Social Media University, Global (SMUG)

I believe Facebook will transform networking on the web from a largely social, recreational activity to one that has serious implications for business. With well over 100 million users, obviously MySpace also will be consequential, especially in the consumer-to-consumer and B2C worlds, and with a younger demographic. But its incessant singles ads and the gaudy interface limit its potential appeal for business networking. And then of course there is the spam issue in MySpace.

Facebook, by contrast, has what TIME magazine calls “a classy, upmarket feel to it–a whiff of the Ivy League still clings.” It is considerably smaller than MySpace today, but has the momentum of gaining a million members a week.

Here’s my first post about Facebook and its business uses, which I wrote after one day of direct Facebook experience (although I had been following it from a distance for some time…since it led my daughter to meet her husband.) I had no idea at the time that this would set me off on a major Facebook meme.

About a month after that first post about Facebook I wrote this one: Top 10 Facebook Business Uses to compile my thoughts up to that point.

Now I’ve decided to create this separate page on my blog, which is accessible from the top navigation. As I do new posts about Facebook they will still show up in the regular reverse chronological order, but I also will plan to link to them from this page, so that over time this will become a fairly comprehensive resource. I hope you will find it valuable.

I’m going to indicate some categories below that may not have many posts yet, but I will hope to get to them later. So, if you see a topic that isn’t linked, it’s one I’m working on. If you have other ideas of things you would like to see discussed, put them in the comments.

Getting Started:

• 4 tips to prevent identity theft in Facebook
• Privacy Settings and Options, and how and why to use them
• Blocking people
• Using the Limited Profile
• The News Feed and Mini-Feed
• “Friending” guidance for interactions with younger people and avoiding the “creepiness” factor.
• How to import your blog posts into your Facebook profile

Here are some links to major news coverage about Facebook:

• USA Today
• Newsweek cover story
• TIME
• LA Times on application development in Facebook
• Fred Vogelstein’s LA Times essay on Facebook.
• Two articles in MarketWatch (I’m quoted here and here.)

Facebook Pages and Social Ads

• Why Facebook Demographics Don’t Matter to advertisers
• Why Facebook Click-Through Rates Don’t Matter
• Guidelines and limitations for Facebook ads
• Developing a Facebook celebrity page
• A Facebook Fan Page as a Free Yellow Pages Ad

General Facebook Posts:

• Charlene Li from Forrester Research has a great background presentation for Big Brands interested in marketing potential through Facebook.
• The semi-viral nature of Facebook leads to advertising fruitfulness in Facebook with YouTube.
• Clearing up some misconceptions, I said Facebook is Not a series of tubes, but an information sharing utility
• Facebook: The Spam Killer
• Taking the Friction out of Maintaining Friendships
• The WordPress application in Facebook that brings your WordPress.com posts into your Facebook profile.
• How to be a name and not a number in Facebook.
• Attorneys General chasing headlines on Facebook predator stings?
• LinkedIn: Social Networking without the Social
• Why Facebook won’t follow Friendster into oblivion

Tips and Background for Businesses and Not-for-Profit Organizations:

• Make Your Geographic Network Primary - Not Your Employer Network
• Organizations with Facebook groups
• How to avoid having others Squat on your Facebook domain, and why every organization should have a Facebook group: Because if you don’t, someone else likely will.
  
• Facebook Crisis Communications and why social media tools like Facebook need to be part of your crisis communication plan. And how the 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis illustrates how Facebook will be used by others in a crisis that involves your organization, even if you don’t use it.
• In response to those who say Facebook isn’t for business, I made the eBay/Facebook Business Analogy
• How Facebook Flyers may be the next eBay marketing opportunity for home-based businesses.
• 3 Advantages of Facebook Flyers vs. Google AdWords
• Why faster failure makes a free Facebook network a better way to start a social network for your organization, although you do have other options as well.
• Facebook as replacement for your pictorial directory for church or other non-profit organization.
• If you’ve even considered a presence in Second Life, why wouldn’t you get your company into Facebook, with its more immediate and practical benefits?
• Don’t block Facebook at work; it’s just another electronic communication tool like email.
• Face(book)less Corporations
• Conferences, Webinars and other Gathering Places
  

Creative Uses of Facebook

• Off-Label Uses of Facebook and Twitter
• Facebook and The 4-Hour Workweek
• Putting the “Relations” in Media Relations
• “Cheers” for Medical News
• Toward a Medical News Community
• Applications of Facebook in politics and government
• University of Minnesota using Facebook and Twitter for Crisis Alerts

Growth of Facebook:

• Google will Spur Facebook Growth
• Covering the planet in five years?
• The Facebook Tipping Point

Facebook Applications

• Fmail = Facebook + Gmail

Privacy Issues and Separating Your Personal and Professional Lives in Facebook

• Here is the definitive, updated post on Professional Profiles and Personal Privacy, but these background posts may also be helpful:

It’s only a matter of time

The “My Professional Contacts” MacGyver hack

The Limited Profile for B2B Faceboo

If you don’t have a personal life in Facebook, why not use it for business?

Technorati: Facebook, Business