In my previous post, I shined a little light on the repercussions Facebook platform apps can have on the productivity and performance on an individual.  But, how does Facebook apps create sluggish, under-performing companies?

Again noted, Facebook can be an incredible contributor to a company’s bottom line.  It’s a fantastic resource for generating leads and promoting brands, goods and services.  Companies need to define acceptable usage policies for social media so that the incorporation of social media is effective within the overarching marketing strategy.

Facebook is a fantastic tool for acquiring leads and growing your business.  However, Facebook does offer a new set of distractions.

I’m splitting this post into two parts in order to direct the content to two different, primary audiences: the individual looking for work; and, the business owner.   Depending on your current position, you should be aware of the distractions that may be causing you or your business to be less productive. 

Also, these two posts may seem hyper-critical, but please realize, my belief is quite simple…If you don’t like what you’re doing or the results, stop complaining and either change your attitude or change what you’re doing.

On a previous post, I discussed the importance of diversifying your social media marketing channels due to the attacks on the social network Twitter.

As these attacks were taking place, marketers rushed to other channels such as Facebook and FriendFeed.  This, in turn, brought heavy stressed upon the infrastructure of these two servers making their responses to traffic requests quite sluggish, as well.

Over the past few days, we’ve witnessed some of Facebook’s own growing pains. 

Until recently, the extent of using Facebook for charity has been restricted to “Causes” – user-generated pages for organizations and charities providing a mechanism for allowing contributors to donate online.  This has been one way for organizations to “virally” get their message out and acquire new supporters.

However, due to the recent, massive flooding in Atlanta, the local Christian radio station, 104.7 FM – The Fish, has discovered a new way to serve the community through Facebook.  The Fish and their morning show hosts, Kevin and Taylor, are using their Facebook news feeds as a platform for posting community needs and responses.

For someone seeking assistance, the individual would post their request to either the main feed of the Fish or to the feed of Kevin and Taylor.  Community members receive the status updates in their own feeds and have an opportunity to respond to those needs.

Many would argue that social media has weakened the “back porch community.”  For Atlanta this week, Facebook has done the opposite – brought strength and encouragement to a hurting city.

If you think back to your first car (and if it was like mine), it might not have been your dream car or even the coolest car on the block, but at least it got you from point A to point B.  In comparison to riding your bicycle or riding the bus to school, however, your car was the best.

Your first car may not have have been a Mercedes or BMW, but, plain and simple, it worked.

Unfortunately, many companies have the same philosophy when engaging in Internet Marketing, “It may not be the best, but it works.”  Or, “I don’t care what it looks like as long as its something.” 

Personally, I have been instilled with the belief, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.”  The Social Media community follows this belief, as well.  The community can immediately determine the quality of the brand or product by its deliverance through Social Media channels.

Also, please don’t confuse quality with “high dollar”.  Not all quality has to be expensive – and in most cases concerning Social Media, it’s very inexpensive.  Most of what I, personally, do for myself costs next-to-nothing and 80% of my revenue is generated from Social Media.

Concerning quality, I’m referring to clear, concise deliverance; orderly, fresh presentation; and, of course, remember the audience you are targeting. Flat, basic landing pages may be great for older demographics, but the Social Media community is, for the most part, familiar with technology – its okay to use Flash, video and other Web 2.0 medias in your Internet marketing collateral.  Interestingly enough, the older demographics (55+) are now Facebook’s fastest growing demographic compared to only 4 months ago (which was 45+).  Familiarity with Web 2.0 collateral is rapidly expanding to the retirees.

One final note…

Your type of quality may not be considered Social Media quality.  In other words, what you may find exceptional, could be completely bland to a member of the Social Media community.  If you don’t know how to reach the Social Media crowd, hire someone who does. Furthermore, remember to take their advice.  After all, that is why you hired them.

If you've ever sat in my seminars, you found very quickly that I love statistics.  As rapid as the Social Media horizon changes, so is the rate at which these statistics change.

Socialnomics, this past week, released some staggering statistics on the current impact of Social Media. Erik Qualman has done a fine job of compiling the data and its presentation.  I think you'd agree with me how amazing some of these statistics are. A few of these include:

1. 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
2. Years to Reach 50 millions Users:  Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
3. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia

Also, a few interesting facts concerning education:

1. 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
2. 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
3. Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen

Erik has posted the list of statistics along with their sources on his blog, just below the video.

Twitter was completely unavailable this morning for approximately 2 hours.  The microblogging platform that allows its users to post status and news updates in 140 characters or less was the victim of a DDoS attack. 

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is an instance in which the perpetrator consistently floods the victim with multiple, bogus requests and, in turn, overloads the server preventing it from answering good requests.  Apparently the load balancing system also failed.

In turn, many of Twitter's users turned to Facebook for distribution and sharing information.  Facebook, as a result, became sluggish this morning, as well.

There are two lessons we can learn from this morning's events:

1. While we are quickly approaching, social media is not fully ready to be the primary news source.  While it can assist in sharing information quickly across a broad audience, there are a few "kinks" that still need to resolved.
2. Have a backup.  Many of these social media platforms are developed and operated by individuals and small startups that simply do not have the capital to prevent downtime.  Instead of relying on one social media channel, incorporate multiple networks as you develop your marketing strategy.

As of the writing of this post, Twitter's "Replies" and "Direct Messages" feeds are still down.