How Healthy is Your Page on Facebook?

Facebook can be a powerful tool and an important part of your marketing mix. Your fans become brand ambassadors and spread the word about you every time they ‘like’ posts, post about your brand, share your content and comment on your page. Building and nurturing an online community empowers your fans to work on your behalf.

Three indicators can help you evaluate the health of your community on Facebook and make needed changes: engagement, tone and growth.

Engagement
We use the term engagement to refer to quality interactions. Are fans commenting, sharing and responding to your posts?

If you want to improve in this area, start by monitoring responses to each post you make on Facebook. Do recipes receive the most ‘likes’? Are photos receiving the most comments? Pay attention to the content your community responds to the most and increase those post styles moving forward.

People need to find value in being a fan of your page. Think about how you can mix it up. If you’re only posting traditional marketing messages, then the experience for your fans is similar to going to coffee with a friend who only talks about what he or she does. Share your story, but diversify your content.

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Engage, Not Hide in a Crisis

"I just returned all my clif bars to Trader Joes. Not a problem. They didn't know about the problem with the Organic brown rice syrup containing arsenic yet. I sure hope that Clif bars comes out with an alternative and a explanation. I also hope, I didn't jeopardize my health."

This isn't the kind of post you want on your company Facebook page. But it is the kind of post you earn by failing to respond to a question with the same urgency it is asked.

Clif Bar is a well-known and well-liked maker of nutritious, organic food. Go to any marathon or road bike event and you will find Clif Bars everywhere as a source of quick, healthy energy.

"Good food provides health, joy and energy, and is a delight to the senses," says the Clif Bar website. "And food, made right, can make the world a better place."

Unfortunately, the website's home page doesn't include any timely commentary about a study released last week raising concerns about arsenic levels in brown rice syrup, a sweetening ingredient found in Clif Bars, as well as infant formula and other high energy bars.

There is a natural place on the website for this commentary to say — "We recognize that food matters top our families, our communities and our planet — as our food choices affect the physical, social and environmental fabric of our lives." But the commentary is missing.

There are more than 91,000 Facebook fans on Clif Bar's page and a number of them asked the company for an explanation. Here is what one fan got on February 17:

"Thanks for taking the time to contact us. At Clif Bar & Company, food safety is our number one priority and your health is paramount. All Clif Bar & Company foods fully comply with U.S. laws and regulations and our own strict quality standards. We are aware of the 2/16/12 brown rice syrup study. It is important to understand that arsenic exists naturally in the soil, water and air, and trace levels can be found in all rice, and a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and seafood. Low levels of this naturally occurring substance do not pose a safety concern. We have a dedicated food safety and quality assurance staff that makes sure our ingredients and our foods are healthy and nutritious. We appreciate your question."

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Atwitter over the Super Bowl

There were 12,233 tweets posted per second during Sunday night's Super Bowl.

People had to be doing something because the football game was kind of boring. Madonna was shocking, but less shocking than Lady Gaga. Some of the best ads were during halftime when viewers were filling up their sofa-side beer chests.

The supermodel wife of Partriots' quarterback Tom Brady did blame his receivers for fumbling away the win, but NBC didn't televise that, though it did show one of the receivers near tears for missing a wide-open pass.

For the record, the number of tweets per second during the Super Bowl broke the previous record (for an English-language event) of 9,402 TPS set during a January game when the Denver Broncos astonishingly won an overtime game while hardly completing a pass.

Trendrr reported there were more than 15 million tweets during the game.

Google said that 41 percent of the online searches conducted during the game originated from smart phones or tablets. Madonna apparently earned more searches than either the Giants or Patriots.

Once upon a time, people tuned in to the Super Bowl to watch an exciting game. Then the debut of ads took over as the main draw. But nowadays, the big ads are all previewed on social media before game day. One that got the ball rolling featured Matthew Broderick reprising, as an adult, his Ferris Bueller day off to drive a Honda CR-V. 

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Washington, Facebook Sue Spammer

Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna and Facebook have joined forces to sue a company they claim is violating a federal anti-spam statute. It may be the first coordinated private-public legal attack against an alleged spammer.

McKenna — who is running for the Republican nomination for governor in the Evergreen state — and Facebook say Adscend Media makes money by "click-jacking" and deceptively sending viewers to advertiser websites via a friend's social-media feed.

Click-jacking can occur when you "like" someone's Facebook post and click to see an attached video, but are required to share personal data before seeing the promised content. Adscend collects from advertisers who benefit by capturing the eyeballs of unsuspecting viewers.

McKenna filed his lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Seattle, while Facebook lodged its lawsuit in federal court in California. Both lawsuits seek injunctions, damages and attorneys fees from Adscend and its owners, who live in other parts of the country. Adscend Media has declined so far to comment on the suits, which claim the company violates the federal Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act, as well as state commercial email and consumer protection laws.

Facebook attorneys said the social-media giant — which appears on the verge of going public this week — has fixed the vulnerability that permitted the Adsecend tactic. But they warn that spammers and their targets are in an "arms war" where tactics continuously evolve.

The blog Splash reports a Facebook user can be ensnared in a "scammy network" without even hitting a "like" button. "Insidious software code can activate the button all by itself."

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A Roadmap for Oregon Bioscience Industry

Bioscience is the sleeping giant of Oregon business. This is not really good news for Oregon Bioscience Association Executive Director Dennis McNannay. Nor is it great for those in the industry, as they seek out funding and employees to meet the demands of this major growth area.

Bioscience in Oregon is recession-proof. It is the third largest growth industry, according to statistics from 2009, when the sector directly employed 14,221 people at 644 establishments. The industry grew 38.5 percent between 2001-2008, blasting through the recession at five times the 7 percent growth rate for Oregon’s private sector generally. Furthermore, this growth was double the national rate.

McNannay and his colleagues and members at Oregon Bio have decided that the lack of awareness plaguing the industry needs to be remedied. To help with this, a steering committee of members and others associated with the industry has been brought together to complete a “road map,” similar to one that was highly successful in Colorado. “We need to reach out to those in the industry, but also those outside,” McNannay says. 

He’s right. Bioscience and other affiliated industries are where all the new ideas begin; all the research that will enable people and animals to live long, high-quality lives begins here. That makes the industry not only exciting to become part of, but also of interest to anyone who lives, thinks, breathes and wants to continue doing this as long as possible.

Economically, the industry is important for Oregon. The average bioscience wage is $56,227 (2009 figures), or 41 percent higher than the average annual private sector wage in Oregon. To continue to recruit talent, the sector needs a known footprint. At present, very few realize just how important it is.

There are other partner industries that are not technically “bioscience,” but are also important to Oregon’s economic future. The medical device sector is growing here, and the City of Corvallis ranks fifth in the nation among small cities for its concentration of employment in that area. This same city is 11^th in research, testing and medical laboratories.

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