The Anatomy of a Facebook Meme

When compared to other social media sites, Facebook has a much larger potential reach for “memes” (ideas that people can’t help sharing with their friends) but is quite restrictive on the ways in which these memes can spread. To identify the characteristics necessary for a meme to thrive on Facebook, we must look at what the restrictions demand from them.

Facebook pages

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The best practices method, and the easiest to manage, is a Facebook page with updates to fans; however, this requires populating the page and having relevant content that warrants a page. Users have a greater level of commitment to pages they become a fan of because pages house a greater amount of content and features. Additionally, pages are displayed on profiles more prominently than groups or events, meaning that users must feel more aligned with the meme.

Pages are typically “bigger” topic-wise, so they aren’t really suitable for spreading a single meme; however, a page could be used as a launching point and seeding mechanism for a number of memes.

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Notes, groups, & events

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The quick and dirty way to spread things faster is using notes, groups or events. However, a lot of people use these methods for things like lost phone/numbers, charity fundraisers and silly surveys. Events and groups are the “most spreadable” because they make it easy for other people to pass stuff on and invite people from outside the original creator’s network. However, this also means that users are exposed to more of these on a daily basis. Because they have become so common, the scarce resource here is attention.

Many of these other methods are helpful for getting information out there, but tend to die after the first level; whoever I send it to will see it, but chances are it won’t go past that.

Groups and events also have built in functionality to help send information to friends, much like a “Tweet This” or “Send to a Friend” button. A user may see my status update and repost the link from it, but it is much easier for him or her to invite more friends to the group or event I already set up. Similarly, notes and links are fairly easy to post; there is a “Share” bookmarklet for links that allows you to click, comment and post easily. Or, you can send a message to a friend with the link.

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Create a meme that stands out

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In order to stand out and be taken seriously, as well as look legitimate and break through the clutter, each of these must be done well and completely, i.e. whoever sets them up must take the time to enter all information and find or create an eye-catching and appropriate photo. Use correct punctuation and capitalization, and include a brief summary or intro in the event or group invite, as well as a link to your actual content; that way, if they don’t accept the invite, they can still check out the real content you want them to view.

Below is a list of the ways to contact people on Facebook and “make content spread,” as well as some guidelines for how they work and tips for working with Facebook’s existing functionality for maximum effect.

Create/invite to an event
- Keep public
- Make searchable
- Allow others to invite
- Allow invitees to post videos, links and photos
- Keep wall open to allow discussion; participate yourself
- Fill out all fields
- Upload image
- Use SEO principles to come up with name; think keywords and popular searches for the topic

Create/invite to a group
- Make global
- Keep it open (public) which makes it searchable
- Allow others to invite
- Allow invitees to post videos, links and photos
- Keep wall open to allow discussion; participate yourself
- Fill out all fields
- Upload image
- Use SEO principles to come up with name; think keywords and popular searches for the topic

Post a note
- Tag friends in it so they will be notified of the new note; it will also post to their profile for other friends to see
- Publish to profile and mini feed
- Set up automated notes to pull from a blog or other RSS feed
- Format with FMBL
- Add an image

Post link
- Post a link to any site, on or off Facebook
- Publish to profile and mini feed
- Gain subscribers to your posted links; this alerts them to all posted content
- Time posting to appear in feed at optimum viewing window, i.e. when most people are active online
- Send as a message as well, with same functionality/formatting: link, Facebook description, small image and optional personal comment

Tag photo
- Tag with any friend to alert them that you have posted new photos and they’re in them
- Post “gotcha” photos the user is not actually in; this creates intrigue and almost guarantees viewing
- Keep photo album settings open; this ensures that their friends who you don’t know can see as well

Tag video
- Tag with any friend to alert them that you have posted new video and they’re in it
- Post “gotcha” videos the user is not actually in; this creates intrigue and almost guarantees viewing
- Keep settings open; this ensures that their friends who you don’t know can see as well

Friend request with personal message
- Search for relevant people
- Send a friend request
- Include a personal message (must be brief) with content/link you wish to spread and why it’s relevant to them
- Reach out to people you don’t know; even if they don’t accept, they can view link in message

Send a message
- Segment friends into groups of 20; this is the maximum Facebook will allow one message to be sent to
- Send bulk message(s) with link to content; include crucial information

Suggest a page
- Similar to suggest-a-friend functionality
- Users can spread a page amongst their previously existing social networks
- Cannot include additional information, so the page must speak for itself

Send page updates
- Create a page update (cross between a note and personal message) and send to all fans
- Friends view like a note, and are notified like a message or email
- Customize content by formatting and including links; this is the only method of interaction where this is allowed

Post on Wall
- Write on friends’ walls with links to content you wish to share
- Other users can view, depending on wall settings
- Pulls into both users’ feeds for mutual friends to see

Update Status
- Update your own status with links, from Twitter or by hand
- Posts to your wall; friends can view here, as well as in feed or “recently updated friends”