There’s a good article in Mashable magazine entitled ‘Why Your Brand Needs to be on Facebook Now’, which goes back over the fact that Facebook hit a milestone recently when it became a more visited site than google in the US – that’s their main reasoning behind why your brand needs to be up there: facebook is hugely popular, and with its advertising possibilities it makes sense for you to be on it.

Do you need to be on Facebook? Only if you're going to do it right!

Well, yes and no. Certainly if you’re willing to take time out and design an effective profile that integrates cleverly with your existing online presence; if you’re willing to assign someone the task of maintaining the profile; if you’re going to take social networking in general seriously and devote time to it, then they’re right – your brand should be on facebook.

If, though, you’re going to set up a two-bit page with precious little information or interaction that can’t be found at your main web site, then expect to have a dead duck on your hands – and worse than that, a dead duck with a very prominent fan count that shows it to be a dead duck.

The recent case of Nestle on facebook, where Greenpeace activists managed to combine the open commenting settings of the facebook profile, with the word-of-mouth effect of twitter to effectively turn Nestle’s social network presence into a firm denunciation of the company’s policies, show the danger of taking a half-assed approach to social networking.

If you’re going to do it, then, to paraphrase George Michael (and its not often that I find myself doing that…) ‘do it right, right!’.

Food for thought:

Facebook Marketing

33 Million People in the Room

The Social Network Business Plan

Buy any of the above books from the book depository and you’ll get free delivery worldwide!

Localisation is the over-technical term used by software developers to describe the translation of their programs into other languages. It serves a purpose, though, to stress that translation is far more than simply substituting words from one language to another. For a program to work in different markets different cultures need to be taken into account.

Facebook have just announced a whole range of new localised versions of their platform, including several in Indian regional languages like Hindi, Tamil, and Punjabi. You might think this is of interest solely to Hindi, Punjabi, and Tamil speakers who can now access the popular social network in their own language. You’d be wrong though.

Google will be looking closely at the results of this particular localisation program, given that it’s in one of the few markets where their own social networking program Orkut is the leader. Facebook are in effect taking on Google in an effort to prove that their social networking platform is the best worldwide.

But the localistion, whether succesful or not (to be judged, presumably, by how many Orkut users defect) has another important lesson for all of us, in particular small/medium sized businesses that want to effectively harness social networks to promote themselves online. The lesson is that there are a variety of social networks, not just simply Facebook or Myspace – the two market leaders. Depending upon who you are, where your market it based, and what you’re trying to promote, your choice of most effective social networks may be radically different.

If you’re going to use social networks, do some research to find out which ones are the most compatible/useful for your needs.

Former Facebook COO Van Natta, who is currently involved in playlist.com, a tool for sharing music on various social platforms, is apparently set to take  over the role of CEO for MySpace. Various tech sites have reported the news that Van Natta is to take over from MySpace founder Chris DeWolfe, including the Wall Street Journal’s online magazine All things Digital (owned, like Myspace, by Newscorp – so they should have a good idea).

It’s an interesting development for MySpace, which most agree has lost a lot of momentum to Facebook in terms of the Social Networking market.  In terms of media-buzz it may seem like MySpace is a dying beast, but it’s still a hugely important network – above all else for musicians and bands. Do you know any musician, either starting out or selling millions of records, who isn’t on MySpace but is on Facebook?

Van Natta’s appointment at MySpace will, no doubt, lead to some major developments at the network – whether that’s going to change the average profile of users remains to be seen. 

In our local universe though, dealing with bands who want to establish an online presence, our advice is still the same:

Yes, you do need a MySpace profile

and

No, it’s not enough to just have a MySpace profile.

Stay tuned to the blog for our upcoming post on an integrated online strategy for bands and musicians.