the effect of Facebook depends on what you bring to it. Just as your mother said: you get out only what you put in. If you use Facebook to communicate directly with other individuals—by using the “like” button, commenting on friends’ posts, and so on—it can increase your social capital...

On the other hand, non-personalized use of Facebook—scanning your friends’ status updates and updating the world on your own activities via your wall, or what Burke calls “passive consumption” and “broadcasting”—correlates to feelings of disconnectedness.

Thoughtful but provocative article by author, Stephen Marche. I'm sure the SMEGs and social media marketeers will hate it, because the veneer of engagement online that most of them promote doesn't do anything to increase social capital.

Also worth reading, for context, this review of, The Disconnect: Why are so many Americans living by themselves?

Hat tip Om Malik and Christoph.

Watch the videos. Then read my post over on the Headshift | Dachis Group Asia Pacific blog.

Mumbrella report that the Say Yes Australia campaign is shifting to a grass roots approach, which I think is code for targeting the members of supporting organisations (including GetUp!) with direct email.

Anyway, this is a good reminder for me to check the Twitter and Facebook stats on both this campaign and also the government's Clean Energy Future site, which I've been tracking.

In the period 28th July to 6th September:

Clean Energy Future

• Twitter 1,603 increased to 1,725 followers 
• Facebook 1,490 increased to 1,847 likes

SayYesAustralia

• Twitter 1,247 increased to 1,409 followers 
• Facebook 21,644 increased to 24,050 likes

According to Mumbrella the nine groups supporting SayYesAustralia have 3 million members, so based on these numbers it would make sense for them to engage more directly rather than waiting for a viral approach to take hold.

As it happens, I also noticed that a case study was presented today about the Clean Energy Future digital engagement campaign, most of which was managed in-house by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. The total budget for the campaign overall (not just the digital part) was $13.7 million.

One of the highlights from this summary of the case study was emphasis on the videos, so that has also prompted me to look again their popularity.

Clean Energy Future's most popular video (How does carbon pricing work?) has received 17,434 views (30% of all their views). Unfortunately, adding comments is disabled on their videos so they missed the chance to get feedback that way. Meanwhile, GetUp's most popular Carbon Tax video (A Price on Carbon - In Five Easy Steps) attracted 90,887 views - however, another non-Carbon Tax video reached 423,870 views. It is interesting to note that both videos address the same topic.

On reflection, I'm still not entirely clear about the purpose of the social media channels for both campaigns. Clearly, involving an agency in SayYesAustralia hasn't helped their Twitter stats. However, based on numbers their Facebook and YouTube channels have been more successful than the government.

Looking at the actual engagement on Facebook in particular, I'm also not sure either campaign has been particularly good at creating a groundswell of support. The approach of both campaigns appears to be one of post interesting links and then letting the community argue amongst itself (I couldn't find any examples of the moderators from Clean Energy Future joining the conversation). SayYesAustalia's Facebook page gives supporters the ability to add a badge to their profile pic, but other than this there is nothing for people to do for either campaign. Of course, the argument is that you just have to be on Facebook - but without any clear purpose, my question is would anyone have really noticed if they weren't?

Hopefully SayYesAustralia have finally realised this and they are going to finally give people something to do.

the challenge for advertisers and marketers is to stand out above the general internet noise and create what the industry calls a value proposition for their brands. In this, Facebook has emerged as a crucial platform for social interaction with 750 million users worldwide, as has Twitter with 250 million. But simply having a Twitter "hashtag", which more easily identifies subjects being discussed, or "liking" something on Facebook are no longer enough.

"We are starting to move away from the mad arms race of [increasing] fans on Facebook,"

Timely article from the Guardian. There is a school of thought around social media marketing that basically calls for business and organisations to get online and then follow a strategy of what I call, "getting loud with social media". Success will follow if you can overcome your fears of the medium - you just need to be on it for this to happen.

Today I've been browsing around looking at some major Australian brands and organisations that have an active presence on Facebook. Its pretty a disappointing picture to be honest.

For one well known consumer brand, a recent Facebook post attracted well over a hundred "Likes" and about 50 comments. Sounds like a great reaction? When you look at the actual comments, the largest categories were complaints (6%) and wants (14%). The brand itself was absent in the conversation, but at least some of their fans (3.4%) did at least bother to reply to questions and comments from other people. As a potential customer looking in, there is no evidence that the brand actually cares or is listening to feedback - a missed opportunity.

Another well known and family-friendly brand has a wall full of spam posts and in appropriate comments (e.g. mentioning alcohol) in breach of their own community rules, mixed in with genuine fans/customers. However, there is evidence at least of that brand engaging with people on customer service issues. That good work in customer service and the promotions on their page is being undone by poor community management and moderation.

In another example, a major industry association has attracted about 130 "likes" in about 6 months for their page. Sure, its not harming them but its not adding much value in its current form either.

Personally, in Australia at least, I see smaller consumer-orientated companies doing a much better job of engaging but with a smaller audience. Like Frisk Espresso, who I discovered in Perth recently. They only have about 1,500 fans but the engagement is better at that scale. Its important to recognise that their fan base is probably built on an excellent customer experience in the real world and through promotion at their shop front (that's how I found them). Rather than faking it and expecting noise on social media to make their online engagement successful, they are working social media more smartly than many large (and well resourced) brands. And I'll be back at Frisk when I'm next in Perth.

However, I'm prepared to be corrected. Have you got an Australian example where getting loud with social media (i.e. getting lots of followers or likes) has worked? Or maybe you've got a horror story of where this strategy has crashed and burned?

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Certainly interesting to observe how the Clean Energy Future initiative, announced today by the Australian federal government, is using the Web channel as part of its communication mix.

The main Website itself is running on Wordpress, using a fairly conservative layout and few baked in social features other than embedded YouTube videos plus Twitter and Facebook sharing (interesting, considering the business impact that they haven't also included LinkedIn). Commenting, however, isn't enabled.

But while you can't discuss or provide feedback directly on the main site, the channel is open for comments on YouTube, Facebook and of course Twitter (#CEF). I'm not clear if this was entirely by design, because these comments aren't integrated back into the main site. It will be interesting to see what they do with this back channel over the longer term.

BTW there was a slight glitch earlier, which I suspect was required to tweak the home page in order to remove unfiltered tweets from appearing on it. That's fair enough - its far too easy spam - although questionable why it was enabled in the first place.

One feature I do like, although it only appears in the news section, is the 'Elsewhere in the news' feed which links to external news coverage. I'm not sure how this feed is aggregated or curated but personally I think this content actually adds a lot value. It could have formed part of the central purpose of the site (other than providing core information about tax and relief measures) and shifted discussion into those news channels, which ultimately might be more useful than Facebook comments. For example, check out the ABC's news microsite.

Facebook may not be the black hole of workplace productivity many consider it to be, as research conducted by Swinburne University of Technology with web security company MailGuard shows.

The research partnership between MailGuard and Dr Rajesh Vasa, a lecturer in the Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies, has revealed that the average employee spends between 30 and 60 minutes online for personal reasons each day.

Although 40 per cent of people in the sample of approximately 50,000 used Facebook in the six-month period analysed, the average time spent on the site was just a few minutes.

While other studies have drawn on consumer data and qualitative research, this is the first to scrutinise individual behaviour over an extended period.

The uses of internet for personal reasons tend to be comparatively banal: people check the news, weather and transport timetables. Sports news sites are particularly popular and online shopping is rising.

Only 20 per cent of staff were classified by the researchers as ‘heavy explorers’, exceeding a baseline of ‘normal’ that was set at 200 websites a month. It’s at this level that staff productivity is considered to deteriorate.

Dr Vasa’s primary research at the faculty focuses on the behaviour of computer programmers when they build software. He helps companies who subcontract computer work to assess whether billing is correct and if the project is being managed at the declared pace. But the methodology easily transfers to web usage.

“I study how people use tools to build software and the browser is just another piece of software. The data that we store and the maths we use for analysis are identical. It’s the same maths that economists use to detect whether people are getting richer or poorer,” Dr Vasa says.

The anonymous data, provided with the consent of client companies, tracked staff browsing habits from 2009.
MailGuard CEO Craig McDonald expects the usage patterns to continue to evolve. Twitter was used by just 2.6 per cent of individuals in January 2009, but that had grown to 17.1 per cent by year’s end.

Mr McDonald does not believe the information warrants employers tightening the screws on their staff:
“How do you harness the experiences of heavy explorers who also achieve high productivity for the benefit of the business? It’s about working smartly in the new terrain, rather than banning social media and frustrating some of your best performers because one or two employees are misusing Facebook.”

The only hole I would pick in this research is that it only looks at personal use of the Web using their employers Internet connection; it doesn't account for people's personal mobile Internet access, so its conceivable that people are spending more time online than is visible in the data used. However, its good to see some data (and Australian research too) that challenges the assumptions about personal use of the Web at work.

The sentiment of McDonald's conclusions are correct too, which is what we should be talking about.

Of course, for the companies who are building businesses out social media FUD I'm sure this data won't be seen so positively. Its a real shame they get more coverage in the media and this news barely made a ripple.

QPS was one of the first public-facing organisations to widely and effectively use social media in crisis communication, and that came to fore at the height of the floods in January, described by Premier Anna Bligh as the worst natural disaster in the state's history.

The agency's Facebook page became the defacto one-stop-shop for all of Australia, and for journalists across the different mediums who clambered for minute-by-minute updates.

While some tuned into ABC Radio for news, there was no escaping the QPS Facebook address that was constantly beamed on TV, linked on story pages and repeated on radio.

Great to see Queensland Police Service (QPS) generating interest in the practical and pragmatic use of social media for online engagement with the media, the broader community and during emergencies.

James Klint from QPS was also featured on Gov2Radio yesterday.

Also, worth watching are the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, who also engaging in a useful way through Facebook and on Twitter, where they are represented by their National Communications Manager, Sandi Logan. Like QPS they are engaging pragmatically and using social media as a two-way communication channel, rather than simply broadcasting information.

Thank you facebook. With facebook l was able to stay in contact with my family to know they were safe.

Facebook often gets a lot of bad press, so lets not forget the positive uses.

To be fair of course, its not just Facebook but all sorts of social media, networks and Websites that people are using to reach out to one another in a time of crisis. And while social media won't stop Cyclone Yasi from pulling the roof off your house or a flood wrecking your home, being able to check that people and the places you care about are ok is a good thing, isn't it?