Social Media Optimization – Facebook Lists

Saturday, July 16th, 2011 at 9:13 am

Social Media Optimization – Facebook Lists

Social media optimization is all about relationships, building them, and keeping them. In this regard, the perception is that Google+ has put Facebook on the defensive. But is that the case? Google+ has the honeymoon momentum and the “new thing” buzz. But FaceBook has, well, friends.

Facebook has over 700 million members, and counting. Google+ has 10 million in two weeks, on the way to 20 million. FaceBook announced new features, group and video chat, at a press conference on July 6. These seemed clearly aimed at Google+. But existing features, specifically FaceBook Lists, may be the secret sauce it needs.

FaceBook Lists and Google+ Circles

Google+ Circles are the building block of the new app. Everything revolves around circles, pun intended. You organize your friends into circles that identify your relationships. When you post, huddle, hangout, or spark, you choose the circles you include.

FaceBook Lists are essentially the same thing, but this is a little know feature of the app. From the Friends section, click Manage Friend List and start separating your friends into relationship groups. Lists control who can see what on your profile. And, while you can message list, the current limit is 20 people per message, for some reason.

Here’s a good video comparing Facebook Lists to Google+ Circles

FaceBook Needs To Give Lists a Face Lift

FaceBook needs to make Lists the foundation of its profiles. Allow video and group chats, wall posts, photo sharing, and eventi sharing to be sent to the list(s) you choose. FaceBook members have long accepted, and not liked, the fact that every thing you post is visible to everyone on your site. Lists are already part of the application and could duplicate the functionality of Google+ Circles.

I’m not a FaceBook programmer, so I won’t project that this is an easy change to make. But it seems that the f eature is already there and just needs to be expanded.

People Like Circles

Google did their research. They get it. Circles immediately made sense when Google+ was announced. We all have levels of relationships and different parts of our lives we share with different groups.

FaceBook Lists are there already and FaceBook members would know how to use this feature with expanded functionality. Allowing them to manage their sharing with relationship groups on all the venues of their profile.

And they’d lists.