Where’d my news feed go?
March 13, 2013
Facebook is changing… AGAIN… and it could very likely impact the way you interact and share information about your organization with users who have liked your page. According to an article by Josh Constine with Techcrunch.com, the powers that be within the Facebook universe are finally revamping an aspect of the service that has been pretty much stagnant since its introduction in 2006, the News Feed. Being that this is the most common way for organizations, advertisers and Facebook page administrators to get their valuable content in front of the masses it could have some interesting implications on nonprofits that rely on Facebook to interact with their most important fans.
What’s changing, you ask? Well, according to the folks at TechCrunch, at a recent press event Facebook “launched content-specific feeds for Photos, Music and more”. The service will now highlight its dedicated feeds more prominently and make them much more accessible when a user logs on.
What does this mean for organizations and administrators trying to interact with their fans? It means if users want to, it will be much easier to focus in on the exact content they wish to view and that your Page updates won’t necessarily be displayed to the users the way they have in the past. It also means that if you want your fans to view and interact with your content you may have to do more to provide the quality content needed to entice them to use the dedicated Page feed.
Luckily, according to TechCrunch, Facebook is adding some features that make it easier to provide rich and engrossing content on Pages and within the various News Feeds. Facebook is going to allow media and posts to be displayed in a “larger”, more “vivid” format that could do wonders to attract users to your content. We will see how it all plays out but it sounds like it will be easier to imbed higher quality images and video. Constine suggests, the key goal of Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg’s changes is creating new opportunities for organizations and users to interact in a much more “immersive” way.
It’s hard to predict how users will react to this new format since we’ve seen them get pretty upset when Facebook altered other aspects of the service in the past. With these pending changes, it’s likely best to proceed with caution until it becomes more clear what the response and implications will be. As a general rule, quality over quantity is a best practice when interacting with people in their recreational setting. We’ll be interested to see if everybody can find a way to play nicely in this ever-changing social sandbox.
Aaron Lattanzio
Community Outreach and Sandbox Coordinator
Source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/05/facebook-news-feeds-launch/
When you think about the businesses you frequent, whether it’s your grocery store, physician’s office, or favorite watering-hole, are you aware of your surroundings, interactions, and the little details that keep you coming back? A successful business likely understands the value of creating a positive customer experience through the planning and execution of a well-integrated brand. The customer experience is much more than just customer service, it’s how the business expertly handles every interaction with their brand in mind.
A C Center, Inc., doing business as AIDS Care and Pleasant Street Apothecary, has embarked on a five-year strategic plan with goals that include growing our present HIV positive clientele in the Rochester, Finger Lakes and Southern Tier areas, and positioning ourselves to serve populations new to us. Our patient-centered approach to care is unique and successful and will be the foundation for new health care delivery programs. In recent months, we have been working with the Ad Council of Rochester to examine our existing brands and to develop a new and more inclusive branding platform for the future.
An organization can claim to be something, communicate, and advertise it. However, if there is no ‘buy-in’ from those immediately affected, it’s likely the customer won’t experience the brand in the manner intended. That’s why in implementing the brand at A C Center, we need to expand the circle of involvement to include a broad range of staff from every department, in addition to, board members, volunteers, and consumers. Being as transparent as possible with the process is critical to engage the team and encourage them to embrace change as we move forward with our strategic plan. They actually see how their role in the organization impacts the brand and the delivery of the brand promise. It also helps them to readily ‘live the brand’ and easily convey the brand through their words and actions.
This process includes identifying every customer touchpoint in the organization, evaluating how it measures up to this new brand, and developing recommendations to improve each touchpoint in order to bring people closer to our brand and achieve our strategic goals.
Is our work done? Hardly! Having finished the Brand Development Workshop through the Ad Council of Rochester, we are now going through the Customer Touchpoint Workshop with them and developing recommendations for ensuring an excellent customer experience for both our present clientele, and those we hope to welcome in the coming years.
-Stacey Rowe
Branding Believer
Stacey Rowe is the Associate Director of Marketing at AIDS Care and Pleasant Street Apothecary. Stacey is unique as she is both a volunteer and a client of the Ad Council of Rochester!
Visit AIDS Care and Pleasant Street Apothecary’s Facebook page and follow them on Twitter. Stacey also has personal Twitter and LinkedIn accounts as well as an entertaining blog that she updates in her free time.
Over Coffee 