More Facebook tips from Dr. V

Many college students remember Facebook’s earliest days, where the community was exclusive to college students (and they liked it that way, thank-u-very-much) and unadulterated by advertisers. Today, many corporations view the social networking site as a wealth of customers, conveniently separated into interest groups, that they are desperate to tap into.

Indeed, many companies have tried to engage the 100+ million Facebook users through ineffective (often gimmicky) paid ads, Facebook applications, “Fan” pages and more. Since Facebook PR is still in the experimental stages, what works so far and what doesn’t? Dr. Mihaela Vorvoreanu (I will now refer to her as “Dr. V”) offered us several tips:

• Since Facebook has more than 100 million users and 55,000 networks, companies need to identify the subcultures and publics on the site with common traits.
• Most Facebook users will not use Facebook as a way to communicate with a company, and will not seek out a brand on Facebook. They will only engage with the organization on Facebook if it is one they feel strongly about (example: I love musician Pete Yorn, so I joined a PY group on Facebook).
• Corporations should avoid “Trying 2 Hard 2 B Kool,” and carefully consider whether their presence on Facebook will be useful/ appropriate.
• When considering whether your company/ client will “fit in” to the Facebook community, ask yourself if there is anything you can do to help with relationship maintenance, self-presentation or impression management. If so, Facebook PR might be worth a shot!

On a lighter note, Dr. V also offered a link to answer the age-old question: What the heck does “Poking” mean!?

Quantum physics at Connect… Hey, if you’re interested.

Dr. Mihaela Vorvoreanu enjoyed being a part of last year’s Connect, “The sessions were informative, I met some of the stars of social media PR, and best of all, I enjoyed the conversation about the conference going on in real time on Twitter, blog posts and comments. I can’t wait for Connect ’08!”

Fortunately for us, the assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Clemson University, also known as Dr. V, joins the panel of experts this year. She plans to discuss organizational branding on Facebook and intends to address “the unexpected and uncontrollable aspects of branding, so people can prepare for the unexpected.” She hopes to stimulate attendees to think about familiar things in new ways.

Since advances in social media and PR are made almost daily, Dr. V keeps her reader full with relevant blogs. Her favorites include Read Write Web, Digital Influence Mapping Project and even the Digital Photography School blog for new tips & techniques. Of course, she has a blog of her own, PR Connection, about public relations research, practice and education.

Plan to chat with Dr. V during the conference — you’ll learn quite a bit. A native Romanian, she loves to read about both Western and Buddhist psychology, is fascinated by neuroscience and would like to better understand quantum physics. It looks like we may not just be talkin’ social media at Connect…!

Twitter image from Josh Hallett (hyku).