Back to the usual 3 of the best this week (Even though it has been another exciting day in politics!) This week we look at 3 stories that will improve your knowledge on using Facebook in your Social Media campaigns.

3 of the best

Whiteboard Friday – Facebook’s Open Graph WON’T Replace Google

A really interesting look at the differences between Facebook’s Open Graph and how it compares to Google’s search algorithm. It seems to me that a combination of these two sets of data will ultimately give you the best results, certainly as Open Graph has a fairly narrow focus.

18 Dos and Don’ts Of Usability On The Web

18 really good tips on presenting your web presence. This equally applies to anything you do with Social Media. Don’t add millions of tabs to your Facebook page, people just wont click them!

7 Scientific Ways to Promote Sharing on Facebook

KISS, Keep it simple and sharable! A great motto to always keep in mind when doing any social media activity. Sharing is at the heart of any good campaign so make it as easy as possible and worthwhile for your fans to share your content.

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Goldfish Obstacle-Course Ad Changes Our Perception of Most Boring Pet

Drench are great at making fun and interesting adverts remember this one?

Farmville Maker is Hemorrhaging Players

We have looked at Farmville before, interesting to see perhaps support for this social network behemoth is wavering. The game is no longer clogging up news feeds and that may be affecting the amount of people playing it. I wonder if this will happen to all Facebook games or if this is just a reflection on Farmville.

If Mario Was Designed in 2010

Some great observational humour! It also goes back to what we have said before on how shoe horning social features into your game does not make it a social experience.

A look at some of the week’s goings on with politics and social media. Also how a drunken night caused a leak of epic proportions and that some videogames aren’t making us smarter.

3 of the West(minster)

Has the web registered?

How much impact has Facebook had on voting registrations? Not perhaps the millions it could have had but still a step in the right direction. What a lot of this says to me is that a TV Event can happen over night and is expected in politics at this time of year. But social media requires much more time and longer relationships.

Who has David Cameron been talking to?

After several anecdotes from David Cameron on people he had spoken to up and down the country a meme was quickly formed on Twitter. Some clever chap then turned this into a random generator for Cameron anecdotes. A great example of how you can quickly tap in to the popularity of an idea.

Yahoo! UK Elections 2010

Yahoo are promoting their Election coverage with this funny yet worrying video. “much people don’t know much about politics!” food for thought.

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BBC: Brain training doesn’t train brain

Turns out the hugely successful Brain Training game wasn’t making us smarter, who’d of thunk it? I guess I should get back to those books instead then…only the pop up ones mind you.

This Is Apple’s Next iPhone

This amazing story of how an Apple engineer lost his prototype new iPhone and it ended up all over the tech blogs. For a company that are infamous for their high levels of secrecy this is a truly a major gaffe!

School District Allegedly Snapped Thousands of Student Webcam Spy Pics

I’m not sure how anyone decided that spying on students while they are at home was a good idea. As crazy as this story is it does bring home how easily our privacy can be invaded. How easy is it for someone to get access into your life? How much information do you put out there voluntarily.

In last weeks budget Allister Darling said there would be a tax break for the games industry similar to that offered for the film industry.

Firstly I would like to say a big congratulations to the games industry, this sort of recognition in the tax system is long overdue! There was some great lobbying from both the developer trade body, TIGA, and the publisher trade body, ELSPA. Whilst their, and others, contributions where invaluable and influential in this change I think it is worth highlighting how some MPs got constitutions and members of the public to back the cause.

Tom Watson, the MP for West Bromwich East, set up a Facebook group called “Gamers Voice.” the group has just under 17 thousands fans and was created to give UK Gamers a place to voice their opinions and be a part of a campaign to make gaming more accepted across traditional media and politics.

The group have shared information and opinions on events, such as Games Based Learning Conference 2010, and and also incorporated live blogging for those that could not make it.

Seeing as how even big brands often only get a few thousand fans and a smattering of conversation this is a very respectable achievement. It shows that a network like Facebook often works best when you are rallying people around a cause or campaign as opposed to a catchall, no real purpose fan page.

I’m not saying you need to polticise your Facebook page but you should make it emotive. Rather than say becoming a fan of “Qube Media” you should be joining a page that says “I think Social Media can change the world”. It’s emotive and creates discussion points as opposed to just sticking in your brand name and putting on a few photos.

These social spaces need social content and more than just pushing out your information you need to create discussion points for your fans and then encourage and stimulate those conversations.

Hats off to Tom Watson for his great work on this and his continued support for the games industry and digital economy as a whole.

On a side note I recommend you check out a couple of his 5 second unofficial campaign videos. Great stuff!

Video 1: Keeping you safe

Video 2: Keeping you warm

Before you dash off and put some pack shots and a link to your micro-site on your Facebook take a step back and consider some of the following:

1. Who is your Facebook page aimed at?

Notice I asked who your Facebook page is aimed at, not who is your product aimed at. A product can have many target audiences so making a one size fits all page may end up not appealing strongly enough to anyone but making it too specific may alienate too many. Make sure you know who you want to target so you can tailor the page to best meet their needs.

2. What interests that audience?

Knowing who you are targeting is just the first step, different audiences require different communication strategies. Some audiences will want facts about the product (how much is it, when is it out etc) others may be interested in a behind the scenes look at how it was created and others will be more interested in engaging conversations around the product and its subject matter. For example Wii Fit users may want to talk about their progress and other fitness tips and Lost fans may want to talk about their show theories and ideas.

3. Do you need to create content?

Creating content, such as videos, is a great way to get people talking about your Facebook presence and while it may not cost the earth you may find that time spent creating content could be better spent engaging. As just discussed different audiences have different needs and you may find that putting all your time and effort into responding to every question that needs answering and stimulating conversations is a much better use of your resources. If you do decide to create content make sure you still keep involved with the community or at the very least continue to make great content.

4. Is this community for your product or your brand?

It seems a fundamental question to the creation of your Facebook page but one that frequently isn’t answered. Successful products these days are often turned into a franchise, iterated on or spun out into other products. If this is the plan for your product why try to create a community from scratch with every release? Creating a brand community can spread the news of more than just one product and build a fan base over many years not months. That said creating a umbrella community for your brand can lead to the page being too broad and you may want each product to have its own bespoke page.

5. How will people find out about your page?

We all want to believe the things we do are so good that everyone will just turn up to get involved, but that isn’t how the world works. You may want to create great content that people will share with their friends, word of mouth may be free but the cost is in the content. You may decide that driving people through targeted advertising is your best bet. Leading people to your Facebook page instead of your micro-site may be a better method for your traditional advertising also. You could also use traditional outlets and influencers to spread the word but as before make sure people have a good reason to do this.

Simply put, know your audience, know what they want and then give it to them. It seems so obvious yet so many people overlook it. Facebook is just another platform and not the be all and end all, you may decide you are better off creating your own community, or using another social network. Do what is best for your product or brand and not just what everyone else is doing.

5 of the best

Data.gov.uk

Probably the biggest news of the last week was the government launching data.gov an online platform for all its publicly available data. On a basic level this means you could search the site rather than submit a request under the Freedom of Information Act. On a more exciting level it means developers can use this data to create interesting applications and websites. Check out a couple of websites that have already been built Safer Streets and Where Does My Money Go.

Test Tube

Just like Google uses its Labs to show off new ideas and experiments Youtube is doing the same with Test Tube. Insights for Audience and Comments search are really useful for finding out what the Youtube audience is interested  in and talking about.

Preparing for the Launch of the Games and Applications Dashboards

Prepare for another change to how you use Facebook. The current Facebook interface for applications and games has always felt a little makeshift. Now Facebook have created a special dashboard for users to get all of their information in one place. Hopefully this will mean I stop getting ugly duckling gifts on my wall, thanks mum.

Does your company really want to hang out with me?

A succinct and spot on observation of how some businesses still use Social Media. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard Social Media referred to as “A marketing channel” or “promotional tool”. Stop trying to push your message for just one minute and actually listen to what the people you are shouting at want to say.

Your State of the Union

Even with data.gov it looks as though our government is still playing catchup with America. Not only will this years Citizens address be streamed live on Youtube, but users will be able to submit questions to President Obama! Users can then vote on their favourite questions and some of the highest rated will be asked to him the following week. Now that is Social Media!

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Charlie Simpson -  Just Giving

This young man wanted to raise some money for the people of Haiti with a sponsored bike ride. He set himself a target of £500, a whopping target for any one child to raise (I think the most I managed was £50 for a junior fun run.) He has now raised over £160k not bad…not bad at all Charlie. An amazing achievement, but I wouldn’t hire him as my financial forecaster.

Music spies a Spotify sunrise

We are big fans of Spotify here in the Qube office, but have often wondered whether or not it is financially viable. Well it seems the answer is yes and no. Other than the UK and Spain subscription levels are good, but us Brits don’t mind persevering through adverts to get ourselves a bargain. Personally I would like to see more features for my £10 a month. What would get you to upgrade to a Spotify premium account?

Billy Moyers interviews David Simon (creator of the Wire)

If you are a big fan of The Wire this is a must watch. If you haven’t seen it yet this video does contain spoilers…so don’t watch it, just go buy the complete box set here (Do we get commission for this?). You can thank me later .

Functional – why simple, small and cheap appeals to all

Some great examples of why cheap and simple works! Sometimes the best solution is the simplest.

TV shows on Youtube

Not sure how new this is but I just found that Channel 4 and 5 have put all their on demand shows on Youtube. Seems like a smart idea to me. It is a shame that they have disabled comments on the videos though, would be a great way to create conversations and get feedback on episodes.

5 of the best

Old people talking about Facebook Exodus

Apparently teenagers are leaving Facebook as it is too full of adults, who wants their mum checking their Facebook wall after all. Anecdotally I don’t see much evidence to back this up, most teenagers I know cant seem to get enough Facebook! There are also a bunch of Youtube opinion videos from teenagers for some interesting insight. One thing I would say to many of those complaints against Facebook is that it is just a tool. A tool that is only as good as what you do with it, so if someones status updates annoy you just un-friend them. (more insightful Facebook advice is available on request )

The Whuffie Bank

A virtual bank, but not for your money. The Whuffie Bank is building a new currency based on our reputations. Twitter and Facebook are making our online reputation really important, we all excerpt our own influence over groups of people in different ways. This site offers you a way of turning your reputation into a currency that can be traded and used for … well whatever someone is willing to give you for it. I first scoffed at this site and thought “It will never take off”, but then I tried to be a bit more open minded about it. The money we use today is just a system we all believe in and use, what is to say a new virtual currency couldn’t exist and do the same? Food for thought.

YouTube to introduce live sports coverage

Youtube will start showing live sports shows, only Cricket for now but this marks an interesting move for the video sharing site. Obviously this means you can watch it anywhere without a TV licence, but what does it mean for the product? One of Youtube’s main features is the ability to rate and comment. This could be the beginning of live sport becoming social in a big way.

Virtual game purchases benefit Haiti Relief Fund

The recent events in Haiti have been tragic and is something we all need to help with. Whenever such atrocities happen companies often donate large sums of money, but more importantly those companies use their influence to encourage others to help. Hugely popular Facebook game Farmville has recently added some virtual items that can be purchased to support the Haiti Relief Fund. I think this is a great idea and something all people and businesses of influence should be encouraged to do. Think about how you can use your influence to help others when they need it most.

Manchester United bans players from using Twitter

After some high profile Twitter gaffs from professional footballers Man Utd have banned their players from having a presence on social networking sites. It is a shame that the club feels the need to control the PR of their players so heavily. The nice thing about footballers being allowed to use these networks is it actually made them appear as real people, with real faults. It also gave them direct contact with the fans who help pay their wages, something that is surprisingly lacking in the modern game.

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Silicone ‘clay’ lets consumers modify troublesome products

If the product you bought doesn’t quite fit the bill, maybe you can customise it? This stuff looks a bit like silly putty to me, but hey maybe it is just what I need to fix my action mans broken arm.

Crayola Color Chart, 1903-2010

How Crayola’s colours have evolved over the year. I like cool looking diagrams .

Crappy Taxidermy

This is a weird and slightly creepy site. Probably not for everyone and the title pretty much says it all.

Love Money

I have been whining about lack of really good online banking tools for a while, it looks like the banks aren’t listening but at least someone is! Love Money requires you put in your account name and password (which is a little scary) but in return offers you a financial breakdown of your spending in a really useful way. You can even set personal savings goals for it to track. Definitely one to watch.

Irrational Behaviour

For anyone interesting in videogames especially those create by Ken Levine (System Shock, Bioshock, X-com) should go check out Irrational games new website and should definatly check out their new podcast. A great example of how to do a company podcast and how to make it interesting.

My mum is an addict. It isn’t drugs or drink or anything taboo no this is much worse. My Mum is addicted to Farmville.

For those of you that live in caves without internet (how did you get to this blog!) Farmville is a hugely popular game on the even huger social networking site Facebook. How huge? Last month Farmville had over 26m users, and that was a slow Christmas month! Last I checked Facebook had around 300m users, meaning that Farmville is being played by around 10% of those people!

Players of Farmville spend most of their time Farming. Ok you’re not asked to get up at 4am to clean the pigs out, but you must look after your crops and animals and try to sell them to make more money. If Farmville was just that though it wouldn’t have trounced Harvest Moon for the Wii, a better and more involved farming game (although it does cost a few quid more).

What has made Farmville such a storming success is the social basis it is built from. Before you have even planted your first crop you are encouraged to gift a farming item to a friend, whether or not they play the game. The more friends you have playing the more likely you are to get daily gifts in return for your farm.

The game is designed to be played in short bursts over a long period of time. With some tasks requiring you to return on a daily basis.

So how did my mum end up playing this game? The age old water cooler talk. Unless you work in a particularly geeky office video games are not really a hot button issue around the water cooler, but since Facebook has gone mainstream so has its games.

The water-cooler talk once reserved for celeb gossip and soap news has now been taken over by a game. As a gamer this makes me very happy (even if the game in question isn’t that good.)

My mum is addicted not so much to the game but to the social experience it offers. She speaks to her work friends online and at work and while sometimes the conversations are about virtual farming they are often about other things. Farmville has given my mum a way in to the office conversations and also an excuse for her to be connected to her friends.

Social networks and social gaming have gone mainstream people. My mum says so!

I am running out of collective commons images of the number 5! Might have to start making some myself. Here are this week’s 5 best social media stories and 5 other things of interest.

5 of the best

SMEs are smarter than you think

It is great to see so many SMEs using social media! In this day and age I think you would be a fool not too and it is an area that can really define you as a company. Social media isn’t free and doing it right will cost time, but the benefits are there for all to see.

November Data on Facebook’s US Growth by Age and Gender: Young Men Following the Women

A huge increase in the amount of males signing up to Facebook last month. Any ideas why? Tom in the office thinks it is because of Movember (being that girls cant enter and all) but it still seems a bit much to me! Please tell me if you know why

No Comment

I love this article (Kudos Hellogames). A really interesting perspective on what it is like for a company see their product talked about online and all the range of emotions. I went to the Eurogamer Expo mentioned and played the game with a lovely Hellogames man, and I thought Joe Danger was amazing! So put me down for a copy and here is some more positive word of mouth for you.

GiffGaff

People powered mobile phone network. Interesting. At the moment they also have free internet browsing, might drop a couple of these sim cards into some Christmas stockings .

Online portal gathers wedding photos from guests

Really interesting idea. You can already do this sort of thing with Facebook, Flickr or even Google Wave, but those services usually require a bit of tech savvy and an account! A good social service to bring all the memories from one of the most important days of your life together.

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My real name is David Jones

I believe we have posted about “Letters of Note” before. This one is well worth checking out .

Watson urges action on “UK Games Council”

I think it is about time Government took the UK Games Industry a bit more seriously. There is a lot more to the industry than warping our kids minds with guns and violence .

Google Me

This is like an American Dave Gorman. I have only watched a short amount of it, so will someone please let me know if it is worth watching all the way though .

Cute Overload

This is CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTE!

The Infinite Monkey Cage

A new podcast from the BBC that is somewhere between comedy and science. I have enjoyed the first 2 episodes so far and I have learnt some really interesting things, there is a jurrasic revalation on the first epsiode that shocked me to the core!

Here are Qube’s favourite tweets from the last week.

@Glennw’s favourite tweets

@Kerb: The Gap’s agency is completely on bland with this toe-curling vanilla #viral campaign http://bit.ly/2OSe7E (threw up in my mouth)

@gazo69: Jenson and Hamilton team mates http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport… FANTASTIC

@misterwallace: I suppose what I love most about Trisha, is that we can all relate to the problems discussed. http://yf

@Nijay’s favourite tweets

@carlhodler: Great Facebook campaign from IKEA – if a bit naughty, encourages users to wrongly tag pics. http://bit.ly/3c4kTY

@brightonargus: Has The Sun swung it for Mr Brown? http://bit.ly/316OFR

@kaysexton Dear BBC Radio 4 website, it is an historic week not a historic one. Got that? Good grief.

@MrTomasz’s favourite tweets

@sophiehenson: excited about my crayon allowance. CRAYON ALLOWANCE???!!! brilliant. you are the man @mrtomasz

@FionaJane’s favourite tweets

@nijay @fionajane you’ll like this…http://bit.ly/2JvcL2 (via @andyheadworth)

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3 Social Media Lessons From the Restaurant World

Some good advice for restauranteurs on how to make the most of Social Media.

250,000 strong Facebook group finds owner of lost camera

The power of online social networks. A great example of how powerful a tool Social Media can be. While impressive this could have all been avoided by just putting your address on the memory card

Social Media is not your marketing strategy

Using social media and taking part is a whole new way of running your business and shouldn’t just be defined by your marketing team and advertising budgets.

The 7 Harsh Realities of Social Media Marketing

So much truth! There are no shortcuts in Social Media.

Tweetlevel

A great tool for establishing who the influencers are on twitter…it is also really useful for trying to one up your friends and colleagues.

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Diary: Malcolm Gladwell

This made me giggle

Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell

This story has been causing a bit of an online stir over the last few weeks. Some really shady abuse of a social network.

Here’s how the web will look in five years according to Google

Interesting thoughts and if anyone knows what is going down online it’s Google! Just think 5 years ago most of us weren’t using Youtube or Facebook…and twitter didn’t exist! Think how much they have transformed how you use your computer and prepare for that all to get turned upside down again.

Tom likes graffiti, he tells me there should be more stories about graffiti on our blog. I tell him “go find me some then!!” and he did. I hope that was an exciting story for you and gives you some insite into how this blog gets put together…..insite

Baby Badger

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww gimme!