Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Facebook’s Music Sharing Partnerships Aren’t Helping Musicians Gain Fans
- Study of Facebook News Feed Changes: Page Post Comments Up 21%, Likes Up 9%, Impressions Down 25%
- New Facebook Platform Industry Hires: Identified, Brighter Option, Buddy Media and More
- Chat Alert Notifies Users When a Specific Facebook Friend Goes Online
- Steve Jobs, Music, Movies, Football and More on This Week’s Top 20 Growing Facebook Pages
| Facebook’s Music Sharing Partnerships Aren’t Helping Musicians Gain Fans Posted: 11 Oct 2011 05:09 PM PDT Facebook has yet to create an easy and obvious way for users to Like the Pages of musicians they listen to, costing artists significant marketing opportunities. Since the listening activity of Spotify, Rdio, and other music service users began being automatically shared to the social network late last month, Facebook Pages of musicians have not been gaining fans any faster. Musical artists and record labels should push Facebook to implement a better retention mechanism that helps them convert listeners into fans who they can then reach with marketing updates through the news feed. This could come in the form of a Like button for an artist’s Page on feed stories about users listening to them, or a a “Recommended Musicians” panel that suggests users Like the artists they listen to most.
Until then, Facebook is gaining compelling feed stories about listening habits and data it can monetize through ad targeting without returning the favor to musicians. Musicians Need Likes, Not Listens, to Make MoneyCurrently, to Like an artist they have been listening to, users have to find a story about their listening activity in the news feed, Ticker, or Timeline. The use can then click through the artist’s name to visit their Page and Like them. A lesser known method is to hover over the artist’s name and use the Like button in the hover card. The hidden buttons and high friction flows mean only users already intent on Liking an artist will become fans. Facebook’s music partnerships are making some money for musicians by driving usage of streaming services that pay out royalties when an artist’s songs are streamed. However, these royalties can be just a fraction of a cent per listen. Artists depend on concert ticket and merchandise sales that Facebook’s music apps aren’t helping them increase directly. Many artists use their Facebook Pages to promote their tours and merchandise lines in the news feed, but only fans receive these updates — not listeners. However, the 20 most popular musician Facebook Pages and the Pages of a dozen smaller artists we checked showed no increase in the rate of new Likes starting on September 22nd when the music partnerships launched. Therefore, it’s important that Facebook make it easier for users to Like the artists listen to.
How Facebook Could Improve Listener Retention for PagesThere are several ways Facebook could do this. This simplest and probably the most effective way would be to add a prominent, one-click “Like this artist” button to stories about listening activity, as mocked up below. When users see who they’ve been listening to on their profile Timeline, or discover a new artist by clicking through a story about a friend’s listening activity, they could then instantly become a fan. Facebook could also create a “Recommended Musicians” sidebar module that could be displayed to users while they browse the site or on the Music Dashboard that aggregates their network’s listening activity. It could show Like buttons for the artists they or their friends have been listening to most. There’s already a Top Songs module in the Music Dashboard that could be augmented with a Like button as I’ve mocked up below.
Getting more users Liking musician Pages could also benefit Facebook. These Likes fill a user’s new feed with rich content that increases return visits and time-on-site. They provide advertisers with something to target that can be indicative of a potential customer’s lifestyle. Finally, musicians own 37 of the top 100 most popular Facebook Pages, which shows how central people see music to expressing their identity — one of Facebook’s overall goals. There are some issues with reducing friction in the musician Page Like process I’ve described. Placing a Page Like button near an activity story’s Like button could cause confusion. Also, Facebook not want to drive more Likes to a category of Pages that already has lots of fans. Still, these are users who are already listening to an artist — it’s not far fetched to think they might be interested in Liking that artist’s Page if given a chance. If Facebook want to keep musicians from bringing their content and fans to another social platform happy, and compensate them for the engaging listening activity stories they power, it should bridge listening and Liking. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Study of Facebook News Feed Changes: Page Post Comments Up 21%, Likes Up 9%, Impressions Down 25% Posted: 11 Oct 2011 02:43 PM PDT Following Facebook’s recent changes to the news feed, Pages are receiving 21% more comments and 9% more Likes, though 25% fewer impressions per post, according to a study by Page analytics provider EdgeRank Checker. Facebook had redesigned the home page to merge the Top News and Most Recent feeds into a single hybrid news feed in September. The reports should come as good news to most marketers, especially direct marketers looking to drive more click throughs to their products. However, the the reduction in Page post impressions since the introduction of the hybrid news feed could hurt some institutional marketers that optimize for exposure or brand lift rather than direct conversions.
EdgeRank Checker based its findings on metrics pulled from an adequate sample size of over 3,5000 Facebook Pages during two weeks before the changes (9/3-9/17) and two weeks after the changes (9/24-10/8). The time frame is still too short for the study to be totally authoritative, and it will take a few more months before users and Page admins become accustomed. Still, these figures should ease worries that the changes would drastically reduce engagement with Page posts, and help admins adjust their Page publishing strategy for maximum impact. EdgeRank Checker ran a preliminary analysis of the same data after just one week of complete data following the changes. At that point, impressions were down 33%, Likes up 18%, and comments up 17% versus before the changes. The new numbers should be more accurate as they are based on the same data as the first study plus an additional week of reporting. The News Feed Favors Compelling Posts More Than EverOver the last few months, Facebook has made a lot of changes to the site’s design and functionality that impact how marketing content and ads reach users, and more changes are on the way. Most significantly, it redesigned the home page, scrapping the two-tabbed news feed interface in favor of a single combined feed with a Ticker of real-time updates on the side. Previously, some users would visit the Most Recent news feed tab where they could view a more complete stream of updates from all their Liked Pages and friends. The removal of this feed is likely the cause of the 25.15% reduction in impressions per Page post. Users may also be scrolling through less of the news feed because they more quickly find engaging updates thanks to the new design. The 9.43% increase in Likes and 21.15% increase in comments per Page post may be related to how the hybrid news feed favors posts published recently and that have received a lot of feedback. The combined news feed divides content into three categories that are dynamically ordered on the home page depending on how frequently a user check the news feed:
EdgeRank Checker believes the redesign and improvements to the news feed sorting algorithm have made Facebook’s EdgeRank more focused. In other words, highly compelling updates are receiving more visibility than before. Previously, a Page post that received a high volume of Likes and comments still wouldn’t be seen if a user logged on a day or two after it was published. Now with Top Stories, users see all the most relevant updates that were published since they last checked the news feed. Therefore, the first stories in the news feed are now likely to be of a higher quality than before, leading users to leave more Likes and comments. This feedback raises a Page’s EdgeRank giving their posts more visibility in the future, so its more important than ever for marketers to take the time to craft highly compelling updates that draw lots of Likes and comments. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Facebook Platform Industry Hires: Identified, Brighter Option, Buddy Media and More Posted: 11 Oct 2011 11:50 AM PDT Companies hired engineers, account staff, interns and more this week. 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. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chat Alert Notifies Users When a Specific Facebook Friend Goes Online Posted: 11 Oct 2011 10:48 AM PDT Chat Alert is a simple application that informs users when selected friends become available to chat with on Facebook. A common feature of some other instant messaging services, Chat Alert provides provides a service not available on Facebook Chat. The app is free up to a certain point, and then begins to charge users a certain number of Credits to follow more friends. The app allows users to add up to 10 friends free of charge and receive alerts when they are available to chat. Alerts can sent to users via email, Facebook Message or SMS. A user's friends need not register for Chat Alert in order for the app to work and a single alert will be sent per friend who logs into chat. Users may also customize these alerts within the app itself.
Unless one is logged into chat, there is no way of telling when a friend becomes available to instant message with. Even when logged in, it’s easy to miss someone appearing in the buddy list. Given that users often have hundreds of friends, constantly logging in and out of chat and scrolling to see who's online just to find a specific friend is inefficient. While only a niche of users may require its services, Chat Alert fulfills its purpose effectively. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Steve Jobs, Music, Movies, Football and More on This Week’s Top 20 Growing Facebook Pages Posted: 11 Oct 2011 08:00 AM PDT
We compile these lists with our PageData tool, which tracks Page growth across Facebook.
Steve Jobs' Community Page grew by 937,100 Likes this week to 1.2 million, in light of the Apple CEO's death.
Music Pages on the list this week included Taiwanese singer 楊丞琳 Rainie Yang with 877,000 Likes to 910,300 Likes, a Page consolidation it appeared. Enrique Iglesias' Page grew by 733,500 Likes to pass 23.3 million; he's on tour and has been promoting a CityVille integration. Selena's Page grew by 341,700 Likes to 346,600; the Community Page's growth appeared to be a consolidation. Adele's Page grew by 271,800 Likes to 6.6 million after she was nominated for some awards then cancelled her U.S. tour.
Movies on the list included "Titanic" with 711,100 Likes to reach 8.2 million as part of a consolidation, the Hindi romantic comedy "Jab We Met" with 506,100 Likes to 795,600, "Titanic" Community Page with 409,500 Likes to 13.4 million, "Chocolat" with 321,300 Likes and "Harry Potter" with 263,300 Likes to 35.5 million while promoting Halloween costumes of the movie characters.
Other Pages on the list included Tv personality Luciano Huck whose Page grew by 455,800 Likes to 2.5 million by posting plenty of updates and photos with celebrities. Then facebook realesed the new Dislike Button™! Add it Now!! not a fake! grew by 333,000 to 445,400. Facebook's Page grew by 318,000 to 53.8 million. Louis Vuitton's Page grew by 306,400 Likes to 3.8 million after the company heavily promoted its new collection with livestream video and photos. Angry Birds grew by 297,700 Likes to 8.4 million and the Spanish Page Te Quiero grew by 286,800 to 929,300 with a landing tab with dozens of Like buttons promising access to a video. Finally, ChatVibes grew by 282,500 Likes to pass 2 million. Football (soccer) Pages rounded out the list with FC Barcelona and 264,200 Likes to reach 21.2 million, Leo Messi with 259,600 Likes to 25.7 million and Cristiano Ronaldo with 249,400 Likes to 24.8 million. The Pages all included frequent updates on games and lots of photos. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Inside Facebook To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |