

Stripped of any overreach that would paint Joey as an expectant mother, there is one area where analytics sometimes succeed. It might recognize that Joey is in the market for some baby gifts (assuming this deduction is made before and not after he finds a gift). Or perhaps, if Joey has also liked certain television shows, then one might deduce that he would be interested in similar shows. Or perhaps, some data might be employed to fine tune the tone of a message much like direct mail writers once did using PRISM research data.

But even then, minor research advantages were tempered by Rule No. 7 in Advertising in the past. It's the rule that reminded commercial writers that people tend to lie. They are predisposed to "like" things (or even "list" things in a Neilsen ratings book) that make themselves look a little brighter, better, smarter, or savvy regardless of what they really watch, like, or do. They also tend to share more positive life events than they do negative ones, connect and disconnect with people more easily, and like pages that friends recommend because they think they are doing their friends a favor. Maybe.

The irony in that? Some studies suggest that social networks can unintentionally contribute to depression, indicate anxiety related to relationship insecurity, and become as addictive as cocaine.

And while all three studies might provide an interesting read, marketers could probably learn more about their markets from the SizeUp tool provided by the Small Business Administration; any number of other affordable data providers like SEC filings, BizStats, or even the United States Census, or proven research methods such as consumer interviews, focus groups, and tests with a control group.

Does that sound too time consuming, cumbersome, or expensive? Then just wait until you see how expensive a product or service launch can be based on social network data alone. It's a little bit crazy.

Real Marketing Strategies Aren't Built On Search Or Social

The most common explanation for pushback related to changes to social and search platform changes is that people are resistant to change. Some companies have even mapped out classic reactions to it.

It follows a cycle. People deny the change will happen and then become upset when it actually occurs. This is sometimes followed by confusion, depression, and crisis. We're seeing it today.

Companies were laying people off after Google made changes to Panda. Companies used teams like reachpocalypse after Facebook became more like paid media. Both platform changes have been highly publicized as if they are unique, but it happens all the time — tweaks, adaptions, and deaths.

The Internet is in a constant state of change. Some people like to equate it to a world map, but it plays out much more like the chaos of a new cosmos. Every day, major players use their gravitational juice to expand, contract, and buy out other solar systems. It's a billion dollar game being played by titans who largely ignore the little people who worship or try to exploit them, except for the occasional swat.

"We're playing in their backyard but don't want to play by their rules - conundrum." — Shawn Elledge, Integrated Marketing Summit

My response? There are plenty of backyards. Problem solved. 

This isn't a new idea (and it doesn't mean that you abandon Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. outright). All it means is that anybody who has been deep in the social space for any length of time has learned a lesson or two about playing in other people's backyards with other people's sand. Just not en masse.

Sure, social and search can work wonders for some companies. But it doesn't work that way for all companies. It largely depends on who they are, what they do, and the kind of customer they reach.

For example, it makes sense for search and social to play a prominent role in the outreach efforts of an Asian restaurant in Las Vegas that derived most of its business from hotel deliveries. While the restaurant has a loyal customer base, its primary revenue was derived from hotel staff referrals and visitors searching for Asian takeout. It made sense because there are two primary search drivers.

1. People search for things because they have no idea what exists.

2. People search for things because they know they exist somewhere.

Content marketing and social media were mostly built to help capture the first kind of searchers while simultaneously engaging a few of those people enough to make them second kind searchers or, better yet, direct referrers who bypass searching all together. Ergo, sharing is an expression of gratitude that sometimes creates second kind searchers — people who have heard of you, your product, your service, your idea, your company. For a restaurant, it might mean someone saying "make sure you eat at >place< when you are in >city<" or it could manifest on any number of review and travel sites.

Conversely, a speciality commercial contractor may have have a presence on social networks and earn reasonable placement on search engines, but search and social are not primary drivers. Generally speaking, this kind of business isn't driven by first kind searchers. They rely on second kind searchers and direct referrers. As a result, the social and search portion of a marketing plan differ.

Instead of popularity, the company needed to engage decision makers within their space — designers, architects, and general contractors who would have a specific need for the specialty provided. And the best way to accomplish that as a new company (but veteran owners) not to load up on search and social, but to create content that featured the designers, architects, and general contractors they were trying to reach and thereby giving their target audience an opportunity to become direct referrers.

In both cases, while the restaurant clearly has some reliance on search (which was still eclipsed by hotel staff recommendations), neither company was overtly reliant on fleeting tips and tricks to gain temporary boosts from a search or social networks that are all too often treated as marketing channels. There are better ways to invest a marketing budget than website traffic or social network likes alone.

Put the power of choice in the hands of customers not the platforms. 

The point is that all marketing plans ought to revolve around your own backyard, where it can be much more effectively managed. This is accomplished not by understanding platforms so much as understanding your customers, what they need, and when and how to deliver on that need.

The more you understand about your existing customer, the more likely you will be able to expand that base by delivering on the value proposition and/or other closely content they will value. And this approach makes much more sense than what many companies do to inflate the appearance of success.

1. Companies spend money to rank higher across accidental and unrelated search queries.

2. Companies spend money to send people to social networks instead of their backyard.

3. Companies spend money to interrupt consumers at the wrong time and place.

The most important takeaway for any organization is that all platforms change and they change so often that marketing professionals ought to be weary about any ticks and trips related to those three tactics because today's boost will be tomorrow's penalty and today's best investment will be tomorrow's waste of time. Stay focused on the constants of your company and customers first.

When Does Facebook Surrender Its Social Network Status?

When most people hear the term 'social network' nowadays, they immediately think of the brands that populate the Internet — anything and everything from Facebook to LinkedIn to Twitter. Most of them don't know that the true terminology isn't confined to digital. Such structures exist offline too.

In fact, the theoretical construct of a social network is simply based upon social entities voluntarily connecting and interacting or conducting an exchange. They are always self-organizing, and frequently create any number of complex patterns and shapes by their own volition.

It's largely what makes them so interesting to study. Even before social networks became akin to being defined by online service, different groups of people always came together in unique ways. Except this self-organizing theory might not be the case anymore, especially on places like Facebook.

Since its inception, this network has slowly evolved away from the self-organizing arena. Whereas once the network asked its members to self-organize, the network now defines social entities differently. And in doing so, the ability to interact is largely dictated by compensation or algorithm.

Why some marketers feel like they are losing out on Facebook. 

Last week, several stories broke around the headline Facebook Admits Organic Reach Is Falling Short, which talked about a new sales deck that Facebook sent to its marketing partners. The emphasis on the article was the bluntness of the company. It said marketers have to pay up.

For many in the advertising and communication industry, the article was confirmation that convincing people to like your Facebook page was not enough. Fewer and fewer people will see the content you share unless they interact and engage with it by sharing or commenting on the thread.

Simply put, a Facebook post might only reach (or be seen) by 15-35 of the 3,500 people who have liked the page. This is an amazingly paltry number in the eyes of most marketers, especially those who have already invested time and marketing dollars to attract those people in the first place.

Worse, many marketers are ready to toss their hands in the air because even if they do up the ante for greater reach among the Facebook followers they have already attracted, they will always be bought out by larger companies with bigger budgets. In short, they are going to lose. Game over.

Not everyone sees it this way. Some call it sour grapes. 

The opposite tact was taken on Kairay Media, stressing that maybe marketers were confused. In his generalized rebut, Brent Csutoras offered up that Facebook is not reducing organic content views (hat tip Amy Vernon). It seemed more likely that supply and demand is the culprit.

Csutoras is right in that the trend cited by Facebook didn't necessarily translate to the social network claiming to be the cause of the trend. People can only consume so much content. And even if they volunteer to consume more of it, Facebook is attempting to manage it with a prioritization algorithm based on its engagement values. When it doesn't, marketers get flagged as spam more often or abandon the service.

So, in essence, while everything is relative, the algorithm aims for some unknown threshold so content doesn't scroll faster than it can be seen (and even then there is no guarantee). And with this perspective in mind, it's easy enough to think of Facebook looking out for its membership.

But is Facebook really looking out for its members? Or is Facebook, like some ad-revenue based program channels, looking out for its bottom line because network content consumption works a bit like a Ponzi scheme? Since people can only consume so much, the rates will only climb higher.

Facebook is fine with that. It will be crossing the $2 billion per quarter mark soon enough. It currently has the number one mobile app in the United States. It would like to say the world.

Is Facebook a social network, marketing platform, or something else? 

This is very much what Julie Pippert warned PRSA Houston about two months before it happened. Her message was pretty clear. If you think you have a game plan for SEO and Edgerank, you don't.

Not everyone believed her, but she's right. A strategic approach to social media is adaptability over game plan. The winners are almost always those who cultivate a network as it becomes mainstream and seldom those who read the best practices about how they did it. By the time they do it, it changes.

But this isn't the extent of the change. When networks remove self-organization they cease to be social. And when you consider the most recent privacy issues that Danny Brown recently addressed, the pattern becomes clear. The lion's share of reinvestment by the network is to make it a better revenue-generating marketing platform and not necessarily a better social network.

It makes sense that it would. Facebook used to measure success by membership and usage. But nowadays, it is more likely to measure success by quarterly earnings and stock valuations. And the best way for the company to do that is by creating an environment where companies are willing to create content for the network, advertise this content outside of the network in order to populate it, and then pay to be seen by the same people they populated it with.

In return, the network will continue to chip away at privacy sensitivity, which will give marketers more insight into consumer behavior (which, ironically, companies cannot decipher anyway). And there is nothing wrong with any of it per se, but only because most people volunteer to do it. For now.

Online, people are social nomads and where they gravitate today will not necessarily be where they gravitate tomorrow. Facebook doesn't want to believe it, but they know it. While I wouldn't go so far as to say teens are abandoning Facebook, they are using the marketing-saturated snooper less.

Simply put, teens want to self-organize their social networks rather than have a company do it for them, especially one that no longer makes self-organizing a priority and never placed any value on privacy. If that's true, then social networks aren't turning into marketing platforms as much as television series. And those, as everyone knows, have a finite shelf life.

And if that's true, it would be a shame because I personally like Facebook, even when it does things that I am not fond of as a member or a marketer. How about you? What do you think?

Will Automation Steal The Soul From Social?

There have been several interesting side discussions sparked by my Bob Fass post about his largely unrecognized precursor contributions to social media. Some of them are still simmering, with the most common thread related to where marketing and public relations intend to take social.

Right. If you work in the field, they are talking about you.

And what they have to say might not be taken kindly. There are a growing number of people who are weary of social networks not because they don't like to connect but because conversations are being recorded, even jacked. Some marketers feel they must. Numbers are the measure counted.

"Why spend time counting tweets and retweets when I could actually, you know, connect with other people?" asked David Flores, reflecting on the internal struggle he and other marketers and communicators feel.

Why count indeed? For all the talk about social freeing people from the trappings of unearned authority, some of the liberators have worked diligently to erect new ones. Never mind that the scoring is stacked.

As the New York Times recently cited, some researchers think that only 35 percent of Twitter followers are real people. The balance is made up of bots and semi-automated accounts. That means an account boasting 10,000 might only reach 3,500. But if you ask me, I think it is generous in some cases. Bots attract bots, giving accounts the aura of popularity while never reaching a real human being.

Geoff Livingston recently touched on this too, writing Pop Created The Twitter Link Farm. He focused in on the increasing number of links, with one of the most interesting comments chalking it up to a platform shift. While that might make sense because Twitter never considered itself a social network, the platform shift from conversation to broadcast is a symptom of what marketers measure.

They measure actions (tweets, retweets, link clicks), which discourages dialogue. It discourages it because conversations are not valued on the action scale. It discourages it because the more organic conversations take place, the more marketers have to drown them out with frequency. And it discourages it because scalable actions require automation, which means the marketer isn't participating.

The crux of it reminds me of an Internet infancy story. 

Once upon a time there was a company called America Online (now Aol). No, it wasn't the oddly popular but not so relevant multinational mass media giant we know today. It was a pay-based online service that was the precursor to some of the services people rave about today.

It was also, for many people, the only real option to access the Internet. Sure, there were other choices like the defunct Prodigy or eWorld but not really. Much like they do now, people (and companies) tended to gravitate to where the most people were and that was America Online.

In more ways than one, Twitter is almost akin to the America Online chat room, except it hosts unlimited people as opposed to 23 people at a time. And, in more ways than one, Facebook is akin to America Online communities (with the advent of streaming over threading), right down to its aspiration to be your total and complete online experience. Sure, other networks have borrowed ideas too. Most aren't so new.

For the era, this service worked remarkably well. Most people couldn't even conceive of an Internet without it. It felt like America Online was relatively immortal. And perhaps that is why in addition to charging people $2.95 per hour for usage, the company decided to allow marketers to post links and program bots to run some conversations.

That generated some extra revenue for the company until something unexpected happened. Since marketers knew that the only way to increase their exposure was to increase their frequency, they literally drowned out all human conversations until no one was left except chat rooms of bots, churning away at their pre-programmed content.

How long before marketers reach critical mass again? It's anybody's guess. 

There are only two outcomes for abused message delivery systems. En masse, marketers will either push messages to the point where they become irrelevant (direct mail and pitch lists) or the platform will eventually elevate the rates until it is inaccessible (television) to anyone except those with deep pockets (television and radio). When that happens, people will migrate away to other networks instead.

From my perspective, longevity will favor those marketers that avoid the temptation of the short-term gain because people drive networks, not numbers. After all, as soon as you start thinking about people in terms of numbers, whether how many followers they have or some secret sauce social score, there is a good chance you have already lost them (unless you gamed social to get them in the first place).

At least, that is what I think. What does Brian Solis or Guy Kawasaki or Scott Stratten think? What do you think? Will automation steal the soul from social? Is there something on the horizon that might replace it? Or maybe you would like to strike up some other conversation? The choice belongs to you. The comments are yours. I'll read them too.

Blowing Up Instagram: Facebook

If you ever wanted to test against the fragility of a social network, Instagram is the photo sharing social network to watch. Facebook, which is well known for overreaching on some terms and privacy issues, has decided to claim ownership rights on everything members upload and share across Instagram.

Instagram, which was one of the few apps worthy of review in 2011 (pre-Facebook) on our alternative review site, received a respectful opening score before any of the other bells and whistles it has added since. We gave it 5.2 on our alternative scale, which would be right around 7 or 8 on a non-alternative 1-10 scale. It rated high because it revamps the artistic fun associated with Polaroid cameras for the modern age, using digital data instead of the integral film commonly associated with Polaroid photos.

So what changed? Instagram via Facebook is now asking for unspecified future commercial use of people's photos, which means (as the article states) a hotel in Hawaii can use your Instagram photos if they pay Facebook. The member won't receive any money. They won't receive any credit. They won't even receive notice.

What will the Instagram member get? A whole lot of headaches, advertisers too.

One has to wonder about the logic of such service changes, especially because it opens up a steady stream of problems even if members don't care. The worst of them, even for Facebook, is that this change of policy makes them a publisher and not a sharing service, culpable for the images people post.

But there are other problems too. The very idea that one day an Instagram member might see their photo in a commercial advertisement without compensation or notification is flawed. Given that most photographers would claim copyright infringement before realizing they signed away their rights on Instagram, I would advise any my clients to avoid purchasing pics via such a pariah policy.

In fact, Instagram makes it all especially risky because there are thousands of bands, authors, and artists that have turned to Instagram as their preferred photo sharing tool. Given their struggles with preserving copyrights in the digital age, it doesn't seem plausible they can afford to support a service that claims ownership of concert shots and album designs or artist proofs and dust covers. I just don't see it.

Amateurs will have plenty to worry about too. Their kids could become the poster children for anybody and everybody Facebook decides to the sell content to. In some cases, it puts kids even more at risk. In other cases, it will be even more creepy in the hands of some questionable advertisers buying the rights.

A speculative analysis of why Facebook made this logic leap. 

While Facebook/Instagram hadn't made a public statement about the policy changes, one could assume that the logic leap was made because Facebook makes similar claims on content shared to Facebook. Along with this precedent, people have largely ignored the problems with the Pinterest policy too.

What these two policies have taught social networks is that once people become attached to a service, they tend not to care and outright ignore any policy changes. They give up their privacy. They give up their rights. They give up everything (as long as they can use the service). They just don't care.

Except in this case, Facebook seems to have made a fatal flaw in assuming people would treat Instagram policy changes the same. First and foremost, unlike Facebook, there isn't a compelling reason to use Instagram given all of the other photo sharing networks in existence that don't claim ownership.

While Instagram is preferred, there are plenty of alternatives. Even the effects features have since been duplicated across a wide variety of apps. All anyone has to do is use them to achieve the same result.

This makes or an interesting case study in that unlike Facebook, which has achieved a must-have status in perception if not reality, Instagram still feels optional despite the $1 billion price that Facebook paid. It also makes an interesting case study because Facebook is being forced to continually prove its own stock price while illustrating why its publicly traded price continues to struggle. It might be worth something as the leading social network today, but it is still being managed in a rather immature fashion. Sooner or later, the front runner might implode like almost every other front running social network before it.

A final thought on rights and social networks in general.

Personally, I've always found myself operating in two different directions when it comes to ownership and the Internet. On one hand, publishers and distributors have to be open minded about Fair Use laws. Even when it comes to my content, here and sometimes other places, I've taken a lenient stance provided links and credit are given when links and credit are due. Social is all about sharing, much like TripAdvisor has realized in opening up its content to thousands of other sites.

On the other hand, I have practiced restraint and resistance to every social network I have ever worked with that has tried to claim ownership of other people's content. In one instance, I turned down an offer to help edit a book made up of member-generated content after learning that the content originators would be credited but not notified or compensated. I made my case strong enough that the network dropped the idea.

The bottom line is that there isn't any need (except greed) for social network startups or established behemoths to claim anything but enough rights to enable people to share their content. Anything beyond a post or picture as a one-time share is an overreach that people ought not to ignore.

They ought not to ignore it for two reasons. Social network members that ignore policy changes risk becoming little more than slaves to the social networks they support. And social network providers, even if they are more sensible in their own policies, need to police their industry against such abuse or all of them will risk future legislation and laws that reverse and regulate the immaturity of a few.

Immature really is the right word. Despite the best guesses of some, Facebook is ruining Instagram. I will hate to leave, but if Instagram doesn't self correct by Jan. 16, I'll be among the departed.

Update: In traditional Facebook fashion, Instagram responds to the pushback with an apology.

Measuring Facebook: Social Network Ads

The Wall Street Journal reports that 70 percent of Facebook campaigns return three to five times the spending; five times the cost for nearly half. The internal reporting, which was released by Facebook, comes after the "quiet period" after an initial public offering ended.

The study was completed by comScore and included tracking 60 campaigns. What is less understood is how those campaigns were chosen and whether they represent the larger share of ad purchases on the social network. Another interesting hiccup in the study is what is considered a return — mostly, the measurement was based on amplification, showing Facebook extends media exposure between 50 percent and 200 percent.

Why do many marketers still distrust Facebook and social media ad purchases?

The biggest challenge with social media marketing remains the same. Many critics attempt to apply rules to social media advertisements that aren't fair when compared to other reporting measures.

Specifically, they attempt to measure return on investment in a vacuum, as if impressions can be isolated and quantified without considering the "social" portion of the equation. Others fail to measure the right outcomes, thinking about "likes" as the outcome even though it's better to assign an outcome to anything but likes. (They just make you feel good and give you a readership base.)

If you want an analogy to better understand Facebook advertising, think of it in terms as an introduction to publication with "likes" being subscribers. But much like magazine subscribers, it's silly to expect that every subscriber is going to read every stitch of content from cover to cover and see every direct response ad. Results vary and the variance isn't decided by the publication alone. It could be anything, ranging from the content of your advertisement to what people see when they land on the page.

Besides, different advertising works differently on Facebook. While most marketers invest considerable time on prospect advertisements (filtering out people who already like a page), other advertisements could target people who already like the page — you know, people who already gave you a wink and a nod or perhaps a share.

That's part of the problem with social network advertising now. Marketers have become so accustomed to gaining numbers that they forget about the people who are already there, waiting around for something to happen even if it isn't ever going to happen. In many cases, underperforming Facebook ads/pages are often the result of not producing anything valuable (whether content or coupon) for the people there, leaving people with an empty feeling: "Okay, I 'liked' your page, now what?"

Facebook advertising works well enough for hyper-targeting efforts. 

After running Facebook ad campaigns for a number of companies, the only common ground is that there is no common ground. Each presence deserves its own objectives. For example, running a campaign to shore up locals to visit a restaurant is very different than attempting to target tourists.

It doesn't even matter what type of cuisine you are talking about (although there is a way to focus in on those folks too). To drive more locals, the ad needs to target proximities. To drive more out-of-town guests, you might need to target people who love visiting the town.

Conversely, most restaurants only target people who have an expressed interest in a specific kind of food. But the reality, in most cases, is people who have an expressed interest in a specific kind of cuisine are already entrenched with one, two, or three restaurants of that kind. If you want to penetrate that market and cause conversations, then you have to be prepared to offer them something more than their favorite restaurant.

At the same time, looking at outcomes, one also has to appreciate that if your goal is to drive more visitors to your restaurant then it stands to reason that the local targeting is a short-term investment and tourist marketing is a long-term investment, e.g., once-a-month visitors as opposed to once-a-year visitors.

Along with deep thinking, marketers need to appreciate that Facebook advertising works best as part of an add-on campaign element anyway. While there have been a few Facebook-only campaign successes, the majority of companies seeing returns are those that use social networks as an add on. Ergo, if you produce a television advertisement, post it on Facebook and ask for feedback. A percentage of people who have subscribed to the page will likely share it and some of their friends might share it too.

The lowbrow measurement is that if 1,000 of the 10,000 people who like a page see the ad and 100 of them share it, then that return is better for the few seconds it takes to upload the video than the return of not sharing it. If you can increase that outcome by running an advertisement to that video post, all the better.

Likewise, someone finding your Facebook page on a search is probably better than someone not finding your Facebook page on a search (unless your page sucks). And keeping people who do like your restaurant up to date on special events, menus, introductions, etc. is better than not doing it.

Certainly, Facebook is not the end all to a successful marketing campaign. But marketers need to step back a little bit more and consider the bigger picture. When comparing something to nothing, something is always better. The rest is dependent on what you want to do and how you prioritize it.

In other words, the jury might still be out on Facebook in terms of an investment, but it terms of whether their advertising can be a benefit is already decided. What isn't decided is whether or not companies have good enough teams to maximize a return on the effort.

Making G+uru: Get Certified Now!

You know it and so do I. Google+ represents a windfall for social media unlike any other social network before it. But even better than a windfall for social media, it could be a windfall for you too, my dear friend, because it's all happening right now!

Facebook? Forgetaboutit. Twitter? Grounded. MySpace? Neverheardofit. Quora? Flashinthepan. Google+ represents the promised land whereas all other social networks before it were merely practice lands.

How To Become A Social Network Expert, Overnight.

Just imagine if you could lock in all the juicy blog headlines about Google+ before Brian Clark. Or maybe host the first, er, second online training session before Chris Brogan. Or maybe you could find the holy grail of marketing (a true influence measure) before Brian Solis. Or maybe that is only the tip of the iceberg.

Somebody is going to become an expert. And the only question you need to be asking right now is ... is it going to be you? Can you write the most SEO threaded posts about G+? Can you deliver more technobabble about your feelings regarding the G+ network? Can you draw beautiful graphics that convince people you've learned to read minds using G+? What about a book? A specialized G+ blog? A dedicated presence on a different social network that only talks about G+?

The ideas we will give you are limitless. All you need to do is strike fast, strike first, and strike fancy. Did you get that? Those are three very powerful words.

Fast. First. Fancy.

Write them down. I'll wait while you do and then you can read why our Google+ program will change your life.

How Google+ Could Change Your Life, Forever.

Imagine what would have happened if you purchased land when the New World was discovered. You would own Manhattan — all of it! Imagine what might have happened if you were smart enough to stop in Nevada on your way to California in the 1800s. You would have discovered the Comstock Lode — all of it! Imagine if you were on the ground floor of development with Steve Jobs. You would be Bill Gates — all of it, er, him! Or just imagine what would have happened if you started a blog three months earlier than anyone else. You would be a social media guru!

It's true. Google+ represents the biggest, baddest, and most significant discovery since ... forever. And right now, every social media pro on the planet is jockeying for the lead position. Whomever gets there first — first workshops, first classes, first books, first anything — wins!

They know it. I know it. And now you know it too.

But what they don't know is that we've developed an entire program that will be the biggest spoiler in social media history. Sure, with their imported networks, weak links, and seemingly endless amounts of time, they have the upper hand. But it's all for naught.

They might be very good at what they do, but one thing they don't have — and will never have — is an authentic Google+ certification. That's right. You can earn a Google+ certification in a few short days or perhaps hours if you are an overachiever.

Why is that important? Because all the other other guys that top lists and get the good rankings might be able to claim that they are social media gurus, but this certification will make you a social media G+uru. See the difference? It sends chills down my spine.

We're Absolutely Crazy To Offer You A G+uru Certification, Nuts.

This is your one and only chance to lay the groundwork to become a world-class resource to your customers, colleagues, and company. And, you really, really, really have to do it right now. Our program will catapult you ahead of the curve to be the expert that you deserve to be.

• Learn everything there is to know about Google+.
• Listen to oodles of speculation about what's next.
• Get the skinny on influence algorithms with G+.
• Understand the difference between circles and huddles.
• Frame your certificate to show your ultimate achievement.
• And much, much, much, much more.

In fact, there is so much more — some of it propriety intellectual property (patent pending) — that you will learn 2,397.5 things about Google+ in less than a week ... maybe a few days ... just a couple hours if you are a real go-getter.

That's 2,397.5 things about Google+ that we have learned in the first 250 hours of its launch, along with 158 bonus things that haven't even been introduced yet (but they will, probably, sooner or later). Tempted to enroll? Good! Because my HP Photosmart 8750 is already bustling with activity as we print 10,000 G+uru certificates and the only thing missing is YOUR NAME!

How Much Does It Cost? Much Less Than Its Value, Absolutely.

We are so convinced that the G+uru certification will be so invaluable that we won't even post the price for fear of breaking the Internet as this news gets out. I'm serious. This offer isn't going to go viral — it's going pandemic!

So how much do you think it would be worth if you were on the ground floor as a senior certified G+uru instructor now? Exactly. It's absolutely priceless.

It's so priceless that in lieu of a certification enrollment fee, we're going to offer the first 500 people the opportunity of a lifetime. We will waive the enrollment fee in exchange for just two or three percent of your lifetime income after you become a G+uru.

Right. This program is so hot that we're willing to gamble on you. Do any of the other guys do that? No. Do they put their money where their mouths are? No. Do they throw in a free T-shirt? Only sometimes.

That's right. It's always the same song and dance with them. Pay once, pay first, and regret it all later. This dance is better. Pay later, pay forever, and never look back.

So what say you? Are you in to take over the Web? Good, because before I even published this post, three people signed up. It's not a revolution, it's an insurg+ence.

This post is satire, with nothing ill-tempered meant to any good sports mentioned. However, I do hope this rings as a true cautionary tale for some. Google+ is a tool. It seems like a very good tool too, just don't forget to use the one you were born with before reaching for your wallet.

Entertaining People: Where Apple Might Be Right

Apple isn't known for its social network prowess. Ping is marginal as a social network at best. It functions like a network, but doesn't feel like one.

But there is something that Apple is doing right, when compared to the rush of Google+, Facebook, and Twitter to generalize the point of being all things to all people.

And that is, for the most part, simplifying things to a singular or primary purpose. We see it in how it treats apps; and the same concept works for niche social networks.

iTunes Festival 2011 London solidifies broadcast-digital convergence.

Downloading the iTunes Festival 2011 London for review was almost a no-brainer. And if you ask me or the reviewer, it's not perfect but nonetheless brilliant.

It also has a primary purpose. You can watch a festival concert streamed live or (since most are in the afternoon) after work.

Applied to television networks, it could potentially give people the ability to watch a television program on the first run or automatically have it waiting for them. And depending on how networks want to play it, they could provide a permanent collection or limited-time viewing opportunities with the option to purchase an episode or series for download.

There may even be some potential non-intrusive revenue models beyond selling the program. For iTunes, the buy button only appears before and after the concert or anytime you pause it. It's clean. A television broadcaster might include related merchandise and/or sponsors just as easily, and (although it ought to be reflected in the price point) embedded commercials.

The real bonus in terms of the iTunes Festival 2011 London, of course, is that it truly makes the concept of any device, anywhere, anytime a reality. You can play it on your phone, on your tablet, or on your television. And, depending on how cloud services come along, you won't have to worry about storage or (hopefully) safety.

Our reviewer also considered that a social networking function might be welcome too. It could be fun, he concluded, to chat with people who check-in with a live streaming performance. The function could be optional, of course. (Sometimes it's nice to skip the socialization of everything.) Or perhaps a network/app feature could open up afterwards, allowing viewers to chat about the show.

But what I especially like about the festival and apps in general is that they keep online experiences tied to how we perceive offline experiences. If you are in the iTunes Festival 2011 London app, you are at a concert. And any behavior, even if you are watching from home, is indicative of a concert hall.

Why apps and niche social networks will have a longer lasting life.

You won't find that on increasingly bloated social networks. You might want to share an article, but your friend wants you to join a video chat. You might want to post a picture, but then get caught up in a barrage of instant messages. You might want to share something funny, but then an associate will send you Farmville requests. And brands, well, they're even worse.

This is quickly becoming one of the problems with bloated social networks. As much as you can dictate your own experience, your friends (and any brands you follow) are being given more and more power to dictate what you will do. (Heck, they are even spilling into search relevance, no thanks to +1.)

But all this stands to reason. Big big open generalized networks are like giant rooms with everything going on at the same time and no walls to distinguish anything. The stereo is playing, the television is on, and ten people are trying to perform.

The result is chaos, something I'm always prepared for when I sign on to any of them. One person is talking politics. Another is telling jokes. Some are watching television. Others are playing games. And half of them are screaming "look at me" or "look at my wall."

An app or well-defined niche network, in contrast, is exactly the opposite. If you sign in, you have a reason to be there and everybody else who might be signed on is there for mostly the same purpose too. It feels more than right. It feels like life.

Developing Networks: Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Mordor, Etc.

With everyone else reviewing social networks — spurred on by the introduction of Google+ — I'll pass on any specifics. Suffice to say that Google+ is a crisper version of Facebook with some added features like video chat.

The added features aren't likely to remain exclusive for long. Facebook might already be working on a solution to add it. (Hat tip: Jamie Sanford by way of Ike Pigott). It won't be long before Twitter starts barking up the same tree. And that's what inspired this post, along with a conversation fragment with Geoff Livingston, Dane Morgan, and Tony Berkman.

How Many General Social Networks Can One Endure?

My guess, ultimately, is one to none. Google, Facebook, and Twitter are moving in a peculiar direction. Specifically, it looks like they are moving forward but they are really moving backward. People don't want one social network to do everything. Do they?

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them...

Rings and circles. I can't really trust them, even if I like them. They might be easier than Facebook groups (and less annoying). They might attract much less spam than Twitter, even if that will change as the population explodes. But at the end of the day, Google, Facebook, Twitter and a half a dozen others are looking for the One Ring. And if anyone gets it again, it will end badly.

Again? Yes, again. The original welder was America Online. We just didn't think to call it that at the time, but it was a social network that for several years meant all things to all people (still does, for some, if you can imagine).

Ironically, it was Google, Yahoo, and other search engines that cut the One Ring from the finger of those service providers after Apple relinquished eWorld and the online experience descended into the darkness of Sauron Case. The world was a better place without it, much more colorful and diverse. So why on earth would anyone want a repeat?

As humans, we can't really help it. All of nature is predisposed toward order. We thrive on it, making bigger and bigger systems until the weight of it becomes unsustainable. History is littered with the rise and demise of such empires. And, we often forget, Internet is too.

MyBlogLog and Technorati come to mind. One collapsed and another was greatly diminished as each of them began the quest to operate beyond their spheres. In part, it's because as prone as humans are to order, they are equally prone to seek freedom and the wonderful chaos that accompanies it.

Niche Networks Tend To Better Define Environments.

Much like the historical and fantastical empires, it seems to me that generalized networks become unsustainable. People like to confine their activities to the definitions of their environments: they act one way at work and another way at a concert; this way at a church and that way at a bar; this way on one social network and that way on another.

Follow the same group of people from the bachelor party to the ceremony to the reception to the after-reception party to the gift opening, and the social norms will change. Same people; different behaviors.

Major networks, on the other hand, provide the same environment and then ask you to behave differently based on the people in the room. It's backwards, mostly because any social behavior is established by the first person who blinks but only because we're all grasping at straws.

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone ...

Maybe it's because human sociology and adaptability isn't attached to groups of people as much as the environment. We almost can't help it.

This might also explain the primary reasons Facebook (originally a college network) was fast and loose on the front end and slowly became more formal as family members and future employers asked to connect. It's the likely reason quick exchange conversations have taken a back seat to link sharing on Twitter. And it's probably the reason Google Buzz crashed when it failed to establish a culture of what to do there. It wasn't just a matter of who was there, but the purpose of the space.

One of several projects my team is working on right now is a social network of sorts (social network is the closest definition without giving up details). For the last three months, I've been working as one of the principal developers while the board seeks out about $3.5 million in initial funding. (Once we have funding, I'll be allowed to share some alpha invites for a few people.)

What we are doing differently is focusing considerable attention on the environment. And, given it will have a much narrower purpose (with no incentive to pine away your hours looking for conversations to establish presence, eyeballs, or gratuitous activity), it won't compete with any existing network. Instead, it will feel more personal, important, and purposeful — someplace you go for special occasions as opposed to the daily grind.

In some ways, it is what the big networks ought to have been thinking about. Google had some semblance of authority, Facebook had some semblance of social casual, and Twitter eventually became (and then abandoned) a modern version of an AOL chat room.

So does anybody else have it right? There are a few developers who seem like they are on the right track. Of the biggest, it seems to me Apple is one of them. If you want to know why, drop by on Friday when I intend to flesh out why the iTunes Festival 2011 London App represents the future of entertainment.

Creating Community Or Capturing Fans: Facebook

Perhaps even more so with the launch of Facebook Sponsored Stories, there is increasing division about how marketers might approach Facebook. There are four primary approaches that marketers can make in any combination. And depending on the mix, those efforts produce two types of outcomes — collections or communities.

The four approaches to Facebook.

Invitation.

The invitation is the most prominent tactic, which commonly includes listing the address on any number of marketing materials. By adding a button on websites or icons on print advertisements, companies share that they exist on Facebook.

It's self-selected, usually undertaken by one of three types of fans — loyal customers, prospective customers, and perpetual dreamers (with the latter existing for select brands). For example, Porsche is made up of people who own Porsches, people who are considering a Porsche, and people who've always dreamed of owning a Porsche but more than likely never will.

There are spammers too, but well-managed accounts can deal with them effectively enough. Deleting spam posts (irrelevant content) or banning people who have no purpose other than tossing up junk links can be removed. But for the most part, the only accounts that keep them are number focused.

Introduction.

The introduction generally consists of well-placed advertising that attracts people to the site. It became even more common when Facebook launched its advertising program.

In this case, the primary driver was that a marketer could target specific demographics, proximity, or an expressed interest in something. Deciding which works best for the Facebook page is as varied as the account type. For example, a restaurant might benefit from focusing on proximity or a specific product might appeal to a certain demographic or a publication might write about a specific interest.

Advertising for a Facebook page can be added off the page too. But mostly, Facebook's program works well enough inside the platform. It makes more sense to promote a website beyond the program because people can always connect via the page.

Not all introductions are paid, of course. The sharing function within Facebook is generally well liked. People share topics of interest all the time with their friends. But it also relies on the strength of the page community.

Sponsored.

The newest advertising feature on Facebook empowers marketers to capitalize on shared stories by turning them into advertisements. The position of Facebook is that since the person already shared or endorsed or liked a page, someone else sharing this information (including a marketer) isn't any different.

While the shared stories concept has raised privacy concerns (including some advising people not to like anything), Facebook does have a point that it's not very different from the way the concept works today. Some marketers, brands, and companies have been sharing content all along. This simply moves it to the sidebar.



But the bigger question to ask is what kind of person does it attract to the page. If the consumer is drawn more by the relationship to another person and less for some of the reasons expressed in the other approaches, a marketer could gain more connections but not necessarily more interest in the product, service, store, or content.

Bought.

While just as old as any other approach, some people very literally purchase connections. They earn their "likes" by either purchasing connections outright, any number of link exchange programs (points or mutual), or coupon bribes and discounts.

While the latter doesn't seem to have as many issues as the first two, the primary objective of those who engage in any kind of purchased connection schemes is to run up big numbers. But numbers aren't a very good measure online. At least, not as good as some people would have you believe.

While it is true that popular pages tend to increase the likelihood of a page being liked, numbers alone do not guarantee it. People often look at several factors before liking a page, including its interaction with the members and among members.

The Two Types Of Divergent Outcomes.

The Capture.

Marketers that are intent on capturing fans ought to have no real problems. But the downside to chasing numbers is there are no real benefits either. There might even be unseen challenges.

Someone we work with used this approach on the front end of the Facebook experience and quickly captured 2,700 "likes" without much sweat. They were captured in about one month. However, what most people will never see is the story behind the scenes. These 2,700 connections have an interaction of 300 visits every 30 days and falling. And about 1,500 page views over the same period.

Even when new customers or self-selected connections join the page, the silence of those members encourages them to do the same, which is virtually nothing.

The Community.

Conversely, there is a page that we manage that was operated on an organic-only approach, which means the page only used self-selected community members — either invitations to people visiting the site or people with a specific common interest.

It had a modest following of 1,000 members. It took approximately seven months. However, behind the scenes, it has an active and growing community with 1,500 visits and growing at a steady, if not exponential, pace. And about 35,000 page views over the same period. When new connections are made, they are much quicker to like, share, and comment on the page just as they see other members do.

Interestingly enough, which touches on the concept of marketer-selected shared stories as opposed to friend-selected shared stories, some of my friends joined the 1,000-member page but never participate. Conversely, non-friends on the page have become friends over time through repeated interactions.

Is Friendship Enough?

Facebook says that its sponsored story tests had higher recall and were much more likely to result in an action (such as a friend liking a page too). However, our research is continuing to show that overemphasizing a friendship connection over a common interest connection actually drags down the interactions of the community.

The reason is psychology. Sometimes people like a page because a friend likes it. They may even recall which friend likes it and why. Liking it might even be less of an expressed interest in the page as much as it is a nod recognizing that a friend likes it.

However, such a scenario is much different than two friends who like the same things on the same page. In those instances, the two friends are much more likely to interact with the page, and perhaps, reinforce their mutual interests.

This isn't to say the sponsored story concept isn't intriguing. It has the potential to work, especially with the right company. The Starbucks example in the video is a good one. I can see how it might work for a restaurant. But for something else — let's say an environmental survival store — people might like the page because they want to support their friend's interest and feel more environmental for the day. But, they are likely to never visit the page again let alone buy anything from the company.

Finding Narcissists: This Post Is All About You

Is the narcissism of a Web page owner in a social networking community related to Web site activity, content, and perception by others? According to one recent study this appears to be the case. Or does it?

"We found that people who are narcissistic use Facebook in a self-promoting way that can be identified by others," Laura Buffardi, a doctoral student in psychology, was quoted by Physorg.com.

Buffardi co-authored the study with associate professor W. Keith Campbell at the University of Georgia. And at first blush, the abstract, published at the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, seems right on target. The deeper you read, however, the study outcomes deviate from prevailing views of narcissism.

How The Study Was Conducted.

1. Narcissistic personality self-reports were collected from Facebook Web page owners.
2. Their Web pages were coded for both objective and subjective content features.
3. Strangers viewed the Web pages and rated their impression of the owner on traits and narcissism.

There were several other steps, but these three present the core of the abstract. According to the abstract, it was partly motivated by the concern that "these Web sites offer a gateway for self-promotion via self-descriptions, vanity via photos, and large numbers of shallow relationships (friends are counted—sometimes reaching the thousands—and in some cases ranked), each of which is potentially linked to trait narcissism."

The general hypothesis was to find correlations between "real world" and online expression of narcissism as it relates to a higher number of social relationships (but shallower), self-promotion, self-presentation, and the perception of having a large number of Agentic (a perception that you make choices and impose those choices on the world) characteristics. Some discussion...

• Less self-absorbed people do not seem to be using the Internet for self-promotion to the degree narcissists do.
• The quantity of social interactions and number of relationships is indicative of the traits associated with narcissism.
• The choice of the main photo plays a significant role in the ability of strangers to identify narcissists.

However, the study also noted that real world narcissists are charming and generally make a good first impression whereas online communication seemed to bear out that narcissists' quotes and interactions were less entertaining. And secondly, real world narcissists are not any more attractive than non-narcissists, but strangers tended to rate attractive photos as more likely belonging to narcissists.

What's Missing From The Study?

There are several other factors that could be contributing to online behaviors associated with narcissism, many of which are promoted as social normalcy in such environments. These need to be considered alongside any psychological study.

• Popularity (number of social connections) has an overinflated value of importance.
• Photo selection, especially main photos, could correlate with social media experience.
• The quantity of interactions could also be more likely to correlate with experience.
• Social norms within subgroups often dictate some behavioral traits of individuals.
• Individuals are prone to update information and photos to benchmark personal challenges.
• There is a primary indication that social network behavior is greatly influenced by intent.

Specifically, on the last point, content creators have a tendency to share, interact, and attract more friends or followers, which could produce narcissistic quantifiers. Likewise, people working in communication that act as spokespeople may increase their visibility online regardless of personal "real world" leanings (e.g., I know several shy people who seem extroverted online). Conversely, some individuals may have no interest in personal self-promotion, but have been asked to supply such information by family and friends. The point being, it is extremely difficult to guess at intent.

Can narcissistic qualities be spotted online? Maybe, but the qualifiers to determine narcissism are likely to require observations beyond the owner's Facebook page. For example, someone who has an increasingly high rate of interaction may have a high level of interaction on other people's pages where they are more communal in nature.

Likewise, there seems to be too much emphasis placed on main photos. It makes me wonder whether the strangers rating these pages, after being instructed to look for narcissistic traits, skewed their reporting toward attractive and/or posed photos, assuming it was vanity. Photo selection could equally be any number of reasons, even self-consciousness.

Still, the overall construct of this research is fascinating. Social networking is very well suited for narcissists. Just keep in mind that narcissistic traits are more likely in line with those who believe they are "influencers," frequently promote the number of friends or followers, and force position themselves as an authority within groups.

These are just my initial impressions of this very interesting subject. I'm very interested in hearing different ideas.

Defining Engagement: The Value Of People

There seems to be some push back against the notion that social media "fans" can be valued at $3.60 each. But Vitrue, a social media management company, doesn't miss a beat. The $3.60 valuation tag placed on people is just the "tip of the iceberg," they say.

The message seems to resonate with plenty of companies, as Vitrue includes Ford, P&G, Best Buy, Unilever, Pringles, and plenty of others. Companies that ought to know better, in some cases. What's more, Vitrue doesn't seem to consider those fans owned by the brand. It boasts the combined total of its clients as their fans, about 45 million. People they "manage" every day.

Why don't most communicators accept the $3.60 valuation?

Adam Singer provides part of the answer on The Future Buzz. He provides eight points why that valuation is off beat, before pointing out the premise is flawed. Worse, they mislead companies in thinking that hordes of fans are final frontier.

Sean Williams provides another part of the answer on Communication Ammo. He offers four points, before noting that the formula fails because it sells the idea that social media is all about increasing advertising impressions.

Oliver Blanchard, who can be found at The BrandBuilder Blog, had a brief discussion on Twitter. Because he is outcome oriented, he points out the pitfall with two sentences under 140 characters.

Outcomes have value; people are priceless.

The real problem with valuations like the one Vitrue floats is that it mistakes an online environment as nothing more than media. People behave online much like they do offline in that their interactions mimic spatial actions. The only time online actions resemble media is when the engagement is media oriented (like watching a program on Hulu).

Placing a "value" on fans can be likened to claiming a product can earn media impressions simply by sitting on the shelf of a supermarket, based on a ratio of everyone who walks in the front door, even if they skip the aisle where your product is located. And doubling, tripling, or quadrupling those impressions is only a matter of adding another row of product.

Using this logic, Brillo could be placed on every shelf on every aisle and capture all past supermarket visit impressions times the total number of products. It's absurd, especially because many "fans" never return to the product page once they friend it, especially if they were driven there by a one-time incentive. Thus, every fan is not equal to any dollar amount.

And that leads us to the second biggest danger in the formula. An overly formulaic approach that relies on reach as the end measurement as opposed to a singular portion of the equation, devalues customers. After all, if we were to be so brazen in our attempts to monetize the value of people, then the Vitrue valuation gives equal value to window shoppers and customers (which also happens to be the biggest mistake among online crowd sourcing). Except, that temptation is also wrong.

Net, net, as tempting at it is to count up some 1 billion "fans" we've touched online for our clients, beating Vitrue almost 20 to 1, I'm still inclined to believe that the people we've touched are worth more than $3.60 per head. As a matter of fact, people are priceless. Outcomes have value. Engagement is an investment. And impressions are nothing but potential.

When you understand this and do the math, you get different results. You know, the kind that suggests ten people on the showroom floor of a car dealership might have more, um, "value," than 100 people who will never buy one.

Vitrue devalues its industry with a weak message.

All this made me really curious what Vitrue did. So, I took a look. It does offer some value, specifically in providing Facebook and a few other marketing-oriented applications. This, combined with some investor affiliations (like Steven J. Heyer) gave them a leg up despite being a late start-up company in social media. There is nothing wrong with that. It's not an ignorant firm.

What is happening here is the same thing that happened in public relations. Executives wanted someone to put a price tag on the return on investment, so they did. Public relations did it by counting column inches against ad rates or Rolodex card counting. Marketing did it by overemphasizing cost-per-impression. And Vitrue does it here in much the same fashion. All of those formulas did more to devalue their respective industries than any other.

But what's most striking about such counting systems is that people generally want to believe them. They want to believe them much in the same way that they were actually relevant to the clients listed beyond the sale of a single application.

But this shouldn't surprise you. Rule No. 8 in advertising is "people are irrational." That simple truth doesn't change with the favor of a title that can condensed to an acronym. CEOs and other decision makers are equally swayed by all sorts of messages, even when those message value them at $3.60 too.

Tracking Facebook: Popularity vs. Penetration

Ever wonder whether Facebook is the best choice for business in your market? Statistics from Candytech, a Czech-based developer that specializes in Facebook applications and marketing roll-out, owns a portal that can help provide an answer. (hat tip Dave Courvoisier.)

Its team, led by bakery manager Lukas Maixner and chief baker Martin Homolka, are responsible for collecting and publishing near-real time statistical information on Facebook. The data includes the popularity of applications, developers, pages, groups, participants by country (by state in the United States), and average CPC and CPM in each country.

Understanding The Data At A Glance

The statistical information can help marketers and businesses prioritize when and where Facebook fits into their online social media marketing mix. And, in addition to the total number of participants, Facebakers gives up a glimpse of stated gender and age-related data that might cause some marketers to rethink the message.

For example, a business in Nevada considering Facebook as part of its social media presence will find a relatively small pool of participants, ages 18-44, compared to the state's population. And, as a result, it might not make sense for a proximity-reliant company to invest in a Facebook presence unless California is part of the intended audience.

The same holds true across the country. While it's no surprise that California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Illinois lead the nation in terms of participants, the District of Columbia, Rhode Island, Colorado, Massachusetts, and North Dakota have higher market penetration, with as much as 40 percent of the population participating on Facebook.

In Europe, the story is much the same. The United Kingdom, Turkey, France, Italy, and Spain outpace many neighboring countries in terms of total adoption, but Iceland, Norway, and Denmark lead in penetration. In South America, Argentina and Columbia have more population, but Chile has the highest penetration. In Asia, Indonesia leads in population, but Singapore leads in penetration.

Understanding Usage At A Glance.

In addition to Facebook by the numbers, Facebakers reveals how Facebook is used. Among the top 15 most popular pages, only Facebook, Starbucks, Twilight, I "Heart" Sleep, and Coca-Cola break into the top 15 company pages online. The balance belongs to games, actors, musicians, other personalities. Likewise, games dominate the most utilized applications, with only two Facebook applications and one cause-related group breaking into the top 15.

Even the number of active users tells the story. While some companies clearly benefit from a Facebook presence, Facebook users are mostly interested in personal connections and playing games. And since leading games, such as FarmVille, require participants to stay online while they play, such games dramatically spike the total time that participants stay online.

This doesn't mean that Facebook isn't good for business. However, it might mean that Facebook needs to be prioritized beyond being the brightest and shiniest social network du jour. Sure, anyone can make the case that it is always good for business, that it can be used for crowdsourcing, and why it might one day replace blogs. But that doesn't mean any of it is true for your business.

It might be. And it might not be. Sure, having a Facebook presence can be beneficial. But it takes a better understanding of the population, demographics, psychographics, common sense, and (most importantly) your customers before placing it at the top of an online priority list because it's popular.

After all, even in states where Facebook is widely adopted, the network is still only reaching about 40 percent of a population in a specific geographic region. Consider what kind of crowdsourcing misdirection that could lead to. Or how giving up to 80 percent of your proximity-based customers for lack of a blog might impact growth. Or how focusing too much on one or two specific networks might cause you to miss other online sites where your customers interact on a daily basis.

All this comes back to one simple truth about online marketing. It can work, provided it is part of a more comprehensive communication program. And, with an increasing number of sites like Facebakers.com, more companies will begin to appreciate it.