Tag Archives: friends

Who’s boarding the train to FriendFeed?

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friendfeed-logoI created a FriendFeed account a few months back but haven’t done much with it since. I liked the idea of linking all my social profiles together and getting all my online ducks in the same pond, but just didn’t feel like FriendFeed was really where most of my friends were. I had created a strong network on Twitter and didn’t want to have to go manually re-subscribe to all my Twitter pals on FriendFeed (and many of them didn’t have FriendFeed accounts). I liked the idea of some of the features (being able to comment on what someone tweets, bookmarks, or posts, for example) but couldn’t get into the habit of visiting the site more than maybe once a week. Even with the redesign that just launched, it just wasn’t sticky enough for me.

However, in the last few days I’ve had an influx of subsciption requests (currently my FriendFeed account is protected). Many of these have come from people whom I’ve nurtured relationships with on Twitter and I’m happy to let them subscribe and get a fuller picture of what I’m doing online. Some subscription requests seem fairly dubious and spammy and I’ve hit the ignore button on those. It’s not just me who’s noticed the increase:

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So what’s driving this spike in FriendFeed interest? Is there another Ashton/CNN race that I’m unaware of? Or is Jesse Newhart right and the “cool kids” are now moving away from Twitter as it becomes more mainstream, commercialized, spammy? He argues that FriendFeed offers a “more coherent conversation” and “better aggregation of content,” but I’m not entirely sold.

On the one hand, FriendFeed just seems like too much information for me. Follow someone like Robert Scoble and your FriendFeed stream turns into an endless aggregation of people liking and commenting on every single thing he posts. True, I don’t HAVE to follow anyone, just as with Twitter, but trying to keep the noise level down on FriendFeed means being very selective and not following any of the “big guns” who post prolificly and have legions of fans/harpies vying for attention via “likes” and comments. And it all comes through so fast that even though I follow just a tiny, tiny handful of people right now, it’s cluttered.

On the other hand, FriendFeed isn’t enough informaiton – meaning that for most of the people I subscribe to, it’s nothing more than a regurgitation of their Twitter stream. Why shouldn’t I just keep using Twitter, then? FriendFeed might add the occasional Flickr image or Delicious save, but for me, it’s mostly just Tweets.

To be fair, I’m sure that I’m not really using FriendFeed “the right way.” I haven’t set up or joined groups yet and I don’t have my feed segmented. I really haven’t taken the time to force myself to become comfortable with it, and maybe I won’t have to for a while.

I’m not sure if this increased interest means that the winds are changing and people will start rushing to FriendFeed soon. But if the point of social media is to “go where the conversations are” then we may all be heading toward FriendFeed sooner than we think.

Do you use FriendFeed? Is it a substitute of compliment to Twitter for you? How do you sort through all the information it provides?

Social Media Smackdown: Mountain Hardwear vs. The North Face

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It’s time for the second installment of Social Media Smackdown, and this time, I’m putting two Northern California-based purveyors of fine outdoor performance clothing to the test: Mountain Hardwear and The North Face. As an owner of several pieces of gear from these two brands, I can attest that I wouldn’t be as comfortable skiing or hiking without them. But how are they engaging with their fans online through social media? Let’s find out:

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Round 1: Twitter

It looks like both brands are just starting out on Twitter: @hardwear and @TheNorthFace. Each has a modest number of fans and not too many tweets. Here’s the breakdown:

Mountain Hardwear: Following 476, Followers 1,121, Tweets 72
Mountain Hardwear started Tweeting at the end of 2008. Even though the account doesn’t identify who is tweeting on behalf of the company, the account really seems to have a personal voice and it’s more than just pushing out product news. There’s a good mix of replies and retweets in the stream, and Mountain Hardwear does a good job of sharing a variety of content: links to gear reviews, videos and blog posts from outdoor/adventure bloggers. They also highlight awards and accolades not only for their products but also for their company (named one of America’s Best Places to Work). Mountain Hardwear also tried to start a Backcountry Cookbook and asked fans to DM them with recipes. However, since it doesn’t appear to be following back most of its fans, followers wouldn’t be able to send  a DM to the account. Mountain Hardwear’s stats from Twitter Friends show that Mountain Hardwear earns a CQ (conversation quotient) score of 50 percent and relatively high LQ (link quotient) and RQ (retweet quotient) scores of 16.4 percent and 44.4 percent, respectively. A new account, but one that shows good promise in actively and authentically engaging with fans, and it’s very focused on conversation and not necessarily marketing.

The North Face: Following 327, Followers 1,839, Tweets 91
The North Face has been on Twitter since October 2007, so the fact that they’ve only posted 91 tweets in that time immediately indicated to me that maybe the brand wasn’t too engaged with Twitter. It seems as though the account’s activity has picked up lately, however. And the tweetstream also has a personal voice to it. @replies to followers clarify differences between products, give instructions on how to return a product for repair, and even help a potential intern with where to send a resume. Tweets include alerts on new store openings and coupons, product announcements, and events. Overall, the marketing is kept minimal and a lot of time is spent replying to and engaging with followers. Twitter Friends shows a CQ of 58.9 percent, LQ of  46.4 percent, and no retweets.

Point: I’d say this one’s a draw. Both brands are doing a good job of being personable and accessible through Twitter and connecting with fans while not merely trying to push out their own content.

Round 2: Facebook

Mountain Hardwear’s Facebook page currently has more than 3,800 fans. They have 12 photo albums with some fantastic shots of “Mountain Hardwear Athletes in Action” but there are also photos of staffers at events at the company headquarters– really giving a personal feel to the company. The discussion area of the page shows good engagement from fans. Mountain Hardwear posts questions like, “What’s your favorite climb?” and “What’s your favorite recovery food?” They’ve integrated their blog’s RSS feed to post notes to their Facebook page and posted more than 100 links to climbing news, articles about outdoor adventure travel, and blog posts on conservation events. Fans are very engaged on the page, asking questions, posting product line suggestions, and uploading pictures of themselves in MHW gear.

The North Face has ten times as many fans, at 37,000+ (although The North Face is much more widely distributed and sells a greater variety of attire, including less-technical gear). Five photo albums on the page showcase The North Face-sponsored outdoor events and fans have uploaded close to 100 of their own pictures. Some sponsored events are posted, including an Endurance Challenge.They also have an RSS feed of their blog so that posts appear as notes on its fan page, and The North Face uses notes to push out sales promotions such as free gifts and discounts at its outlet stores exclusively for Facebook fans who print out the note and bring it to the store. Additionally, some of The North Face’s Outlet Stores have just started their own individual Facebook fan pages (The North Face Store Minneapolis, for example).

Point: Ever so slightly, The North Face gets the point here. Both brands have a solid Facebook presence, but The North Face’s innovative use of exclusive coupons and deals for its Facebook fans via the notes feature gives them the edge.

mhwRound 3: Web site

Both brands’ Web sites start with landing pages that ask you to select your country/language. Both sites are aesthetically pleasing. The major difference is that The North Face sells gear directly through its Web site, so it is set up as more of an eCommerce site. Mountain Hardwear’s products are sold through distribution and so there’s a prominent “Where to Buy” link at the top that directs customers to dealer Web sites.

The Mountain Hardwear site includes a link to “The Expedition Republic” social community, but the site takes an interminably long time to load. BUT, if you can hang with it, it’s a truly awesome landing page. It almost comes across looking like a 3D video game, where you can click different parts of a landscape to zoom in and get a glimpse into an online community of hikers, climbers and outdoor enthusiasts. Once you’re in the community (it’s built on the Ning platform), each member has a profile page and can post photos, videos, discussion questions, or join groups. There are currently more than 1,200 members.  Additionally, the Mountain Hard Wear site links to a company blog, Hardwear Sessions, which is more of an outdoor adventure blog than a company or product blog. It features posts from Adventure Journalists and information about rock climbing clinics, mixed in with a few product posts (“Mountain Hardwear Gear Featured on the Amazing Race”, e.g.).

The North Face site is designed to sell, and most of it is devoted to products. Customers can submit product reviews on the site. There’s a brief “Explore” menu with links to Expeditions, Videos, Downloads and Feeds. The North Face has several blogs and a podcast, and RSS feeds are available for all of them. One blog follows The North Face climbing team around the globe, another focuses on endurance challenges, a third dedicated to The North Face gear. Feeds to various “Expedition Dispatches” blogs follow specific athletes on their adventures. You can also sign-up for e-mail updates on the site. There are dozens of videos on The North Face site, grouped by type of activity. Overall, while there’s a lot of content, it is very dispersed and fractured. You have to leave the site to visit all of The North Face’s blogs–which are at different domains–and that’s if you can find the links to the blogs, which are buried on the site. There’s nothing on the site that engenders a sense of community among customers or fans, and there are no obvious links to find The North Face at their other online properties like Twitter or Facebook.

Point: This one goes to Mountain Hardwear, for building a focused blog and an incredible Ning community for its fans to connect and share – and making all of these features easily located from the home page.

Round 4: Other Social Sites (Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, etc.)

The North Face has a branded YouTube channel with 63 videos and the most viewed video has more than 9,000 hits. Mountain Hardwear also has a YouTube channel, with 26 videos (most-viewed has 5,000+ hits). The North Face didn’t have a Flickr page that I could find, but Mountain Hardwear had both a Flickr profile and group. They invite people to post pictures showing creative use of their gear to the group photo pool. More than 130 pictures are posted to the group, and over 1,100 images are on the company’s profile. I did not detect a Myspace presence for either company (and honestly, I don’t think that many in their target audience frequent that site).

Point: I’ll go with Mountain Hardwear here, although it’s close. The North Face essentially loses out due to their lack of presence on Flickr, where Mountain Hardwear has come up with some creative ways to get its customers/fans involved by photographing their use of MHW products.

The Final Verdict: It looks like the tally favors Mountain Hardwear, by a smidgen. Both brands are to be commended for embracing social media and engaging with fans on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and YouTube. The North Face has a more diverse customer base, while Mountain Hardwear caters to more technical and focused outdoor enthusiasts, so a dedicated Ning community devoted to mountaineering expeditions may work for them but not for The North Face. Regardless, these two brands aren’t afraid to use emerging social media tools to find and connect with fans.

I think I’ll throw on my Mountain Hardwear base layer and The North Face waterproof shell and head to… the grocery store. Sometimes everyday is not an adventure.

Previous Smackdown: Magic Hat vs. Bell’s Beer

Image via Flickr user Domingo Sandoval

Is Facebook the new AOL?

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exitWhen I was in middle school, EVERY family I knew that was on the Internet was on AOL. It seemed like the only way you could get online. Everyone had AOL e-mail addresses, AOL Instant Messenger handles, and those somewhat stalker-enabled AOL Profiles. There were some alternatives, like CompuServe, but essentially you were on it because everyone else was.

Fast Forward 10 or 15 years and enter Facebook. Lots of people are joining the site because, well, everyone else is on the site. People in my parents’ generation have started to join because they’re being left out of information and conversations that happen on the site. Grandparents are joining Facebook because that’s where pictures of their grandkids get posted. My husband calls his parents in Pennsylvania to fill them in on the health of a neighbor who recently suffered a stroke. My in-laws live 500 yards from this man, but since my husband has friended his daughter on Facebook, he knows much more about how the neighbor is recovering than my in-laws do – despite that fact that we live 250 miles away. If you’re not on Facebook, you’re missing out.

But Facebook made changes earlier this month to its home page and the way information is presented. It now emphasizes friends’ status updates and photo posts and makes it hard to tell if they’ve joined a group, friended someone you know, became a fan of something, or installed an application. You have to visit their profile page for that. The process for things virally spreading through Facebook has been hampered, in my opinion. And according to TechCrunch, a new Facebook poll shows that 94 percent of Facebook users don’t like the changes, either.

In many industries, customers can “vote with their feet.” If they don’t like something, they leave. They take their business elsewhere. As alternatives to AOL began sprouting up, people began doing just that. They opted for a more open Internet, better connection service, less controlled content. But with Facebook, there doesn’t seem to be that option. How do you vote with your feet when there’s nowhere to go? MySpace is old hat and has its own set of issues that make it less user-friendly than Facebook. If all your friends are on Facebook and that’s where the action is, it doesn’t make much sense to leave in protest unless you can all go somewhere together. So as much as people are griping about the homepage changes, Facebook doesn’t have a ton of incentive to revert to the old site. Where are people going to go?

Facebook has shown willingness to listen to customers in the past – notably with its Beacon advertising platform and its recent changes to its Terms of Service. And several users weren’t fans of the 2008 design change, but Facebook stuck with it (those changes were more subtle). It has the luxury right now of being the biggest game in town. But judging by what became of AOL, that’s not a position that Facebook should get too comfortable in. Eventually, if Facebook users remain unhappy, expect a newer, cooler kid to roll in and start attracting attention – and users.

Image: Flickr user Scoobyfoo

My Olivia Newton-John continuum of social media

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Everyone has seen the movie Grease, and if you haven’t, they’ve probably revoked your US citizenship by now. I think I first saw it in middle school, and I remember loving the last scene when Sandy comes out with teased-up hair, high heels, and a black leather–what was that–a jumpsuit? Sandy had multiple personalities throughout the movie, going from uptight Aussie good girl to vixen at the school carnival.

Looking across the various ways I participate in social media, I’ve noticed you can plot my social media personalities against Olivia Newton-John’s transformation in Grease.

Facebook = “Summer Nights”

At the start of the movie, Sandy shows up at Rydell High in a conservative poodle skirt and sweater set, and no one knows too much about her. I have a Facebook profile, but you can’t find it. I have the privacy settings turned up as high as they’ll go. My profile won’t come up if you search on my name (although there’s a lovely-looking Amy Mengel from outside of Chicago, apparently). I don’t show up in people’s friend lists. You can’t request to add me as a friend by entering my e-mail address. About the best you could hope for is that I’m tagged in a photo that one of our mutual friends posted. And I’m pretty careful about what photos I am tagged in.

Facebook is my inner sanctum. Maybe this comes off as sounding elitist (or terrified), but I want my friends on Facebook to be exactly that – FRIENDS. I only have about 50. People I went to college with and still talk to. Good pals I see often. Family. I don’t really count someone I shared a biology lab desk with in 8th grade as a friend. I don’t really want ex-boyfriends checking out pictures of me on vacation. I don’t want bosses or colleagues knowing what causes I’m partial to.

My Facebook personality is Sandy on her first day at Rydell High – buttoned up tight and not willing to share much with strangers, other than a very G-rated version of her summer fling: “We went strollin’, drank lemon-ayyy-ade!”

LinkedIn = “Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee (Reprise)”

At this point in the film, after the drag race between Danny and Kenickie, Sandy starts thinking about opening up more and changing her image. I actually joined LinkedIn long before Facebook, but because it was professional and not personal, I didn’t have too many qualms about sharing my information in this forum. My profile is public, I have a corporate headshot as my photo, and I have some detailed bullet points about my work experience.

As far as connections go, my general rule is that I’ve at least had to have had a conversation with the person before I’ll ask for or accept a connection. It can be an online conversation, but it has to be meaningful. Most of my connections are former classmates or colleagues, but I have a few folks on there with whom I’ve had only limited interactions. The best examples are staffing managers for companies I’ve interviewed with. I have typically followed-up a phone screen with a thank-you message on an invitation to connect via LinkedIn. I’ve stayed away from randomly connecting with people I haven’t ever engaged with before, especially those with hundreds of connections, because I don’t want to dilute my network. If one of my close connections sees that they’re a 3rd level connection to someone via me and wants me to broker an introduction, I can’t really do that if my connection is through someone that I don’t even know.

Twitter = “You’re the One that I Want”

Twitter is where I become somewhat of a floozy. I don’t protect my updates and I let just about anyone follow me. I’ll check out new followers’ profiles and if they look interesting, I’ll follow them back. I’ve gradually grown from just following a couple of friends to a TweetDeck with half a dozen categories that beeps incessantly during my work day – and I’m just scratching the surface right now (I have no idea how people manage to follow several hundred or thousand people!). I tweet probably 6-10 times a day and don’t censor much of anything. In Grease, Sandy lets it all hang out there by the end of the movie – and I’ve taken the same approach with Twitter.

I’m not sure if my social media multiple personality disorder is the right approach. I’m sure I’m probably missing out by being so buttoned down on Facebook. It’s probably true that not connecting to certain people on LinkedIn leaves some doors closed. And for all I know, crazy people from my past may have found me on Twitter by now and are intimately aware of where I ate lunch yesterday.  But for now, it works for me. I’m sure I’ll need to keep revisiting as I grow more comfortable blogging and sharing myself online. I may need to adjust my strategy. But I’m comfortable with my onlilne presence right now. It kinda goes together like ramma-lamma-ding-dong.