I’m feeling nostalgic today. I guess that’s exactly what the team at Facebook was hoping for with these Lookback videos.

I admit it. I’m obsessed with watching everyone’s Facebook Lookback videos. It’s like catching up without talking. Yes ma, you’re right, there is nothing like a real phone call.

However, I did a little digging through my own profile and crunched some numbers, likes, and friendships; unfortunately, we don’t have the insight that we do on a business page with our personal profiles.

What I can’t, nor shall I ever try to understand, is the algorithm that the developers of this program used to put together these strings of posts from our past 10 years. What seems like a superficial cheesy video, actually has some of the tear-generating impact of a Hallmark card.

As I said, I’m obsessed with watching these. If it pops up on my timeline, I’ll read it. I figure if you are someone I don’t really know well, this will let me see you better or see the view of you that Facebook wants me to see. And if I do know you well, I can analyze what Facebook really thinks is important about you. What I’ve realized after watching about a gazillion of these is that, they lack the personality of that individual.

Scrolling through my own 7 years on Facebook, I did some reminiscing of my own memories and life events and the quotes and interactions. Facebook nailed a few of them, like my “Joined in 2007” montage with a pic of me and some Samoan children in my Peace Corps village back in 2007 and the dancing wedding guests in 2008. However, I would have picked different images and quotes than the ones they did for most of my Lookback video.

This is extremely important for social media marketing. When you decide you can’t do all your marketing for yourself and you want to hire an agency to assist you, consider how much will be automated and how much will be personally managed. This is your public image and the person that represents you shouldn’t be filling out a template, but personalizing your brand, image, and messaging through your social networks.

Chances are you don’t have the budget to support the algorithm team that came up with the Facebook Lookback videos.  Keep in mind that your social media marketing should be personalized.

Personalization with some automation for simplicity and efficiency.

The more money you can budget for marketing, the less automated messaging you should see and the more personalization you should expect. At Idea, we have some idea of what works using a standard protocol, but what we also know is that once a core structure is set you up, we test it, we analyze it and we tweak it, and then we test it again. We want results and the only way to do that is by continuosly changing it up to ensure the right results are reached.

If your business were as easy as a marketing algorithm, then you could just make your business a Lookback video. Instead, use the tools to make it work for you and your business. And in the meantime, I should be banned from watching Lookback videos because the music is now engrained in my head.

Random aside: Can you believe how many babies were born in the past 10 years? #Facebookis10

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