Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Facebook Confirms It Will Scrap the Places Check-In Feed
- Study: SEO Matters for Facebook Pages as 34% of External Referral Traffic Comes From Search
- Vote to See Inside Facebook and Inside Network Panels at SXSW
- Facebook Overhauls Privacy, Brings Controls In-Line With Content
- Facebook Launches Ad Targeting by Topic
- New Facebook Platform Industry Hires: Wildfire, Work4 Labs, TBG Digital, AdParlor and More
- “Titanic,” Rihanna, Real Madrid, YouTube and More on This Week’s Top 20 Growing Facebook Pages
| Facebook Confirms It Will Scrap the Places Check-In Feed Posted: 23 Aug 2011 07:54 PM PDT Facebook will remove the Places check-in feed from its mobile apps and interface, a company spokesperson confirms with us. Rather than check-in, users will be able to add their city-level location or tag a specific Place in any post. The change will come as part of the rollout of the new privacy and location sharing features announced today. Without the dedicated check-in feed, it may be more difficult for users to determine the current location of friends. However, Foursquare and other locations services built around a check-in feed should be pleased about the news of Facebook using location as a layer rather than as content itself.
Facebook launched Places a year ago, allowing users to check in to locations they were within three city blocks of and view a feed of check-ins of friends via m.facebook.com and the native smartphone apps. In April, Facebook added a map view to the iPhone app’s check-in feed to make it easier to tell if friends were nearby. Some users, especially those in dense urban areas with lots of active Facebook friends, found these features very helpful for finding things to do in real-time. The check-in feed was never brought to the web interface, though, so users without smartphone access had to sift the location of friends out of the entire news feed. Soon this may be the fate of smartphone users as well, as a Facebook spokesperson tells us “We've learned a lot since launching Places. The core insight is that most people on Facebook think about location as part of their everyday experience. The Places check in feed on the mobile app will go away and now a "place" becomes another descriptor to add to any post.”
When users post content from the web, mobile site, or smartphone apps, they’ll have the option to tag a Place, whether they’re there currently or just want to mention it. As TechCrunch illustrates, Facebook’s foot-traffic incentivizing Check-in Deals will still be available, with users seeing the option to redeem them appended to the news feed story of their mention of a location.
Unless Facebook adds a filter to the news feed that only shows posts tagged with specific locations, the change will likely make it harder to find exactly where friends are currently are and meet up with them. Even if Facebook did add a location filter, it wouldn’t be able to tell if a friend had tagged a Place because they were planning to go their in future, had been there in the past, just wanted to discuss it, or are actually there. This may also prevent Facebook from sending helpful push notifications about one’s closest friends checking in nearby. This could drive users looking to keep track of the current locations of friends to Foursquare, Google Latitude, Gowalla, or other location services. While perhaps valuable to a smaller audience than location as a layer, these services will continue helping users find their friends in real-time. Making location a component of status updates, photos, and other content will surely give users more context to what their friends are sharing. Those who currently enjoy checking in will probably just post status updates, tag their current location and friends who are with them, and add a description such as “Here at…”. It will also help users plan future meetups by allowing them to tag locations and say they’ll be there in an hour. Still, it seems unnecessary to remove the check-in feed and the ability to populate that feed by explicitly informing Facebook of one’s current location. The mobile interfaces could keep the feed and use the existing check-in button to indicate real-time location rather than just a mention of a Place. Instead, Facebook is removing functionality some have grown to enjoy, and ignoring the fact that sometimes location is valuable in its own right, not just as a layer. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Study: SEO Matters for Facebook Pages as 34% of External Referral Traffic Comes From Search Posted: 23 Aug 2011 05:47 PM PDT Search makes up 34% of all external referral traffic to Facebook Pages, with Google 27.5% coming from Google, according to a six month study of 1,000 Pages by analytics provider PageLever. This means Facebook Page admins should be concerned with search engine optimization when naming Pages, filling in fields on the Info tab, posting content, and placing links to their Pages on websites. The study also shows a high variance in how much traffic is sourced from search, indicating some Pages do much better at SEO than others and that there is a high potential for gain if Pages execute a smart SEO strategy.
Through its APIs, Facebook shares data about internal and external referral traffic of Pages with their admins. PageLever used data on 1,000 Pages with more than 10,000 fans between January 1st and June 30th, 2011 to conduct the study. Internal sources include links in the news feed, profiles, as well as Facebook’s internal search engine which has shown to account for the bulk of internal traffic sent to Pages. Overall, external referral traffic only accounts for an average of 27.8% of total traffic to Pages, and those with over a million fans see closer to 8% of their traffic come from outside Facebook.com. In addition to search, external referral traffic is sourced from official websites for businesses, blogs, and other social networks such as Twitter.
Still, the amount of external traffic coming from search is enough to make it worthwhile for Page admins to consider SEO. Optimizing for Google PageRank should be their priority as the other top search engines contribute much less traffic, with Yahoo delivering 4.1% and Bing delivering 2.3 of total external referral traffic. While trying to court Google PageRank, admins should consider whether they have the best possible name and URL for their Page. They should look to publish links to their website frequently, and have their website reciprocate by posting links to the Page wherever appropriate. Pages should employ these basic SEO strategies to make sure anyone trying to them from outside of Facebook.com can do so without having to wade through other search results. By combining SEO efforts with compelling default landing tabs that encourage visitors to Like them, Pages can convert this search traffic into additional fans. A closer look at key Facebook Page search engine optimization strategies can be found in the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s comprehensive guide to marketing and advertising through Facebook. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Vote to See Inside Facebook and Inside Network Panels at SXSW Posted: 23 Aug 2011 03:41 PM PDT The Inside Network editorial team has proposed several panels for this year’s South By Southwest Interactive and Music Conferences, but we need your votes to get them on the program. The panels look at:
Brands Need 3rd-Party Tools to Succeed on FacebookCan brands succeed at Facebook marketing on their own? We’ll discuss with the heads of the biggest service providers on the Facebook Platform what problems third-parties can solve for brands more efficiently than they can solve on their own, including advertising, brand presence, and promotion. We’ll also look at some of the biggest questions brands are confronted with when choosing service providers, and why marketing on a social platform requires different partnership strategies than what brand are used to. Moderated by Josh Constine, Lead Writer of Inside Facebook. Panelists include:
Vote here for “Brands Need 3rd-Party tools to Succeed on Facebook” Facebook Credits: Not Just for Virtual GoodsFacebook Credits, the social network’s virtual currency, has become the exclusive payment method for all Facebook games. Now, more users are maintaining a balance of Facebook Credits, and more users want them. This has opened new business and marketing opportunities. Content owners can license streaming access or downloads of their content in exchange for Facebook Credits. Meanwhile, ecommerce companies can reward users with Credits for marking purchases or signing up for email lists. Representatives of companies pioneering the use of Facebook Credits outside of social games will discuss the current state of Facebook Credits and their typical uses, explain how virtual currencies are already disrupting several industries, and debate which types of transactions are the next to be changed by the emergence of a virtual currency that is in demand and cheap to distribute. Moderated by Eric Eldon, Editor of Inside Network. Panelists include:
Facebook Music Marketing: Pages, Feeds, and GamesMusicians are adopting Facebook as a core component of their online marketing strategy as the importance of Myspace fades. But which of Facebook’s social channels should artists focus on? Streaming music from their Facebook Page? Gaining fans by trading news feed posts with other musicians? Selling music and and driving listens within social games? Heads of some of most influential Facebook music marketing companies will debate which of these channels is most important, and we'll discuss how bands can tie the channels together to conduct successful marketing campaigns that don’t spam Facebook's users. Moderated by Josh Constine, Lead Writer of Inside Facebook. Panelists include:
Vote here for ”Facebook Music Marketing: Pages, Feeds, and Games” TV & Film in the Age of the Social GameWhat does Jersey Shore have to do with FarmVille? Major media producers like Starz, A&E and MTV are capturing new audiences both online and off by leveraging the power of social games on Facebook. As more licensed entertainment brands integrate with social games on the platform, what are the greatest risks, and who is taking the lion’s share of rewards? Join us for a critical look at social game integrations that are headed for a crash, and the ones that are getting it right. Moderated by Amanda Glasser, Lead Writer of Inside Social Games. Panelists include:
Vote here for “TV & Film in the Age of the Social Game” | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Overhauls Privacy, Brings Controls In-Line With Content Posted: 23 Aug 2011 11:00 AM PDT Facebook has just announced that starting Thursday, a major overhaul of the site’s privacy controls will begin rollout to all users. The goal is to help users share exactly what they want with exactly who they want by improving privacy setting transparency, simplicity, and accessibility.
Amongst the many significant changes, privacy settings will soon appear on the profile and news feed publisher in-line with the content rather than on a dedicated privacy settings page. Users will be able to their specific or city-level location to any post, retroactively change the privacy setting of previously published content, and opt to require pre-approval any time they’re tagged in a photo, checkin, or other type of post. The changes may reduce the volume of content that is unwittingly overshared, and help users protect themselves from being associated with objectionable content against their will. The end result could be an increase in confidence in Facebook privacy that leads users to be comfortable sharing more, which could in turn increase engagement with the site. Facebook last redesigned its privacy settings in May 2010 following criticism regarding the complexity of the controls. It moved to provide one-click controls that could apply a privacy “bucket” — such as friends only, friends of friends, or everyone — to all settings. Still, when customizing settings, users were presented with a dense page of over 20 controls that were several clicks away from the content they manage. The new privacy overhaul addresses both these problems, thinning out the dedicated privacy settings page by relocating the controls to be readily accessible from the profile editor and news feed publisher. Transparency is enhanced because the controls persistently display who may see the adjacent content. Facebook says it plans to begin the rollout of the changes on Thursday with the goal of them reaching 100% of the user base within a week, barring issues. The mobile site m.facebook.com will simultaneously receive some of the new features, and the native mobile apps will likely gain some of the functionality with time. Privacy Overhaul Walk-ThroughIn-Line Profile Controls, Pre-Approval of PostsThe user profile editor will display privacy settings for each piece of information or content shared, such as a user’s contact information, Liked Pages, education and work history. This prevents users from having to click back and forth between the profile and privacy settings page.
Users may access the option to preview what their profile looks like to a specific person from the profile itself, rather than the privacy settings page. This interface is very similar to how Google+ lets users preview their profiles, though Facebook Product Manager Kate O’Neill says the competitor’s design was “not on my radar”. Facebook will allow users to tag any other person or Page in their content, not just their friends or Pages they’re connected to. To protect users from being associated with content against their will or having it appear on their profile, all posts by non-friends that tag a user are placed in a “Pending Posts” tab accessible from the profile. Users will receive notification that someone has tagged them in a photo, checkin, status update or other post and they can approve or decline that post’s presence on their own wall. They’ll also have the option to remove the tag entirely. This means when a user publishes a post or photo that includes tags, those tags will immediately be active, but the presence of the post on the profiles of those tags may require approval.
In a major policy shift, users may also opt to have the presence on their profile of photos that tag of them require approval through Pending Posts. O’Neill says this has long been a “top user requested feature” but for years Facebook held that if a friend was tagging a user irresponsibly, they should unfriend them. The newfound ability will protect those especially weary of privacy leaks from having objectionable photos of them appear on their profile to professional or family contacts. Publisher Gains Location and Transparent PrivacyThe news feed and wall publisher will have several new functions. Users will be able to instantly tag friends in their updates using a button rather that typing the @ symbol. For the first time they may add location to their posts from the web interface, either by tagging the update with a Facebook Place, or adding the city they’re posting from as determined by their IP address and other signals.
Privacy controls will appear in-line on the publisher as well. It will display the privacy bucket the update being composed rather than showing a nondescript lock icon. Some users currently don’t realize they’re sharing content publicly, but this should alert them. The privacy bucket can be changed and set as the default for future posts. Users can click an icon to the right of any post on their profile or news feed to determine who can currently see the content. If they created the post they may change it’s privacy setting retroactively, and if it appears on their profile they can remove it without actually deleting the tag of them. If someone else owns the post, knowing who’ll see feedback left on it will let users decide if they’re comfortable leaving a comment. There will also be a privacy setting that allows users to retroactively change the privacy of all the content they’ve posted on Facebook. Photo Tags Removal and AttributionFacebook says that over 100 million photo tags are added by users each day. This may increase, as users will also be able to tag people that aren’t their friends. By hovering over a tag, users can see who added it. The company conducted research and found that a main reason users detagged themselves from photos was because they didn’t want them to appear on their profile. Users will soon be able to remove a photo from their profile without deleting the tag. This will allow them to keep track of comments and other changes to the photo without linking to it from their profile.
If users find a tag objectionable or think they are being bullied, while removing the tag they can also ask a photo’s owner to delete it from Facebook, or block that user. Education to Instill ConfidenceUsers don’t just want enhanced privacy, they want a more consistent and intuitive experience. Facebook will need to work hard to ensure users understand the changes, and convey that none of their privacy settings have been altered, just moved. To educate users, Facebook will accompany the rollout of the changes with tool tips detailing new features the first time users see them. It has also published new explanation pages for profile privacy controls, the publisher, and location sharing. Privacy has been Facebook’s biggest problem to date. A lack of confidence in the site’s privacy settings has scared away new users, frustrated existing users, and kept people from sharing more sensitive content. If Facebook can combine technological and design solutions with reassurance that users are in control of their online presence, it could leave its troubles behind and refocus on making users happy rather than preventing them from feeling overwhelmed or suspicious. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Launches Ad Targeting by Topic Posted: 23 Aug 2011 09:25 AM PDT Facebook recently added the ability to target advertisements by Topic, as detailed in its new Interests Targeting guide (.PDF). Rather than targeting users that Like a specific Page, advertisers can simultaneously target all users who Like any variation of a word or phrase. For example, rather than just targeting fans of Lady Gaga, by selecting the #Lady Gaga Topic, an ad will also be shown to fans of any unofficial Pages for the musician, such as “I ♥ Lady Gaga”. The new targeting option, available in both the self-serve ads tool and the Ads API, will help advertisers expand the reach of their ads to more relevant users. It will be especially handy for less experienced advertisers who might not know to explicitly target keywords related an interest of their customers.
Topic targeting joins Facebook’s two other interest targeting options: the original, default Precise Interest targeting for advertising to fans of a specific Page; and the relatively new Broad Category targeting for advertising to wide ranges of users with similar profile characteristics such as newlyweds, or Likes of any Page related to large category such as football. Advertisers employing Precise Interest Targeting can miss out on showing their ads to relevant people because Facebook users sometimes Like related or unofficial versions of Pages rather than the official version owned by the company or celebrity the Pages represent. These users might be willing to click through ads and make purchases, so missing them through Precise Interest targeting hurts ad performance. With the new Topic targeting option, when advertisers type in a keyword to target in the Precise Interest targeting section of the self-serve ad tool, the typeahead will now bring up Topics denoted with a hash (#) tag in addition to specific Pages. Advertisers can select these #topics to include anyone who Likes official, related, or unofficial Pages associated with that Topic.
Topics also now appear as targeting suggestions. This means if an advertisers targets Lady Gaga as a Precise Interest, Facebook will show suggestions to also target the #Lady Gaga topic to reach additional users. These suggestions might also include additional pop music singer Precise Interests such as Katy Perry or Beyoncé, and Topics such as #Beyoncé Knowles. Topic Targeting StrategiesAdvertisers using keyword targeting should consider simultaneously running Precise Interest targeted ads and Topic targeted ads as separate campaigns, as this will allow them to determine how effective Topic targeting is. Targeting multiple topics within the same campaign may make it difficult to refine targeting to the best responding demographics, so advertisers should consider running ads for different Topics in different campaigns. Those targeting a variety of specific keywords should think about which are the most relevant to their customers and try also targeting the corresponding Topics. Targeting too many Topics may dilute ad spend. There may be a higher probability that fans of unofficial Pages encompassed by Topic targeting are less savvy Facebook users than those that are fans of official Pages. Therefore, advertisers pitching more sophisticated products and services may receive more unqualified clicks by targeting Topics. Less experienced advertisers, those with smaller budgets, and those with less time time to spend managing ads have a lot to gain from Topic targeting, as reduces the need to identify a wide range of individual but related keywords. Advanced advertisers using the Ads API tools and services should consider adding Topic targeting into their A/B tests to determine when Topic targeting can improve ad performance for their specific business. With Topic targeting and the recently launched zip code targeting, Facebook is significantly increasing the ways advertisers can reach potential customers on Facebook. By providing an easier experience for novice advertisers and opening new strategies for veterans, Facebook may be able to ride these new feature launches into increased advertising revenue. More Facebook advertising strategies, including how to run integrated marketing campaigns that combine ads and Sponsored Stories with Pages and apps, can be found in the Facebook Marketing Bible. [Thanks to Eti Suruzon for the tip] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Facebook Platform Industry Hires: Wildfire, Work4 Labs, TBG Digital, AdParlor and More Posted: 23 Aug 2011 09:03 AM PDT Wildfire made the most hires this week among service providers on the Facebook platform, with the focus being on sales and social media strategy. Other companies also filled similar types of positions. 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:
Context Optional (part of Efficient Frontier)
Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| “Titanic,” Rihanna, Real Madrid, YouTube and More on This Week’s Top 20 Growing Facebook Pages Posted: 23 Aug 2011 08:08 AM PDT
Starting out with the movie Pages, "Titanic" took the number one spot this week; previously we had see a Community Page for this film on this list, but this week it was the actual film's Page. Growing by 3.7 million Likes to 6.3 million total, mostly between Tuesday and Thursday of last week hints that this was a Page consolidation. "Braveheart" is a Page that was only recently created, but also grew most of its 2.4 million Likes in a few days last week, to 2.7 million.
Then there was "Fast & Furious" with a huge jump last week, growing by 684,300 Likes in the past week to 8.8 million; the film is working on a promotion with NASCAR. "The Smurfs" grew by 560,200 Likes to 2.8 million while "Harry Potter" grew by 507,200 Likes to 33.2 million; both films seemed to ride their current popularity to this growth. Music was also very popular this week, as mentioned.
Friendship grew by 2.9 million to just over 3 million this week, a huge jump last week. Hockey showed a similar pattern, growing 1.3 million of its 1.4 million last week. Then maNga, a Turkish metal band, grew about 772,600 Likes to 2.7 million, also with a huge jump. 2pac, dead for many years, saw his Page grow 587,200 Likes to 3.5 million, again seeing a big jump last week. Community Page Music grew by 471,500 Likes to 26.5 million. Eminem's Page grew by 462,700 Likes and the updates to his Page included a music video and charity update; his total is 45.9 million. Rihanna's Page grew by 440,800 Likes to just over 44 million Likes. The dubstep Page grew by 433,600 Likes to 1.9 million and finally Shakira grew by 413,800 Likes to 39.5 million by posting vlogs from her tour.
Other Pages included Black Entertainment Television (BET), which seems to have been consolidated by 671,000 Likes to 1.1 million. Two football (soccer) Pages were on the list, Real Madrid C.F. with 574,300 Likes to grow to 18.7 million with lots of photos, polls, videos and other updates; then there was FC Barcelona grew by 432,600 Likes to 19.4 million Likes by updating games and photos. Facebook's Page grew by 532,100 Likes to 51.4 million and YouTube grew by 437,300 Likes to 44.1 million. Then there was an odd Page, I Love My Daughter, which grew most of its 464,400 Likes to 720,100; the comments on the Page seemed to indicate that its spammy, sending "work at home" messages and not allowing users to unlike the Page, a trend we reported previously. |
Here’s a closer look at the four panels we’ve proposed. If you think these are important issues, please follow the links and vote for them. Help us out even if you aren’t planning to attend, as some panels will be livestreamed, and we’ll publish coverage of the discussions.
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