Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Improving Your Facebook Page with Customized Tab Applications: 10 Examples
- Rihanna, “Harry Potter,” Zynga, YouTube, TV and Cristiano Ronaldo on This Week’s Top 20 Growing Facebook Pages
- Facebook Messenger: a New Standalone Group Messaging Mobile App Built Off Beluga
- Facebook Mobile to Thwart Hackers and Cyberbullies with Password Reset and Social Reporting
- New Facebook Platform Industry Hires: Involver, BranchOut, Wildfire and More
| Improving Your Facebook Page with Customized Tab Applications: 10 Examples Posted: 09 Aug 2011 04:34 PM PDT
The following is an excerpt of a complete article available in our Facebook Marketing Bible. A well-managed Facebook Page will rapidly become your brand's second home on the web, both in how well it ranks on Google and other search engines, but also (vitally) in the amount of time your customers spend reading and interacting with your content. Indeed, because the average user now spends upwards of 30 minutes each day on Facebook, there is a far greater chance that they will consume your brand's message on the network than anywhere else, including your main website. This level of engagement can be further improved by adding key resources to your Facebook presence, driving repeat return visits to your Page. One of the best ways to do this is to build and implement customized functionality right onto your Facebook Page. In this article we will look at the different ways in which this can be done. What Is A Customized Tab?
Additional tab applications developed by Facebook, third-party developers, or your company can be added to Facebook Pages. Official apps built by Facebook include Video, Links, Events and Notes, each of which will appear automatically in the left sidebar once used and populated with content. Custom tabs can be developed in-house by brands. In most cases, though, they are licensed from third-party service providers a la carte or as part of a Page management platform. Some developers also offer tab applications that can be used for free. Prior to March 2011, tabs could be easily customized on Facebook using the popular Static FBML application. This has now been phased out and tabs need to built as an actual application via the Facebook Developer's site. The content is then embedded into a tab on your page via the use of an iframe.
Many high-profile brands on Facebook have implemented customized tabs on their Pages to raise the level of fan engagement. We’re seeing leading brands employ a variety of techniques that include marketing fundamentals like a strong offer and clear call-to-action, as well as more advanced methods like embedded games and promotions that bridge online and offline. A step-by-step guide on how to create your own customized landing tab, and further analysis on live implementations from top brands on Facebook, is available to members of the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s comprehensive guide to marketing and advertising your brand on Facebook. Learn more about the Facebook Marketing Bible here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 09 Aug 2011 02:46 PM PDT
Rihanna's Page grew by 974,300 Likes this week with an average of about 105,000 a day, pushing her total to 42.7 million; she's currently promoting her upcoming film, concerts, products and music. Justin Bieber saw growth of about 54,700 Likes a day, 654,100 in the past week to total 34.5 million. Red Hot Chili Peppers are currently promoting the pre-order of their upcoming album and grew by 594,500 in the past week, bringing their total to 12.3 million Likes. Shakira's Page grew by 493,000 Likes after she's been touring, appearing in TV shows and promoting charity.
Eminem's Page grew by 475,900 Likes to push him over 45 million Likes; an interesting promotion on his Page involved a special "fan" price for a Kansas City concert in which he participated. Katy Perry's Page saw 442,500 Likes this week after she's been promoting her concerts and new single, to bring her to 33.5 million Likes. AKON saw 365,500 Likes this week to total 29.1 million as he's been promoting his latest single and Lady Gaga has done the same, pushing her Page past 42 million with growth of 361,800 Likes. There seemed to be some Page consolidations on the list, too, characterized by very small daily Likes growth, but huge weekly growth as evidenced by huge spikes in growth starting around Friday. Musician Rick Ross's Page grew by 961,800 Likes to 1.5 million, the bulk of his Likes, averaging just 4,800 a day. Florence and the Machine grew by 383,200 Likes, averaging 2,300 daily, pushing her to 1.7 million Likes.
Movies on the list this week included "Harry Potter" with 664,500 Likes (see above) to reach 32.2 million Likes; the film is currently in theaters. "The Smurfs," also in theaters, grew by 531,200 Likes to 1.6 million, "The Wizard of Oz" also seemed to be a Page consolidation growing to 539,700 Likes with 500,000 in the past week and averaging just 156 Likes a day. There was "Twilight" with 398,700 Likes in the past week and Titanic, a Community Page, which grew by 379,200 Likes to 13 million.
The remainder of the list included Zynga's Texas Hold’em Poker Page which grew by 439,700 Likes to 48.2 million, Facebook's Page which grew by 436,000 likes to more than 50.1 million and YouTube with 392,300 Likes to 43.1 million. "The Simpsons" grew by 382,500 to 33.2 million after the show was nominated for awards, while promoting merchandise and its actors. Finally there was footballer Cristiano Ronaldo's Page with grew by 356,500 Likes to 32.2 million after updating about his games and charity activities. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Messenger: a New Standalone Group Messaging Mobile App Built Off Beluga Posted: 09 Aug 2011 12:00 PM PDT Facebook has just launched a new free standalone mobile group messaging app for iPhone and Android called Facebook Messenger. It allows users to conduct one-on-one or group conversations, send photos, and privately share their location. Messages are delivered via push notifications to those with the app, and SMS, Facebook Chat, or Facebook Messages to those without it. The app heavily incorporates functionality and design from group messaging app Beluga, which Facebook acquired in March, and whose founders headed development. Facebook Messenger should help users coordinate meetups and find each other, increase usage of Facebook’s direct communication channels, and compete with GroupMe and Fast Society. This is the first standalone app from the social network, which otherwise aggregates all its functionality into its primary “Facebook for…” native apps. This and leaked information about a standalone photo sharing app indicate that Facebook has recognized the demand for more lightweight, streamlined, specialized mobile apps.
A Shift to Standalone AppsThe integrated messaging platform Facebook launched in November unified Chat, Messages, mobile push notifications, and email, allowing users to have a seamless conversation regardless of what interface the participants were using. Other group messaging apps still worked better though, prompting Facebook to acquire Beluga, which already had a strong Facebook integration. Facebook Messenger goes one step further, allowing users to add contacts from their phone who they aren’t Facebook friends with to a conversation via SMS. While other group messaging apps, including Beluga, pay third-party cloud communication service Twilio to convert API calls into SMS, Facebook has built its own in-house SMS syndication system. Before Messenger, users of Facebook’s mobile interfaces had to go through several clicks to check their Messages inbox. Ben Davenport, former co-founder and CEO of Beluga who also previously worked at Google, explained the need for a standalone app: “Messaging is so core to what people do on the phone. It has to be on the desktop. It needs to be fast and go directly in. Speed matters, because people are brutal when choosing communication tools.”
Messenger definitely lets you get to what you need in a single click, something its competitors previously had as an advantage over Facebook’s all-in-one apps. But with Facebook offering so many different features, a proliferation of standalone apps could lead more of a user’s home screen to be filled with Facebook than they want. In June, plans for a standalone Facebook mobile photo sharing app leaked. Facebook will need to make tough decisions about whether other features, such as Events, would work well as standalone apps. Facebook isn’t promoting the app with any news feed stories or in-message indicators. Still, being branded with the Facebook name and its inherent virality could help it quickly grow to have millions of users. By launching before Google+ Huddles can gain traction, other group messaging apps can get any more popular, and as RIM with its BlackBerry Messenger stumbles, Facebook could be the first to take cross-medium group messaging mainstream. Facebook Messenger FunctionalityOnce users have downloaded Facebook Messenger from the App Store or Android Marketplace and logged in, they’ll see all their existing Facebook inbox conversations imported. Users can start a conversation by adding one or more of their Facebook friends or phone numbers from their phone’s contacts. If someone is both a friend and a contact, users can select where to deliver the conversation’s messages. The app can help users save money on their mobile phone bill by allowing them to sidestep use of SMS while still sending real-time messages. One of the most useful features is the option to click an arrow icon and include one’s current location with a message via a push-pinned map. This will make it easy for friends to find each other, especially in crowded public spaces such as parks or concert where meeting up is the goal but giving directions in text is difficult. Location is kept private within a conversation, and not published to Facebook via Places.
Other Facebook Messenger users can view a map within the app showing the locations of all conversation participants that have shared the info, or opt to click through to the Google Maps mobile app and get directions. Those receiving messages via Facebook’s web interface can open a Bing Map of the location from their inbox, but those accessing messages through Facebook’s primary mobile apps or m.facebook.com can’t see locations of others. Users may also share photos with their messages. One thing lacking in Messenger that’s available in the primary mobile apps is the ability to search within or across conversations.
Push notifications alert users to new messages when they aren’t using the app. If this gets too noisy, though, they can mute all their conversations or specific ones temporarily or indefinitely. To organize conversations, users can add a title and photo. To protect privacy, if users try to add more people to a one-on-one conversation, the message history is cleared. If they add additional participants to an existing conversation, they’re warned that these new people will be able see the conversation’s history. Most of Facebook’s acquisitions have been talent-driven, or led to more subtle integrations of existing products. In this case, though, Facebook found a great service it didn’t offer, bought it, re-skinned it, wired it into its own system, and five months later it has significant new value to offer users. The sleek interface and deep integration into one of the world’s most popular instant messaging services could make Facebook Messenger an important part of every day communication. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Mobile to Thwart Hackers and Cyberbullies with Password Reset and Social Reporting Posted: 09 Aug 2011 09:52 AM PDT Facebook has ported a security feature and anti-cyberbullying tool to m.facebook.com from its web interface. The enhanced password reset feature allows mobile users to have a new password sent to an email address or phone number if they can verify their identity. Social reporting lets users contact the owner of objectionable content, such as an embarrassing photo of them, and ask them to delete it. Facebook is slowly rolling out the features to m.facebook.com, and plans to add them to its native mobile apps such as Facebook for iPhone and Android soon. With a sizable percentage of users primarily accessing the site via mobile devices, especially in the developing world, Facebook has been making an effort to bring security, safety, and privacy controls of its website to its mobile interfaces. These features will allow users to regain access to their account and protect themselves from defamation without having to find a wired internet connection.
Mobile Password ResetCurrently, mobile users who forget their password can have it emailed or SMS’d to the address or phone number associated with their account. The new enhancements to this interface will help users that may have also lost access to their email address or phone number. When they go to log in on their mobile interface, they’ll have the option to initiate a password reset. They’ll then be able to use social authentication — identifying friends from photos — or other security data to verify they’re the actual owner of the account, and have a new password sent to an email address or phone number of their choice. A year ago, Facebook began testing social authentication on its web interface to screen suspicious logins. At first, the system ended up locking out some legitimate owners of accounts because they couldn’t identify friends who didn’t show their face in their profile photo, or that they only new from social games. With time, social authentication has been improved such that only photos that clearly show a face are used. Users already have mobile access to many of Facebook’s other account security features, including the ability to remotely end an active session, and require a two-factor authentication to login.
Mobile Social ReportingSometimes Facebook users post content that doesn’t necessarily violate the site’s terms of service, but may offend another user. For instance, a friend could upload a photo of another user in a compromising situation that could get them in trouble with their family or employer. Previously users had to either report the issue to Facebook, costing the site support time in cases where they don’t have the grounds to take action against the offending user, or clumsily message that friend or talk to them in person about removing the content. To solve this issue, Facebook added a social reporting feature to its web interface in March. This allowed users to click a link on an offensive photo, wall post, or other content and send a pre-formatted message to its owner that links to the content and asked them to remove it. Facebook says this has been a success, with 70% of friend-to-friend requests for content to be removed being honored. Now it’s extending social reporting to its mobile interfaces.
Cyberbullying of this nature is big issue for teens who are also some of the most frequent Facebook mobile users, so mobile social reporting has great potential to protect users. This is the latest effort by Facebook to reduce intimidation on its site, having previously formed a child safety advisory board, and launched a family safety center in its Help Center. Users who stick to the web interface or that use web and mobile in conjunction might not need these new mobile features. However, if their only internet-connected device is their phone, being able to regain access to a hacked account or get a photo taken down that might have gotten them in trouble using the mobile interface could keep them engaged with the site. Otherwise, a phished account or bully could be the end of their time on Facebook. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Facebook Platform Industry Hires: Involver, BranchOut, Wildfire and More Posted: 09 Aug 2011 09:30 AM PDT A few companies made some big hires this week, BranchOut brought on a Vertical Solutions Director and Efficient Fronter brought on a statistician, but otherwise it was mostly interns and account management. If your company is hiring 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. |
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