Things To Do Today (Non-Work Related)

• Get oil change
• Cancel ATT wireless internet
• Renew gym membership at This Way Ladies
• Pick up dip from Grandma
• Make a million returns to Target
• Grocery and life shopping at Target
• Watch The Voice 
• Write three(!) fish fry reviews
• Finish Colosseum post (and the rest of my Italy recaps)
• Paint my nails

Ugh. 

How Did I Not See This?

Facebook Fan Page Fever

Pardon me. These kinds of updates are to me what Apple announcements are to others....

Insight into the changes via Fast Co Create:

"Our main objective is to make sure that over time, the advertising is as good as the content you would receive from your friends or family," said Carolyn Everson, Facebook’s VP of global marketing solutions. "It’s very similar to your own Facebook experience. There are certain friends that you probably love getting updates from--they are witty and interesting--and that’s really what we’re trying to do with brands: Stop thinking about brands over here and people over here, but actually [think of] brands as people."

 In other words, Facebook is gambling that its 800 million users won’t see this influx of advertising as an influx of advertising, but as new content to be consumed and shared. Will they? That all depends on whether brands can figure out how to create content that their fans actually want to share. That’s something that marketers have been talking about--and, to some extent, doing--for years. But the new Facebook brand platform will provide a fairly pressing mandate for marketers to up their content game.

Leap Day 2012

It only comes around once every four years. So naturally, I spent the day celebrating with Facebook news, a chocolate shake from the Fountain and daiquiris at Chimichangas.

Spring In My Step

It may be a little premature, but I'm wearing my new flats from Old Navy today. Sixty degree weather makes me think of patios and sunshine and grass and evening walks with Maverick at Tower Grove Park. Sigh.

The downside to this abnormal weather? The severe storms that have been happening in the Midwest . You've probably seen the damage in cities like Harrisburg, Branson, Buffalo and other places. If you know me (or follow my blog), you know that my family has a house in Tablerock Lake, near Branson, and that I've been spending my summer weekends down there every year since I was born. Now, we were lucky - our house is in Lampe, Mo., an area that the tornadoes missed. But they did hit in areas very dear to my heart - Kimberling City, Branson Landing, the Candlestick Inn, Shepard of the Hills, the Branson strip, heck, even the Walmart on 76.

How can you help? Visit KY3's website to find out what you can do to help. They have plenty of options - donating time, money, even water and clothes. And, if you are near enough to the area, think about making a trip to Branson in the coming months to help them rebuild their business. I know I will!

Facebook Friend Activity... Needs Some Work

Facebook rolled out Timeline for Pages today (read all about the changes on the Atomicdust blog) and one of the new features is 'Friend Activity' on the right hand side. It shows how many of your friends like that page, and ideally, who's been interacting with the page - liking posts, commenting or sharing stories and updates.

But it looks like it also shows just general mentions of the brand on Facebook - even if the user doesn't explicitly tag or link to the page. 

In fact, flipping through some of the pages that have switched to the new look, the first five I looked at all had mentions from my friends featured.... and none of them tagged or linked to the page. In some cases, it was a complete misunderstanding! They weren't even talking about that particular brand in their update! And some were pretty old updates - one dated back to July 2011!

Here are some examples (Sorry to my friends I'm calling out..):

From the Today Show. This 'activity' doesn't even mention the show, just the word 'today.' And it's from July 28, 2011!

I'm sure people will have their own privacy issues with this, but I'm thinking more from a marketing viewpoint. Some of these had nothing to do with the brand pages they appeared on, but it doesn't seem like the brand has any control over what appears there or would even know what was showing up. I'd say this feature needs some work. 

Pinterest Problems (1st Edition)

I love Pinterest. I have a gazillion pins and a board for almost everything. But I have many many problems with the Pinterest boom that's happening. In fact, I've got a post coming on the Atomicdust blog on the subject. I've been holding back pointing and laughing at brands that are doing it wrong, but this.... I just couldn't help.

My problem with this Facebook post....

1. Bakers Shoes is not every brand. They are a fashion brand. Big surprise. A fashion brand is doing well on a social site that's main demo is young adult females and one of the most popular categories is apparel. Seriously folks. Just because style bloggers and recipe websites are generating a ton of traffic from Pinterest, it doesn't mean you can (or should try to).

2.  "Without even doing anything..."Wow, thanks a lot Bakers. Make my job look easy, why don't ya?! Even if they don't have a Pinterest account (I couldn't find a branded one, but I didn't search that much...), they still have content that's in one of Pinterest's top categories - Women's Apparel - and they've got a website that's {a} filled with images that people want to share and {b} built for ecommerce. It's not as simple as just signing up for Pinterest. It's not as simple as just having images and adding a 'Pin It' button to your site (does Bakers have one of those? I'm too lazy to look.). It's not as simple as 'not doing anything.'

WARNING: I'm sure this is first of many Pinterest rants I'll go on. Be prepared.