Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Katango’s Web App Auto-Creates Friend Lists and Exports Them to Facebook
- PageLever Launches Deep Analytics Tool for Facebook Pages
- Page Management Industry Interest in Ecommerce Grows as Vitrue Partners with Milyoni
- Facebook Buys Digital Book Creator Push Pop Press for “the Ideas and Technology”
- Facebook Allows Duplicate Community Pages to Be Merged Into Official Pages
- Amy Winehouse, “Captain America,” Food Network, Walmart and More on This Week’s Top 20 Growing Facebook Pages
- New Facebook Platform Industry Hires: Claritics, Sharethrough, BranchOut, TBG Digital, Wildfire and More
| Katango’s Web App Auto-Creates Friend Lists and Exports Them to Facebook Posted: 03 Aug 2011 06:02 AM PDT Last month, Katango launched a mobile messaging iPhone app built on a game-changing technology — the ability to analyze characteristics about your Facebook friends and automatically sort them into clusters such as co-workers, best friends, or college housemates. Today Katango releases a Connect web app that allows users to export these clusters to Facebook as friend lists that they can use to determine who they share content with. Katango makes friend list creation so quick and easy it could significantly increase usage of the feature. Currently, only 5% of Facebook users manually build lists. It could also help Facebook one-up Google+, which requires users to manually sort their email contacts into Circles — a painful process that puts up a huge barrier to using the competing social network.
Kleiner Perkins saw the potential of Katango’s sophisticated friend sorting algorithm, and made it the first investment of its social-focused sFund. Unfortunately, the mobile messaging app fell short of expectations. Its friend list creation was highly accurate, but users couldn’t export them, and friends without the app would receive messages via email or Facebook wall post rather than more immediate and effective SMS as with other group messaging apps. Now, Katango has made its true value available for free to the public. Users grant the web app permissions and it automatically groups their friends into roughly a dozen clusters depending on how many friends they have. Users can then name the clusters, and add or remove friends from them to correct the occasional mistaken admission or omission.
Facebook has made several improvements to its native friend list creation feature over the years, recently adding suggestions of people missing from a list, but not going as far as to automatically create them. The difficulty of building them from scratch, lack of understanding of their use, and their buried place in the Facebook interface has led to low adoption, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying only 5% use them. Facebook launched its Groups feature where only one member creates a Group that can be used by others in an effort to tackle the problem from another angle. Friend lists are crucial to Facebook’s future. Without them, it’s difficult to share with a specific subset of friends that aren’t explicitly connected to each other through a Group. Microsharing allows users to post a wider variety of content to Facebook, driving up engagement. Friend lists also solve privacy issues, by helping users manage who can see their profile as their “friends” grow to include sensitive parties such as professional contacts and family members. Google understands this as well, basing its Google+ social network around sharing to small “Circles”. However, the new Google+ user experience includes the chore of categorizing all of ones email contacts. Some don’t have to patience to endure this unnatural process, but Google doesn’t have much data other than who you email to generate suggestions. Facebook on the other hand has amassed tons of data about friend interconnections available through its APIs, allowing Katango to group friends based on those tagged in the same photos, that Like the same status updates, or with mutual friends. If Facebook is serious about helping users microshare and manage privacy, and wants to box out Google, it should consider a partnership with Katango. In the meantime, users can visit Katango to instantly begin optimizing their Facebook experience through friend lists. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| PageLever Launches Deep Analytics Tool for Facebook Pages Posted: 03 Aug 2011 05:37 AM PDT To optimize the performance of a Facebook Page, its admins have to know what types of content are resonating with users. Facebook’s native Page Insights provides some basic analytics, but lacks the ability to dig deep into news feed post engagement, add contextual tags to posts for performance tracking, and generate special reports. Y Combinator startup PageLever today launches a Facebook Page analytics tool designed to help admins better understand their data and refine their marketing strategies.
PageLever is a lean two-person Mountain View company that formed out of Facebook Page consulting company Brand Glue, and has taken seed funding from SV Angels and Start Fund in addition to Y Combinator. It began development of its new product at the beginning of this year, and since has honed in on what admins really need during an 800-user beta test. PageLever’s clients now include Microsoft, YouTube, Kayak, and agency 22Squared. Large, established Page management companies offer analytics tools based on public APIs, but PageLever’s CTO David Turner tells me metrics aren’t their focus. His company’s specialty is analyzing data from private APIs Page admins grant PageLever. By giving brands a better understanding of what types of content perform best and what fan demographics are most engaged, they can shift their publishing strategy to use more of the post types and apps that succeed, and deliver more content to their biggest fans. For instance, Insights doesn’t tell a Page admin how many unique users are leaving feedback, only how many are seeing the post in their news feed. It also can’t tell what tab or part of Facebook a fan who unliked their Page originally Liked them from. This can indicate whether ads are actually costing more per fan than a brand thought because fans sourced from ads have a much higher churn rate.
The new product currently only analyzes Facebook Pages, but the company wants to expand to encompass other social platforms soon. It has a three-tiered pricing model for brands, costing $34, $64, or $94 a month depending on the number of Pages and fans measured and seats on the account. Custom plans can be developed for agencies as well. PageLever’s licensable tool consists of three main areas: Page overview, post analysis, and reports. Turner calls the Page overview “Insights on steroids.” It shows admins everything in Insights, plus additional data such as sources of fans who’ve unliked, and whether photos or links are getting more Likes and comments per post. A brand could use PageLever to discover that photos drive the most engagement, and then begin publishing more photos.
The post analysis tool lets admins add tags to their published posts that denote its content type, sentiment, call to action, targeted demographic or other meta data. Admins can later sort analytics by tags to see if posts targeted at certain geographic areas or that include a specific call to action consistently perform better. The reports section lets admins create customizable reports that brands can share with teammates or agencies can show to clients. Additional users can be granted access to reports, so certain people can be allowed to track the Page’s performance without being made an admin of the Page itself. Turner believes a tool like his will convince brands to invest more in Facebook marketing because “people hate spending money on things they don’t understand. If you don’t know who’s interacting with your content and why, its guess work.” PageLever’s tool is a solid Facebook analytics solution, providing actionable data at an affordable price that can help companies maximize engagement, run more effective ads, and spend less time trying to parse their data. Strategies for using Page Insights and analytics tools to improve your Page posts, apps, and ads can be found in the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s comprehensive guide to marketing and advertising through Facebook. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Page Management Industry Interest in Ecommerce Grows as Vitrue Partners with Milyoni Posted: 02 Aug 2011 02:10 PM PDT
The partnership continues the growing trend of consolidation between the Page management and ecommerce spaces as brands demand ways to drive direct return on their social media investment. Below, Vitrue CEO Reggie Bradford tells us why the partnership primes his company to sign the next wave of brands joining Facebook. Over the last few years, brands have concentrated on gaining Likes, but now they’re looking to monetize these fans. This has increased demand for ecommerce apps that permit fans to make purchases without the added friction of being directed away from Facebook to a traditional company website. Page management companies, previously more focused on publishing, engagement apps, and analytics are now looking for ecommerce partnership and acquisition targets, in lieu of trying to build things they’re less familiar with. Milyoni is a strong choice for Vitrue, as the San Francisco-based ecommerce developer has been behind some highly innovative Facebook commerce campaigns this year. It powered the movie rental app used by Warner Bros to sell temporary access to The Dark Knight, Inception and other films in exchange for Facebook Credits. It also allowed the Austin City Limits music festival to charge users Credits to stream pay-per-view concerts.
Milyoni raised a $3 million Series A round from ATA ventures and Thomvest Ventures in May to improve its social commerce products. The company has over 50 brands representing over 60 million fans, including the NBA, the clothing label French Connection, and beverage brand Guayaki. The partnership will strengthen Vitrue’s offering allowing it to attract clients. Vitrue CEO Reggie Bradford tells us Milyoni’s technology will enable it to offer social shopping tab apps such as “flash sales and group discounts” as well as a “full shopping experience within Facebook.” Milyoni will gain distribution to a large set of clients, including some of the world’s biggest brands such as AT&T, Ford, Proctor & Gamble, and McDonalds. Vitrue has been a major driver of consolidation recently, in part thanks to a $17 million funding round closed in May which helped provide money for acquisitions and partnerships. It bought GamesThatGive so its client Pages can offering games where user’s earn money for charity through their engagement. Last year it partnered with Ads API tool and service provider TBG Digital, sharing clients looking for each other’s advertising or Page management solutions.
Virtue’s goal now is to grow through consolidation to offer a ”turnkey solution”. Bradford predicts that “every major brand is going to be using one of these platforms by 2012. Those platforms in the lead now are going to have 100s and 1000s more marketers using their platform.” The partnership with Miyoni for ecommerce is a strong step in this direction. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Buys Digital Book Creator Push Pop Press for “the Ideas and Technology” Posted: 02 Aug 2011 11:04 AM PDT
Instead, the companies hint that the acquired employees will be involved in the visual, and perhaps touch-interface elements of Facebook: “Although Facebook isn’t planning to start publishing digital books, the ideas and technology behind Push Pop Press will be integrated with Facebook, giving people even richer ways to share their stories.” Most of Facebook recent acquisitions have been in the form of “acq-hires,” where one or more cofounders of a startup will be individually recruited in exchange for especially high pay, stock and other forms of compensation. Facebook has more typically bought entire companies when they also bring technology to the table, as Push Pop has. The cofounders, designer Mike Matas and engineer Kimon Tsinteris, were former Apple employees who worked on its various operating systems. They left to launch Push Pop, which was used by Al Gore in his well-received global warming iPad book Our Choice, that in turn won one of Apple’s Design Awards. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Allows Duplicate Community Pages to Be Merged Into Official Pages Posted: 02 Aug 2011 09:36 AM PDT Facebook has added a new “Merge” option to the Resources tab of the Page editor. It allows Page admins to apply to roll duplicate community Pages into an identically named official Page they control, adding the fans and check-ins of the community Pages to the official Page. Facebook has privately done this kind of merger in the past for prominent celebrities and businesses, but the option has never before been publicly available. The merge tool will allow official Page admins to gain the ability to publish content to and target with ads users who’ve accidentally Liked an unofficial version of their Page, helping some Pages instantly grow to their rightful size.
For background, Facebook has two kinds of Pages: official, and community. Official Pages are those purposefully created by a user to represent a business, public figure, or piece of content they own, and they have the ability to publish content to those that Like them. Community Pages are created when users create a new Place to check in, or add something without an existing Page to their Likes, work places, or education history. Community Pages have no admins or ability to publish content to the news feed. Sometimes users accidentally create or Like community Pages for things that have an official Page. These duplicate community Pages clutter the search experience and confuse users trying to Like the official Page of something they care about. This led Facebook to at one point offer a merge tool for duplicate Places, but bugs and misunderstanding of how to use the tool led to issues so Facebook removed it. Recently, Facebook launched the Places Editor to get users to flag duplicate Pages. Previously, when prominent official Pages found they were missing thousands or even millions of fans that were scattered on various community Pages, Facebook has agreed to merge the Pages. In one situation, this led soccer player Lionel Messi to gain seven million fans in seven hours. This was only available to admins who had an direct line of communication with Facebook, though, such as big advertisers and celebrities. How to Merge Community Pages with an Official PageNow, any Page admin can apply to have Pages merged through the “Merge duplicate pages” tool in the Page editor’s Resources tab. Instructions for the tool can be found in the Help Center documentation, confirming that this isn’t just a limited test.
If there are any eligible community Pages with identical names to the official Page being edited, admins can select them and initiate the merge. Admins can apply merge up to five community Pages at a time, and can submit multiple merge requests. Facebook will then take a few days to verify the application and ensure the Pages are in fact duplicates. If approved, Facebook will take the fans and check-ins from the community pages and add them to the admin’s official Page. No other content from the community Pages is carried over, the official Page’s content will remain unchanged, and the newfound fans of the official Page are not notified of the change. The Help Center states that “merging is irreversible”, so admins should be sure they know what they’re doing. The option should excite Page admins, as they may have the opportunity to quickly add people who truly care about their Page to their Like count. It should improve the Facebook experience for Page admins who’ll no longer have to ask “why can’t I market to these people who were clearly trying to Like my Page”. Mergers will lead to more news feed impressions and clicks of a Pages links, helping the drive a return on investment on their Facebook marketing. All Page admins should check to see if there are any community Pages eligible for them to merge. For Facebook Page marketing and advertising strategies, visit the Facebook Marketing Bible. [Thanks to Eti Suruzon for the tip] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 02 Aug 2011 09:25 AM PDT
Pages on our list this week required 191,800 and 903,600 Likes to make the top 20 this week. We compile these lists with our PageData tool, which counts the number of fans added to a Page each week.
Amy Winehouse's Page continued to grow, 903,600 new Likes this week, in light of her untimely recent death. There were a few other musicians on the Page, such as Aerosmith with 389,700 Likes and Erykah Badu with 204,000, that seemed to grow as the result of Page consolidations. Aside from that, Bruno Mars saw 251,900 Likes, in part because he's been updating with lots of photos from performances and about his award nominations; the singer's Page was also award Spotify accounts to fans. Another singer on our list, Chris Brown with 219,200 Likes, also gave out Spotify accounts to fans.
Pitbull's Page grew by 242,700 Likes as he promoted his concerts and events. Kesha posted lots of photos and her Page grew by 211,700 Likes. Wiz Khalifa's Page grew by 203,400 Likes as he was nominated for some awards. Britney Spears, currently on tour, posted photos and videos to that effect and her Page grew by 194,700 Likes. Finally, Adele's Page grew by 191,900 Likes. Movie Pages made up a big chunk of the list, too. The "Titanic" Page, though, was the only Community Page on our list with about 399,000 new Likes. "Captain America" grew by 238,200 Likes, in part perhaps by posting exclusive Facebook video content in which stars answer questions from the Page. Then "The Smurfs" grew by 223,200 Likes as the film is currently in theaters. "Pirates of the Caribbean" grew by 203,800 by posting photos and promoting the pre-order of home copies of the films. Finally there was "Shrek" with 198,900 Likes.
Other Pages included the Jesus Daily religious Page posting multiple updates daily with 380,500 Likes, the Beşiktaş Turkish football (soccer) club that grew by 341,400 Likes, DirecTV's charity-powered growth with 281,400 Likes, the Food Network with 261,100 Likes and finally Walmart with 191,800 Likes. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 02 Aug 2011 08:00 AM PDT A few companies hired some top engineering and product talent this week, while most of the rest of the companies we see on our weekly Facebook industry hiring roundup hired account staff and interns. If your company is bringing in new people or making a notable promotion, please let us know. Email mail (at) insidefacebook (dot) com, and we'll get it into next week's post. Also, please note that information about most new hires, below, comes directly from company updates from LinkedIn. Looking for new opportunities? Check out the Inside Network Job Board, which shows the latest openings at leading companies in the industry. Here's this week's list of hires:
Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry. |
Once a user name’s Katango group, it is automatically exported as a friend list to Facebook and kept synced over time. Users can then select to publish a status update only to their Katango-made friend lists such as “fellow technology journalists”, filter their news feed by a list, or configure their privacy settings prevent a list such as “family” from seeing their photo albums.
Page management platform developer 
Bradford tells us that in the coming year, “you’re going to see substantial consolidation”. He believes this will be centered around Page management companies “as their relationship with brands becomes a key component of a brand or agency’s plan to manage social. Once you have the Page management relationship, you can roll out new features such as commerce, games, Sponsored Stories” by partnering with or acquiring those that develop them.
In one of its first full-out acquisitions in recent memory, Facebook has bought digital book software company 
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