Facebook Makes Us All Social Media Novices Yet Again

In case anyone was starting to get comfy and really feel like they knew everything there was to know about social media, here comes Facebook to smack us all back into learning, testing, and experimenting mode yet again.

To my mind, nothing better illustrates how new and how quickly changing the practice of social media marketing is than the mass scramble set off among analysts, consultants, and agencies to figure out what to make of the Open Graph, social plugins, Community Pages, and all the other goodies Mark Zuckerberg and team threw at us this past week.

In one instant, everyone who thought they had social media marketing all figured out had to take a step back and evaluate how things will (or might) work within the context of Facebook’s new universe.

• How will brands make use of Community Pages? What about Community Pages about your client’s products that form outside of their control?

• What’s the new and most effective role of the now “old school” branded Facebook page?
• How can “Like/Recommend” buttons be most effectively leveraged to drive engagement?
• What about the rest of the social plugins – what role do they have and how should they be used by your clients?
• What are the privacy implications of using any of these?
• How are users going to interact with and share content in new and different ways?
• How in the world are we going to measure all this?
• And what the hell are we supposed to call “fans” now…”likers?“

The list goes on, and given Facebook’s massive and growing reach among consumers, the implications for all involved could be vast.

And lest we forget, Facebook isn’t alone in shaking all things social up: Twitter’s own eye-opening @Anywhere service is just now going live.

If you see anyone out there claiming to have all the answers to have Facebook’s (and Twitter’s) changes will impact social media marketing, please call them on it. We’re all still studying and learning, and only real campaigns and tests will demonstrate what works best – and what should be avoided. No one is really an expert at this stuff, some just have more hard won experience than others, and for everyone, the last month should provide a jarring reminder of that.

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3. Ken Courts Barbie Online – A Great Social Media Marketing Example