Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- The Best Facebook Page Strategies and the Pages That Use Them
- Facebook May Move Headquarters from Palo Alto to Empty Sun Campus in Menlo Park
- Top 20 Growing Facebook Pages: Harry Potter, Manchester United, Rihanna, Gaga and Bieber
- Facebook Promotes Friend Lists with Notification When Added to Featured People
| The Best Facebook Page Strategies and the Pages That Use Them Posted: 04 Jan 2011 04:12 PM PST
The following is an excerpt from the Facebook Marketing Bible, the comprehensive guide to marketing your company, app, or brand on Facebook. The full version of this article includes instructions as to how each of these strategies can be implemented by any Page. How does a Page attract new fans and convert existing fans into valuable customers? Many Page admins assume if they follow the vague social media catch phrase of “Engage your users”, they’ll quickly begin to accrue Likes and make money. In reality, there is a great deal of nuance to creating a successful Page. While each must tailor itself to its target demographic, below we outline three specific strategies which Pages can employ, with detailed examples of how they’ve been used by some of the biggest Pages on Facebook.
Tab ApplicationsTab applications allow Pages to run flash or display other types of rich content to users. Through creative use of tab applications, Pages can encourage Liking, run contests, solicit content contribution, present games and provide a more dynamic experience for users. Reordering tabs and setting default landing tabs help keep Pages fresh. Most importantly, by replicating or refining the functionality of an external website in a tab app, admins can create valuable standalone Page users will want to share with friends. Best Use of Tab Apps – YouTubeThe YouTube Page’s Top Videos, Life In A Day, and YouTube Play tabs are all great examples of how a Facebook Page can be more than info and the wall.
The Top Videos tab distills the enormous range of choices on it’s website into an immediately compelling video discovery experience. Set as its default landing tab, users first see large video players for two of the most popular videos on YouTube, followed by a search bar and selections of popular videos from various categories. Instead of copying the YouTube home page which displays multitudes of registration options and video thumbnails which can cause decision paralysis, Top Videos presents a smaller set of choices designed to get users watching and enjoying YouTube as quickly as possible. Life In A Day originally asked users to submit videos of moments from their lives, inviting them to join a project which could show their footage to the world. Now, visitors can search or spin the beautifully rendered globe to find pieces of the video collage which make YouTube’s world-wide user base seem more like an interconnected community. The YouTube Play tab presents a collection of jury-selected creative videos from a collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum. This curated experience makes it easy to find high-quality, artful content.
Instead of having a low content landing page dedicated to pushing users to Like the Page, YouTube added a small banner stating “Like YouTube” with an arrow pointing to the button at the top of each of their tab apps. By showing the best of its site’s content, getting users involved, and creatively driving Likes, YouTube has become the 5th largest Page on Facebook with 25,437,451 Likes and our pick for the best use of tab applications.
Community-Focused PageFans who feel like they are part of a community and have a stake in a brand become loyal supporters and evangelists. Pages can foster this feeling by allowing fans to do more than just Like and comment on broadcasted updates, such as by setting a Page’s wall tab to show user posts, allowing users to add photos and videos, and highlighting user content in Page updates, tabs, and the profile picture. A community-focused Page can serve as a great alternative to institutional advertising for brands which don’t need to explain much about themselves, like simple consumer products. Best Community-Focused Page – Coca-ColaCoke makes it clear to Facebook users in its “House Rules” tab, “This is your Fan Page and we encourage you to leave comments, photos, videos, and links here. However, we will review all comments and will remove any that are innapropriate or offensive.” The Page’s default landing tab is the wall which displays user posts, and it uses it’s About Me section to link to the House Rules tab which describes its moderation policy.
Offensive or off-topic posts are deleted, leaving a wall filled with authentic praise for its products. Users who visit internalize these positive sentiments, and frequently Like and comment on the posts of strangers, generating the sense of community.
On its Coca-Cola tab, the Page features “Fan Highlights” which are a selection of the best photos uploaded by fans. The chance to get this recognition inspires users to create and submit high-quality content.
The Page admins comment on the user content and respond to complaints in the discussion forum, making users feel like someone from Coca-Cola is listening and cares about their opinions. All of these efforts lead users to return to the Coca-Cola Page often, solidifying the brand in the mind of its customers. Intimacy and GratitudeA Facebook Page can give users a deeper understanding of the lives and inner workings of the people and things they care about. By making the Page a source for this special access, users will frequently visit, avidly await updates, follow calls to action, and tie their identity more closely to what the Page represents. Intimacy is particularly effective for Pages representing public figures since it can make users feel like they are friends with someone they admire. Best Use of Intimacy and Gratitude – Lady GagaLady Gaga is the most popular living celebrity on Facebook, yet she still makes each of her 25 million fans feel special. She posts photos from her bed, the recording studio, and her tour bus, giving fans a behind-the-scenes look at her life. These updates have much greater impact on Facebook than on Twitter or her website because they comes alongside similarly personal updates from a user’s friends. The intimate writing style makes users feel as if they know Lady Gaga, not that they just follow her.
The musician refers to her fans with the pet name “little monsters” derived from the title of her last album “Fame Monster”. Status updates where she speaks in the first-person and uses this pet name get significantly more Likes and comments than drier posts of song lyrics or updates which talk about her in the third-person. The grouping of her fans under one name also makes them feel like they are part of an in-group, validating their appreciation for the pop star
Lady Gaga frequently show fans her gratitude for her support, explaining that they give her strength, and that the work she does is for their benefit. In July she posted a special Facebook-specific thank you video, concluding by saying “become my friend on Facebook, I’ll never forget you”. By making believe they’re responsible for her success, they feel compelled to obey requests to vote for Lady Gaga in polls, click links, buy music, and follow other calls to action.
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| Facebook May Move Headquarters from Palo Alto to Empty Sun Campus in Menlo Park Posted: 04 Jan 2011 12:10 PM PST After spending almost its entire six years of existence in Palo Alto, Facebook is considering a move six miles up the road to a somewhat remote campus on the border between Menlo Park and East Palo Alto, east of the 101. Occupied by Sun Microsystems, the troubled computer maker that was bought by Oracle last year, the 57-acre bayside office park has been lying dormant in the past year.
Facebook employees have been whispering about a possible move to Menlo Park for weeks, but TechCrunch reported the location on Saturday, and the company responded with a statement that could shortly turn into a confirmation: "We are exploring options for a long-term location to fit our growing business needs. We are in the due diligence phase on one potential site, but it would be premature to offer any specifics. We hope to have more to share in the near future once things have been finalized." Workers are currently preparing at least one building for Facebook to begin moving into by June, the San Jose Mercury News reports today. The building, which is assessed at $228.4 million, could be sold to Facebook in a leaseback deal at the market price of up to $420 million, according to TechCrunch. In that scenario, Facebook would sell the property to some form of real estate investment trust, then buy it back over the years through what amounts to rental payments, and by doing so free up hundreds of millions of dollars for other purposes in the meantime. Why this New Location?Facebook has been quickly growing its workforce as its traffic around the world has boomed to slightly under 600 million users, and as it has brought in new revenues of up to $2 billion. The worldwide headcount is likely around 2,000 today. While it has been opening up big new offices in places like Austin, Texas and Hyderabad, India, it has made a point of keeping its core engineering and product teams at its headquarters — the point being to aid communication around development. It needs more space at home base.
It moved from its hodgepodge of offices in downtown Palo Alto in early 2009 to one, and then two locations off of Page Mill Road: combined, its current headquarters provide around 400,000 square feet of office space, versus the 1 million or so available in the Sun campus. The new facility promises the same sort of long-term physical expansion that Google had after its move last decade from Palo Alto to the old Silicon Graphics facility a few miles south along the bay, in Mountain View. Over the years, as it has grown by thousands of employees, Google steadily bought its way into more and more buildings nearby to house its new efforts. Like Google’s headquarters, Facebook’s new location will require either a car commute through heavy traffic (or shuttle, for employees), or a long bus or bicycle trip into the outskirts of the bay. One bit of good news for bicycle commuters: the new location offers covered storage sheds, indoor showers and other amenities to make the trip easier. [Top image via teduh/Flickr, bottom image via Bing Maps.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top 20 Growing Facebook Pages: Harry Potter, Manchester United, Rihanna, Gaga and Bieber Posted: 04 Jan 2011 11:00 AM PST
Top Gainers This Week
The first Page on the list was "Harry Potter," which added 644,100 to its 14.3 million Likes. Then there was "Shrek" at number 2, adding 628,100 new Likes to come in just under 6 million. Finally, "Toy Story" added 376,000 Likes to reach 12.3 million total and take eighteenth place. The Pages had holiday promotions that suggested movie packages as gifts.
Overall there seemed to be a big spike on Christmas day in new Likes for these Pages, probably because people had more leisure time. Unlike other weeks, the number of television shows was sparse. Zynga's Texas Hold'em Poker took third place with 617,100 new Likes during the holiday week; the Page promoted all types of poker-related specials. Facebook's own Page added 424,100 Likes to take ninth places; the Page has a total of 31.4 million Likes. MTV's Page promoted its programming over the week, resulting in 418,100 new Likes to its 13.4 million total to take tenth place. Finally, "The Simpsons" Page was at number 14 with 405,100 new Likes and 17.8 million total. More than half of the list — 11 Pages total — belonged to musicians.
Rihanna took fourth place with 546,100 new Likes to pass 20 million total fans and the Black Eyed Peas followed in fifth with 513,400 new Likes and 8.9 million total. Musicians on the list seemed to take a holiday from Facebook, only updating occasionally about media appearances, such as New Year's-related events. Shakira's Page took sixth place after adding 446,800 Likes to her 17.7 million total and Eminem grew his Page by 440,500 Likes to just barely miss the 25 million mark this week. Linkin Park's Page was number 8 with 430,300 more Likes than last week, just enough to pass the 20 million fan mark. Michael Jackson's Page landed at number 13 after adding 406,000 Likes to pass 26.2 million; there was merchandising and project-related news on that Page. Lady Gaga was at number 15, adding 403,700 Likes to her 25.7 million after promoting her tour and upcoming album. Justin Bieber took sixteenth place with 394,600 new Likes, about 17.8 million total, after extensively updating his Page with media appearances, but much more personal information such as his own videos, stories and interests.
Katy Perry's Page was at number 17, even though it was barely updated, adding 393,400 new Likes to her 16.2 million. Akon's Page was updated with information about his tour, resulting in 362,700 new Likes at 14.4 million total fans. Finally, Avril Lavigne's Page added 362,100 Likes to her 11.5 million after she took to the Page to promote the release and initial performance of her new single on New Year's Eve.
Finally, a few sports-related Pages made the list. Manchester United has been aggressively recruiting new fans on Facebook with a special landing tab on the Page. Perhaps for this reason the Page added 414,200 Likes to grow past 7 million fans with simple updates about team-related news. And football/soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo's Page added 406,800 Likes to reach 17.3 million mostly by self- and team- promotion there. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Promotes Friend Lists with Notification When Added to Featured People Posted: 04 Jan 2011 09:46 AM PST Facebook has been generating a new notification since the user profile redesign: It alerts a user when a friend list they’re a member of is added to the Featured People section of a friend’s redesigned profile. The notification is designed to promote awareness of friend lists which Facebook has said only 5% of users create. Prior to Featured People, friend lists were always completely private.
When clicked, the notification reveals all the members of that list. This may raise privacy concerns as Facebook doesn’t warn users that adding a list like “Boring people”, or “Ex-girlfriends”, to their Featured People will immediately notify the members of the list, though an explanation does appear in the Help Center. Friend Lists, Powerful but Forgoten
Despite being a potent way to refine content consumption and share with specific people, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said “almost no one wants to make lists. We've been at this for a few years, and promoted heavily. Most we've gotten is 5% to make lists, and most don't make more than one.” But the December user profile redesign allowed users to proudly display subsets of their friends in the Featured People section beneath the profile picture, creating a new opportunity to spread lists. Impact of the Friend List NotificationThe notification is a promotional tool Facebook had yet to try for friend lists. It could inspire curiosity through a social recommendation. Since users are apt to adopt the behaviors of friends, friend lists could begin to grow virally. Facebook should tread carefully though, as users are particular about what appears in the notification channel, judging from the negative feedback to the tested re-addition of game requests to notifications. The name and membership of any friend list added to Featured People is visible to anyone who is allowed to see a user’s friendships. This isn’t as concerning since a user can simply remove a list if they want to hide it. But as soon as a list is added to Featured People and the changes are saved, every member receives a notification leading back to the list’s membership. Since users are inexperienced with the new Featured People, they might inadvertently expose their private friend lists. Users with friend lists can share more frequently by easily restricting content distribution to an appropriate subset of recipients. It’s therefore in Facebook’s interest to get users creating friend lists. Unfortunately, there’s still a wide gap between viewing another user’s list and creating one’s own. To promote friend lists more effectively without leading users to accidentally reveal sensitive information, Facebook could add a warning to the Featured People tab of the profile editor, and a prompt to create one’s own friend list when viewing the friend lists of others. |
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