Since this might not make much sense to most of you, let me give you a visual:

See that little heart on the right? It’s hyperlinked, and it points to a site called LikeMyThought. I started seeing this stuff pop up a few days ago, until the little heart icon caught my eye – knowing that it was a hyperlink, I had to see what it was (mostly because I knew it was something created by some new, aspiring internet marketing genius).

When visiting the site, I was astounded to see that it was nothing but some big Facebook API-driven list of nonsense quotes, mantras and phrases that you could “like” and have appear on your Facebook feed, through Facebook connect. The quotes were ranked by “most liked,” which appeared at the top-most portion of the page.

Check this out: visit the site and hit “refresh.” A new quote appears, and the page’s <title> changes to accommodate it as well. Below it is an AdSense 335×280 ad, and a medium banner at top. That’s it. Gee, I thought AdSense banned content-less, RSS-driven or auto-generated sites? Hmm.

There’s more?!

Well, for whatever reason, I managed to see another one of these quotes appear that one of my friends “like”d. I hovered over the heart…but…it wasn’t that same site. It was another one, named LikeFever.info. It’s basically like LikeMyThought, except it looks less cluttered and fits one column. There’s another one, too…it’s called GoLikeUs.net. Oh, and Likesy, too. Ok – I’m guessing this is some kind of new trend here. How long until we see “Facebook Like Site CMS clones” popping up on marketing for-sale forums everywhere?

Dumb or not, these “like” sites are getting oodles of Facebook traffic. While they don’t seem to be ranking for anything worthwhile according to SEMrush, Alexa.com puts LikeMyThought on their map as it is currently around #87,800, with the lesser visited LikeFever at around 194,000…the latter of which has a nice stalagmite spike on its chart. LikeMyThought even has its own Facebook Page as seen here. Looks like they’re harvesting new visitors through good old social networking, rather than putting out the website and hoping for the best.

Just for the hell of it, I searched Google for “♥”, which wound up throwing back a “Your search did not match any documents” reply. Hmm, so much for the hypothesis that they were attempting to appear on Google page 1 for an ASCII character.

Viral Without A Cause

What’s the point of creating these sites? AdSense clicks? Does anyone even click them? For that matter, what’s the motivation of spending more than a few seconds on these sites? The worthiness of any site to get massive Facebook love is obvious, but what’s the resolve – a couple AdSense blocks that can’t possibly be paying more than a penny or two per click? The sites themselves don’t have any backlinks – I’ve counted around 30. However, they must have oodles of Facebook backlinks.

Just like all of the other fads in the past including Hot Or Not, Million Dollar Homepage & others, this has the potential of being a new contender in the quest to copy (and hopefully improve) on a popular new concept. Where it goes, however, is yet to be seen.

As for me, I’ll click the “unlike” icon next  to this one (if it actually existed).

This link is located on the right-hand column of your main feed, under the heading “Get A Facebook Sneak Peek.” The page that follows explains the concept of what is undoubtedly Facebook’s stab at Yahoo Answers, a well-aged service where people who have a free Yahoo account can browse a massive, ever-updating database of questions and community-submitted answers. Yahoo Answers enjoys great search engine rankings for very competitive terms (check out my Yahoo Answers case study, if you hadn’t already).

In other words, this certainly isn’t anything new. There’s no doubt that Facebook will keep tapping into this massive community to perform even more functions than it already does – if they didn’t, they’d be stupid not to.

Where does it go from here? A “Facebook Answers” section could prove to be successful, given the sheer number of Facebookers currently out there, and the site’s standing as one of the most visited websites on Earth. However, will it compete with a household brand that already does well on search engines? Maybe, if it also starts getting loved by Google, Yahoo & Bing. Otherwise, it will be a closet accessory.

What does it mean for internet marketers? It depends. On Yahoo Answers, you can at least reference a link back to your site once you’ve reached a certain “level” with your account, making it a no-follow (but potentially high visibility) backlink. Will Facebook follow suit, or will they restrict links? Will they have mercy on affiliate marketers, or punish ‘em like they do with affiliate links posted on Facebook Pages? The answer to that will determine if this is another good venue for bringing from FB traffic to your site(s). Only time will tell, of course!

Here are the Cliffs Notes on Community Pages: for quite awhile, anyone was able to throw together a Facebook Page and foster ridiculous numbers of followers (called “fans”) in a short amount of time, thanks to 400+ million Facebook users, and good old viral-ness. Many of these pages were associated with brand names and trademarks not belonging to the page owner. This pissed off a lot of companies who wanted a strong presence on Facebook, but were thwarted by the numerous Facebook Pages that already existed for their brand. Hence, Facebook came up with the idea to turn those lay-person owned Facebook Pages into a new concept called Community Pages, which doesn’t appear to have much repercussion, until you look under the hood…

What Community Page Conversion Means for Your Facebook Page

Regardless if your page has anything to do with a brand (i.e., Coca Cola, McDonalds, etc) or not – it’s now subject to being found by Facebook and converted into a Community Page. What this does is it differentiates your page from an official corporate-owned page. It doesn’t appear to look like anything visual has happened with the Facebook Page. You’re still the admin and can edit it. It still has the “vanity URL” (facebook.com/mypage), and nothing else has been edited to the look and feel of the page. However, once you cross a certain undefined threshold – for instance, a million fans – the page gets ripped from your clutches and released to the community, where it will be treated like a Wikipedia page for all to edit. You lose — good day sir. (Kudos if you got that movie reference).

What’s really unfair here is the prospect of losing your baby, even if you did nothing to upset the corporate gods and their trademarks. So, your “I like picking my nose and sticking it on a basketball” page might become community-run if it becomes too popular. Why? It really makes no sense. The TOS for Facebook Pages say that they’re supposed to represent a brand, company, famous person or similar, but Facebook Page culture has shown it to evolve into a modern day meme, where pages represent the old “did you ever notice…” humor that many people can’t resist becoming a fan of.

By the way, the word “fan” has been ax’ed for the word “like.” So, you’re not getting “fans” to your Facebook [Community] Page anymore, you’re getting “likes.”

What a Facebook Community Page Looks Like

You might have already seen a Facebook Community Page without even knowing it: ever since Facebook made a major update to segregate your profile’s “Likes and Interests” sections into categories like “activities,” “interests,” “music,” “books,” and so forth, many of the generic Facebook Pages you once fanned have now become Facebook Community Pages. A few examples are “small business owner,”  “80s” and “cigars.” Notice how all of these pages have a permanent fixture at the top of the page:

Our goal is to make this Community Page the best collection of shared knowledge on this topic. If you have a passion for Cigars, sign up and we’ll let you know when we’re ready for your help. You can also get us started by suggesting the Official Facebook Page.

Do you think the original people who created and maintained these generic pages for years have gotten pissed at the fact that those pages are now public hubs, controlled by Facebook? Yeah, super pissed is my guess.

Protesting Your Facebook Page’s Conversion

If you feel that your page was unjustly targeted, you can protest the change to a Community Page, but it all comes down to having to state your Page’s business credentials, as you can see.

This is only good news for big corporations, looking to secure their vanity URLs and identity online. I can’t really talk that situation down, as I’ve worked in the corporate world to get back cybersquatted vanity URLs, and I own one for my own business. I also openly hate socialsquatters, which I’ve talked about many times before.

With your new knowledge of the Facebook Community Page fiasco scenario, know that your casual viral campaign days may come to an end, and put more of your attention on official business-related Facebook Pages. That’s where the security’s at. Also, if someone pilfered your Facebook vanity URL, it’s never been a better time to wrestle it back!

It’s a well-known fact that this incredibly dumb but popular concept has been around for awhile. Beyond the famous paid-placement Facebook quiz that you’ve probably seen a million times, there’s also a group for this concept. This poll was so popular that it stuck around like a stray streamer of toilet paper on the heel of your shoe.

Even more shocking is the Facebook icon on this landing page, which takes you to Cottonelle’s Facebook page widget, showing follow-ups and results of the poll. They even followed up with the campaign on Youtube with a series of commercials (some of which are nationally syndicated).

If I were the guy who had originally conceptualized this whole idea, I’d be super pissed right about now!

This, however, goes back to a previous article I’ve written about the implications of corporate interest in stupid Facebook pages that go viral. Speaking of which, I’ve been creating more of these on a weekly basis – it’s fun to see them pick up steam as more and more people fan them!

Facebook Pages are seen two entirely different ways in the eye of the beholder. A regular Facebook user sees the stupid title, think “yeah! I totally get it – LOL!” and clicks “Fan this page” immediately:

Then, there’s the internet marketer who looks at how ridiculous this behavior is, and nearly falls over backward when they see astronomical numbers of fans:

That’s when it hits you: could this be the early stages of something big that is yet to come? What kind of value do these dumb Facebook Pages have to big businesses? Before you say “no value,” think about this: a page that caters to a niche market and has hundreds of thousands (or over a million) niche-interested followers. That’s like one ginormous email blast list that would have otherwise cost a fortune. Don’t think that can be harnessed for corporate reasons? Think again.

The Psychology of Facebook Pages

I’ve written about the difference of Facebook Pages vs. Facebook Groups, and Pages always come up on top. People fan them, and they get more internal promotion on Facebook. They tend to go viral. Most people will not join a group unless they want to contribute to it, and even if they did – the chances that they’ll ever return are pretty slim. At least Page updates will show up in their news feed. Groups won’t.

With social networking, you want to engage your Page. In essence, you DO generate your own little world/email list/audience, but you DON’T want to annoy them. Pages that update too often are annoying, because it pushes everyone’s news feed down yet another slot. You might not see how bad that is, but tell that to someone who only cares about what their high school buddies are up to, or for when that next Farmville friend reward will show up. Don’t even try to spam affiliate links on a Facebook Page – FB has been keen to insta-banning pages that have done this.

The bottom line is that you want to be less annoying so that you can keep retention as high as possible. Some of these Pages never even had a single update – they got popular just because people connected with the title, alone!

As for Pages going viral – you never know what can set it off. All you have to do is have a few key people fan the page, and have their friends see the notification of that action on their own news feeds, prompting them to smile at your stupid Facebook Page title and fan it themselves, and so on. It’s fun to add yourself to something that further defines or describes your persona, and to connect with others who totally agree with those dumb little things in life that we never pay much attention to.

Future Implications of High-Volume Facebook Pages

Is there any value in Pages about “flipping the pillow over to the cold side?” Not to you, personally…but how about to Bed Bath and Beyond? Or to someone who knits pillowcases as a side job? Maybe. This, to me, is uncharted territory.

These pages have accomplished what so many Fortune 500′s have not: rendered hundreds of thousands of followers with no effort. No marketing, no ad dollars spent, nothing at all. All they had to do to achieve it was to use the KISS mentality (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Think Seinfeld, and “did you ever notice…” – the dumb things that annoy you, amuse you or make you happy throughout your day, and make a page out of them if it hasn’t already been done.

With some viral magic and timing, could you be holding on to a heavily fanned Facebook Page that could prove to be valid e-real estate to some company at some point in the future?

Forums (it all should start here!)

Forums reside on your website, and are always run by the community. It’s a contact point for visitors between you (or your company) and the rest of your community. They make the content, they post the questions, answers, and participate in debates. All you have to do is moderate all of this stuff, be the “cornerstone,” be helpful, and keep it a democracy (gee, that’s it?)

However, it all starts off with well-chosen sub forums. It’s up to you do first define what the purpose of your forum is, and sculpt that purpose by creating relevantly titled sub forums that people will post in. Most forums have a “General Discussion” and “Off Topic,” but it’s the stuff in between that really counts. What do you want your community to be able to talk about? What don’t you want them to talk about? These are the two questions that will help you decide what sub forums to create.

Twitter (relationship marketing)

Twitter is pretty much run by you, and is a contact point between the visitors and you. There isn’t much of a “community” on Twitter per-se, since messages are sent directly to you (others can see them, though).

Twitter is a relationship maintenance tool that lets your audience know that you’re alive and out there, constantly adding great new features to your business, listening to their suggestions, and responding to their questions. It’s not a great place to “poll the audience,” but rather, let them know what’s new, and what’s going on with the company. Announce events and new features here, as well as helpful tips and tricks related to your industry or business.

Facebook Pages (the online cork board)

Facebook Pages are run by you, and they’re all about you. There is community interaction, but for the most part, the page is what YOU make of it (otherwise, create a Facebook Group instead). Here, you post a mix of the following things: company updates, new features, limited time offers/coupons, polls (“how many of you like…”, “what do you think about…”, “have you ever…”, etc.), and fun/offbeat/off-topic things that relate to your industry (cartoons, YouTube videos, jokes).

Note that I never mentioned “sales,” “affiliate links” or “pull tactics” for any of the three? These are community tools, not sales tools. Let them make the decision as to whether they should buy your stuff or not. Your website links are easy enough for them to find. This is all about being “one of the guys” and showing that you’re not a corporate asshole. Converse with the locals — they just might make you be cool like one of them!

The other main point is that your website forums, Twitter account and Facebook Page should have a distinct and individual purpose. Don’t mimic your Twitter and Facebook with each other, it defeats the purpose of anyone joining both. Make one serve one purpose, and the other serve another purpose…but make those purposes meaningful! Define your goals ahead of time.

Know which demographic uses which service. If teens are using Facebook, have one strategy for them. If parents are using Twitter, make your Twitter account parent-relevant.

It’s not as hard as it looks once you’ve gotten your objective, strategty and tactics written down on paper!

For starters, there’s Digg. I know there are a lot of people who would totally get my back on this one. There have been way too many times where I couldn’t figure out where to stick an article. It’s as if the team who originally thought of the basic categories that site submissions could fall into had done it on a rush basis, and never went back to fix it. Here’s a screenshot of Digg’s category selection:

I can understand the “bucket list” on the left, but it’s some of the sub-categories that are beyond all human reasoning. Where do I submit an article about blogging? Do I have to shoe-horn it into “Technology/Industry News,” where articles about smartphones and hydrogen cars go? How about an article about SEO or one about Marketing, does that also have to get crammed into “Technology/Industry News?” How about law – do I have to stick that in “Business & Finance?” Futhermore, why didn’t they just create two separate categories for “Business” and for “Finance?” They are entirely separate fields. Would something related to web or graphic design have to get stuck into “Arts & Culture?” I sure as hell wouldn’t want to put it in there. And, why would that go into the “Lifestyle” bucket, shouldn’t it be in something related to business or technology (or, uhh, ART?)

Digg’s category choices aren’t entirely awful, they just need more options and a lot more refining. There’s something much, much worse.

Facebook Page‘s categories really take the cake. You start off with three broad buckets: “Local,” “Brand, Product or Organization” and “Artist, Band or Public Figure.”

There are countless times where not only could I not find a single category to append a Facebook Page to, but the worst part is what happens after you make a decision. Your page is pre-set with hard coded fields that you can’t change. So, if you want to make a page to connect with people of your ethnic background, nationality or country, you’re out of luck: there isn’t a single category that applies to it. You’d have to go with something like “Club” within the “Local” bucket. But if you do, you’d realize that “Club” really stands for “night club,” not for “online club” or something like “hunting club,” and your hard coded forms will ask you about parking and hours. I can’t stand how “Marketing,” “Sales” or “Advertising” aren’t even an option under any of the buckets. I mean, come on Facebook – those are HUGE categories, and a lot of people in those industries are creating Facebook pages!

By far, the worst part about creating a Facebook page are those mind-numbingly ridiculous pre-set fields it forces on to your page. You never know what you’re going to get, either – the online club you’ve created might have the misfortune of getting a “Parking” or “Store Hours” field, or something else completely random that you won’t be able to remove. Of course, you could simply not type anything in these fields, and they won’t show up. However, that will leave you with a completely blank “Info” page, which will make your Facebook Page look  incomplete and un-engaging. At least give every single page a generic “Description” box, so that people can type in a description for their page. You could always type it in one of the worthless fields, which will wind up looking like “Parking: Welcome to our Fan Page about Italian-Americans…”

If you’re creating a site that will let users select categories to drop their submissions into, or set their registered pages or accounts to – be sure you have a wide array of choices for them. The logical way to do this is to look at well-established web directories that have been around for years: Yahoo Directory, Google and DMOZ.org. My personal favorite is the directory choice list on Lensroll.com – it has so many options, and they’re all important. All of these services have well-done category selections that all of these big networking sites should have mimicked.

By having decent categories, you’re catering to all different kinds of niches, as well as helping your on and off-site optimization, too.