Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Facebook Splits Typeahead Search Results Into Categories
- Facebook Wins Search-Related Patent for Visual Tags
- Microsoft Releases New Version of Bing Bar Toolbar With Facebook Integration
- Facebook Page Redesign 2011: Marketing Strategies and Best Practices
- Facebook Career Postings: Singapore, Dublin, Finance and Japan
- Facebook Hires and Departures: Ad Leader, Real Estate, Transactions, Marketing and More
| Facebook Splits Typeahead Search Results Into Categories Posted: 17 Feb 2011 05:15 PM PST Facebook now splits the instant typeahead search results that appear in the drop-down beneath its ever-present search bar into profiles, Pages, apps, groups, Events, and Questions. This helps users find the most relevant results, regardless of category. Category-sorted results could also help users discover new content they weren’t looking for but that relates to something they were, like a soccer game when they were searching for a soccer Page. Finally, the change has SEO implications, as appearing in the first few results within a specific tip is more important now, and Pages and apps can score incidental traffic by having titles similar to common names.
The different result categories are ordered according to the relevance of the matches, meaning users could see any category first. Since the categories aren’t weighted according to their popularity, the ordering can be a bit awkward at times. Users are more likely to be searching for profiles, Pages or apps than groups, Events, or Questions, yet the first result may still be a Question. Though this unweighted ordering isn’t necessarily best for the user experience, it may expose people to some of Facebook’s lesser-known core apps. Its now even more crucial for applications and Pages to attain one of the top spots for a given keyword. It also incentivizes them to name themselves after or something similar to popular names. For instance, an app called “Just For Fun” might receive traffic from people searching for someone named “Justin”.
Facebook has been gradually improving its internal search feature. It began surfacing Liked Open Graph-objects such as news articles in August. If it can continue to improve its internal search, users will be more likely to use it instead of web search engines like Google in order to find things on Facebook. | ||
| Facebook Wins Search-Related Patent for Visual Tags Posted: 17 Feb 2011 02:27 PM PST Following a social-focused search patent it received last fall, Facebook has received another this week, titled: “Visual tags for search results generated from social network information.” The new patent (7,890,501) was a continuation of the previous one (7,788,260). This means than rather than adding to the previous patent, it covers a different embodiment of what was already claimed. Both patents have the following abstract: Search results, including sponsored links and algorithmic search results, are generated in response to a query, and are marked based on frequency of clicks on the search results by members of social network who are within a predetermined degree of separation from the member who submitted the query. The markers are visual tags and comprise either a text string or an image. Numbers 951 and 952 in the diagram below are present in both patents, and illustrate the visual tags that the new one covers.
The title of the former one was: “Ranking search results based on the frequency of clicks on the search results by members of a social network who are within a predetermined degree of separation.” | ||
| Microsoft Releases New Version of Bing Bar Toolbar With Facebook Integration Posted: 17 Feb 2011 10:30 AM PST Today, Microsoft releases a new version of its Bing Bar downloadable browser tool bar that includes several Facebook capabilities. Bing Bar users can see when they have new notifications, messages, and friend requests, and view an activity feed and photos from friends without visiting Facebook.com. Though the Facebook features and other functions including maps, mail, translation, and rewards are somewhat useful, the Bing Bar is only available to users of Internet Explorer 7 or later running Windows 7, Vista, or XP, limiting its potential for adoption.
Microsoft has been a long time partner of Facebook, powering its internal search, selling some ad inventory, and most recently integrating Instant Personalization into Bing Search. The Bing Bar’s Facebook integration was developed independently, though, using Facebook’s APIs. The Bing team claims this is the fastest, most lightweight toolbar available. Its main purpose is to expose users to various functionalities of Bing. The Bing Bar can provide one click directions to a searched business, display local weather, and translate web pages. Since the toolbar collects clickstream data, installs will help Microsoft refine its products and search result ranking algorithm. However, for the Bing Bar to gain traction, Microsoft will have to battle a stigma against toolbars. Spammy, malware-ridden toolbars have been prevalent on the internet for years, so most users associate them with slowed down browsing and security concerns. To incentivize use, the Bing Bar offers rewards points for following suggested searches of current events. Users can redeem these points for prizes.
Once Windows Intenet Explorer users have downloaded and installed the Bing Bar and given it Facebook authorization, they’ll see an orange star on the toolbar’s Facebook icon whenever they have pending notifications, messages, or friend requests.
When the icon is clicked, users can select between a number of tabs, including Photos, which shows thumbnails of photos uploaded by friends, and News Feed, which appears to predominantly display simple activity stories, not full stories. Users can also Like and comment on updates from friends.
The Bing Bar allows users to update their status, but doesn’t format links pasted into its composer. Instead it just publishes the URL. Since users will be browsing around the internet and discovering interesting websites, the inability to share them with friends in a compelling way is a significant deficiency. Users are better off going to Facebook.com where their pasted links are formatted into rich stories with thumbnail images and captions instead of using the Bing Bar. With an existing negative perception of toolbars, limited accessibility, and the fact that some of its Facebook features work significantly worse than on Facebook’s website, Microsoft will have a difficult time finding a large audience for the Bing Bar, even if it has some useful features. | ||
| Facebook Page Redesign 2011: Marketing Strategies and Best Practices Posted: 17 Feb 2011 08:30 AM PST
The following is an excerpt from the Facebook Marketing Bible, the comprehensive guide to marketing your company, app, or brand using Facebook. The full version of this article, available through a Facebook Marketing Bible subscription, includes strategies for using every new and modified feature from the February 2011 Page redesign. It teaches marketers how take advantage of the Photostrip, mutual interests panel, and “Everyone” relevant posts wall filter. It also features strategies for using iframe Page tab applications, the new wall moderation tools, and the ability to post and comment around Facebook as your Page. In February 2011, Facebook launched a major redesign and expansion of functionality of its Pages for businesses, brands, media, and public figures. The Page layout matches the December user profile redesign, and as of March 1st, 2011, all Pages use it. Here we’ll walk through each of the changes, and outline strategies for how you can use the new features to convince new visitors to Like your Page, drive traffic to affiliated Pages, highlight or silence user opinions, moderate your Page’s wall to give a good impression of your brand and promote high quality conversation, draw traffic from other Pages by posting and commenting as your Page, and engage fans and visitors with iframe Page tab applications.
“Everyone” Relevant Posts Wall Tab, and Wall ModerationYou can select between an “Everyone” and a Page posts only default tab for your Page’s wall in the Edit Page admin interface. All users who visit the Page’s wall will first see this default view of the wall, but can switch to the alternative view using a link at top right of the wall.
“Everyone” shows a mix of posts by users and the Page. Facebook surfaces the posts it thinks will be the most relevant to the viewer. Recent posts by friends, posts by other users in same language or country, and posts that have received a lot of Likes and comments will bubble to the top instead of appearing in reverse chronological order. Your Page’s own posts will appear in reverse chronological order intermixed with the user content. The Page posts only filter, which is displayed as the name of your Page, won’t display any user posts and will show your Page’s posts in reverse chronological order.
If you want total determination of the content that visitors first see when they visit your Page’s wall, or are focused on driving traffic to outbound links you post, select the Page posts only tab as the default. Since visitors won’t be distracted by posts by other users, they’ll be more likely to read your Pages updates and click your links. Users will still be able to click the other tab to see posts by fans. If you want to completely silence fans, such as during a public relations crisis, you can deselect the Posting Ability options to prevent users from posting updates and links, photos, or videos to you wall. Users expect to have this ability, though, and may be angered if they’re denied the option. Page that want to allow their fan community to have a prominent voice on their Page should use the Everyone tab as their default. This will allow users to express how they feel about your brand and ask questions. When visitors see organic, positive posts from other users, it raises the credibility of your brand and encourages visitors to Like your Page. If you select this option, you’ll need to have a community manager, customer service representative, or other employee monitor your wall and politely respond to questions. They can also Like user posts to thank fans for their support. If brands want to control but not silence the voices of fans in the Everyone tab, whether it’s set as the default tab or not, they can use the moderation options in the Manage Permission tab of the Edit Page admin interface. The Profanity Blocklist can be set to “None”, “Medium”, or “Strong” to filter posts containing curse words into the Hidden Posts tab that only admins can see. Most Pages should set the filter to at least “medium”. However, brands that want to align with a rowdy, informal, 16-24 year old male demographic such as men’s magazines, motorcycle makers, extreme sports clothing lines, tattoo parlors and other edgy brands, as well as brands who want to make sure not to censor anyone should leave the Profanity Blocklist set to “None”.
The Moderation Blocklist allows admins to automatically send user posts with the selected keywords to the Hidden Posts tab. To control the sentiment of users so only positive posts are visible, block words such as such as “hate, sucks, bad, boring, stupid, useless, poor” and their synonyms. To prevent users from recommending your competitors on your wall, block words such as “competitor, worse” and the names of any of your competitors.
Admins can click the “Admin View” link beneath the wall tab in the navigation menu to reveal the Hidden Posts tab. They can then review any posts that Facebook automatically removed, or that were removed according to the Page’s moderation preferences. If an admin wants to return a user post to the Everyone tab, they can click the ‘x’ button beside it and select “Unhide post”. A good moderation strategy is to set your Profanity Blocklist to “Strong” and add a wide range of words to your Moderation Blocklist, but then diligently unhide posts that are actually acceptable. To moderate posts that haven’t been moved to the Hidden Posts tab, click the Most Recent tab in the Admin View. This will show a reverse chronological view of all user posts, making it easy to scan through and hide any objectionable posts. Since the Everyone tab in the user view isn’t reverse chronological, moderating from that list will cause you to miss some less relevant posts and read the same relevant posts on every pass.
Access strategies for the rest of the new features in the Page redesign, and learn more marketing best practices at the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network's complete guide to marketing and advertising on Facebook. | ||
| Facebook Career Postings: Singapore, Dublin, Finance and Japan Posted: 17 Feb 2011 08:00 AM PST
Most of the jobs posted this week were not high-level, but there were a few interesting ones. Facebook is seeking a Manager of Datacenter Facilities Operations for its Prineville, Oregon facility. This person will be responsible for the physical facility of the data center. Then, as mentioned, there were two Ad Operations Associate positions for Japanese speakers in Singapore; similarly, two DSO Account Manager positions in Singapore in Japanese. Finally, there was a DSO Account Manager in Japanese in Hong Kong job posted this week. Facebook has had a tough time cracking the Japanese market, so perhaps these jobs are related to a push for users in that country. Posts added this week on Facebook's Careers Page:
Jobs posted by Facebook on LinkedIn:
Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry. | ||
| Facebook Hires and Departures: Ad Leader, Real Estate, Transactions, Marketing and More Posted: 17 Feb 2011 07:45 AM PST
Most prominently, however, Facebook recruited Microsoft global advertising head Carolyn Everson to be its new vice president of sales, All Things D reported earlier this week. There’s more from the company’s Careers Page, as well as LinkedIn. New hires per LinkedIn:
Recent departures, per LinkedIn:
Prior listings now removed from the Facebook Careers Page:
Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry. |
Asia seemed to be a big theme this week as we looked at Facebook’s Career Page postings. The company opened an office in Hong Kong recently, and at least one job was posted for that office, but several openings in Singapore were also posted. Facebook also has been posting jobs for its Dublin, Ireland and London, United Kingdom offices.
It would seem Facebook has secured some important talent this week, as several of the posts on the company’s | You are subscribed to email updates from Inside Facebook To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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