AJ Vaynerchuk

What it is:

Rather than repackage various tidbits about this service from around the web, here is Techcrunch’s succinct and perfectly acceptable description of formspring.me: a site where “you invite people to ask you any question they want (they can opt either to leave the question anonymously or leave their user info). Then, the next time you log into the site, you’re shown a list of pending questions in your inbox. You select which questions you want to answer and delete the ones you don’t. Your answers can be a word long, or you can write a few paragraphs if you want to.” Source

Why it caught my eye:

I heard a little bit about formspring.me but never took a good look at the service. Then SXSWi 2010 came by and I started hearing more and more about the massive growth the community had been experiencing. After hearing about the round of funding the service closed, and the investors involved, I decided to give it a stronger look.

Review of my initial usage:

The site is shockingly entertaining. I signed up for my formspring.me profile and sent a tweet out to my followers inviting them to ask me questions:

Since that tweet I have received a nice variety of questions. Users have asked me about my personal interests, different aspects of VaynerMedia, and my general opinion and thoughts on different topics within social media.

Why it works:

Users log-on to formspring.me for two reasons: 1.) to see if they have a question waiting for them and 2.) to see if their friends have answered any interesting questions. Content is consumed and produced at a personal and engaging level.

Deeper into why it works:

From what I can see this is a play on our own, secret desires. (just like Myspace, DailyBooth, and many other successful social networks) We want to talk about ourselves and want to know everything about our friends. Formspring.me is simply a great and clever vehicle for accomplishing these goals without being rude or obnoxious.

Where it can grow:

Like many other social networks, formspring.me will excel once it is embraced by celebrities. In the coming months / years we will surely see professional athletes, actors, singers and more join formspring.me. People love to know as much as they can about “famous people” and formspring.me will be more effective in providing this kind of info than many gossip rags / blogs / and twitter accounts.

Potential Business Model Idea:

Sponsored questions. Brands (at least good ones) would have a field days provoking responses to their products for users to share to their communities. These brands can target their demographics and have their message and brand spread throughout the user communities in a reasonably authentic and engaging manner.

Example: Brand A has a new product coming out that is ideal for 18-25 year old women. Why wouldn’t Brand A sponsor a question that automatically appears in every 18-25 year old female’s formspring.me inbox? Maybe something to the effect of “What is your favorite feature of the soon to be released Brand A Product X?”

Thoughts?

Over the past few months my blog has received thousands of hits a day from users looking for information on how they can link Twitter to Facebook. The following is a brief collection of links that will help all of you find what you need:

Twitter’s official page on how to add Twitter to Facebook. The Twitter app for Facebook integrates Twitter into your Facebook experience.

Here is the most popular Twitter Facebook Application.

A blog post from a Facebook employee discussing Publishing to Twitter from Facebook Pages.

The Facebook application Selective Tweets. Selective Tweet Status lets you update your Facebook status from Twitter – BUT you can choose which tweets you want – just end a tweet with #fb when you want to post it as your Facebook status – simple!

A nifty Facebook Page that helps you manage your Facebook Fan Pages connection to Twitter accounts.

Hope this helps!