The Liminal Librarian

So in my nonlibrary life (which keeps me so busy that I hardly post here any more), I run a frugality and money-saving blog over at Mashup Mom. This has been fascinating in part today because of the lessons for libraries, and for all of us, from companies that don’t do social media well. Bear with me for a minute, here.

Exhibit A: Safeway (Dominick’s, Genuardi’s, Von’s, Randall’s, Tom Thumb, other sister stores…)

This past weekend, the Safeway chain blasted subscribers with an email stating that if they became a fan on Facebook, they could come back on Monday the 7th for a free box of clementines. Cool, right? I like clementines. Here’s the original ad:

Pretty straightforward, no? Here’s what the promo turned into on 12/7:

Hmm. That’s not the same at all, is it. Not only that, earlier in the morning people were able to load the coupon to their cards, but it didn’t say on the coupon that it was only valid 12/8 — they went shopping, and guess what happened? No free box of clementines, that’s what happened. On Safeway’s Facebook Wall, people are reporting hold times of upwards of 30 minutes with customer service and arguments at their stores. (This begs the question of who holds for 30 minutes for a “free” $5.00 box of fruit, but…) Some people were unable to load the coupon because of technical glitches, others did their big grocery shop already for the week and were miffed about the $25 purchase requirement. Here are a few choice comments from their Wall:

• “Not a happy customer. The coupon would not let me complete it because it was too low down on my screen and I could not submit it.”
• “Yes, I find it interesting the way Safeway went about this promotion! Why not just say: “shop tomorrow,spend $25 and we’ll throw in a box of clementines” ?? wouldn’t that be alot easier than pissing off loyal shoppers?”
• “”With $25 min. purchase.” is a bunch of B.S.! NOT what was advertised earlier! To say I’m displeased would be a GROSS UNDERSTATEMENT!!!”
• “Time to un-fan. This “coupon” is not what was promised days ago. Plus, I do not have the kind of time/money where I can just zoom off to a store and spend $25 for “free” clementines.”
• “Too difficult. Another convoluted Safeway gimmick.”
• “This sucks with a capital S…Shame on you Safeway. I thought youu were above these underhanded tactis.”
• “This is a horrible promotion. Why would you go through the hassel for some clemintines when you have to pay $25 for them. They are not free.”
• “Safeway’s “FREE clementines” offer = FAIL”
• “Incredible! I go to the link and try to register my card. The little pop up doesn’t allow me to move it so I can’t even register my card. I will by the Clementines on sale at Fry’s instead!”
• “Does your company have anyone who checks continuity on your offers? There was no mention of a 25,000 limit on the email you sent and no meniton of haveing to buy them a certain day or with a $25 purchase. This is not responsible advertising and makes me think the people in charge of your Facebook ads are doing your sto…re a disservice by alienating us, the customers. Rethink this process. I think it backfired on you.”

Now, Safeway has started to respond to the negative comments with a generic:

Hi ____,
You can view all the details of the promotion here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=197386102471&ref=mf
Please let me know if you have any questions!
Thanks!

Think that’s making people happy? Anyway, you can read hundreds more here if you enjoy this sort of thing….

Exhibit B: Walgreens

Everyone’s jumping on the Facebook bandwagon lately. So Walgreens puts out a promo yesterday: Fan us on Facebook, and then come back Monday for a “special offer.” Ooh! Mystery special offer. What could it be? Well, it turned out to be free shipping, today only, not good on photos. Yawn. Apparently it’s not even working for a lot of people, and then their site went down for “system upgrades” shortly after they released the code. Here’s what their Wall now sports:

• “Boo…this kinda sucked…not impressed or excited about this “deal!”"
• “The code applies but then when you go to next page to put your payment info it puts shipping charge back on! This is so screwed up!”
• “I’m taking my name off the list…very disappointed!”
• “i signed up for this crap?! booooo”
• “It’s not that we are ungrateful, it’s just that free shipping it’s pretty much something that most comsumers already expect – because most retailers already offer this – especially around the holidays. Sorry Walgreens – I must unfriend you as well.”
• “Yes, bogged down and now closed…Merry Christmas Walgreens. Your sale is mega lame as everyone on the planet lives within walking distance of a Wags so free shipping is a slap in the face and now your website cannot handle the “load” of the seven people who actually want to take advantage of your “sale.” Unfriend.”
• “Walgreens site is down. Gee thanks for the “Today Only Free Shipping”. Jerks.”

It’s not making people quite as mad as the “free” clementines, but it’s not making them happy, either. Read more here, if you’re so inclined.

Lessons for libraries (or anyone else):

So here’s what I take from this:

1. Deliver on what you promise. If you are promising something for “free,” there had better not be a catch.
2. Be clear as to what you’re offering. If the original Safeway promo had specified a free box of clementines with $25.00 purchase on 12/8/09 when you become a fan, people may not have liked the idea as much as “FREE CLEMENTINES.” But they would also know what they were signing up for, and could choose to fan or not fan Safeway based on accurate info. As librarians, we should be all about the accurate info, right?
3. Don’t overhype what you’re offering. People felt let down by Walgreens because the whole idea of “mystery special offer” promised something better than a free shipping code that excludes a huge category (photos and photo gifts) of what you’d want to buy from Walgreens online.
4. Make sure your site is robust enough to support what you’re offering. If you create a promo intending to attract thousands of fans, this probably isn’t the time to take your site down for maintenance.
5. Check your technology across browsers and platforms. If your submit button for a major promo, for instance, is off the bottom of the screen and unclickable on some users’ machines, that’s a problem. If you use pop-ups that refuse to clear, that’s a problem.

Examples like these make me think about my own online presence and need for clarity. How does your library look?

Maybe I’m just easily amused, but this one made me snort coffee.

I’ve been playing happily with FriendFeed for over a month now, and quite enjoy it — the ongoing stream of conversation and links there, combined with the pokery of Facebook, give me the feeling of coming home to the multiuser chat boards of the early 1990s. I also enjoy the serendipity; I keep a FriendFeed window open that I dip into from time to time during the day, and always see at least one or two links/comments worth further exploration (or simple amusement!).

One thing that nags at me, though, is the way in which using multiple sites fragments conversation. Someone might comment on my Facebook status on FriendFeed, for instance, but my Facebook friends won’t see that comment or be able to join in the conversation. Someone might comment on a blog post on Facebook, but readers over here will miss that discussion entirely. (Let alone, I haven’t even made it to twitter yet — and probably won’t, since I can’t afford another time suck!)

Over at Walt at Random, Steve Lawson comments on the usefulness of FriendFeed, saying in part:

You will see that some blog posts that got very few comment have actually sparked a discussion on FF. Also helpful for blogs like Caveat Lector that don’t have comments enabled.

I pull blog posts into both FriendFeed and Facebook, and notice that posts (and Flickr photos, for that matter) that garner no comments at “home” may get comments elsewhere. This is neat, but again leaves no record here and doesn’t inspire blog readers to join in the conversation.

Ironically enough, I recently saw a link to the following on FriendFeed (there’s that serendipity again…)

Dear Blog,

I feel like I have neglected you to hang out on Facebook and even sneak off with Twitter.  I am so busy these days communicating about what I am doing, thinking, eating, watching etc that I really have little time for a deeper relationship like ours.  Oh, blog.  You were my first love (if you forget my youthful romance with bulletin boards, chat, and texting).  Well, in any case you were my only serious commitment but that was before I met Facebook. You see, on Facebook people actually communicate back to me but almost no one ever posts on you my dear blog.

I’ve been trying to get back to my own Dear Blog, but admit that the ease of a 2-second status update on Facebook is generally a more seductive pull — and that friends (or “friends”) over there are likely to comment, where here it’s a more hit or miss proposition.

Where these thoughts are leading, I’m not yet sure. But, feel free to subscribe to me on FriendFeed, and I’ll likely return the favor — and comment here, there, and everywhere!

Even Facebook tries to shush us… Check out the bottom two Scramble rooms:

OK, I always wanted to say that… but here’s one for you Twitterers, or those of you who obsessively update your Facebook status. Memoirs, Ink. is holding a “What’s Your Status?” contest:

Memoirs Ink is having a free mini-memoir competition inspired by some great lines we’ve seen on gmail status, facebook status, twitter and others. The status line, while it can be a boring travelogue or list of things done in a day, is also a great form of mini memoiring. (Yes, we just made that word up.) So email us your status (150 characters MAX) and win cool prizes.

Read all about it — the site’s in frames, so click on “writing contest” and then “what’s your status? contest.”

… because of groups like:

“You know what you religious bigots? I might just go see Golden Compass.”

I have been a somewhat late convert to most forms of social software, but today I have a warm and fuzzy feeling because of those of you who have commented about Sam’s arrival here, on my Flickr, or on my Facebook Wall. Thanks, guys!

The Scrabulous application over on Facebook may make me a reluctant convert yet. Come play with me!

Confession time: I’m a social networking dropout from way back. I’ve tried a bunch but have given up on them all, most recently deleting my dormant (and embarrassingly incomplete) MySpace and Friendster accounts. Yet hope springs eternal — I’ve been playing around with LinkedIn and actually kind of like it so far; we’ll see if it sticks.

Kim Dority talks about LinkedIn as a kind of personal branding tool. I wonder — LISjobs.com and this blog both seem more naturally my “brand” than my more impersonal LinkedIn profile, although I’ve connected with new people on LinkedIn and been approached by new “contacts” who may not have approached me over here. I also wonder how people who are active on multiple social networking sites keep from spreading themselves too thin, letting information get out of date, or diluting their brand.

On that note, I also joined Facebook a couple of weeks ago in order to check out a group for scientific/technical/medical library jobs someone suggested adding to LISjobs.com. I didn’t set up a profile, and pretty much forgot I’d created the account until the friend requests started coming in — a couple from people I haven’t talked to in years. My biggest annoyance with Facebook (and all of these sites) lies in the predefined way they want me to identify my “friends.” There’s no category, for instance, that really fits “someone I knew on an online forum a couple of years ago” or “someone whose book I edited” or “someone I’ve exchanged e-mail with over the years.”

I use social software when it makes something I already do easier. Flickr lets me e-mail links to photos to groups of people without painstakingly attaching each to e-mail and worrying about people with slower connections; its social aspect is a nice bonus, but not why I ponied up my $25. Del.icio.us lets me access bookmarks anywhere and use tags instead of folders. Trillian lets me open up a couple of different IM accounts at once. Google Reader lets me skim through a bunch of blogs quickly and see what’s new. I’ve dallied with Furl and been briefly seduced by Shutterfly… I’ve been intrigued by NewsGator and had an extended flirtation with Bloglines… but, in the end, keep coming back to what works for me.

In a recent LJ column, Roy Tennant makes me feel better about my dropout nature by touting value of playing around with technology, just to find out what it’s about — even at the risk of later finding a specific implementation less personally useful. He mentions social networking sites like Tribe and Orkut as one example:

After using them for several months, I decided they weren’t that useful to me and stopped going to them. But now I know what they’re all about and can see why others may find them worthwhile. I’ve also dabbled in Second Life, and although I haven’t visited it in months, at least I can talk about it from some experience. At the moment, I’m trying out Twitter. Time will tell whether I keep using it.

The point is not to be afraid of trying something out to see if it works for you. You can always drop it later if it doesn’t, and then at least you’ll know what your colleagues and library users are talking about.

Via Carnival of the Infosciences #75 over at A Wandering Eyre comes this post on how class shapes social networking sites, talking about danah boyd’s discussion of MySpace v. Facebook. (I’m unclear about the assertion that the military now bans MySpace, as my brother’s page is still active.) It’s an interesting take on how we choose where to network online; at the very least, the types of communities and sites I choose to frequent change over time as my interests, needs, and just plain free time change.