I’m enjoying Facebook’s road to IPO but I have to take a moment to acknowledge something from Facebook’s S-1 filing. Over the last few days, colossal amounts of attention were paid and will continue to be paid to Facebook’s amazing business results:  the 800+ million active users, the $3.7 billion (!) in revenue, and their growth rates, too. These are grand but I hope many of you don’t forget to pay attention to the culture and process that made those achievements possible. In that respect, I want to share with you a n excerpt from Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to shareholders. He labeled their internal approach and continuous strive for improvements and iteration, The Hacker Way. It’s surely a 21st-century manifesto for a new way of doing business. Here’s the excerpt:

Simply put: we don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services.

And we think this is a good way to build something. These days I think more and more people want to use services from companies that believe in something beyond simply maximizing profits.

By focusing on our mission and building great services, we believe we will create the most value for our shareholders and partners over the long term — and this in turn will enable us to keep attracting the best people and building more great services. We don’t wake up in the morning with the primary goal of making money, but we understand that the best way to achieve our mission is to build a strong and valuable company.

This is how we think about our IPO as well. We’re going public for our employees and our investors. We made a commitment to them when we gave them equity that we’d work hard to make it worth a lot and make it liquid, and this IPO is fulfilling our commitment. As we become a public company, we’re making a similar commitment to our new investors and we will work just as hard to fulfill it.

The Hacker Way

As part of building a strong company, we work hard at making Facebook the best place for great people to have a big impact on the world and learn from other great people. We have cultivated a unique culture and management approach that we call the Hacker Way.

The word “hacker” has an unfairly negative connotation from being portrayed in the media as people who break into computers. In reality, hacking just means building something quickly or testing the boundaries of what can be done. Like most things, it can be used for good or bad, but the vast majority of hackers I’ve met tend to be idealistic people who want to have a positive impact on the world.

The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it — often in the face of people who say it’s impossible or are content with the status quo.

Hackers try to build the best services over the long term by quickly releasing and learning from smaller iterations rather than trying to get everything right all at once. To support this, we have built a testing framework that at any given time can try out thousands of versions of Facebook. We have the words “Done is better than perfect” painted on our walls to remind ourselves to always keep shipping.

Hacking is also an inherently hands-on and active discipline. Instead of debating for days whether a new idea is possible or what the best way to build something is, hackers would rather just prototype something and see what works. There’s a hacker mantra that you’ll hear a lot around Facebook offices: “Code wins arguments.”

Hacker culture is also extremely open and meritocratic. Hackers believe that the best idea and implementation should always win — not the person who is best at lobbying for an idea or the person who manages the most people.

To encourage this approach, every few months we have a hackathon, where everyone builds prototypes for new ideas they have. At the end, the whole team gets together and looks at everything that has been built. Many of our most successful products came out of hackathons, including Timeline, chat, video, our mobile development framework and some of our most important infrastructure like the HipHop compiler.

To make sure all our engineers share this approach, we require all new engineers — even managers whose primary job will not be to write code — to go through a program called Bootcamp where they learn our codebase, our tools and our approach. There are a lot of folks in the industry who manage engineers and don’t want to code themselves, but the type of hands-on people we’re looking for are willing and able to go through Bootcamp.

The examples above all relate to engineering, but we have distilled these principles into five core values for how we run Facebook:

Focus on Impact

If we want to have the biggest impact, the best way to do this is to make sure we always focus on solving the most important problems. It sounds simple, but we think most companies do this poorly and waste a lot of time. We expect everyone at Facebook to be good at finding the biggest problems to work on.

Move Fast

Moving fast enables us to build more things and learn faster. However, as most companies grow, they slow down too much because they’re more afraid of making mistakes than they are of losing opportunities by moving too slowly. We have a saying: “Move fast and break things.” The idea is that if you never break anything, you’re probably not moving fast enough.

Be Bold

Building great things means taking risks. This can be scary and prevents most companies from doing the bold things they should. However, in a world that’s changing so quickly, you’re guaranteed to fail if you don’t take any risks. We have another saying: “The riskiest thing is to take no risks.” We encourage everyone to make bold decisions, even if that means being wrong some of the time.

Be Open

We believe that a more open world is a better world because people with more information can make better decisions and have a greater impact. That goes for running our company as well. We work hard to make sure everyone at Facebook has access to as much information as possible about every part of the company so they can make the best decisions and have the greatest impact.

Build Social Value

Once again, Facebook exists to make the world more open and connected, and not just to build a company. We expect everyone at Facebook to focus every day on how to build real value for the world in everything they do.

Thanks for taking the time to read this letter. We believe that we have an opportunity to have an important impact on the world and build a lasting company in the process. I look forward to building something great together.

In order to truly understand whether a corporation’s character and mission statement reflects true commitment you need to to think about the companies entire life. This is Facebook’s eight-year anniversary, and I think it’s appropriate to take a look at what Facebook looked like at the beginning. Here’s a brief quote from Zuck’s very first press interview, when Facebook was but ant compared to today:

After about a week of coding, Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com last Wednesday afternoon. The website combines elements of a standard House face book with extensive profile features that allow students to search for others in their courses, social organizations and Houses.

“Everyone’s been talking a lot about a universal face book within Harvard,” Zuckerberg said. “I think it’s kind of silly that it would take the University a couple of years to get around to it. I can do it better than they can, and I can do it in a week.”

As of yesterday afternoon, Zuckerberg said over 650 students had registered use thefacebook.com. He said that he anticipated that 900 students would have joined the site by this morning.

“I’m pretty happy with the amount of people that have been to it so far,” he said. “The nature of the site is that each user’s experience improves if they can get their friends to join it.”

I admire this young Zuck, the college student who had the courage to launch an easy, simple app in a week. Throughout the life of this useful app, from when he only had 900 customers to today 800+ million, he has insisted on iterating, executing, and building for the long-term. Thumbs up to all the Facebook Team, I Like it!

Here are some steps to stay safe while on Facebook.

• Only friend people you know.
• Make passwords account specific. Use a separate password for each account you may have. (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc..)
• Don’t share your password. If you need help and that requires giving them access make an alternative password and change it once the help is finished.
• Alternate your password on a regular basis. Change it at least once a month.
• Limit the amount of personal information you share with people and companies.
• Log into Facebook only ONCE each session. If Facebook is asking you to log in again, close the window and go directly to facebook.com in your browser. If you’re being asked again you may be getting hacked!
• Use a one-time password when using someone else’s computer.
• Log out of Facebook after using someone else’s computer.
• Use secure browsing whenever possible.
• Only download applications from trusted sites.
• Keep your anti-virus software updated.
• Keep your browser and other applications up to date.
• Don’t paste script (code) in your browser address bar.
• Use browser add-ons like Web of Trust and Firefox’s NoScript to keep your account from being hijacked.
• Beware of “awkward” posts from anyone, especially even Friends. If the post looks out of place your better off not interacting with it directly. But if this happens to you send the person a private message to verify the message.
• Your friend’s account may be compromised as some scammers hack your Friends’ accounts and send out links to all their friends. Have caution when you see enticing links coming from your Friends.

Remember, everything online is public!

For more Tips on Facebook visit Tricksfacebook.com

This infographic from creative agency One Lily looks at the state of social media today.

(Source: One Lily.)

Facebook is known for not being the friendliest to brands. One known problem was the extension of EdgeRank algorithm to brand pages so that a large portion of their audiences disappeared. This was a problem for all brands.

However, Facebook has just introduced a new element that has internal digital PR teams and social media agencies excited! This new functionality allows pages to be tagged in images of it’s community. For example, a picture of individual drinking a latte from Starbucks can now tag Starbucks Facebook Page. This opens new possibilities for brands.

An additional outlet for interaction with fans – most brands interact with fans primarily through comments and likes, but the introduction of page photo tagging presents a new engagement possibility. In most cases tagging a brand could illustrate something much more meaningful than a comment or like, that the brand was somehow part of the situation, and is, as such, much more valuable.

Competition possibilities – One dynamic element that this new page tagging brings to the table is it’s use in competitions. When using this new functionality their are plenty of opportunities for creativity.  Those pages that become the most innovative with these opportunities will likely receive the largest rewards from campaigns.

Facebook tools can potentially increase your visibility in the news feeds and profile pages. Interactions are key and the more you get the more visibility you will have. This small factor may result in valuable visibility in the long run.

Another tactic is page-to-page collaborations through images. This could become a mainstream occurrence, much like the way many pages now reference one another through Facebook’s @ functionality.

Facebook’s change opens up a number of new outlets for brands to interact with their audiences, and also potentially a much more meaningful way for Facebook users to highlight certain brands or pages as part of their lives. It will certainly be interesting to see how the biggest of the thousands of pages on the platform make use of this new functionality.

Here as some major brands to keep an eye on:

Vitamin Water

In their sponsorships with players, Vitamin Water could tag their product and be associated with that player. Imagine a group photo of Dwight Howard, Lebron James, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, and Kobe Bryant tagged with Vitamin Water.

Oreo

Who doesn’t love Oreos and find a creative way to eat them? Oreo could instantly be a heavy weight with their popular cookies.

Brooklyn Museum

When people take pictures in the museum, tag the art! Popular locations could instantly benefit.

Concerts

At a concert you always see a sea of cameras and smart phones in the audience. Wouldn’t it be smart if all those Facebook users tagged the artist’s Facebook page in the photos. Thus helping to create a more dynamic representation of the show.

-Peter
CEO of Uhuru Network

For more Social Media coverage, follow Peter Lang on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook

Facebook has made an option available for those individuals that question whether or not to maintain a profile or switch to a Page. You may now convert your personal user profiles to an official business Page, turning all your friends into fans. You can do this at: “Profile To Business Page Migration” tool. You will no longer have to start your page with zero Likes.

For all the businesses worried about loosing their communities when choosing to switch this should come as exciting news. Currently Facebook has not released an announcement about this tool, but TricksFacebook.com and it’s International partners have confirmed it’s available worldwide.

Facebook is offering a new Help Center article on converting profiles to Pages that specifics the steps in the changing process. A user must have a verified account in order to convert the profile into a Page but once the process is started their profile photo will be transferred, and all their friends will be converted into users who Like their Page.

Be aware that conversion will cause you to loose all your photos and wall posts. All other Like connections will be disconnected so please backup your profiles. I recommend using Facebook’s Download Your Information tool.

This Migration to Page will be tremendously valuable for users that began using their profile to promote a small business, but were fearful of hitting Facebook’s 500 friend limit. It will also allow those promoting a business with a personal profile to begin using third-party Page applications that allow them to set up a Like-gated landing page, run contests, collect email addresses, and recreate functionality from websites.
-Peter
CEO of Uhuru Network

For more Social Media coverage, follow Peter Lang on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook

Social media will not be ignored. Social media may be difficult to grasp and that’s ok, even the industry leaders define “Social Media” differently.

Definitions

1. Duct Tape Marketing – Social media is the use of technology combined with social interaction to create or co-create value

2. About.com – Media is an instrument on communication, like a newspaper or a radio, so social media would be a social instrument of communication

3. Brian Solis – Social Media is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism, one-to-many, to a many-to-many model, rooted in conversations between authors, people, and peers

4. iContact - An umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words and pictures

5. The Financial Brand – Social media isn’t about the media, it’s about being social

Peter Lang -  Social media is user generated content that is shared over the internet by applications and technologies that encourage engagement, sharing and collaboration

As you can see from above there is certainly a wide range of definitions. Like it or not more and more businesses are using it. Hotels are finding that marketing via social media has become a fantastic way of finding and connecting with potential and current customers. Putting it simply, the Directors of Sales can’t take your name from your credit card and friend you on Facebook. But there are many other ways to find and connect with guests. If you’re a hotel owner, General Manger or  any other managerial position you should truly consider participating. From my experience working with hotel properties I’ve included what I consider the best ways hotels should be using social media.

Best ways

Tweet – Begin by creating a front desk twitter account. Have your literature and staff share with guests that they can get immediate answers to their questions without having to call or talk with a staff member.

Facebook – Create a Facebook Page. Keep up with the changes and write solid content about the hospitality industry, freely.

Customize Content – Landing Pages is the example I will use for this example. A Local Hotel (shown on the left) and the Corporate Brand (shown on the right).

Emphasis on your Niche – All brands have a particular demographic, but take it deeper. If your hotel offers a wonderful honeymooners suite, or beautiful venue of weddings – make sure you’re promoting your hotel as a wedding hotel. Social media empowers niche marketing in that you can focus and tailor copy to your target market.

Encourage Networking  – Hotel staff frequent networking events, mixers and seminars and should rightfully connect with those people on Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, etc

Introduce/Highlight – You’re staff is extremely valuable. Share with us the people behind the brand.

Blog – A website is automatic but brand-blogging is growing in importance. As search continues to become more social it is the dynamic content that will position the highest. (Position aka “top listing on Google, Bing, etc.) If you have a Blog (website is still default, yes), listen to my next words very carefully… GOOGLE ANALYTICS.

Protect the brand and your job – Policy is important. Every day I hear about employment termination due to social networking, microblogs, etc… Read: Fired Over a Post on Facebook

Bad Publicity – Oh I said it. It will happen. People will find something wrong with anything and post comments on social media sites. Trip advisor, Google Reviews on Places listings, Yahoo reviews, and Yelp. I’ve linked to the recommended response sections of each listed.

Positive Reviews – Share with your community through any distribution method you have access to all the great positive reviews you receive. Post on Twitter, Facebook, and website so people know what your hotel has to offer.

Competition – The hospitality industry tends to have high turnover with staff migrating between properties. But when it gets down to it if two properties are competing for rooms knowing your competition will pay dividends in your properties success. If you’re not listening to your competition online you’re missing out. How are you competing if you have no idea what your competition is doing? Rhetorical, you’re not.

Engagement - Get permission, I refer written, to take pictures and videos at the mixers, parties, meetings, conferences, managers reception, and so on and tell them they can get the pictures on your Facebook Page. Or twitpic the person that moment.

Hiring – Use social media connections when looking for staff. You will have less employee turnover if you find people who align with the dynamics of the property.

Get permission from your guests to take some pictures or videos at wedding and parties. Feature them on your social media sites so that others can see what you’re offering and how much fun people are having at your hotel. That will make people want to stay with you, too.

At least have

http://www.google.com/alerts

http://www.hootsuite.com/

Conclusion

Social media can be a powerful tool for hotels, if used correctly. Remember to use social media personally, therefore when it comes to business you’ll be able to engage and enjoy the time online and most importantly evolve with the technology. Social media allows you to supercharge engagement, make guests happy and generate more stays and ultimately more exposure, influence and revenue.

-Peter

Better Communication

People have asked for better ways to keep up with activity on their Page. You will now be able to interact with other Pages that “like” your Page as your Page. That’s right! This empowers administrators to receive notifications about fan activity, Like and comment on other Pages as your Page, and get your own News Feed that aggregates content by Pages you like. Changing the need for 3rd party aggregators like: http://www.hyperalerts.no/

More Opportunities for Expression

Featured photos of your Page’s most recent experiences will now appear at the top of your Page, like your profile. You can highlight other Pages you are connected with as well as the people who are managing your Page New branding elements and designs will sure be integrated into Pages much like Profile options.

Improve Relevancy

There is more to learn so take the tour yourself and please remember to read the manual! MANUAL –> Facebook’s New Pages

Shots from the tour.

- @peterlang

A woman who was fired over her post on her Facebook account is scheduled to have her case heard by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Tuesday.

Dawnemarie Souza, a former medical technician was fired on December 1, 2010 for a post where she used vulgar language to criticize her boss on Facebook after he denied one of her requests. Her post began a thread in which several co-workers made similar  negative comments about the supervisor. Souza’s comments came from her private account on her own time and on her personal computer.

Souza’s employer American Medical Response of Connecticut Inc., a medical transportation company, argues that Souza’s comments constituted “online badmouthing,” which violates company policy. The NLRB feels that Souza’s postings were a “concerted activity,” and therefore are  protected by employees’ rights to communicate with fellow employees to improve the workplace.

“This is a perfect example of the law not keeping up with technology,” employment attorney Scott M. Peterson of Tully Rinckey PLLC observed.  “I would expect this case will provide some guidance moving forward when it comes to social media and the workplace, but I don’t think the fight is anywhere near over.”

Firing her shows that the company doesn’t put enough effort into the well being of their employees, and the company. They should be more concerned that their employees feel the online environment is private. Many users have trouble keeping up with application changes that ultimately alter privacy settings thus it is important to lead with education.

- @peterlang

Facebook is a wonderland of opportunity for local businesses. It not only allows you to target ads but you and your business can engage with fans. Sadly this is not the case for most local businesses. They are not using Facebook effectively and instead are seriously using it to their disadvantage. Far to often businesses are using Facebook like any other ad channel – this tool was meant to be used, to engage with people! I’ve listed some of the most common mistakes small local businesses make on Facebook and how these mistakes may be corrected.

1. Invite everyone they know/met to fan their Facebook Page

It’s not wise to invite people from New York to fan your California clam chowder. Does it make sense to invite other real-estate brokers from Minnesota to fan your Texas real-estate company? Is there a benefit to inviting your competition to fan your page? Rhetorical. The answer is NO! Fan page value comes from the ability to send messages through status update and FB messages to all your fans at one time. The benefit to having non-local fans is primarily valuable to businesses who have actual non-local customers (tourist related business) or giving your competition inside info on your business and what you offer to fans and customers. Realtors, this is directed to you – the value of a page is to be able to connect, message and have a dialog with people in your own area – not other Realtors. So resist the urge to invite your peers (especially those in your region) to fan your page. The numbers game works this way: it’s better to have a small fan page that can convert visitors to clients than a hub where your competition are able to steal your leads!

2. Only update with content related to their business

A local business regardless of the business industry is LOCAL first. To begin, when you update, your posts will have two sides – the business updates and local updates. If you have the inside scoop on sale at a local merchant, inform your fans. You must be engaged in not just your business but also in the city/town itself. This step will help you build new fans that are local and stand as a reminder to your existing community that you are local. Frequency of visits increase if you have something to say that directly relates to their life. Take a dentist for example – people at large won’t need your business information until they have a need or a toothache, but if you post content about dentistry related tips as well as local info like holiday events, you will find they are more likely to remember you as a local dentist when the day arrives where they need your service!

HINT: If you are a dentist – make your profile pic a tooth – if you are a Realtor – include a house in your page profile pic – get it? Help people visually identify what you do right in their status feed! Also maximize your image height 540 pixels by width 180 pixels.

3. Only share status updates and never engage with fans

When a Page fails to respond to fans in comments or they don’t explore their fans and comment on their profile updates local businesses loose a valuable opportunity. The speedy responsiveness of any communication will show visitors that you took the time to comment back. One of the best ways is to thank them for participating in your page!  I recommend that you personally friend your fans. A way to build a stable Facebook relationships is to actively seek to friend your fans from your personal profile. (Read my post on Personal Branding) To manage this strategy you will need to place them in a List titled “FANS.” In your account privacy settings you will be able to block “FANS” from seeing specific content like your personal info, selected albums and wall updates (Lists will allow you to retain a private Facebook environment).

4. Not engaging outside of the fan page

Exploring Facebook fan pages will expose you to the worst habit on Facebook – people and businesses that stay on their own profile and pages and never venture out to of that interface. To grow a page properly with a local following, you need to engage with local people and groups. This means you need to regularly comment on other local friends’ pages and join and engage with local groups. In the range of difficulty this is one of the easiest methods of growing your community. Find local Facebook Groups where locals are chatting. Set goals for your levels of engagement. At least 3 times a day post outside of your pages and profiles. You do this by commenting on other people’s status updates and local groups you become a member of. Successful methods vary but failure is certain if you are 100% sales focused – building relationships so when you post something about your business there are people who care listening.

5. Never let anyone know about their Facebook page

I’m assuming you have a business or are apart of an organization that desires to make money. Money is vital for the business to exist. As much as you advertise your business you will need to advertise your Facebook fan page. Do so by merging your website and your fan page via the fan box widget, add a link to your page on your website and place your fan page url on your personal Facebook profile info tab.

BONUS

GEOLOCATION is the FUTURE, TODAY. Use Facebook Places. List your business on Facebook Places, Gowalla, and Foursquare – or other industry specific sites. Regularly engage with the people and pages that mention your Places profile. Remind your customers to check into your own business everyday to keep your stream active and if you Tweet (which you should), tag the location with your Places profile.

I wish you SUCCESS!

- @peterlang

For more Social Media coverage, follow Peter Lang on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook