Has The Quest For Gender Equality Gone Too Far?

When I first heard about an app being used at SXSW to identify panels where women are “under-represented,” I rolled my eyes. But as I thought more, I got angry. Not that there weren’t more women speakers, but that this app was reducing speakers to their gender.

The app allows you to share a graph on social media showing just what that panel is missing. Which, if you listen to the creators, is at least one pair of ovaries per panel. But what if there isn’t a qualified woman to speak on a certain topic, or she wasn’t available this week? Are we supposed to shame and ignore the men who earned a spot on the stage, or find a less qualified female just so there is at least one woman sharing the mic? I, for one, would rather sit in the audience and learn from a bunch of men than be out of my depth on stage just because of my gender.

We need to look deeper at the reason there are not as many women on certain panels and address the issues, if they exist, that are keeping them from speaking or being qualified to speak. Is there some sort of sexism at work? Perhaps in some cases, but not all. And fighting sexism with more of the same isn’t the answer. If you truly want to be “a community dedicated to ensuring that women are always part of the public dialogue” then build a community, not a bully.

A Friendly Reminder To Have Fun With Your Brand

It’s no secret that I love Disney. Disneyland, Disney movies, memories of Disney World growing up. It truly is the most wonderful place on earth. A place of magic. And part of that magic is the way you can enjoy and celebrate Disney in any way you choose. It’s become a huge part of our culture, and not just for kids. The recent “show your Disneyside” campaign was targeted directly at adults, making it cool for grownups to let loose and pose with characters at the parks. Disney has fun with their brand. And you should too!

In that spirit, take a look at the new line of Disney apparel that Black Milk just launched. Then think about how your brand could let loose a little and bring some fun to your customers. I’ll be busy trying to match Princess Leggings, to my existing wardrobe…

Sleeping Beauty Dress

Facebook’s New Format For Pages: 4 Things You Need To Know Now

Now that the new, one column format for Facebook Pages is available to everyone, there are a few things you should know.

1) The new format is not optional.

You can switch now, or they will switch for you very soon. You can also switch for yourself now and keep the old view for fans while you get used to it.

Facebook Increases Instagram Integration

Following Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram, the social network began making changes to the photo app to bring it more in line with Facebook’s policies. One of their latest moves was to replace location data from Foursquare with their own system, Facebook check-ins. This doesn’t change much for the user within the Instagram app, but on Facebook itself it can have a big impact for both users and brands.

When a user tags their location in a photo and shares it to Facebook, it creates a link to that location’s Brand Page. If the brand allows users to post on their wall, it also displays the photo on the Page, in the “Posts By Others” section. The good news? Brands are getting a lot more organic presence in the Newsfeed and connecting with friends of fans. The bad news? They may not know the content of the photos being shared on their Page.

Take a look at a small sample of photos from TD Garden’s Page, where the Bruins play hockey. There’s nothing objectionable about these pictures, but we can’t be sure what may have been posted following their loss and since deleted by the Page Admin.

Even if every image posted is brand appropriate, there’s still a lot more content for Admins to monitor and moderate. Prepare your Page by visiting Edit Page>Edit Settings>Posting Ability/Post Visibility from the Admin section of your Page, shown below.

And the award for most ridiculous salesperson goes to…

This guy, hands down. But points for spelling my name right at least.

Eaten by alligators or just plain swamped?

Hi Alison,

I’ve attempted to reach you, but I’ve had no success. Either you’ve been eaten by alligators or you’re just plain swamped!
If you have been eaten by alligators, my deepest sympathy goes out to your family members. Or one of the following is more likely to have happened. I hate to keep pestering you, but I’d like to express my desire to chat with you about advocate marketing. Please pick one response and let me know what our next step should be.
____ Yes, I’ve been eaten by alligators. Please send flowers.
____ No, I haven’t been eaten by alligators, but you may wish I had been, because I have decided I have no interest in <redacted>. Sorry, you’re sunk.
____ Yes, I have some interest, but here are my challenges:
____ Yes, I have some interest. Let’s get together. Here are a few times I have for an intro call:
____ You really need to be sending these emails to: ________________
____ Other:

Greatly appreciated!

<name redacted to protect the guilty>

First of all, this is the cheesiest email I’ve ever received. Second, it’s not even original cheese! He completely stole it. And finally, his previous correspondence didn’t offer any reason to get in touch with him or ask for a follow up. Not to mention that the funny tone he was striving for left me annoyed and more confused than before.

Sales is tough. I get it. But when you have to resort to misleading subject lines (“quick question for you..” ring a bell for anyone?) or lame jokes, you might want to rethink your strategy.

Specs For The New Twitter Layout

The new look is widely available now; just login and Twitter will give you an overview and the option to update immediately. Here’s what you need to know:

Profile Photo

400×400 pixels. Image is automatically resized to fit.

Header Photo

1500×500 pixels. Image is automatically resized to fit and is cropped to a 2:1 aspect ratio on mobile.

Bio

Up to 160 characters. Your bio is displayed on your profile header under your name and username.

Pinned Tweet

Click on the “more” option on the Tweet you want to pin and select “Pin to your profile page.”

Tweet Previews

Photo and player Cards appear directly on your profile, and Vines automatically play.

Your Best Tweets

The Tweets that get people talking are now bigger in size.

Why You Should Be Glad US Airways Tweeted That Photo (You Know The One)

Did I need to see the picture in question? No. Did the customer that was complaining and already dealing with the headache of a delayed flight? Certainly not. But we all need to grow up and move on. Because you know why and how that photo got tweeted? There is a real, live human being replying to people and humans make mistakes.

That mistake could have been a copy and paste error (totally possible, I’ve done it…just not with quite such disastrous results) or a technical glitch (less probable that their Twitter management system mistakenly grabbed it, but still possible) or just somebody having a bad day (we’ve all been there). The point is, they are all mistakes. Accidents. Unintended actions, or possibly a lapse of judgement. Which is going to happen when you have real people doing their jobs.

Think about it: would you rather receive an automated response that tells you nothing, or a human who replies and has a typo? If this was simply someone pasting the wrong URL, it’s not much more than a typo. It’s the media in question, the subject matter of the photo, that makes it a big deal. If the wrong URL led to the US Airways homepage instead of the complaint form, no one would be making a big deal.

Machines can’t do everything, and the price we pay for real-time, live customer service is the occasional human error.

Your Guide To Facebook’s New Look For Posts

Facebook’s changes to the Newsfeed are continuing to roll out to users. What’s that mean for brands? New specs for posts, yet again. Take a look at this infographic for a guide to image sizes, and check out the examples below for an idea of what each type of post looks like in the Facebook Newsfeed.

Text Only

Standard Facebook font, no real change here.

Link Share

Yuck. For some reason, Facebook changes the font of articles posted as a link share, creating a mix of serif and sans serif fonts in one Newsfeed that is confusing at best, ugly and outdated at worst.

Square Photos

Despite owning Instagram, an app known for square images, Facebook designed the Newsfeed for more panoramic, wide shots. Square and portrait photos leave a lot of extra space.

Full Photos

Big, beautiful images are what Facebook is after for the Newsfeed. They handle resizing, while keeping aspect ratio intact.

Application Actions

Facebook has turned application actions into text-heavy posts, even for visual apps like Pinterest, creating big blocks of unfriendly text in the Newsfeed.

What do you think? So far, I’m not impressed. Let’s hope they are still making tweaks.

Facebook Makes Reviews A Priority For Places

In addition to allowing businesses to reply to Facebook Reviews, they’ve also given Reviews more prominence on Pages. This change has taken effect already on any Page that is also a Place; that is, a business with a physical location. This only applies to Pages tied to a brick and mortar location–so a restaurant or hotel chain will NOT see this change, but a Facebook Page for an individual location within that chain will. I have seen this change applied to hotels, restaurants, retail stores, schools and service companies. Basically, any Page that includes the ability to check-in.

This change is independent of the other Page redesign rollout going on right now, but is applied a bit differently based on whether the Page has the new or old design. When you visit a Facebook Page using the old layout, you will now see Reviews moved to the top of the righthand column, with Posts By Others below it. (See example below.)

For Pages that have switched to the new layout, Reviews are in the left column, a little farther down. They are in a tabbed box shared with Posts By Others, with the default view showing Reviews first and requiring a click to see Posts By Others. (See example below.)

Is Facebook trying to join the reviews business? Looks like a new revenue stream may be opening up for them soon.

New Facebook Looks A Little Old

What seemed like small changes designed to streamline the Newsfeed have actually made Facebook harder to read and more old-fashioned looking. The grey background doesn’t help the readability of the side navigation and makes the icons look very outdated. The feed algorithm itself seems to be a bit better, showing actual recent stories on top when choosing “Recent Stories” as opposed to “Top Stories,” although recent stories alos includes new comments on old content.

What do you think about the new layout?