Will you soon pay for your social media accounts?

Social media is witnessing an impressive growth in terms of usage, visits and interactivity. Facebook now has half a billion registered users only 6 years after its launch (Source: Mashable), Twitter unique visitors in June 2010 surpassed visitors of the same month in 2009 by an impressive 109% (Source: Marketing Charts), Linkedin celebrated its forty million users in its 6 anniversary as well on May 2009 (Source: Linkedin) and so on, practically every type of social networking platform is living a growth, whether targeting the global populace or niche markets.

Commonly, corporates are also tapping into the social networking world, and creating profiles, pages, group...etc... and engaging their customers on a daily basis, getting feedback, promoting and awarding. Leading social networking sites offer customization of URLs, for example: www.facebook.com/myPage; Twitter account most often represent brands rather than personal names, with this impressive growth and a "want" turning into a "need" would those usernames remain for free?

Facebook guarantees that it would not allow selling of page URLs (transfer prohibited), but can it also protect usernames creation? and if Yes, how long would the process take in order to prove, validate and give back a username and a page URL?
Something to think about, since ICANN also protects brands when it comes to domain names, but it is quite a long process (and sometimes costly), maybe time is something a corporate cannot afford, so it might choose to pay a couple of thousands of dollars to the "username" holder and skip the long validation process.

One has to think about the next steps, since social media has become an essential part of any corporate presence and a main traffic generator for any website, will you be able to secure your accounts on all social media platforms? or would you have to buy them from an "auctions" site?

Makes you wonder...

Who to expect on your Facebook Page!

I am sure you have a million and one reasons to get your business into social media, Facebook offers a very fertile platform for this. So once you have established your page on Facebook, who would you expect? How would you react to them? and what would you do?

No need to mention that leaving your page idle would quickly kill it and reflect very negatively on your brand.

Below are a couple of user types you might expect popping up as fans on your page:

"Spammers": Spammers are those who invade your page with relatively useless content to you. Typically they would show up on your Facebook page when you have a considerable number of fans, and post links to their website on discussions you have started. Very annoying behavior and usually might result in a few "dislikes".

Recommendations:

• Be on the alert: always be ready to delete inappropriate posts
• Be strict: do not hesitate to ban the spammer from your page, you might loose one fan, but that might save you from loosing a whole bunch of others
• Monitor all your tabs: Spammers crawl all of your Facebook tabs, photo gallery, and they might just post everywhere. Make sure that your most recent posts are "spam"-free
• If you are unable to quickly react to random posts, make sure that you prevent users from starting their own comments (That can be done by adjusting the page settings), this way you will reduce the impact of your page acting as a "spam-promoter" on everybody's wall

"Smart Heads": Smart heads are usually on your page trying to prove they are funny, looking out for friends or a date companion. Most of their comments are rather irrelevant and sometimes they annoy your other fans. They should be treated in a very similar fashion to "spammers" but with slightly less strictness.

Recommendations:

• Be on the alert and intervene whenever a "smart head" is abusing your fans
• Know when to ban, when to answer and when to delete
• Monitor all conversations between your fans, and make sure that your Fan page does not become a ground for settling differences

"Idles": Idle fans are usually people who just "liked" your page, but were never interested in what you are posting. The new insights developed by Facebook should give you an overview about how many impressions, feedback and comments you are getting on your actions. These numbers are indicative, and should give you directions on the interests of your fans.

Recommendations

• Ask yourself: Am I interesting enough or am I just dumping in news about my company on Facebook? Am I really adding value to my fans or just pasting in links to my promotions? Am I a friendly brand or I just refer people to my website whenever they have any question?

"Critics": critics are fans who did not fully endorse your brand, and might have some questions, doubts or trust issues with the services or products you provide. They usually react to your new posts, pictures with questions or inquiries that put your offerings to the test.

Recommendations:

• Be sure to answer queries posted by the critics and use them as a platform to promote the "hidden" services you provide. Never delete their posts as it would immediately back fire on you.
• Keep in mind that the "critics are not always" right, make sure that whatever claims are put forth against your brand are supported by evidence, in other words, whenever you hear a complaint, ask for evidence and more information, and react accordingly.

"Loyals": Loyal fans are those who believe in your brand and are dedicated customers. They usually support your activities and are the first to "Like" them. You can rely on them to back your statements whenever critics or smart heads are out there speaking, but do not take them for granted and make sure you reward them every once in a while.

Recommendations

• Reward loyals, The reward can be a simple "Thank you" message or email, a gift voucher, a loyalty card, a status upgrade on your website...etc...
• Do not clearly overpower them over other users
• Remember that loyals do not work with you, they are out there giving out their opinions and thoughts, endorse them but do not give them the free-will to represent your brand

Rarely you would come up with identity thieves that would endorse your identity and speak on your behalf,

"Exploiters": exploiters simply try to ruin your presence on Facebook, they would register themselves as users with usernames very close to your company, for example, if your company name is: MyBrand, they would use a username like: MyBrand1 or MeBrand...etc... and assign a profile pictures similar to the one you have on your page and promote wrong, negative and erroneous messages on your fan page.

Recommendation:

• Only one recommendation in this case: Ban, Block and Report!

To recap, tapping into social media, similar to real life, involves multiple types of personalities and characters; know how to react to each and make sure that your brand is properly represented. Contrary to traditional media, the audience is in control of the conversation, be part of it and establish the character of your company on the social media platforms.