Facebook is turning into serious business

It used to be that businesses, especially small businesses, just scratched their heads when it came to Facebook. Sure a lot of people were on it, but companies were used to thinking about one main channel for reaching customers: advertising. And Facebook's advertising wasn't exactly the magic bullet -- people were so busy looking at cute kid pics that they barely noticed the lonely paid ads floating over there on the far right.

Consultants have been telling companies for years they can't afford not to be present on social networks. Now, it seems they believe them. It's not just about advertising, they've realized. It's about customer engagement, and building customer and brand loyalty. As former Observerite and social media consultant Jeff Elder says, companies can use Facebook as their own personal media "channel" to play their greatest corporate hits for their followers. He's playing host to a meetup on Monday where he'll be talking more about how companies can harness social media to connect with customers. Social media strategists Jason Keath and Corey Creed are plowing the same territory with a series of Web videos from their Social Fresh Academy training center.

All of life, it seems, is on Facebook now, for good or ill. (Even guys in the middle of causing a 16-hour police standoff). It was only a matter of time before corporations got serious about their presence there -- with or without a scientific way to measure the all-important ROI (return on investment). There's been some talk about Facebook's meteoric membership growth perhaps finally peaking. That's probably coming. But will Facebook shrivel up and go the way of MySpace? I wouldn't bet on it.

Facebook's changing your page again

Facebook's made changes to people's pages again, so that of course means some users are feeling unsettled and grumpy this morning. This time, it's the profile page they're tinkering with. (Actually, they're being smart about it for once and giving users a chance to opt into it themselves first. Click here to try the new layout now). It's designed to be more visual, with pictures of you and your friends more prominently placed. It plays up photos of friends you connect with the most. And it's designed to make your "Interests" section more visual and prominent, and more socially connected.

Jason Keath, founder of the Charlotte-born Social Fresh marketing conferences, blogged last night about how he discovered that it also lets friends edit your interests. He plays tennis, and a friend he plays with added "tennis" to the "Sports I Play" section on Jason's profile. Depending on how you've got your privacy settings arranged, it might be possible for your friends to add stuff to your profile, too.

Closest I've come to that so far is when I got a message last night saying a co-worker had updated his profile to show that he worked at the Observer with me and a bunch of other folks. I'd already had the Observer listed in my own profile as my employer. Now he shows up in there as someone I work with. My hunch is that, even if I hadn't already put the Observer as my employer, his update would have added the Observer to my profile.

It's another move by Facebook to become a more accurate online mirror of your social connections, values and interests. That naturally makes Facebook more appealing to advertisers. So, as much as Mark Zuckerberg talks about giving people more of what they want -- socialization -- it's hard not to be a little cynical and see this freshening-up of the profile page as an enticement to get more data on people's interests and values added to profiles, either by users themselves, or by their friends.

That said, I don't really know that I mind it all that much. I do like knowing what my friends (and general acquaintances) value. We all do. But as Jason rightfully notes, this does bring with it the possibility for abuse. Teenagers who tend to friend everybody at their schools look like the most likely victims. But I suspect this change will accomplish what Facebook wants. As queasy as we all get over the possible privacy implications, our social urge seems to have gotten the better of us for now. That's why Zuckerberg's sitting on a gold mine at 26.

Friend me on Facebook, and let me know what you think.

Social media: Are businesses making money?

Businesses are scrambling to get on social networks, but some skeptics are wondering if anybody's actually making money from them. The Wall Street Journal reports that a study Forrester Research conducted for the the National Retail Federation said only 7 percent of retailers surveyed cited social networks as one of their top three most effective tools for gaining new customers. (On the other hand, 90 percent cited marketing through search engines like Google). It's in keeping with a common theme I've been hearing from people who are frustrated that, despite all the buzz and the eyeballs social networks generate, reducing it to dollars and cents and measurable impact for companies is hard. It's the old ROI question -- return on investment -- that the proponents of social media marketing keep getting from prospective clients.

It's not a new question for Jason Keath. The Charlotte native is the founder of Social Fresh, a successful social media marketing conference that began in Charlotte and is now held in six cities. The reason, he says, is simple: people still aren't sure what they're doing in the space. "Most people are not seeing results because it's so new. They're still in the educating, 101 phase, how do I use these tools...But there are a few people who are the early adopters who are seeing results."

He points to Starbucks, which recently used social media to drive its Free Pastry Day campaign and brought a million people into its stores. Since you had to print out a coupon from Facebook or Twitter, or show your coupon on your mobile device, the results were easy to track. And, most importantly, the promotion also required you to buy a drink in order to get the free pastry. Starbucks' profit margin on the coffee likely more than made up for the cost of giving away the pastry. Smart. "Businesses that are investing in social media in smart ways -- they're making money," Keath says.

And so, I imagine, is Social Fresh. The conference has tapped into the seemingly insatiable appetite businesses have to try and ride the social media wave. Keath, who recently moved to New York City, says he's had serious requests from business people and marketers in 40 other cities, asking that he bring the one-day Social Fresh conference to them. His new Big Apple base gives him more networking opportunities, he says, but Charlotte and its growing business market remains important to him. Tickets for year's Social Fresh Charlotte conference, to be held August 16, are already selling briskly enough that he's thinking it could prove his biggest event yet. This year's event, he says, will have more "drill down" topics, taking attendees beyond the basics to application-type issues such as how to ramp up social media without adding staff, and forming strategy for using social media monitoring and management tools. (Registration prices jump July 15, but even with its pricey $300-range tickets, last year's Social Fresh event in Charlotte sold out).

Keath believes as the gap closes between social media's capabilities and users' skill levels, we'll see more winning campaigns and less skepticism. He's probably right. But as Web 2.0 evolves, networks and concepts rise and fall so quickly that it's hard to tell what's coming next. We're headed for territory none of us has ever visited. It's a thrilling thought. But it's also scary. Just ask anybody in the newspaper industry.