How to alienate your Facebook audience

Last night, I was searching for the Facebook ‘page’ and ‘group’ of a freelance PR and marketing networking website that I have a profile on. The website appears to be moderately successful, judging by the number of individuals listed.

When I found the correct page and group, I was surprised to see that each had only three and two members respectively. As my mouse hovered over the ‘join’ button on the group profile, I saw the list of ‘related groups’ that the administrator had chosen. I immediately decided against it. Why?

Consider the message your ‘related groups’ send about your organisation

As you know, when you join a Facebook group, it shows up on your personal profile for your ‘friends’ and networks to see. If I had joined and they had then visited this group to see what I was supporting, they too would have noticed the list of related groups. These include a number of very political and right-wing causes, which I do not advocate and do not want to be seen to.

Facebook is in the interesting position of being a ‘cross-over’ social network. By this, I mean it began as a means of personal expression, but has gradually attracted the attention of businesses and organisations as they have realised its marketing potential. In addition, our ‘friends’ are not just our friends; they often include work colleagues and business contacts too.

If they’re not relevant, separate your personal interests from those of your business

The administrator of this particular group has made an error by confusing his organisation’s interests with those of his own. He’s alienated a vast majority of an audience that would certainly have an interest in the group and its aims, but not his personal causes and preferences. They should be kept to his individual profile for his own contacts to see.

This is currently a wasted opportunity and shows a surprising lack of foresight from a network that should, in theory, know all about PR and how best to market itself. It should replace the current groups with links to groups that really are related, of use and of interest to its potential audience. Then the network might see its Facebook membership numbers grow.

I’ve had a quick look online to see if there was any guidance concerning Facebook use for companies, in terms of marketing. Most of what I could find only concerned how to protect themselves in the face of employee Facebook use. If you know of any good guides, add a comment to share them here.

Book: ‘Eats, shoots and leaves’

I’m not one of those people who’s averse to using an exclamation mark. I also like commas, apostrophes and all the other types of punctuation. I don’t apologise if this sounds a bit geeky; I write for a living, so it’s right that I have an interest in how to use them to their best effect.

So, I’ve just started reading Lynne Truss‘s book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves (2003). It’s been on my mind to get hold of a copy for a little while, as it received quite a mixed reception when it was first published. Okay, it may not be for everyone, but I’m really enjoying it. The book’s a very interesting, curious account of modern-day applications of punctuation and where it all stemmed from.

It’s not an in-depth history of the development of each mark, but more of a cheerful narration on where many of them started and why they’re so necessary to our understanding of the written word. Leading on from that, the book also mentions how punctuation has contributed to different interpretations of texts, such as the Bible (even if it is a very simplified explanation!).

Truss’s tongue-in-cheek style is self-deprecating and observes the little quirks that, I suspect, many writers suffer from. If you always comment on badly-punctuated notices and signs to long-suffering friends and family (or just to your inner self, because they already refuse to come out with you), you’ll like this too.

Read some reviews and buy it online from the wonderful Amazon.

‘Green computing’: not an oxymoron

I’m conscious about the footprint I leave on the environment and am always interested in ways to reduce it further. This applies to both my everyday life and my work (I use a green web host). As a freelancer who works mostly from home, I don’t have to worry about a carbon-emitting trip to and from an office. However, due to this and the fact I write copy for websites, I rely on having my computer on nearly all day, every day.

So, I was interested to read Leo Hickman’s article, ‘How green is your computer?’. It provides some interesting background to the efforts that computing giants such as Google and Intel are making to reduce the effects of computing on the environment. The article leads in with some research on the carbon generated every time someone runs a Google search. While the results appear to be in dispute currently, they do make you think. I don’t know about you, but I often find it all too easy to just sit at my (small, clean, quiet) laptop without really thinking about what’s powering it.

I joined up to the Clean Energy Project some weeks ago (you may have seen the Tweet if you follow me on Twitter). This project harnesses the power of idle computers around the world to carry out calculations that will help to identify organic molecules for efficient solar cells. By sharing this task and using computers that are already on, emissions are reduced significantly. Something similar in the UK is the government-funded GRID Computing Now! initiative.

Other interesting organisations (both US based) include the Climate Savers Computing Initiative and Greener Computing, which is an environmentally-responsible computing news site. I’ve had a look for some similar organisations closer to home, but with no luck.

However, here are some other resources that might be of interest (although there’s not much out there that’s very recent). If you know of any other useful sites or articles, send ’em over.  Do you have any tips  for other freelancers or people working from home? Send them too!

‘Thoughtful, investigative pieces don’t work on the web’

An interesting article on the Guardian’s website today. Aida Edemariam looks at the issue of search on the internet and how this influences online writing in contrast to offline articles.

This, of course, links in to how content for the web must be structured differently in general. Unfortunately, she thinks it makes ‘depressing reading’, interpreting it as meaning that ‘long, thoughtful, investigative pieces don’t work [on the web]’.

‘Write great content’

She quotes Paul Roach, the Guardian’s head of SEO, who says that for successful search results, ‘you just have to write great content’. Good advice. She then refers to the following advice from Jakob Nielsen:

“Stick to simple presentation formats in all ways: a logical progression of the story, mainly active sentences, simple words, short sentences, and a plain, scrolling page. Also, keep people looking down the page by scattering attractive elements throughout the page in the form of subheads and bulleted lists.”

Edemariam concludes that: ‘Short pieces work. Lists work even better. Long, thoughtful, investigative pieces don’t.’

Help your readers, don’t dismiss them

I think this is a misleading opinion. Of course long, thoughtful pieces wouldn’t work online in the same structure as they would in print. But because they need to be presented differently, it doesn’t mean they won’t work at all.

Break the article down into shorter paragraphs and more pages if necessary. Use subheadings to make it easier to navigate and read. It’s hard to read large sections of unbroken text on screen.

It isn’t a bad thing to use simple words where you can. Do you need to use long, difficult words to get your message across, or to justify yourself as a writer? Remember, your article is available to a global audience, many of whom do not have English as a first language. Don’t make it more difficult than it has to be.

Use the web to your advantage

Finally, use the internet’s features to present your argument in a more interactive and interesting way. Provide links to useful resources, for example. Help your readers and reinforce your points!

The web offers new opportunities to illustrate your communications in different ways. It’s not an obstacle to intelligent thinking or writing.

British English or American English?

Jakob Nielsen recently covered the issue of which English language variant to use in one of his recent Alertbox emails. This topic usually interests me or bugs me in equal measure (but for different reasons).

I’ve written for companies that want to use British English and for those that prefer American English. As Nielsen points out, it’s not just a case of changing the spellings. It’s about terminology and more. He provides some useful tips, as well as guidance on which version to use.

As ever, it boils down to your website’s target audience, which is your first consideration in any type of communication. However, your choice is also influenced to some extent by how you want to portray yourself or your company. That is, as an international business or a regional one.

Nielsen also explains how using the incorrect version can alienate the people you’re trying to speak to. As he says, ‘language matters’. Visitors will make assumptions about a company or product based on the variant used.

Finally, he says to be consistent in your choice, which refers to a source of constant annoyance for me! Switching between the two shows ‘poor attention to detail’ and a poor grasp of the English language, whichever version you choose.