Changes to Facebook News Feed

A quick summary of the changes announced on 7 March 2013,  and what it could mean to brands:

1. The new design will be rolled out slowly to web users. Existing content & ads are not impacted. Mobile changes to be rolled out by end March.
2. No change to Edgerank. The selection and order of stories will stay the same
3. Specs for page posts and ads does not change, but they will be displayed differently in both the news feed and ads.
4. Some Photo Page posts may have the caption on top of the image
5. Page Like Stories will display the cover photo of the brand's page.

Details at http://www.facebook.com/about/newsfeed.

Misconceptions on the role for Social in CRM

As a practice, Customer Relationship Management (CRM)  is simple in concept but  complex to pull off well.

In it's simplistic view,  CRM is about aiming to build the kind of relationship a neighbourhood grocer would have with regular buyers, except it needs to be operational at Scale. Technology, Business Rules & Services - Databases, Marketing Automation, IVRs, Mobile Apps, Rewards, Call Centres, Analytics - to name a few, are necessary to make this CRM vision a reality.  A good CRM strategy - one that really attracts & influences loyal behaviours - is complex to architect,  implement and even more to operationalise without glitches. But when it comes together, it's works like a charm to nurture and attract mutually beneficial relationships.

Which is why I find it baffling when the term "Social CRM" is thrown around loosely as a modern substitute for anything & everything "CRM." I disagree.

Yes, branded Social Channels offer lots of options for brands to reach out, engage, influence and help spread the word. But IMO they are best suited to:

1. Getting conversational with prospects
2. Driving light buying
3. Showcasing excellent customer service / customers belief in the brand - to influence prospects 

Beyond this, Social platforms are weak in their capabilities to set up & deliver personalised CRM communications. The crucial phase of the relationship - moving light users to increase portfolio or frequency - is still best nurtured via complementing personal CRM channels - e.g email, mobile, direct mail etc... 

It's been proven, time and again, gains in market share for brands comes first through increasing popularity,  i.e by gaining more buyers  of all types, most of whom are light  and buy occasionally. Branded Social channels can play this role, whilst more private channels  work to complement. So while Social is not a substitute for everything CRM, as yet, it can work wonderfully well if its role in the mix is defined well at planning, taking into account it's limitations.

Google, Panupol Sujjayakorn & Search

Why was Alexander the great, so great? Ermm...because he had the best possible teacher & advisor in Aristotle. Replace "Alexander" in your query with "Akbar" and a certain Birbal pops up. Repeat with "Chandragupta Maurya" and Chanakya pops up.

So the common denominator, behind the successes of these great rulers, were trusted advisors. These advisors managed, processed & contextualized fractured pieces of information and knowledge together  - sometimes giving these rulers the information & advice they were actively seeking. Or sometimes providing information proactively when they felt the context was relevant.

Today, the closest most of us have to these trusted advisors are search engines.

At last count, Google has indexed more than 120 Billion URLs & has PageRank. Competing search engines have their own levels of index and secret sauce to generate results. Whilst one can pretty much find information on anything through a few refinements to a search query,  or sometimes by just recognising a phrase, search experiences are still constrained by a couple of hairy challenges:

1. Limitations of Boolean 
2. Limitations of Context

As a result, one may get THE right answer to a search query, but the search engine has little clue on what the human behind the query is looking for.


The closest analogy to this experience is the amazing story of the former World Scrabble Champion - Panupol Sujjayakorn. Here was a guy with very little knowledge of English, who memorised words acceptable in Scrabble without knowing their meaning, and went on to win the World Scrabble Championship!

The good news is all of this is changing - through the introduction of Structured Experiences, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence & Context into Search.

An understanding humans need answers, not links when they search, has given birth to structured search experiences - the likes of Siri for starters. If sales are proof such experiences are valued, look at what Siri did to the sales of iPhone 4S.

Another evolution underway is the introduction of Neural Networks & Artificial Intelligence. Google, is experimenting with videos featuring cats and is learning how it can teach networks to adapt themselves & learn what is important, rather than look at the previous visitor paths & clicks to serve presumed results to similar types of searches.

Talking of context, a billion+ smart phones are in use today and they just about provide the missing clues for search engines to improve relevance in real time. Google Now , for example, is an indication of experiences to come - whereby search engine evolve from the role of trusted advisors, to becoming more like a personal assistant.

Whilst these advances in Technology, Intelligence & Relevance are great for improvements in online search experiences, on another frontier, the race to digitally annotate and help discovery of the physical world has begun. Google again currently leads this field via offerings such as Field Trip & Project Glass.

Both Field trip & Project Glass are interesting projects, the adoption of which shall provide answers to some key questions in days to come:

1. Are we humans ready for our physical worlds to also be digitally annotated? 
2. Will we demand it? If so, will it give rise to a new wave of SEO like services?
3. Should such services just show us more of what we like, what our connections like or introduce us to new stuff?

Salvation Army adds Mobile to Handbells & Red Kettles.

For over a hundred years, around the world, the sight of a dapper volunteer, a ringing bell and bucket means one thing - the start of the Salvation Army christmas collection drive.

Over this weekend, in Seoul, I was pleasantly surprised to see the addition of a Mobile option to the Kettle. Yes, it's in high-tech Korea, and the technology for money transfer via mobile is ready. But to see Salvation Army deploy this option is refreshing.

But beyond refreshing, it's smart for a few reasons, including:

1. That channel choices, drive brand choices is a known adage. The addition of a mobile option gives the Salvation Army an edge over  competing choices
2. Mobile can also help bring in new donators.
3. As one does not see an immediate pinch, when donating via credit cards, the possibility of the donation amounts being higher than typical loose change increase.

I hear the Salvation Army is targeting to collect 5 Million Won this Christmas. I'd be curious to know how much of this comes in via the mobile.

Checklist to Asses your Social Media Monitoring Priorities & Needs.

Below is a useful checklist to prioritize your social listening priorities (courtesy Altimeter Group)

It's more than a year old, but still relevant. The full report by the Altimeter Group on Social Analytics can be downloaded from here.

Promoted Personal Posts & Narcissism.

"Every day, news feed delivers the stories you post to your friends and subscribers. Promote important posts to help people notice them. Promoted posts appear higher in news feed, so there's a better chance your audience will see them". So goes the pitch for Facebook's Promoted Posts.

Makes sense for FB to tweak EdgeRank & throttle Organic Reach, using relevance as an alibi, and force Brand Pages to pay for incremental reach via Promoted Posts. This option is also being beta tested on select personal accounts (see image).

Now, people claim to share information about themselves on Facebook as one of the ways to maintain relationships. Although in reality, the tendency is to overshare or share selectively the updates that help curate identities.

So what would us humans make of people using the option of promoted posts to push their updates into your eyeballs?

Without getting into a heavy debate about "Does Facebook Turn People Into Narcissists? & Promoted Posts  even more so, I'd argue:

• People spend time, effort & money on grooming, wardrobes, accessories, toys and experiences to stand out. Some even plan a holiday with a particular status update in mind. Anyone who claims they are not looking for huge responses on posting an important update just sold you a fish story. So why not? Especially when they couldn't be arsed to game their ermm.. *EdgeRank* .
• On the other hand, if all that one's friends & connections see are update after updates labelled *Sponsored*, you know who's on the slippery slope to becoming lonely & sad.

NFC, Smart Phones & the Apple iPhone 5

Since it's recent launch, there's been debate on the exclusion of NFC technology in the new iPhone 5. More so, because competitive Smart Phones have it in their feature set.
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For some pundits, it's a decision the company will regret.

For some, it's a smart move given the slow rollout of NFC at merchants.

The NY Times blog even has a post on why it cant feature NFC with  it's current design.

If the notion that any new adoption yet to spread beyond early adopters, is still technology, NFC qualifies. Behavior change is hard. Habits and behavior regarding money even more.

So NFC technology as a substitute for cash and cards may be ready, but a majority of people are not. At least not in the next 6 months I could argue. By when the new batch of smart phones would be getting ready backstage for the catwalk, the playing field to be reset and for time to tell if Apple's choice for this season was smart.