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Warning - Facebook is not your friend! Archives - Search Engine Marketing & Optimization
A blog for truly small businesses

Warning – Facebook is not your friend!

Another way to use Facebook instead of letting Facebook use you…

While the big boys are spending big money to set up shop and keep visitors on Facebook, spending money for ads on your Facebook Fan Page and Facebook Profile pages you can be driving traffic away from Facebook to your website!

At least until Facebook figures out that we’ve got their number :-D. The beauty is, you don’t even have to have a Facebook account (at least not yet) to do this!

How? It’s pretty simple really… add a Facebook “Like” or “Share” button to your site.

 How easy this is will depend on how your website is built but a “Like” button can be added to just about any website if you are allowed to add html code to your pages.

If you would like to do this for your own website you can create the button here: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like. You can create one button that is a link to your primary URL and insert it in all or any pages on your website or you can create a button for each link you want people to share on your website.

If you have one of our dynamic content sites, we can add a feature to your website that will automatically add “like” and/or “share” buttons to your blog posts or pages.

Need more help? Give us a call at (888) 595 3098 or visit our Contact Us page.

As I predicted – Big Business is going to own the Facebook business

Just say no to Facebook!Here is an article that supports the warnings I’ve been trying to get out to you all  –  the only businesses that will “win” on Facebook are the ones prepared to spend a lot of money (http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2010/10/stores_find_friends_on_faceboo.html ). By telling your website visitors to “follow you on Facebook” you are giving them away to your larger, better funded competitors. Even if these big box stores are not your direct competitors they ARE competing for the disposable income you want spent on YOUR products! I’m not saying don’t be on Facebook or have a link to your “page” on Facebook, at this point you almost have to, but change the rules! You can use Facebook instead of continuing to let Facebook use you. It’s not too late people – tell your friends to quit following you on Facebook and call you or text you  instead! Better yet, learn how to blog and open a dialogue on your own website with your customers. Use Facebook to bring people to your website. With today’s technology if you can make a post on Facebook you can blog on your own website I promise.

I’m not saying don’t have a Facebook page, at this point you almost “have to”. What I’m saying is be smart about it – use it to get people to your own website and keep them there. Turn your own website into a social hub. Create an environment on your own website where customers can “meet” each other and share products – give them the tools to post links on Facebook back to your website – do not do what Best Buy is doing and put all of your products on Facebook … there is no free lunch! Facebook will make you pay for the traffic you get for your products one way or another – either by charging  you a percentage of your sales or by selling advertising to your competitors…

Remember the hell of uninstalling AOL? Well, Facebook is trying to get you in the same boat

If you haven’t heard, Facebook has announced a new application that website owners can install on their websites that will “personalize” their site visitors experience by using the information you’ve made public on your facebook profile. This means all of the posts that your friends post and your photo gallery and everything else you share. Facebook’s is not offering this as a “free” tool out of the goodness of their hearts – the goal is to “own” your information and share it with people that are willing to pay for it – think about this – you will turn on the TV and go to your favorite show and see ads that say “Hi Harmony, we have selected to advertise these items to you because other 51 year old women have purchased them”. Oh, by the way, since you’re a woman and 51 you probably will see ads for things like Menopause vitamins, bladder control, anit-aging cream etc etc etc – is this the world you really want to live in? The worst part of this is that Facebook has made your info available by default – they didn’t ask you if you wanted to share this information – instead, you have to realize that they are giving it away freely and go into your facebook settings and “uncheck” the box that says “Yeah, tell the world about me”.

This guy has done a very nice matrix to help us understand the latest announcements by Facebook: http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2010/04/21/facebooks-crusade-of-colonization/

I don’t know about you but this is over the edge for me I strongly recommend you read this and take action immediately:

FACEBOOK is at it again…violating your personal information: As of today, there is a new privacy setting called “Instant Personalization” that shares data with non-facebook websites and it is automatically set to “Allow.” Go to Account > Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites and uncheck “Allow”. Please copy & repost.

Truth be told, if I weren’t in the business of assisting people to be found on the web I would cancel my account on Facebook altogether and use the newly available “social suicide” tool to remove all of my data permanently. Unfortunately, I live in a world of followers, which means that I have to help my clients navigate the waters and if their customers are using facebook they have to participate in facebook – for now. Ultimately I hope that Google will quit supporting Facebook by no longer sending their bots out to search their posts -this would immediately eliminate the “power” facebook has gained – in fact, if Google does not take this action they will help Facebook kill Google. Google is not perfect but they have built a successful business by trying to be ethical and allow us to maintain our privacy while providing tools to find the information WE CHOOSE. Sure, they sell ads and make a ton of money doing it but you ONLY see those ads when you are looking for something that they relate to. I don’t like the idea that I might come to your website looking for a saddle blanket and have an ad for Adult Diapers thrown in my face!

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