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Facebook's Big Announcement Today...

by Irishman
29 replies
So as you've probably heard, Facebook called a press conference at their headquarters this morning for a "major announcement". CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the creation of "Groups", along with 2 other features.

Facebook groups allows an independent user, to create "groups" very easily to segregate members into private or even secret groups of people. So for instance, if I want to have my immediate family as a group, I can include only those folks into that group and carry on conversations and share content with only those that are members.

I guess my question is this... do we think this will help, hurt, or not affect marketing efforts?

My personal first impression is I love the change, and I'm going to create groups of folks that I really am interested in and potentially spend less time in the public groups or facebook space than I typically do now. Not that this directly impacts Fanpages, but it does have the potential to change where people spend their time on Facebook.

But I'm curious to hear your preliminary thoughts in regards to Facebook used for marketing efforts?

Here's a video of the functionality:


Best,
Will
#announcement #big #facebook #today
  • Profile picture of the author Chad Heffelfinger
    Thanks for posting that Will, I had heard about it earlier but had not taken the time to check it out exactly.

    They used to have a feature similar to this but not as advanced for segmenting your friends. I think it will be easier to keep your business friends and contacts seperate from your personal friends which will be nice. That could backfire somewhat on the opposite side though if other people keep you out of their main group if you are using it to market your links and such.

    I think the group chat feature could be a nice feature for IM'rs though.

    I guess we'll see.
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    • Profile picture of the author Irishman
      Originally Posted by Chad Heffelfinger View Post

      Thanks for posting that Will, I had heard about it earlier but had not taken the time to check it out exactly.

      They used to have a feature similar to this but not as advanced for segmenting your friends. I think it will be easier to keep your business friends and contacts seperate from your personal friends which will be nice. That could backfire somewhat on the opposite side though if other people keep you out of their main group if you are using it to market your links and such.

      I think the group chat feature could be a nice feature for IM'rs though.

      I guess we'll see.

      Yeah, I would agree with you about that chat feature. Seems to me to be a great collaboration tool, especially for mastermind type think tanks. It does seem however to be geared to downsizing the masses into groups, as I noted from the groups product manager that the chat feature will be disabled whenever a group reaches 250 people.

      Here's another interesting read on the topic just published:
      Mark Zuckerberg on the “Biggest Problem in Social Networking” [INTERVIEW]

      Most certainly they are dropping hints that facebook product launches in the coming months were quite dependent upon this feature and change to their platform.

      Thanks for your thoughts.

      Will

      PS - another feature they announced was the ability to download all your FB history and data. That will please many I'm sure.
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  • Profile picture of the author painefw
    hmmm i'm a bit dubious about this one.

    my first impression is that it will only hinder our internet marketing strategies. closing off people from the idea of a social network isn't the greatest of ideas in my opinion. you may as well not have facebook and speak and see your actual friends if your only gonna stick em in a group and speak to or monitor them anyway.

    same principle goes for internet marketing methods
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  • Profile picture of the author seg_cost
    So how is that different then the group pages now?
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    • Profile picture of the author Irishman
      Originally Posted by seg_cost View Post

      So how is that different then the group pages now?
      Primarily, the new groups feature is a way for individuals to segment the groups members. Rather than having people join a group, which was the "old" style of group marketing, this allows a user to create an unlimited number of groups, keeping the content private, and even if desired, keeping the actual group private.

      The user adds the people they want included in the group and it creates a mini-facebook for that segment of "Friends".

      Additionally, you can now mail and chat with group members, so you can have a mailing list out of your group, or even a collaborative chat. (huge difference than the original groups abilities)

      You can also, in google doc like form, collaboratively work on documents as a group as well. Again, only content shared is exclusive to that group.

      Make no mistake, this is a stake in the ground to personalize facebook, and allow the group to keep out those that aren't part of their purpose or focus. It's not intended for business use from what I can tell, though I can think of several ways you could incorporate it for such on a smaller scale.

      The more I think about the user influence if this thing takes traction, the more it will be harder to gain visibility. Time spent on facebook is intended to interact with those you care to know and share with. New groups now can segregate "real" friends from virtual friends, or "out-of-the-inner-circle" friends. My original impression is, where will people actually "spend" their time... in public arenas, or in their own micro facebook - customized to their desires.

      Sure will be interesting as it plays out and our marketing strategies will be sure to adapt. Just thinking more about preliminary ramifications of this type of exclusive facebook groupings and how it will impact current fb marketing strategies in terms of return/relationships and visibility/engagement.

      It's a huge change and it will be dependent on how well they market the feature as to the speed of transition.

      Anyhow, that's my thoughts with all of 11hours since it's launch. I guess in IM world, that makes me a FB groups expert. j/k We'll see.

      Thanks for the thoughts everyone...
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  • Profile picture of the author InternetSuccess001
    You are forgetting the 'mobile' revolution though. Facebook seems to be competiting with that. More and more (young) people are spending an incredible amount of time with their cell phones.
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  • Profile picture of the author jesus72knight
    In my opinion, it's kinda great. You don't need to spend time and effort on public groups wherein most of the people are not interested on anything that you market or say. This is a good way to "filter' people and gives an internet marketer to establish a good network of people who are interested in his/her niche. It's a mini-conference Facebook style. But let's just see what are the pros and cons once the world has seen the best of it. Goodluck to Mark's effort.
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  • Profile picture of the author JonAlfredsson
    I think they have this move in mind for additional security and of course organization. I also thought this it’s a good way of organizing the contacts for IM however my question is will it somehow “break the link” once others are not able to customize their groups. Hence, will they still get updates if they’re not set into their appropriate groups?

    Interesting yet we shall find out after launching.
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  • Profile picture of the author pcpupil
    Its an easy way to keep out all the marketers and scammers,plain and simple.
    This also would make Facebook marketing or ads only shown to people on the main stream.
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  • Profile picture of the author SanJoseTruckRepair
    I think it is great for IM, especially the private feature. Because a lot of times people are interested in joining a group but might not want their entire circle of friends to know about their interests, be that internet marketing, health advise, self help, or whatever
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  • Profile picture of the author peter.max
    It is going to facilitate the creatiion and management of private communities better. I think it will be great for those that have a "real" community or groups and not so great for those that were trying to get "friends" without really connecting with them
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  • Profile picture of the author snapcontent
    Zuckerberg - 'The Accidental Billionaire'! Wonder how his court case is going...
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    • Profile picture of the author abednego
      Originally Posted by snapcontent View Post

      Zuckerberg - 'The Accidental Billionaire'! Wonder how his court case is going...
      haha I was just thinking the same thing
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  • Profile picture of the author paulie888
    So if I'm understanding this correctly, we can now arbitrarily create groups of our own that consist of friends that we designate, for example we can designate one group for family, one for work, one for our hobbies, etc.

    Whether this gains traction is going to depend heavily on the number of people utilizing this new groups feature. I do feel that there will be a significant number of people that are not going to bother with setting up this new feature properly within their facebook account. The million dollar question now is how many people are actually going to implement and use this for their facebook account?

    Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author Mohsin Rasool
    Hi,

    Thanks for sharing!

    Really I love this feature. I had to create second account for my family and family friends, to keep things in control. But now i think using this feature i can easily keep things organized even in ONE account.

    Thanks for sharing, I am going to create few groups now

    Regards,
    Mohsin
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    • Profile picture of the author Irishman
      Originally Posted by Mohsin Rasool View Post

      Hi,

      Thanks for sharing!

      Really I love this feature. I had to create second account for my family and family friends, to keep things in control. But now i think using this feature i can easily keep things organized even in ONE account.

      Thanks for sharing, I am going to create few groups now

      Regards,
      Mohsin
      You bet. Actually I created a group in 60 seconds for my immediate family just to test the functionality. It is REALLY easy and fast. www.facebook.com/groups

      Traction will remain the key to this new "enhancement", but it sounds like their going to throw some money at promoting it if you read the articles for the coming days.

      I have to tell you, with the collaboration tools, it can create a virtual free meeting space to group chat, and mastermind IM products. Question is, who's in your group, and you cant let it grow past 250. (not that 250 people in a group would be fun to chat with at once!)

      Appreciate everyone's thoughts.

      Will
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      • Profile picture of the author JonAlfredsson
        Originally Posted by Irishman View Post

        You bet. Actually I created a group in 60 seconds for my immediate family just to test the functionality. It is REALLY easy and fast. www.facebook.com/groups

        Traction will remain the key to this new "enhancement", but it sounds like their going to throw some money at promoting it if you read the articles for the coming days.

        I have to tell you, with the collaboration tools, it can create a virtual free meeting space to group chat, and mastermind IM products. Question is, who's in your group, and you cant let it grow past 250. (not that 250 people in a group would be fun to chat with at once!)

        Appreciate everyone's thoughts.

        Will
        Thanks for giving us a heads up about this new feature. Better try it out and see more. Will post my thoughts about this. Thanks again.
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    Yeah ... I really love it. Got an email saying that I had been placed into a group without my permission. I had to go and unplace myself from the group.

    Great idea.
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    • Profile picture of the author Irishman
      Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

      Yeah ... I really love it. Got an email saying that I had been placed into a group without my permission. I had to go and unplace myself from the group.

      Great idea.
      lol. Here we agree. Play out the scenario... if friends all create groups, and make you a part of their group, based on the number of groups you are now a part of you may receive a ton of unwanted emails. Group creators can email their entire group.

      It will have to be addressed... either they have an opt in email, just like Googlegroups, saying click to confirm you want to be part of the group. Or you'll have people "unfriending" the heck out of mass quantities of "acquaintances".

      Yes, there's a way to uncheck notifications, but why? Why not just have an email telling you that someone has added you to their group, and if you don't confirm it, you never worry about it.

      Will
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      • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Irishman View Post

        lol. Here we agree. Play out the scenario... if friends all create groups, and make you a part of their group, based on the number of groups you are now a part of you may receive a ton of unwanted emails. Group creators can email their entire group.

        It will have to be addressed... either they have an opt in email, just like Googlegroups, saying click to confirm you want to be part of the group. Or you'll have people "unfriending" the heck out of mass quantities of "acquaintances".

        Yes, there's a way to uncheck notifications, but why? Why not just have an email telling you that someone has added you to their group, and if you don't confirm it, you never worry about it.

        Will
        Yeah .... within minutes I got three messages from a group I didn't want to be in. Going to be one big spam fest.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tim_Carter
    I've been waiting for this. I don't use my Facebook account for marketing - until today. Just for people I want to keep up with.

    This is a positive change in my view.
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  • Profile picture of the author imkevintan
    I believe it's a great new feature that I'll love. Personally, I think if you enjoy using Twitter's list feature, you're gonna love the new Facebook Group. They're quite similar.
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  • Profile picture of the author Willie Crawford
    I'm still undecided, even though I'm a marketer.

    I'm sure the Facebook team gave it a lot of though,
    so it must just be that at my age, I don't embrace
    change too rapidly

    Willie
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  • Profile picture of the author ListBuildingForNewbies
    Thank you for sharing this important news. I'm delighted with this new feature. Indeed this new feature will greatly improve the quality of my online social life. Up until now the presence of several individuals on my friends list, whose presence I need to tolerate for the sake of business, have very much inhibited me in freely speaking my mind. Now with this new feature, I'll be able to separate my online private life from my online social life. When I try this new feature out, I'll give more concrete feedback.
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  • Profile picture of the author garyv
    I think it's a good idea. I know sometimes I'll put up stories about my kids that I know only a few people care about. I can put those people into a separate group and just put my kid stories into that group.

    However, I can see even more people now losing their marriages on facebook. Once the wife finds the girlfriend group.
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    • Profile picture of the author JoshuaG
      Its a great idea and should have no effect on marketing given the fact that self promotion on facebook goes against their TOS.
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  • Profile picture of the author mousecalls
    i think this is a great idea and Facebook probably put a lot of thought into this new feature. The idea that I can create a group for my family and those I only want to share certain items with is smart.

    And being able to get out of a group that you didn't join is a good idea as well!

    As with anything, time will tell how this will all work.
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    I'll bet Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Arrington and Jason Calcanis were real amused with the "forced join" feature of the Groups when they were signed up for a NAMBLA group as a "prank" to prove this wasn't such a good feature.

    http://geeksplanet.com/facebook-anno...ures-735.html/
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