I’ve got 99 friends on Facebook but I hear from Jason Calacanis more than anyone. He has turned Facebook into a marketing platform for his human-powered search engine, Mahalo. And he doesn’t pay Facebook a dime for this primo branding opportunity.
Every morning I log in to Facebook and there is a link is posted through Mahalo with the Mahalo logo right next to it. As you can see by the screenshot of my news feed, yesterday (and most days) he had 5 items all with the Mahalo logo right next to it.
So how does he do it?
Well, the next generation of optimization is taking shape. First it was search engine optimization (SEO), next came social media optimization (SMO), and now we’ve got news feed optimization (NFO).
Dave McClure thinks “its effin’ brilliant.” and I’m sure other marketers are taking note. Inside Facebook has a very comprehensive post on how you too can optimize your submissions for Facebook’s news feed. Some of their tips:
- The most important thing you can do as a Facebook application marketer is to publish engaging, authentic Feed items.
- Be sure you optimize your Feed items for all of the Feed item elements made available to you by Facebook: title, body, and images.
Now here’s an amazing tidbit from Inside Facebook “News Feed publishes just a little more than 0.2% of the stories it considers.” Meaning Calacanis must truly be the master of NFO.
Now interestingly, Calacanis has taken on the search engine optimization industry before.
The SEO folks got really pissed off at me for saying “SEO is bulls@#t.” last year, but the truth is that 90% of the SEO market is made up of snake oil salesman.
Do you consider having your Facebook newsfeed dominated by headlines posted to Mahalo (and using the Mahalo logo as the image rather than an image related to the story) to be Facebook SPAM? At the very least, is the rationale behind posting it “optimizing” links for Facebook, hence marketing those links (Mahalo)?
(Now I know I could unfriend Calacanis or block him from my feed, but thats not the point. How is he getting so much content in there in the first place?)
The point is, is it OK to use what others are using for conversation and updates for marketing. And don’t tell me he’s not, because that is exactly what those 5 Mahalo logos every day are doing there. What do you think?
Great Article, we’re looking to hire a SMO/SEO person right now. Linkage is a powerful thing!
Frankly, I think it’s way too much. We’re doing two things to address the issue:
1. We’re replacing the mahalo icon with the screen grab of the bookmark. So, if I bookmark a story on engadget or a product on Amazon you’re gonna see that screen shot–not the mahalo flower.
2. I’m not using Facebook at my bookmarking service any more! The reason this all happened was because I was using our Mahalo Share tool (google it) and it puts my delicious bookmarks on Facebook. I didn’t think it would put so many of my bookmarks on other people’s pages. So, I’m going to limit it to my best 2-3 bookmarks a day.,
Thanks for the feedback!
I think folks need to pace themselves and put in quality stuff. I know i’ve been putting in quality stuff, but I also think it’s too much. I though Facebook managed this better in building people’s feeds frankly.
all the best j
Jason –
Thanks for the comment. I appreciate the response. I think were talking about what really is a fine line here between spamming / marketing / sharing.
1) Posting links using Mahalo Follow actually works really well. If you want to post an interesting link to multiple places, it is a great tool. (I tried out the toolbar for this post). I’m assuming most of your posts are done this way b/c I follow you on Tumblr too, and the same links are in there.
2) There’s nothing wrong with you posting links all day long in Facebook, and their News Feed algorithm deciding they are important enough to show me. But, most of your links are to Mahalo, as opposed to the stories themselves, which feels like marketing Mahalo first, providing an interesting link second. Granted, the point of Mahalo is to aggregate numerous authoritative links around a topic. So, fair enough.
3) The Mahalo logo definitely feels like marketing. A screenshot about the story would be better, and in most cases its probably an option since Facebook lets you choose the best image for the link and on most Mahalo results pages there is an image relevant to the page. (http://www.mahalo.com/Edison_Chen_Sex_Photos)
At any rate, thanks for the comment. And I know you’ve set a high bar for “quality” vs. “spam” in everything you’ve said in the past on your blog and at conferences. Glad pointing out your domination of my Facebook news feed page brought to light these issues for you.
Chris
You’re being spammed by Calacanis? I think I’d prefer viagra and Nigerian money laundering
SMO+SEO=Success !