Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Facebook round-up: carrier billing, Offerpop, Ustream, voter registration
- Has Facebook cracked f-commerce?
- Facebook personalizes pages browser, prompts users to Like pages they might be interested in
- Facebook career postings: open source advocacy, data center security, ads risk analysis, sales and more
- Facebook hires: gaming account manager, research scientist, risk analyst, Chinese language specialist and more
- Hug Me, Sonar, Twoo, Obama and more on this week’s emerging Facebook apps
- How Facebook on mobile is ‘closer to TV’
| Facebook round-up: carrier billing, Offerpop, Ustream, voter registration Posted: 28 Sep 2012 05:00 PM PDT
Facebook now allows ‘Registered to Vote’ story on Timeline – Users can now add that they registered to vote as a life event on their timelines. Users can add details such as where, when and why they decided to vote. If users want more information on how to register, Facebook also provides links to a user's state election authority. This is similar to Facebook’s recent addition of “Became an Organ Donor” to the life events section of Timeline.
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| Has Facebook cracked f-commerce? Posted: 28 Sep 2012 03:38 PM PDT “People don't come to Facebook to shop” is the common belief. A number of companies have given up on f-commerce and thousands more haven't even tried because of this axiom. So why then is Facebook launching Facebook Gifts, a way for users to buy their friends physical goods directly from News Feed, Timeline and mobile? Facebook may very well be a party, not a shopping mall. But the company has realized that sometimes people need to bring gifts to the party. The big difference between Facebook Gifts and other f-commerce efforts is that Facebook isn't trying to get users to browse and buy things for themselves. It's suggesting that users shop for their friends.
How well this will work remains to be seen, but it's important to distinguish what Facebook is doing from the failed efforts of companies that previously tried to sell things on the social network. The biggest problem with those early attempts was that businesses essentially recreated their websites in a Facebook tab, doing little to understand what makes the platform unique and building a community that would want to use the shop. Successful f-commerce companies like ShopIgniter and Payvment went beyond setting up basic storefronts and instead promoted exclusive offers or recommended items based on what a user's friends liked.
Facebook has integrated Gifts in the birthdays section of its homepage and in the publisher on friends' profiles. Users don't have to enter payment information right away and they don't need to know a friend's address. This reduces the biggest points of friction in most online shopping experiences.
Facebook will likely further optimize the design of Gifts to help users find the right product for their friend faster. For example, improving its recommended gifts algorithm to be more personalized for each recipient, allowing users to create wishlists (maybe using the "want" button) and incorporating friends' Likes and past purchases to show which gifts are most popular. Facebook might also find a way for users to buy gifts as a group so that two or more friends can split the cost of a larger gift. Target currently has an app on its page called "Give With Friends," which allows users to do this for Target gift cards, which had 6,000 monthly active users last month, according to AppData. Social hooks like these could do really well for Facebook Gifts. A number of factors will determine if Facebook is ultimately successful with Gifts, from merchant relationships and inventory to customer service and privacy issues. From the outset, though, it seems Facebook wants to prove that its “social design” approach will work in ways that traditional commerce methods haven’t on the site. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook personalizes pages browser, prompts users to Like pages they might be interested in Posted: 28 Sep 2012 03:10 PM PDT Facebook is testing a new design for a section of its site formerly called "Discover Facebook's Popular Pages" where users can find new pages to Like. Now called “Like Your Favorite Pages,” the site focuses on helping users connect to pages they’re most likely to be interested in, not just what’s most popular.
Some users are seeing links to the site from their Facebook bookmarks bar. After clicking the link, users are presented with a few dozen recommended pages. These seem to be suggested based on recent check-ins, pages they’ve visited, Open Graph activity and friend connections. For instance, we’ve seen some suggestions for artists recently listened to on Spotify and movies looked up on Rotten Tomatoes. Users can Like a page simply by clicking it. In order for Facebook ads to be relevant, users need to have complete profiles including their likes and interests. The pages browser is useful, but until recently was mostly hidden on the site. In the past year, however, Facebook has promoted its pages browser a few different ways, for example, including a link along with Page-Like Sponsored Stories and suggesting that users visit it after they hide an ad. Today is the first time we’ve seen a link to the site from the bookmarks menu and the first time we’ve seen the new layout. Besides the new wording and slightly different look, the site also highlights which of a user’s friends are connected to a page. However, Facebook seems to have removed the old sidebar which used to show users which friends they had the most pages in common with. The link to the former pages discovery browser now redirects to the new version at Facebook.com/pages.
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| Posted: 28 Sep 2012 01:30 PM PDT
As for new openings, they span from software engineering and infrastructure to recruiting and sales. Posts added this week on Facebook's Careers Page:
Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 28 Sep 2012 01:15 PM PDT
New hires and promotions according to LinkedIn:
Prior listings removed from Facebook’s careers page:
Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hug Me, Sonar, Twoo, Obama and more on this week’s emerging Facebook apps Posted: 28 Sep 2012 01:00 PM PDT
We define emerging applications as those that ended with between 100,000 and 1 million MAU in the past week. This week’s top apps grew between 120,000 and 41,000 MAU, based on AppData, our data tracking service covering traffic growth for apps on Facebook. Top Gainers This Week
Portuguese app Oferece uma rosa is a similar virtual gifting app that came in at No. 2 this week. No. 3 Sonar is a mobile app that alerts users when their friends or friends of friends are nearby. No. 4 Twoo is a dating app with Facebook canvas, web, iOS and Android versions. No. 5 Furkot.pl is a Polish site that shares risque photos and videos. The campaign app Obama 2012 came in at No. 6 with 250,000 additional users. This week Facebook eliminated a few top-growing apps likely for spam. Apps like Are you an angel or devil? grew by more than 21,000 percent and were shut down, so we did not include them on this list, though they can be viewed on our AppData charts. All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Stay tuned next week for our look at the top weekly gainers by monthly active users on Monday, the top weekly gainers by daily active users on Wednesday, and the top emerging apps on Friday. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How Facebook on mobile is ‘closer to TV’ Posted: 28 Sep 2012 12:19 PM PDT This article originally appeared in the Facebook Marketing Bible, our subscription product for marketers and advertisers looking to better understand the Facebook platform. In an on-stage interview earlier this month, Mark Zuckerberg described advertising on mobile as "closer to TV than desktop." He also said traditional Facebook ads as we know them are not possible on mobile. As Facebook shifts more focus toward its mobile iterations, there are different steps the service can take to become "more like TV." However, there are already similarities between the two mediums. This article will look at how Facebook on mobile is already like TV and how it is different from desktop.
More Linear, More Prominent
Zuckerberg explained that this ad column is not possible on mobile because there simply "is not enough room." As a result, ads "have to be fundamentally added to the product," he said. This is biggest reason why mobile must differentiate itself from desktop. Facebook's mobile applications are linear experiences in the same way somebody watches television. For example, when the Facebook mobile application is loaded, users are presented immediately with their feed. When somebody watches television, they are tuned into only one channel. Both screens provide a steady stream of information. Because it is a linear experience, ads have become more prominent as well. Much like how television shows have commercial breaks, the content in the news feed is split apart by Promoted Posts and Sponsored Stories. These ads receive more attention than right column ads because of how they fit in the information stream. Commercials capture more attention than stationary ads in magazines or newspapers because of how prominent they are on the television. They are the only information present on the screen. The same can be said about news feed ads as they are embedded in the stream, often taking up the full mobile screen, as it recently highlighted in an infographic partially seen below.
Disruptive?Of course, ads can also seen as disruptive of the experience of both Facebook and television. One of the biggest complaints for both is there are simply too many ads which get in the way of what people really want to see. If Facebook mobile ads are like TV, will it mean that ads become more disruptive? As mentioned before, Zuckerberg has said that mobile ads "have to be fundamentally added to the product." It doesn't seem as though the company is looking to introduce interruptive ads into its mobile apps or site. Instead, it began with Sponsored Stories, which have been incredibly successful for advertisers on desktop and even more so on mobile.
When comparing it to television, Sponsored Stories are in the same vein as product placement with how they fit so naturally in the stream. Product placement is so heavily integrated in movies and television that it is now almost required for proper realism. Instead of a character grabbing a generic soda, they grab a Coke or a Pepsi. Switch that to the context of Facebook, friends don't just like burritos, they like Chipotle or Taco Bell. Both marketing strategies are so integrated in the medium, they are accepted as a part of the experience. These types of ads can also subtly influence people toward these specific products. To make another comparison, Page Post Ads with photos or only text can be considered commercials when they lack social context. When users can consciously realize they are viewing an ad instead of friend's or page's update, it usually turns them off of the ad. Socially relevant ads use word of mouth to appeal to friends and friends of friends. The line between ad and a social update is blurred when running social ads. By looking at television, which commercials do the best in terms of being memorable and making an impression on audiences? The ones that are high quality and endearing. This is exactly the same story for Facebook. Commercials are short 30 second spots that need to be attention-grabbing. Social ads should be short, lightweight content that is engaging. Facebook is more fortunate than television however, because of how easy it is to measure engagement and response through insights and analytics.
ConclusionWhen Zuckerberg said that mobile is "closer to TV," he was mostly referring to the way that information is organized for both. As a whole, Facebook on mobile is becoming more like television in the way that it broadcasts information in a streamlined way. The way ads are presented and integrated into the product are the same way ads are made to fit in narratives and include small breaks between the actual content. Both remain as great ways to advertise for branding purposes. Most commercials work as a way to promote the brand of the advertising companies. Rarely it is a way to get people to run outside and buy a product. Facebook can not only promote a brand but can get people to interact and talk about the brand. Zuckerberg was strategic in comparing the two channels. By comparing the two, he is implying that there is some significant value in Facebook mobile advertising, similar to how valuable television commercials can be. For the social network to move to the next level in generating ad revenue, it will need to start shifting advertisers’ TV budgets to Facebook mobile. This article is a free preview from the Facebook Marketing Bible, our subscription product for marketers and advertisers looking to better understand the Facebook platform. For more insights, expert analysis, how-tos and case studies, subscribe to the Facebook Marketing Bible. |
Facebook mobile carrier billing live in select countries – Facebook 
Offerpop announces new post categories and fan database features – Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer Offerpop this week 
Ustream adds posting to fans pages and Open Graph to mobile app - Streaming service Ustream this week 
These companies found opportunity in impulse buys and optimized the flow from discovery to checkout. ShopIgniter, for instance, created Flash applications to run limited-time offers for fans to buy Kaenon sunglasses directly from the feed. Payvment recently eliminated its shopping cart and 
Facebook added 13 job listings to its 
Facebook on desktop might be best described as organized chaos. Besides the news feed, there is a message tab, ticker, chat, as well as ads and links to nearly every other Facebook feature from the homepage. With so much going on, the ad column on the right doesn't detract from the rest of the content.
Sponsored Stories are a way for advertisers to pay to amplify an action that users have taken, for example, Liking a page, sharing a link, claiming an offer or playing a game. Creative is fixed with only the name and logo of the advertiser along with the name and sometimes a photo of a friend who is connected to the page, app or site.
But are these ads disruptive? When comparing it to television, no. If an ad doesn't catch a user's attention, they can scroll past it. If a user really doesn't like an ad, they can mark it as spam — an option that isn't available on TV. And unlike on TV, Facebook ads are optimized in real time. If few users are clicking on an ad, Facebook will show it less and charge the advertiser more to get back in the feed. For Facebook ads, the best content is going to get the most engagement. The most engaged content is going to be the most shared which means it is the most seen. Facebook's biggest advantage is how it is a synchronous relationship between fans and page managers.| 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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