TRANSCRIPT–

WILLARD: Only 15 billion bucks. All right guys, can the power of social media change the world? Toyota would probably tell you it already has. The company is trying so hard to keep its stories about recalls and other problems under tight control. However, the Internet was abuzz with people tweeting, re-tweeting and Rebecca re-tweeting about Toyota’s problems.

So what can a company do when the information they want controlled is out of control through the people in the media outlets that they truly have no control of? Work with me, guys. Bill Evans is from Fleishman-Hillard Public Relations and is the senior VP of their Digital Strategy Division. I call it “revolutionomics”. Whether we’re protesting the Chavez in Venezuela or we’re being angry about Toyota trying to hide problems they can’t stop the revolution.

BILL EVANS, FLEISHMAN-HILLARD SVP, DIGITAL STRATEGY: That’s right, Cody. We’re talking about moms in minivans and cars and safety, I mean they strike very much at the core of what people value. And so I think what Toyota is learning almost the hard way is that people are going to come together, they’re going to share their experiences. They’re going to make purchasing decisions based very much on what they hear and what they feel and Toyota is really at a crisis at this point.

BOLLING: But this is the way of the future. I mean the information is out there now, whether it’s politics or business, Toyota recalls anything –

EVANS: Yes.

BOLLING: The social media has really brought information to everyone, right?

EVANS: Yes. I don’t think it is about necessarily bringing information to everyone. I think it is empowering people to bring information to each other, so the era of advertising really defining what a brand is or what a message is, is over. So you’re going to have a story that you want to tell, FOX is going to have a story it’s going to tell.

Toyota is going to have a story it’s going to tell. But people are going to come together and sort of measure the credibility about that and what they feel and align themselves to people that are alike themselves as well. And the Internet is really giving us a visibility into that we never had before.

DIAMOND: And so how does the company then — you’re a public relations expert.

EVANS: Yes.

DIAMOND: How does the company then contain this balloon that’s out there that’s just growing –

EVANS: Sure.

DIAMOND: — getting, you know, bigger and bigger until it pops with social media? They have basically no control over it.

EVANS: I think the — the way we counsel clients at Fleishman (ph) it’s not about controlling the story. It is about establishing credibility. I mean Toyota is learning that trust is a global commodity and it’s really not about controlling the spin anymore. I think people want them to come out, own the story on the situation. What did you know, when did you know it, be very transparent and tell us how they’re going to fix the problem. I think that will go a long way to establishing or re- establishing their reputation as a very trusted brand.

WILLARD: So it ends up being — it’s something we talk about on the show all the time. If America would focus on quality and not propaganda –

EVANS: That’s right.

WILLARD: — perhaps American companies would once again prosper.

EVANS: That’s correct. And I think you know Toyota could take a page from Ford back a number of years ago when they were having some issues. President of the company, Bill Ford, came out, took ownership of the problems, said here is what my plan is to fix this and this was before social media really became a prevalent channel.

I think Toyota if they were going to put a plan forward to the American people and people at large, say here’s how we’re moving forward. Start to show some of the stories of how people are engaging in success, what’s it’s been, how people are getting their cars fixed and really getting back to some core fundamental values and establishing trust that will go a long way.

BOLLING: Do they get it now? I mean you look at Toyota, OK, so they dropped the ball. They probably thought they were you know too big to fail.

EVANS: Yes.

BOLLING: Tiger Woods, it’s the same thing –

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: Am I — it’s the same — it’s a good theory, right?

EVANS: Same theory. I think the idea that they’re somehow tone deaf to the opinion against them is the lesson here. I don’t know that they still quite got it. The fact that (INAUDIBLE) allegedly they knew about this problem for quite some time exacerbates that they didn’t have a plan ready to go and engage in people and really tell their story. I think Tiger Woods is a great example. He tried to shut the story down, control it, hope that it would go away. It actually just fueled the fire.

DIAMOND: Or maybe, on the same lines, Eric, that they were just too confident. They were too — like Tiger said, he thought was too good, he was entitled, and he — you know, the same with Toyota. They’re number one. They’re growing. They’re, you know — they’re Teflon.

EVANS: That’s right.

DIAMOND: But you know, they didn’t realize that, hey, you can be taken down, as well.

EVANS: Yes. And I think, again, the lesson here is not to be tone deaf. I mean, if you look at conversations, how people talk about your brand, your reputation of your brand, that’s much more valuable than your Q score with an ad campaign. So I think Toyota needs to really start to measure value of how their consumers perceive them, as opposed to how things test in advertisements.

BOLLING: That’s Bill Evans. We’re going to have to leave it there. Very nice tie…

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: Nice tie.

DIAMOND: The power of Twitter!

BOLLING: All right, on tap, it’s the much anticipated return of the sizzlingest segment on TV, “Street Meat.” Back, baby. And in “The Diamond District,” President Obama looking to block health insurance companies from raising rates. Can his proposal work? Rebecca’s got the details when “Happy Hour” continues.

WILLARD: Are you guys on Twitter?

About a week or so ago, Facebook began rolling out its new interface design. Almost immediately, anuses* around the internet started clenching. “Facebook should die!” or “The new design cures cancer!” and everything between became the status update du jour. Personally, I like the new design, but for the auspices of this post it’s irrelevant. Every time Facebook updates its interface, users go nuts. Finally, I think I know why: These interface updates represent the worst kind of improvement. All form, no function. To put it another way, Facebook is asking its users to adapt to a new visual experience without adding any value of any kind.

Typically, users are fine with adopting new systems or interfaces if they feel the bother will make their lives or the experience of using products better. But Facebook seems to be moving things around simply for the sake of doing so; sometimes, building in critical user experience errors in the process.

Lately, I started realizing I’ve been really kind of “meh” about Facebook for a while now. Maybe it’s because I work in communications and use social tools all the time, but that I think is only exacerbating the issue, not causing it. It was only after I read Dan Lyons article on Newsweek, that my feelings started to crystallize.

“…in general Facebook is becoming so overwhelmed with spam and useless junk that the noise-to-signal ratio is about 100 to 1.”

Bingo. Facebook is becoming polluted with noise. I don’t care how many herds of future veal parm sandwiches you raised in Farmville, or how many hookers you raped in Mafia Wars. Why would I? Have you ever sat and watched someone play a video game? It’s boring. This is worse. It’s like cleaning up after a party without actually having been there.

I joined Facebook to keep in touch with friends, to see what they were up to, to chat. But wading trough the endless swamp of activity-spam is really killing the vibe.

I admit that this is a fine line for me to walk. Facebook is one of the largest social networks in the U.S. and a big part of my job is helping brands find a way to be relevant and make money in the space. For a while this was all well and good as consumers, in every piece of research I have read, found social networks far more trustworthy than websites. Partly this was because they leaned on their own friends and networks for advice, and partly because advertising wasn’t as common or as prevalent as other places on the web. For the first time in a while, that credibility and trust has declined, and I think this is why.

As more and more brands drop their adverteasing into your news feed, the less and less tuned in you become. More noise = less signal. Less attention = less trust. Say what you want about Twitter but its very simplicity makes it an infinitely more valuable tool. Brands can’t simply clog my feed with crap unless I tell them to. It doesn’t matter what any of my friends do online, that activity won’t make its way to me unless I allow it. I would think most users prefer this. Some people complain about the minutia that gets tweeted, but at least they opted into that data stream. If you want to play an online game, fine. I don’t need to read about it. My attention span is short, my time is limited and my patience is thin.

All of which brings us back to our friends at Facebook. I realize you need to make money; we all do. But heck, it was only about 10 minutes ago you turned profitable. You seem to have no problems re-engineering the design on a whim, so how about we try some value added fixes for a change? Here goes:

• Give me a user experience I can love. With all the recent hullabaloo about your redesigned interface, something got lost. Instead of providing me with a better core experience, or one that’s more flexible to my needs, you’ve simply moved the furniture around. How about giving me the flexibility to segment my news feed, say, by friends only? Now I simply have 2 options: ‘top news’ (anyone have any idea how this is determined?) and ‘most recent.’ Even better, give me the option to customize the layout as I see fit, sort of like the widgets screen on a mac. Do I really need my chat list in 2 places? How about allowing me different layouts if use more games and apps than the news feed? How about better more customizable notification settings? Can’t I just pick?
• Find the next PayPal. Everyone is trying to figure out how to monetize social and drive sales through your site. Build or buy something please. (See the previous bullet). Or better yet, allow me to put some functional code inside your site. This seems to be a hit or miss proposition at the moment.
• Give me better metrics tools. Let’s face it, and I can say this because we’re friends. Your metrics tools suck. As a brand marketer you’re not helping me bring more of my clients to the table, which in turn would bring you more money. Right now if I want to have anything even approximating a decent analysis I need to roll my own tools into your system. You’re an internet company, please report out like one. Plus, better more robust ways for me to measure would allow mw to rely less on dumping content into your users feeds. This would make the core experience better as well.
• Focus, focus and for crying out loud, focus. One thing that Apple does very well is focusing on it’s core value proposition and only deviating from that when they thing it’s worthwhile. It’s fine to offer a lot of varying features, but your core is interpersonal connections, not becoming a activity notification system. Concentrate on the people more than the stuff.

So Facebook, if you’re listening… it’s time for an intervention. My fear is that one morning you’ll roll out of bed, splash some cold water on your face and realize you became the one thing you never wanted to be.

Friendster.

*Editors note: How many of you have actually ever typed “the plural of anus” into Google? None of you? I thought not. Well then move along, nothing to see here.