Facebook today made two changes that will help page owners understand the true reach of their posts. The reach metric in page insights will now include mobile data and the desktop News Feed will no longer count reach until a user scrolls and loads the page’s story, the company tells us.
Reach is the total number of people who have seen a page post within the first 28 days since it was made. Reach is counted when a post is loaded and shown in News Feed. Beginning today, mobile distribution will count toward a page’s total reach. It was previously unclear that reach data was limited to desktop only, so many pages might have been reaching more users than they had thought. However, it seems Facebook will report reach as a combined total, rather than distinguishing between desktop and mobile. Last year the social network temporarily reported whether post Likes and comments came from mobile, but that doesn’t seem to be available from the Insights API anymore.
Facebook made another change this week that will affect reach total. To improve the efficiency of News Feed, Facebook will load fewer stories at a time. When a user scrolls down the feed, more stories will load. Because reach and impressions are counted upon load, the metric previously included impressions that users might not have actually seen. Now insights should more accurately reflect what users have viewed, though it should not affect how many fans will see a page’s post in their feed.
With these changes made at the same time, it is difficult to know whether reach is likely to be higher, lower or the same as it has been in the past. The addition of mobile would make the number higher, but the News Feed change could make it lower. Whether or not these differences will balance each other out is unclear.
Facebook announced two changes to its insights Tuesday: the inclusion of mobile reach data, and the lowering of the number of organic stories that will be loaded simultaneously. The social network said its reach metrics will now include a combined metric that accounts for both desktop and mobile reach. And Facebook added that it will load new stories quickly, eliminating interruption in how users scroll through their news feeds. The social network said... read more>>
This week, some California high school students are living the dream: getting a taste of what it's like to work for Facebook. The company's inaugural high school internship program - Facebook Academy - started this week, and students are taking in the full experience. The four-week internship program takes students behind the curtain and shows them what life is like (luckily, Facebook has certainly mellowed out from its early days) at the... read more>>
Walmart and Energy Sheets teamed up for a simple Facebook contest: The individual Walmart store page to get the most likes will get a visit from rapper Pitbull, an Energy Sheets brand ambassador. However, thanks to a grassroots social media campaign, the Miami native might need to bring a coat. The current leader? Kodiak, Alaska. People have teamed up through Facebook and Twitter (with the hashtag #ExilePitbull) to send Pitbull to Kodiak.... read more>>
Does Facebook want to be your supplier, and, if so, supplier of what? The social network added to its portfolio of domain names, registering a handful of URLs containing "Facebook Supplier" and "Facebook Suppliers." Fusible reported that Facebook registered the following URLs, none of which resolve to Web pages: http://whois.domaintools.com/facebooksuppliers.com http://whois.domaintools.com/facebooksuppliers.org http://whois.domaintools.com/facebooksuppliers.net http://whois.domaintools.com/facebooksupplier.net http://whois.domaintools.com/facebooksupplier.org FacebookSupplier.com was registered in 2011, and it currently resolves to a parked page, Fusible reported. Readers: What do you think Facebook's plans are for the... read more>>
When it comes to metrics for Facebook brand pages, engagement is seen by many as the holy grail. However, according to Facebook analytics provider Wise Metrics, the way it is calculated is all wrong. Wise Metrics pointed out four flaws with the current method of calculating Facebook engagement, as well as providing a formula of its own, in a post on its blog. The four flaws, according to Wise Metrics: All interactions are not... read more>>
Not long after General Motors pulled its $10 million advertising campaign from Facebook, the Detroit auto giant is considering connecting with the social network again, The Wall Street Journal reports. In May, GM decided to stop advertising through Facebook, as CEO Dan Akerson said that the ads were not effective. The $10 million spent through Facebook in 2011 represented a fraction of GM's $1.8 billion advertising budget. A report came out not... read more>>
Facebook marketing software provider Wildfire Interactive is all too aware that getting Facebook users to visit a brand's page is only the first skirmish of the battle, and that the key to winning the war is to get them to come back, repeatedly. Wildfire released a new study featuring "six surefire strategies to keep your Facebook fans coming back for more." Here is a quick look at the half-dozen strategy options. Tap into... read more>>
In its infancy, Facebook login was restricted to those with a Harvard email address. Later, membership was extended to other Ivy League schools, and eventually colleges and high schools around the world. It wasn't until 2006 that Facebook login was available to anyone over the age of 13 -- a limitation that also may change in the near future. Today, Facebook login has extended beyond the walls of even Facebook itself. Other... read more>>
As Facebook looks for more ways to boost revenue, the company has gone from buying out companies for talent grabs to focusing on acquiring properties that can help make money. Instagram and Karma were two of the biggest buys this year, but a Facebook official told The Wall Street Journal that Mark Zuckerberg's checkbook might still be out. Facebook continues to consider acquisitions that will help the company improve its bottom line.... read more>>
Not long after Facebook announced same-sex marriage icons, the social network's co-founder, Chris Hughes, posted to his page that he married his longtime boyfriend, Sean Eldridge. Hughes, a 2006 Harvard grad, started Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg, but left in 2008 to work on President Barack Obama's online campaign. He now owns the left-leaning political magazine The New Republic. Just like Zuckerberg, he announced his marriage with a life event on Facebook. There has been... read more>>
Facebook's controversial email address switch last week continued to irritate users, as those with mobile devices or other software that synchronizes their address books with their Facebook contacts are finding in many cases that their contacts' actual email addresses have vanished in favor of their Facebook email addresses. UPDATED: Facebook told Mashable a bug in its application-programming interface is causing mobile devices to pull the last email address added to accounts,... read more>>
Companies that have an active presence on Facebook are faced with a common dilemma: How can they get their Facebook fans to buy their product? While managing a Facebook campaign for a telecommunications company, Alchemy Social recently studied the link between clicking "like," and actually visiting a business' online store. Alchemy Social, a Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer, tracked avid engagers of the company's Facebook page, those who were non-active fans, and those... read more>>
A contact synchronization bug, combined with Facebook’s latest changes to users’ email visibility settings, led some mobile phones to update with users’ Facebook.com addresses rather than their primary email account, Facebook Director of Engineering Andrew Bosworth told The Verge.
The social network is working on a fix following a public debacle over a change to users’ settings that hid all non-Facebook.com email addresses from Timeline. This was the result of a new “visibility setting” introduced last month. The “visibility setting” is an additional option next to the existing “privacy setting.” Facebook representatives have been trying to distinguish the difference between these settings to the press for the past week, but the company continues to receive criticism for the change and the lack of communication about it to users.
When we learned about the confusing new setting last week, we wondered whether it was meant to promote the social network’s own messaging feature over third-party email services, or if it was a move to prevent users’ contact information from being misused. Facebook still hasn’t said why it made the change.
Nonetheless, the decision affected mobile contact syncing for some users because the API was pulling users’ most recently added account rather than their primary email address. This meant that some email addresses were replaced with facebook.com addresses, and users were missing messages that were routed to their Facebook “other” folder rather than getting emails where they initially indicated they wanted them sent. Facebook says this will be resolved soon.
Readers might want to check their “other” folder by visiting Facebook on the web or their phone and going to “messages.” On the web, the “other” folder is accessible from the left-hand menu. On mobile devices, it is at the bottom of the screen. Users can change their settings to show or hide particular email addresses by visiting their Timeline, clicking “about,” going to the “contact” info section and clicking “edit.”
TripAdvisor displaced Zygna’s Bubble Safari as No. 1 on our list of top growing Facebook apps by monthly active users this week.
Titles on our list gained the most MAU of any apps on the platform, growing from between 400,000 and 6.2 million MAU, based on our AppData tracking service.
TripAdvisor had a 23 percent gain this week in part due to a Facebook ad campaign to re-engage users.
Social reader Terra and video app Chill continue to grow organically through Open Graph actions being shared to users’ feeds.
Instagram had a 5 percent increase, likely from users downloading an updated version of the app that was released last week. HootSuite, which got an update a few days ago, saw 150 percent gain.
Facebook canvas game Yu-Gi-Oh! BAM, released in June, had 311 percent pickup in the past week.
A number of custom landing tab applications are also on the rise.
All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Stay tuned for our look at the top weekly gainers by daily active users on Wednesday, and the top emerging apps on Friday.
TripAdvisor's revamped restaurant ratings app Local Picks helps users share where they've eaten and find new spots to try. The Facebook app also feeds TripAdvisor valuable data for its social travel site.
TripAdvisor is the No. 10 Facebook app developer according to our AppData tracking service. Five years since launch, its Cities I've Visited app still has 330,000 monthly active users — more than eight times as many users as its competitor Where I've Been. TripAdvisor's biggest app, however, is its website integration with 33.2 million MAU. Now we'll see if the company can find success in the crowded restaurant search and ratings space.
Local Picks brings TripAdvisor user's ratings and reviews to the Facebook canvas with an algorithm that favors ratings from locals. The app also includes photos, check-ins and quick tips from Foursquare. Users can rate a restaurant, mark it as a favorite, indicate that they want to go there, or add the restaurant to a custom list, for example "Places to take a date." These Open Graph actions will appear on Timeline and in News Feed.
Since its launch about a week and a half ago, Local Picks has reached about 70,000 monthly active users, according to AppData. The app had highs of 10,000 daily active users on Friday and Saturday. TripAdvisor Director of Product Jamie Conroy did not share details about how the app got this initial wave of users, though he says it wasn't from an ad campaign.
TripAdvisor has some advantages over competitors like Yelp, in that it already has international scale and is making more use of social data. The app has 850,000 restaurants from more than 200 countries, and it will release translated versions later this month. Local Picks also pulls in ratings and reviews made on TripAdvisor.com, and displays friends' Facebook check-ins, as seen in the image to the right. When users take action within Local Picks, that information can ultimately be used back on TripAdvisor. Not only will it provide more social context for a user's friends who visit the site, but it could begin to give the company a better idea of a user's tastes so that it can provide better recommendations to them in the future.
One problem Local Picks could face is that except for some power users, most users don't continue to rate and review restaurants after the first time they use an app. Conroy says the Local Picks' Open Graph integration will help draw users back into the app because they will see their friends' activity in News Feed. There's also a bit of gamification with users able to achieve higher "foodie levels" the more they interact with the app. However, with Local Picks unavailable for mobile, it might be difficult for users to remember to go home and rate the places they've tried.
Conroy says a Local Picks mobile app is something TripAdvisor is considering, but building the app within the Facebook canvas was first priority. He says having the app on Facebook is more familiar for users than if the app lived off-site. TripAdvisor has found this with its Cities I've Visited app. Conroy says Local Picks applies many of the learnings the company gained from its other app, including how it publishes to users' Timelines and asks users to invite their friends, as well as the overall emphasis on lightweight interactions. Local Picks, like Cities I've Visited, gives users lists of other users' top spots, and makes it easy for them to add their ratings.
Although TripAdvisor positions Local Picks as something people might use on a daily or weekly basis, this will be a challenge for the company. But even if users visit Local Picks once and add ratings for a few restaurants nearby, TripAdvisor can significantly expand its database of social travel recommendations. The Open Graph integration might prompt some users to rate more places down the line, and TripAdvisor could also run re-engagement campaigns, as it has for its other apps. Overall, though, the company and users will benefit even from one-time use, as long as the app achieves the same scale Cities I’ve Visited did over time.
Companies that have an active presence on Facebook are faced with a common dilemma: How can they get their Facebook fans to buy their product? While managing a Facebook campaign for a telecommunications company, Alchemy Social recently studied the link between clicking "like," and actually visiting a business' online store. Alchemy Social, a Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer, tracked avid engagers of the company's Facebook page, those who were non-active fans, and those... read more>>
Does anyone remember having to write "What I Did on My Summer Vacation" essays early in the school year? Facebook is turning the tables on members of Congress, offering them a checklist of what they should be doing on the social network during the summer. Facebook introduced the checklist with the following post on its Facebook Washington DC page: Congressional offices: Take a look at our checklist for creative ways to engage with... read more>>
Unfriending can be a delicate, dramatic task. There are a variety of reasons why people do it: Maybe someone is an oversharer, or an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend, and you'd just feel better off disconnecting. Cambridge University recently published a study showing why people unfriend each other on Facebook. The United Kingdom university studied more than 34,000 relationships on Facebook, examining why they dissolved. What did researchers find? Upon analyzing 34,012 Facebook relationships,we found... read more>>
Facebook's controversial email address switch last week continued to irritate users, as those with mobile devices or other software that synchronizes their address books with their Facebook contacts are finding in many cases that their contacts' actual email addresses have vanished in favor of their Facebook email addresses. CNET shared a host of complaints on the subject, including this blog entry from Adobe employee Rachel Luxemburg: Today, a co-worker discovered that his contact... read more>>
Facebook followed up last year's additions of in a civil union and in a domestic partnership as relationship status options with the introduction of new same-sex marriage icons, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation announced. GLAAD presented Facebook with a Special Recognition Award at its 23rd Annual GLAAD Media Awards in San Francisco last month. The new icons will appear when marriages between two members of the same gender are added to... read more>>
Facebook's first-ever earnings call as a publicly traded company will be held Thursday, July 26, at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. ET, according to an entry on the Facebook Investor Relations events list, which provided no other details. Facebook began trading May 18 at $38 per share, but concerns about a projected shortfall in mobile revenue, as well as technical issues experienced by the Nasdaq exchange, immediately sent the stock downward. It closed... read more>>
Despite the technical issues that marred Facebook's May 18 initial public offering, the social network will continue to list its shares on the Nasdaq exchange, according to reports. The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook executives were concerned that switching exchanges would only further erode confidence in the company's shares, which opened trading at $38 apiece and closed this past Friday at $31.09. The stock hit a low point of $25.87 per... read more>>
Wondering how you can overtake your competition in terms of likes, shares, and engagement? Don't be afraid to give them a like and track them on Facebook. Panelists of the "Competitive Analysis on Facebook" discussion at Friday's AllFacebook Marketing Conference in San Francisco spoke about the importance of keeping tabs on your competitors. The panel: Mark Curtis, founder and president, Enter: New Media Chris Knoch, vice president of client services, Kenshoo Alex Peiniger, founder and... read more>>
Business owners: you don't need to dump a bunch of money into a Facebook marketing campaign or pay top dollar for someone to handle your social media. If you're smart, there are ways to reach more people through Facebook (and get them to buy your product) for cheaper than traditional methods. Experts who contributed to the "Facebook Ads: Can They Promote More Than Likes?" panel at the AllFacebook Marketing Conference in... read more>>
Just like with any conversation, the way to really get through to someone isn't to keep talking and talking, it's to listen. For companies figuring out how to engage with their fan base on Facebook, listening is the key to success, according to an expert panel at the AllFacebook Marketing Conference in San Francisco (which wraps up Friday). The panel for "Facebook Pages: Using Content anf Conversation to Build Community": George DeCarlo, founder... read more>>
The appointment earlier this week of Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg to the social network's board of directors eliminated the lack of female voices on the group, but another type of voice is still lacking, according to blog Seeking Alpha. Contributor IncomeHunter points out that while Facebook's board, as currently composed, contains many strong voices, those voices come from similar backgrounds: They are all entrepreneurs. In addition to Sandberg, the board includes: Marc... read more>>
This week,Playsino is hiring a lead iOS developer, as well as an associate producer for its mobile and social games. Meanwhile, Mixr needs an iOS game/app developer, and FunSockets is still on the hunt for a senior director of user acquisition. Get the scoop on these openings below, and find additional social media jobs on Mediabistro. Lead iOS Developer, Mobile/Social Games Playsino (Santa Monica, CA) Associate Producer, Mobile/Social Games Playsino (Santa... read more>>
Facebook today made two changes that will help page owners understand the true reach of their posts. The reach metric in page insights will now include mobile data and the desktop News Feed will no longer count reach until a user scrolls and loads the page’s story, the company tells us.
mediabistro.com
A contact synchronization bug, combined with Facebook’s latest 
TripAdvisor has some advantages over competitors like Yelp, in that it already has international scale and is making more use of social data. The app has 850,000 restaurants from more than 200 countries, and it will release translated versions later this month. Local Picks also pulls in ratings and reviews made on TripAdvisor.com, and displays friends' Facebook check-ins, as seen in the image to the right. When users take action within Local Picks, that information can ultimately be used back on TripAdvisor. Not only will it provide more social context for a user's friends who visit the site, but it could begin to give the company a better idea of a user's tastes so that it can provide better recommendations to them in the future.
Although TripAdvisor positions Local Picks as something people might use on a daily or weekly basis, this will be a challenge for the company. But even if users visit Local Picks once and add ratings for a few restaurants nearby, TripAdvisor can significantly expand its database of social travel recommendations. The Open Graph integration might prompt some users to rate more places down the line, and TripAdvisor could also run re-engagement campaigns, as it has for its other apps. Overall, though, the company and users will benefit even from one-time use, as long as the app achieves the same scale Cities I’ve Visited did over time.
