Tony Adam - Expert SEO Consultant

The most random thing happened to me last night and I am not sure how it happened. I went to login to my Facebook account last night and next thing I know I get the following message:

“Your account has been disabled by an administrator. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page here.”

The thing that really gets me is not one piece of communication from Facebook to the user, in this case, me other than at the login screen. There was not one email sent from Facebook possibly stating: “Your account was disabled for the following reason…”

Furthermore, typically when someone violates a terms of services or anything of that nature, there should be a communication sent out to the individual. When you strip someone of any type of product, service, account, etc. there needs to be a valid reason for it and also what they can do to re-initiate their account. Going WAY back into the past with AOL, they use to do this if your account was reported, etc. I remember a specific occurrence where i called someone a name as a joke, in a chat room and I was reported by someone else (yes, I am a geek that lives online practically and I did at some point hang out in chat rooms with friends, insert one of many jokes <here>). AOL still sent an email to us, saying the account was disabled for the following XX number of reasons, the specific comment made, and furthermore, provided steps to getting our account back.

Moving back to Facebook, you can not strip someone of their means of communication and not provide reasoning for doing so. Disabling a users account without any explanation is like stripping a family of telephone and snail mail communication in the 1970’s, you just don’t do that!

So, I went on my way and tried to do a little digging to see if I could find a way to contact customer support or something along those lines. As you can see in the screenshot above there is a fancy little link to the FAQ page, “here”. (Side mistake by Facebook…right…because “here” describes what this beautiful little page is? Why not just link “disabled account FAQ page” to be a little more semantic…sigh)

What do we have here, on this fancy little FAQ page which provides absolutely no contact information? Ooops, I leaked it a bit to early…yes…you heard me right…the FAQ page does not provide ANY contact information to the user attempting to get in touch to find out why their account was disabled. Facebook, seriously? Are. You. Kidding. Me?!

Here is the fully open disabled user FAQ page, with…(yes I’m going to say it again)…NO CONTACT INFORMATION:

Let’s recap for a moment here on where Facebook had a FAIL of EPIC proportions:

• First and foremost, disabled a users account without any absolute reason
• Provided the user with no explanation, let alone a detailed explanation of the problem
• Did not provide any steps to re-enable or bring their account back online
• Worst of all, did not provide any contact information to the user for them to contact facebook.

A lot of the actions above can be easily handled by setting up triggers in your database or code. The disabling action should trigger an email, of which, should contain the reasons for disabling the user. The reasons can be linked to the users profile, provide that string of text in the email. Furthermore the contact details should be provided in the email template and/or a list of things the user can do in the meantime. Rather than getting frustrated and writing a blog post, like me.

Now, I have actually emailed facebook, the disabled email address is disabled@facebook.com. I found that address thanks to Steve Ganz doing a search for me. (Which I’ll admit, I should have thought of doing, but was so confused I didn’t) The url to that page is http://www.facebook.com/help.php?hq=account+disabled. We will see how this comedic drama of my account being disabled turns out. Hopefully Facebook can clean up their customer support and disabled account policies in the meantime as well.

Updates:

7/13 @ 4:05pm: It is a Sunday and typically not a “business day”…but 12 hours since my account was disabled and still no contact from facebook support or a reply to the disabled email address.

7/13 @ 4:30pm: Thanks to a tip from @carlayoung on twitter, I have fwd’ed my email to their appeals@facebook.com email address for yet another attempt at opening communication lines up.

7/14 @ 8:05am: It has been a full day since my first emails have been sent off to Facebook’s disabled support and I still have not received an email. My account is still disabled.

7/15 @ 4:55 pm: Facebook finally re-actived my account and said that I need to browse Facebook less…interestingly enough, they state there are rate limits, but refuse to state what those rate limits are.

When I started learning about SEO and the role it can play for any business, whether small or large, there was one quote that put it all into perspective. It was a business meeting that I was having with the owner of our company at the time and he said to me: “We have to find a way to position ourselves so people find us and not us going out finding people.”

Well, those words really inspired me to search for the answers to this, which ended up being search marketing. (no pun intended on the search comment, I swear!). Businesses have spent years spending countless dollars on acquisition going outbound. This is a VERY time consuming and resource intensive venture. Can you imagine the dollars you would have to spend hiring Telemarketers, Mass Mailers, Account Executives, etc. Yes, these are still very effective channels and you can still target and acquire customers this way, but, why not do it, with less resources, less dollars, etc.

Alright, I get it, I am preaching to the choir as fellow search marketers, you know this and understand it, intimately. But, as it turns out many small businesses are still relying on these traditional and old school outbound marketing tactics to acquire new customers. Any traditional channel that you can think of, SMBs are squeezing out every last drop. There is not only a lack of knowledge, but also of time and execution for an inbound style of customer acquisition.

If we put a little perspective on this, we can gain a little more understanding about how the Customer Acquisition model is changing and how positioning yourself to be found is more effective.

Imagine your a small business, put yourself in the shoes of an accounting firm. You have little to no understanding of marketing, sales and you are trying to target small business for accounting and bookkeeping services. What do you do? Well, there are a few options you can choose from:

• Hire telemarketers to generate leads
• Hire a Sales Executive to not only generate leads, but also close deals, etc.
• Go to Hoovers or Dunn and Bradstreet and buy a list. After which you need to put together a mass direct mailer. Keep in mind you would still need to import this data into some sort of CRM package AND on top of that, follow up. (yawn. been there. done that.)
• Buy tons of print media spots in magazines, newspapers, etc.

Think about all of the above strategies for a second and how much time, money or resources could be wasted with any and/or all of them. I have even seen and heard small business owners tell me that they are doing things like buying electronic signs in the thousands, to attract attention. While this is a fairly “inbound” technique, it is still very costly, for little to absolutely no gain. While, implementing PPC, this business could receive about as many visitors in one day for about ~$50. Even implementing some very simple Local SEO would help that business gain just as much traffic.

All of these very costly activities coupled with the fact that Search Marketing is not only more targeted but also more measurable is leading to that shift. Not only is it hitting the small business market, but also larger organizational strategies are changing. Focusing acquisition on inbound techniques, hiring more and expanding inhouse search marketing teams, etc.

Customer acquisition should really focus on the positioning of your organization to be found. Using SEO and PPC, this is VERY possible. Business on the web and in general is going to focus on this more and more in years to come. People SEARCH for products, services, etc. and any organization that does not adjust its customer acquisition strategy for this, is going to lose. Position yourself to be a winner.

Since I just bought my new Macbook Pro, I had to reinstall all of my Firefox extensions, plugins and tools. So, I figured, hey, why not write a detailed post with examples about my “Top 7 Firefox extensions, plugins, and tools” that are near and dear to my heart!

Top 7 Firefox Extensions, Plugins, and Tools:

1. Firebug: If you haven’t used this yet and you are working on something internet related then you are surely missing out. I love the fact that I can pull it up to either fix issues, work on making adjustments on the fly, doing competitive analysis or a site audit.

Here is a screenshot of the FireBug window open and inspecting a section of the page:

2. Y! Slow: Since site speed is such an important part of conversion, you can use this to do some testing on your websites to test how they are running in certain environments. It provides data like overall page size and # of seconds the page took to load. Now, note that this all depends on your connection speed, always remember that there are people downloading pages at slower speeds, then you might be.

Y! Slow shown here in the Status Bar:

3. SearchStatus: I love the SearchStatus tool because it has the ability to show me PageRank, Alexa Rank and Compete Rank. I know, I know, I think we are all passed using PageRank as a measuring stick (My PageRank is bigger than yours!…Ha! I’ve been dying to say that!), but still beneficial none-the-less. Also, search status is very easy to do things like turning on no-follow highlighting, link reports, meta tags, etc.

SearchStatus in the Firefox status bar:

4. SEOBook SEO for Firefox Extension: If you are an SEO, this is definitely a tool that you need to for competitive analysis, link building and even helps me when doing keyword research.

SEO for Firefox in the SERPs:

SEO for Firefox links under the search field in Google:

5. SEOBook Rank Checker: Another great tool from SEOBook and something that I end up using daily. (Yes, I’m addicted to rankings! Don’t lie, you are too!)

Rank Checker in Firefox (status bar icon is highlighted):

6. Web Developer Toolbar: This is great when I want to test pages with images off, javascript off, and many other important functions.

Screenshot of the menu option, Tools -> Firefox:

7. LiveHTTPHeaders: Simply put this is great for checking HTTP header status codes, is great for verifying 301/302 redirects, 200’s, etc.

LiveHTTPHeaders in action:

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If you know me at all by now, you will know that I am typically a very humble and modest person that just sits back and enjoys the show. I never usually rant or get involved in heated discussions because I hate drama and thats why I have grown to LOVE the SEO industry. So, I apologize in advance if any of this seems out of character or if this is off topic from my general posting.

First and foremost, I want to start by thanking all of the great people I have met throughout the years of being an SEO and Web geek. People like Todd Malicoat, Dana Todd, Rand Fishkin, Oilman, Greg Boser, Brett Tabke, Brent Csutoras and Chris Winfield.

The reason I bring this up is because of how thankful I was to get involved in the SEO industry or community. From my first PubCon in 2004 to SMX Advanced just a couple days ago. I remember my first conversation with Brett and how it inspired me. I told him how awesome the show was and we talked about how I got into it, etc. and his words are what have pushed me daily. “Thats what this is all about, getting people like you interested and involved.”

Now, I went to school to study Computer Science and never thought I would be involved in anything marketing related. But, I realized that some developers are the most egotistical people I have met. Don’t get me wrong, there are still a lot that aren’t and actually care. But, after going to SXSW 2008, I noticed that many are just touting their own ego. If you aren’t one of the “cool kids” then good luck having conversations with them.

This really reminded me of what I love about the SEO community, you could have a conversation with just about anyone. You’ll find they wouldn’t judge you based on who you are. Maybe I am just being naive, but thats how I have felt.

Recently, I am seeing a “tipping point” or maybe a “breaking point” of some sort in the SEO community. Certain people cliquing, others acting as if they are similar to the “cool kids” mentioned above, etc. This is ridiculous especially because some people, if not most people, outside our industry still see SEO as spam. Stop bickering and start working together. Stop complaining and provide someone constructive criticism, but do it in a way that can be effective, without causing a stir.

I hope and pray that our industry does not break away from being a community that really cares about each other. Because, I am starting to see that happen and I am not sure if it is the immaturity of the individuals within the community. But, whatever the case may be, I have grown and loved is that we are a community and I do not want to see that change.

Remember, a few bad apples can ruin the entire batch community. I love this industry and community too much that I don’t want to see that…

I have been inundated with communities over the last couple years and recently it has been almost the only thing I am working on lately. I have learned so much about managing volunteer groups, creating an offline community of web geeks called “San Francisco Geek Dinners,” and in consulting roles.

There are many methodologies that I have learned over the past couple years and I am even learning all different forms daily by being thrown into it. What I find extremely intriguing is how there is no two communities or groups that function in the exact same way. This can take form in the shape of an online community that deals with technology or even travel, a group of people to manage within an organization, or a community of individuals in the offline sense, like a meetup.

So, the question remains, how do you deal with this? I truly don’t have the smoking gun nor will this article answer this all for you. Rather, I think this will get you on the path of thinking about how your unique community needs to be managed and/or gain traction. All communities have a set of common practices that are apparent within them.

Define a purpose and show you care about the community

Define the reason that the community exists and show that you really care about the community. Put some effort into this by putting a lot of grass roots effort into the planning and growth of the community. This gives the members and users of the community the sense that you are vested in the welfare of the community, which you truly are. Moving forward, the next steps are to engage community members and start having conversations with them, once again, both online and offline. Make members or volunteers feel like they have an opportunity to be involved in the overall success of an online community or organization. An example of this is as simple as providing a feedback link on your website that allows members/users to provide feedback on features, updates, or bugs that they run into. Other things that you can do is send out polls or surveys on user experience or features.

Things that I have done in the past is create user polls about new interfaces or more recent internal teams for naming conventions. Within the SEO community I have seen a number of people sending out polls/surveys about details for events as well.

Building momentum and keeping it going

Momentum is also a huge factor and keeping that momentum going is very hard to do, but once you have it, do not lose it! If you get some steam behind the community or group members, there is a great chance they will ride that momentum and want to get more involved. This is easier said than done though, as I am sure you can attest to if you have run or built a community.

Creating events and meetups for your online community is a great way to get the members or users together and even invite others to the event, thus creating Customer Evangelists for your community. Something else that you can do to create momentum is to create participation and conversations, which I will get to in a second.

On the offline community side, I have to admit, I had some great momentum with the first two dinners for San Francisco Geek Dinners. But, because I have not been able to stick with it but hope I can re-energize the momentum with the group. Granted, this is not an online community that I am working on, but, it shows that if you miss a beat with a community, you can instantly lose momentum and traction.

Creating Participation and Conversations

Just like I mentioned above throwing events is a great way to build momentum, but also a great way to start getting people involved in becoming an Evangelist for you. Members, will typically bring others along and hopefully get them involved in the community as well.

Also, give people the opportunity to volunteer and get their hands on something that they will make them feel like they are contributing. This can be as small as making recommendations or bring community involvement into the overall decision making process. Create a location for users to get together and discuss issues they are facing, let them talk it out, moderate it a bit, and you have create a think tank of your own for your community.

While building an online community, you want to ensure that the participation is staying put on your domain. Polls, survey’s, events, etc. are a great way of getting the community together. Ensure that your online community has a lot of sticky features that make it easy for people to be a Customer Evangelist of your online community. Do this by giving users all the “social/viral” features that they can use to pass things on to friends, collegues and family. Many community members want to be the first in on the news, to report it, get in touch with people, etc. From an Online Reputation Management standpoint, if you give users the opportunity to talk to you or provide feedback, it will prevent them from creating flame posts or sites about your community or brand.

Bottom line, Encourage the online community to be just that, an online community that allows people to participate and have conversations with each other.

Incentivise the community

Finally, you can create participation channels, but sometimes we all need or want an incentive to make things happen. They also give people the feeling of being rewarded, and we all enjoy knowing that we are appreciated for the hard work that we do.

In an offline community, ask the members if someone wants to run the event/meetup and I can guarantee you that there will be someone that is interested in stepping up. Empowering someone to step up and leave his/her mark on the group can be priceless. Create contests that give users/members a chance to win prizes. An example of this can be creating a twitter account for your community and asking everyone to follow you and that the 100th, 200th, etc. will win a free iPod Touch, or something along those lines.

Where do we go from here?

I think it is very apparent and we all know that we have already moved into an era of the online culture. But, that does not mean that we cannot build or leverage an offline community to help the online community or vice versa. Yes, that sounds a bit confusing, but there are commonalities between the two that can be important in building your online community like creating conversation, participation, etc. Overall, you want the community to be sticky and get members and users to become Customer Evangelists for your community.