Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Microsoft Live, Pet Rescue Saga, Obama, Huffington Post and more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by DAU
- Platform industry hires: Adaptly, BranchOut and Nanigans
- Facebook converts ‘friendship pages’ to Timeline format with additional features
- News Feed, EdgeRank and page posts: what’s really going on with Facebook?
| Posted: 08 Nov 2012 05:31 PM PST
Microsoft Live gained the most daily active users this week on our list of top growing Facebook apps by DAU, gaining 10 percent to approach 15 million DAU. The titles below grew between 200,000 and 1.3 million DAU, based on AppData, our data tracking service covering growth for apps on Facebook. Top Gainers This Week
Birthday apps were popular as was horoscope app الأبراج اليومية at No. 5. No. 12 King.com’s Pet Rescue Saga saw strong growth after its debut on Facebook on Oct. 30. Obama 2012 came in at No. 13, and as we wrote about earlier in the week, was significantly outperforming similar apps on Mitt Romney’s page. The Huffington Post seemed to also enjoy an uptick with the election, appearing at No. 14 this week. All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Stay tuned for our look at the top emerging apps on Friday. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Platform industry hires: Adaptly, BranchOut and Nanigans Posted: 08 Nov 2012 04:08 PM PST Professional community app BranchOut recently announced the hiring of its first Chief Operating Officer, Ebbe Altberg from Yahoo. Social ads startup Adaptly hired a head of client services, and another Facebook advertising company Nanigans hired a few employees. Please note that due to recent changes in the way Linkedin displays hiring information we have have changed the format of our weekly new hires posts. Companies who want their new hires included in the post must contact us directly at mail (at) insidesocialgames(dot) com.
Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook converts ‘friendship pages’ to Timeline format with additional features Posted: 08 Nov 2012 03:13 PM PST Facebook today unveiled a redesign of "friendship pages" that show two users' history on the social network in Timeline format. Friendship pages display users' mutual friends, Likes, photos and interactions on Facebook. With the new Timeline layout, these pages are now easier to navigate and match the latest design of other pages and profiles. The update also gives users more options to customize the pages and a more complete look at shared activity between two friends.
Friendship pages now feature a cover photo. By default, Facebook will select an image in which both users are tagged and that has received some Likes and comments from friends. Whereas previously users could not change their default image, either friend can now add a new photo to the top. There's a new option at the bottom of the page to fill in details about when, where and how two friends met. Users can also click the star icon on certain stories to highlight them, as they would on their own profile. There is another option to hide stories from a friendship page. These features help make the pages feel more personal than the previous version users couldn't control in any way.
It's important to note that although anyone can see two other users' friendship pages, the privacy setting of posts and activity persist, so no one will be able to see anything they wouldn't otherwise be able to see on an individual profile. Users should keep in mind that hiding a story from their own Timeline without deleting it means it is still eligible to appear on a friendship page since it may still be visible on the friend's Timeline. Friendship pages first debuted in October 2010, after beginning as a Hackathon project. Users can navigate to friendship pages by visiting a friend's profile and clicking the gears icon and then "See friendship." From News Feed, users can hover over a friend's name and click "See friendship" from the hovercard that appears. Once a user is on a friendship page, they can click the "More" button and type in the name of any two friends. Users who are in a relationship can quickly see their friendship page here. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| News Feed, EdgeRank and page posts: what’s really going on with Facebook? Posted: 08 Nov 2012 02:20 PM PST
There have been claims that the company is manipulating the algorithm — sometimes referred to as EdgeRank — to limit the reach of page posts and force admins to buy ads to get their content seen. Some have called for Facebook to eliminate its algorithms, giving users the chance to see everything in the feed and then hide what they don't want. We looked to the Inside Facebook archives and spoke to News Feed product manager Will Cathcart to understand what was actually going on. The fact is pages have almost never reached their full audience — except for a short test in 2009. Now that there is more activity on Facebook and thus more competition for News Feed distribution, the company has introduced a way for page owners to pay to get their most important posts seen by more fans and friends of fans. At the same time, Facebook is continuing to improve its algorithms to show users the posts they are most likely to engage with and not show the ones they aren't. This means some posts aren’t going as far as they might have in the past. Here are answers to some commonly asked questions based on what we've learned from research, interviews and personal experience managing pages. How does News Feed work?News Feed is personalized for each user, and there are two key factors for Facebook to consider: what to show and in what order. An algorithm sifts through tens of thousands of potential stories and tries to surface the ones that a user is most likely to engage with. Some of those cues come from how a user has reacted to similar posts from the past — did they click, Like, share or hide? The algorithm also considers how other users have reacted to the post — are a user's friends or a page's fans clicking, Liking, sharing or hiding? Then there are more explicit actions users can take to influence the content of their feed, for instance, adding users to a close friends list, indicating that they only want to see "important updates" from certain people, blocking applications, hiding pages or creating interest lists. Facebook will use this information to show more or less of a particular type of content.
How does Facebook decide whether to show my page posts to fans?
If the post does well among its initial audience, it is more likely to be shown to another set of fans. If the post isn't generating many clicks, and especially if any users mark it as spam, Facebook is unlikely to distribute the post much further. Why are my posts getting less reach than before?Pages have never been able to reach their full audience, except for a short period in 2009, but lately many page owners have noticed changes in the amount of organic reach their posts have been getting.
Users are updating Facebook more often from their phones. Many pages have increased the number of posts they make each day. Images have gotten bigger and the share button has become more prominent, so users are reposting items from friends and other accounts more frequently. Open Graph integration means that activity from Pinterest, Tumblr, Spotify, The Huffington Post and thousands of other apps is also eligible for the feed. It's no surprise that page posts are struggling to get views. On top of this, Facebook is constantly making tweaks to its algorithms and UI that affect pages' reach and engagement. This can be frustrating because it makes it difficult for page owners to understand their performance over time. Is a low-performing post this week worse than one last week or was there simply a change on Facebook's end?
Is Facebook purposely limiting reach on page posts so that we have to buy ads?Facebook denies claims that it is "gaming" News Feed and putting a cap on organic reach in order to encourage page owners to buy more ads. It has said this in a recent blog post and to Inside Facebook directly when we asked. Some marketers still see the timing of News Feed changes and the roll out of Promoted Posts as suspect. Although it's impossible to verify the company's intent here, the more likely scenario is that News Feed competition is naturally increasing — as explained above — and many page owners are only now realizing that they aren't reaching as many fans as they thought they were.
Why doesn't Facebook just get rid of EdgeRank and show people all posts?Some people have called for Facebook to eliminate its ranking algorithm and allow users to see all posts from their friends and pages they've chosen to connect with. The reality is this would create a worse experience for most Facebook users and wouldn't necessarily lead to more views and engagement on page posts. Facebook tried a real-time, non-algorithmically sorted feed in 2009. It didn't last very long. Users complained and engagement seemed to decline because it was harder for users to immediately see stories they cared about and applications were able to dominate the feed with spammy posts. As Slate writer Farhad Manjoo wrote at the time, "Every time you refresh the front page, there’s new stuff for you to read. Much of it isn’t very interesting, and because the stream moves so quickly, the little that is interesting gets drowned out by items that aren’t." AllFacebook writer Nick O'Neill wrote, "having constant updates became annoying once the novelty factor wore off." Even though there were ways to filter the feed and hide posts, this wasn't ideal. Facebook needs users' feeds to be more immediately gratifying so that people want to return frequently. The company continues to experiment with how many posts to show users and how often. For instance, Ticker is more of a real-time feed, though even that isn't a full firehose of posts and activity happening at any given time. The full stream would be tens of thousands of stories each day, meaning users would be likely to miss posts from people and pages simply because they couldn't keep up. How do I maximize my page's reach?
Many marketers focus on tricks for taking advantage of how they think Facebook's ranking algorithm works, for example, posting photo albums to get more clicks or always asking a question with each post. Sometimes these tactics may be useful, but being natural is most important. In fact, Facebook regularly makes changes to its algorithms to prevent apps and pages from gaming it, so any techniques marketers use to get in more people's feeds are likely unsustainable. Page owners can continue to improve their reach by keeping track of what's working and what's not. Clicks and negative feedback are important metrics that are visible from the Insights dashboard. Sometimes these numbers tell more of the story of why a post has a certain reach than Likes and comments do.
And, of course, there are paid ways to increase reach when pages have an important post to share. Promoted Posts, especially those that are targeted, can be effective in getting distribution, often at the top of News Feed. How do I make sure to see more posts from pages I care about?For users who want to see more posts from certain pages, there are a few ways to make this happen. Clicking, Liking, commenting on and sharing posts are good ways to indicate to Facebook that you enjoy a page's content. Visiting the page directly is another cue.
Some users are also beginning to see an option to turn on notifications for whenever a page posts, as well as a way to view a pages-only feed. Facebook is likely to continue to experiment with ways for users to provide lightweight cues or take explicit actions to improve the relevance of their feed. |
Another upgrade is that friendship pages now feature all stories between friends, including life events, check-ins and Open Graph app activity. Previously, the pages showed wall posts and @ mentions, but not stories about users being at the same place or taking an Open Graph action together.
Many marketers and page owners have been decrying Facebook's News Feed algorithm that controls who sees their posts.
The “Top Stories” view puts posts in the order Facebook thinks will be most interesting. The “Most Recent” filter includes all the same content as “Top Stories” but in order from newest to oldest.
When a page makes a post, Facebook's ranking algorithm begins to show the post to fans who are most likely to engage with it. These may be users who have recently Liked the page, clicked on previous posts, visited the page directly or have otherwise expressed affinity for the page's content.
It's important to point out that the competition for any given story to be featured in News Feed is higher than ever. Users are connected to more people, pages, groups and apps, all of which are generating more posts and activity than before. Since September 2011, Facebook has opened up the feed to 
For instance, in September, Facebook made a design change that made it easier for users to mark posts as spam and hide page content. Because Facebook now has a better gauge on what users don't like, it is able to take this negative feedback into consideration and avoid showing content to other users who are likely to also consider it spam. Posts with less positive interactions are going to get less reach, but on the flipside, posts that are engaging will get more reach more quickly, which explains why reach is no longer as consistent across posts. Facebook tells us there is likely to be even more variance in the future, as it works to get the best possible posts in front of users.
Reach is a relatively new metric. 
The increased visibility, combined with announcement of 
Pages owners have to recognize that their content isn't guaranteed placement in the feed and so it must be as interesting and engaging as possible. Before making a post, admins should consider, "Would I want to see something like this in my feed?" and better yet, "Would I rather see this than a post from a friend or another page?"
Targeting is another important way to increase the likelihood that a user will see and engage with a post. 
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