Facebook Firing: will they become commonplace?

ESPN reported this Monday that a Philadelphia Eagles employee was recently fired after posting a negative Facebook status message about his employer. Ranting about how the Eagles let Brian Dawkins sign with the Denver Broncos, the post included several expletives directed at the Eagles franchise.

I see two sides to this situation.  On the one hand, I am sure worse sentiments were shared by fellow Eagles fans on their own Facebook pages, but at the same time, employers should not stand for libel or slander against their company (especially when dolled out by their own). Is it realistic for companies to expect constant decorum from their employees on their personal time and personal social profiles?

The 6-year employee of the Philadelphia Eagles is not the only instance where someone faced severe consequences after letting their emotions fly on a social media outlet. Geary’s Organic Media Manager Andrew Rodrigues says this situation is a great example of how companies need to institute a corporate policy about social media because this is not an isolated case.

Do employees have the right to post comments about their employers on their personal profiles? Is a Facebook post any different from criticizing your job to friends at a bar or restaurant?

Marketing a Presidential Candidate Online

Here at Geary, we like to cap off each week with an Innovation Session – an informal meeting with food, drinks and a presentation from the front lines of interactive marketing.

Last Friday, we chose to explore the various ways that Barack Obama and John McCain are marketing themselves online — with a particular focus on Web 2.0 strategies.

We tried to keep the presentation non-partisan, but it was difficult because Obama has made aggressive social media efforts his trademark. He has an active presence on MySpace, Facebook, and niche social networks such as Faithbase and BlackPlanet; active accounts on Twitter and YouTube; text message updates; an active social network at my.barackobama.com; and much more. McCain also has a social network on his main domain and presences on the big social networking sites, but his presence on Twitter and niche social networks is bare-bones compared to Obama’s, and he does not have a text messaging program.

We hypothesized that Obama’s aggressive efforts are primarily a function of the citizens he’s trying to reach — young people and first-time voters, as well as independent voters who spend time on niche online communities. We’re guessing that Obama has found that online efforts are a cost-effective way to reach new, disaffected and undecided voters — and he has the deep pockets to back up these efforts.

Here are some fun facts about each candidates’ online efforts:

• My.barackobama.com, Obama’s in-house social networking platform, is run by Chris Hughes, one of the co-founders of Facebook.
• Obama’s various websites get about 20 million visitors a month, compared to 4 million a month for McCain-affiliated sites.McCain is much more active in paid search advertising than Obama. At one point, McCain was bidding on 226 keywords, compared to only 174 by Obama.
• Obama ran 17 negative paid search ads, while McCain ran only three – the opposite of their general strategies, where McCain’s advertising ran much more negative than Obama’s.
• At present, Obama’s infomercial has 1.6 million views on YouTube. This is significant reach, but it’s dwarfed by the 33.55 million people who watched the infomercial on TV.

To learn more about this topic, you can view the full PowerPoint presentation.

I also recommend “Obama’s Wide Web” from the Washington Post and this article from MediaPost, which gives details about the candidates’ paid search strategies.

Chrome: Bye Bye Internet Explorer (for me)

I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but with only a couple day’s use of Chrome, Google’s entry into the web browser market, this might be the last time I click on that little “e” icon in my quick launch toolbar.

For the last couple of years I’ve utilized two browsers daily.  I do so because I can log into the same website with two separate accounts. For example, with both Firefox and IE7 open, I can log into different account profiles on Facebook; a personal account and work account.

With the introduction of Chrome, I now have the luxury of choosing which browsers I want to use. With Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer available to me (and Opera), this more than likely signals the end of Internet Explorer for me.

Personally speaking, without any scientific tests to back up that personal opinion mind you, Chrome feels so much faster than either Firefox or internet Explorer. And the look and feel of Chrome is lighter than IE. Apparently my feeling is on-point as many tests have proved that Chrome is faster.  Check out some of the test results here, here, and here.  Though Firefox, Google’s buddy, refutes some of those claims.

Chrome Features

In my day and a half of use, I’ve already discovered some cool new Chrome features.

We’re so used to seeing some customized homepage when you start using a browser, or having a few tabs open up after we’ve set our preferences, but with Chrome, it automatically shows you linked-screenshots for the most-visited sites at startup, all on one tab, and will do so with any subsequent new tabs that are opened.

That could be a good thing if you are the only one using the browser, could be a bad thing if your significant other or co-worker shares your computer.  Just saying.

One thing that has always bothered me are browser-specific websites, or more specifically sites that work on IE, but not Firefox.  With Google Chrome, Function Point and DART users can rejoice, you can now successfully log into both without having to use Internet Explorer!

Another cool little feature that I have already discovered was the “Find” feature.  it works as with any other browser, but with Chrome, when you press Control-F, it not only jumps to the first instance, but tells you how many instances of that same word is in the document. 

By many accounts, Chrome is great for everyday web browsing, but users that have more advanced tastes should probably wait until a later, more stable release.

One interesting SEO sidenote with Chrome, the browser tabs are brought all the way to the top of the window, eliminating the location where we usually see the full title tags.   Now title tags are limited to space of a tab. Is this a way for Google to focus more on content and less on meta data?  If Chrome, or Chrome’s layout, catches on, will that decrease the current 65-70 title tag character limit and mark a Google alorithm shift?

Anyways, I haven’t used Chrome for any significant amount of time, so I bet there are several cool secrets hidden in Chrome.  All I know is that Chrome, with it’s clean template and efficient web browser with speedy load times, that’s enough for me to move away from Internet Explorer.

Are you Promoting or Diluting your Company Brand and Culture in the online space?

Do you have a Facebook profile? A MySpace page? A Twitter Account? A blog? A YouTube Channel? A personal Wiki?  Chances are that almost every person can answer yes to at least one of, if not all, of the previous questions.

The internet has become a haven for personal publishing and information sharing.  People freely offer opinions, ideas, photos, videos, likes, dislikes, and everything in-between.  However, how cautious are people about the lasting effect their information may have on the company they work for?

This question is something I ponder and am reminded of daily with the things I find online.  Using Twitter as an example, I follow roughly 125 people that are affiliated with SEO or Social Media Marketing.  Numerous people use this site to push out content they have written or are reading that help to show them as industry thought leaders.  When these type of people are free with their company affiliation this can positively effect how the industry views the person and their company.  Yet, some people are not as strategic with the information they share.  When people that associate themselves with their company tweet information about “giving the finger to a client” or “our blog is run by suits” or “my boss doesn’t know bleep” I have to question if these people really care about the work they are doing, who they are doing it for, or what external people think of them?  My opinion has been changed about numerous companies this way, be it fair or not.

To some extent, freedom of speech has to be protected and people should be able to post whatever type of content they please.  Yet, at some point common sense should kick in and say maybe I shouldn’t tell the world that “i hate ABC co-worker” in an open forum setting.

Does it seem fair to judge a company based upon the actions of the people who work there?  Can this really be patrolled?  Should it be?  What are your thoughts?

Microhoo? How about Facesoft? Or Microhoobook?

The dealings of the Microsoft attempt(s) to purchase Yahoo! are considered old news.  Yahoo! wanted more money, Microsoft said no, and Microsoft eventually pulled its offer (much to the dismay of Yahoo! shareholders everywhere).  Seemed like a sailed ship……apparently not.

Microsoft and Yahoo! are now again in purchase discussions, but this time Microsoft is looking to just purchase Yahoo!’s Search business.  These new dealings are creating a great deal of speculation that Microsoft will purchase Yahoo! Search and then….buy Facebook!

O’ what a twisted WEB they weave.  What would these acquisitions mean for the web world?  Would this actually give Google something to worry about? I would love to hear some thoughts (and some clever new merger names).

Oh, the tangled web Facebook weaves

Social networking site Facebook is quickly becoming a common source of skirmishes. First, the site drew ire for its Beacon program; now, it’s getting flak as more and more users discover it’s ridiculously hard to permanently delete their accounts.

In the past, disenchanted Facebook users had only a deactivation option – an option that included Facebook servers keeping copies of their personal information. A difficult, little-known manual deletion option was also available.

Nipon Das, a business consultant in Manhattan, became the de facto face of a movement demanding that Facebook make it easier to delete accounts. He spent two months trying to delete his account, and in the meantime, continued to receive messages and alerts from the site. A groundswell of support grew, and a Facebook group entitled “How to permanently delete your Facebook account” has grown to include nearly 10,000 members.

In response to the complaints, Facebook updated their Help pags to announce that the easiest way to delete your account is to email the company and make your wishes clear. They announced that they have no plans to introduce a one-step delete account option.

Facebook users are calling for a simple, manual Delete option, and it’s a reasonable request. Users should not have to hunt for instructions on how to permanently delete their account and all their personal information. Good customer service extends to people who want to discontinue using your site, and making is difficult for people to delete their accounts is not the way to help them leave Facebook with fond memories.

Obviously, Facebook has a stake in retaining users and the personal information they provide to the site. But at some point, they need to consider the desires of their users. It’s extremely common for Internet users to pare down the number of social networking sites they use, or to give up online social networking entirely. And as Web users have the expectation that they can quite sites as easily as they can join them, Facebook needs to get with the program.

Facebook Reacts to User Backlash

As a follow-up to our earlier post about Facebook going commercial, we’d like to report that Facebook users reacted unfavorably the social networking site’s Beacon tracking program.  Initially, Beacon tracked Facebook users’ purchases on various sites as long as they did not opt out. Users had to opt out site-by-site, and could not opt out of the service with just one click. Many people were surprised and frustrated to find that their purchases were being tracked, and opposition to the service bubbled to the surface.  Facebook users did not reject the Beacon tracking service wholesale, but they did successfully pressure Facebook’s chiefs to modify Beacon’s opt-out policy. Now, users must opt in to the service.

Though Facebook faced a massive user uprising in relation to Beacon, it has survived similar protests in the past. Facebook users are, for the most part, not quibbling with the service itself, only that it was rolled out quietly, and it was initially difficult to opt out.

However, this conflict has garnered an unprecedented amount of mainstream media coverage; in addition, many advertisers, including Coca-Cola, are backing off of participating in the service.

Is the Facebook generation getting jittery about privacy concerns? We don’t think so. Rather, the Beacon fight was about user control — in this case, the ability to easily opt out of a service. For every unabashed Internet exhibitionist, there is someone who is a little more reserved about sharing information online – and the Beacon controversy reveals that it is important for Facebook to cater equally to both groups.