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Inside Facebook

DLA Piper Stops Representing Paul Ceglia in Controversial Facebook Ownership Claim

Posted: 28 Jun 2011 05:24 PM PDT

Paul Ceglia’s claims to a serious ownership share in Facebook had looked intriguing when they first surfaced last summer — and even more so this year, when international law firm DLA Piper agreed to back him up after doing “weeks” of due diligence.

But following waves of attacks by Facebook on his evidence and character, the firm has today confirmed that it has stopped representing him. The case has yet to go to trial, but the development doesn’t look good for Ceglia.

The gist of the case is that Ceglia had hired Zuckerberg to do some software development work on a site called StreetFax in 2003, that intended to offer a database of street photos to insurers. While both parties agreed Zuckerberg had done some work, Ceglia said seven years later that Zuckerberg had also agreed to sell him a significant portion of Facebook — first he claimed 84% but then dropped his claim to 50%. (Links to our past coverage at the end of the article.)

He produced documentation that sort of seemed to back him up, although key details like proof of payment for Facebook, have not been produced. He added a new batch of emails this past April, trying to further prove his claim.

But Facebook retaliated, in June dumping a collection of evidence as well as expert analysis that questioned every aspect of Ceglia’s claim, including his personal past. He’d previously had a variety of run-ins with the law, mostly involving various types of scams.

While Ceglia says he’s found more lawyers, DLA Piper’s decision to drop him obviously suggests his claims are likely too weak for them to realize any benefit out of representing him. Pulling out now does call into question their decision to represent him in the first place, but it allows them to get out of a long and messy lawsuit in which they may have been portrayed in an even worse light.

Be sure to check out our past coverage of the case:

As Demand for Facebook Credits Increases, Microincentive Provider Ifeelgoods Positions Itself With $6.5 Million First Round

Posted: 28 Jun 2011 04:00 PM PDT

Ifeelgoods, a company that lets businesses offer Facebook Credits as rewards for purchases and signups, today announced the closing of a $6.5 million Series A funding round led by Idinvest. As Facebook Credits become the sole payment option on the Facebook Platform this Friday, and more types of digital goods including video and music are sold for Credits, the demand for the virtual currency will increase, and more companies will seek to incentivize sales and actions through ifeelgoods.

For these reasons, ifeelgoods has good potential. The company will use the funding to launch new services and court more domestic and international clients.

We’ve been following ifeelgoods since the company’s launch in September 2010. This was back when it started helping clients offer users Facebook Credits in exchange for email signups, Facebook Likes, and sales, even though social game developers had just begun to accept the virtual currency.

For example ifeelgoods allowed the Dallas Mavericks give away five Credits for following the team on Twitter, and the company let ShoeBuy.com customers earn 50 Credits for buying a pair of shoes.

However, with users still able to buy virtual goods directly from developers instead of using Credits, and nothing else to buy with them, demand for Facebook’s virtual currency was low. Still, ifeelgoods saw gamers perceiving the value of these Credits incentives higher than equal amounts of cash, similar to customers are enticed by free shipping. The company had a bright future if a wider audience was interested in earning Credits.

Microincentives Gaining Wider Appeal

Fast-forward nine months and Facebook Credits are about to be the only way to pay in Facebook games, meaning all of Facebook’s gamers (which could be as many as 290 million people) now have a use for Credits. Even though only a small percent of gamers are actively willing to pay money in social games, more might be willing to change their shopping habits or sign up for a newsletter for free Credits.

Meanwhile, developers are starting to offer video rentals and pay-per-view concerts for Credits. Facebook may also allow users to pay Credits for MP3 downloads or music streaming service subscriptions as part of its upcoming Music Dashboard. These developments could make Facebook Credits mainstream, massively expanding the range of customers ifeelgoods clients could attract by offering Credits incentives.

One client set in particular is Facebook Pages. The act of Liking a Page is perfect for incentivizing with Credits, as the action is fast and familiar, it generates a lot of value for brands, and users are just clicks away from spending their reward. Facebook ads for Like-gated Page tab apps offering Credits could become an highly cost and time efficient method of growing Pages.

Update: To be clear, it’s against Facebook’s policy for Pages to directly incentivize Likes. However, they can create a Like-gated Page tab app wherein users take another action that can be incentivized with Credits. Likes are currently often incentivized in this way, but with entry into a sweepstakes as the reward instead of Credits.

The new funding will help ifeelgoods capitalize on the increased client interest foreshadowed by these factors. The round was led by European venture capital firm Idinvest and joined by TugBoat Ventures which contributed to ifeelgoods’ $1.5 million seed round.

The company currently services 20 brands including Gap, Gamefly, 1-800-Flowers.com, and Shopping.com from verticals such as clothing and direct sales. It has helped ShopAtHome.com gain 1.3 million new Facebook fans and Shoebuy.com double the click through rate on its Facebook ads by offering Credits instead of cash discounts.

The microincentive model is still relatively unproven, so ifeelgoods will use the funding to build out a sales team to educated and sign clients in the US and abroad. Engineers will be hired to assist with scaling and expand the types of actions that can be incentivized.

Ifeelgoods is tied to the success of Credits, so with Facebook’s virtual currency poised more much greater adoption, Idinvest and TugBoat may have gotten in at just the right time.

How to Get Facebook Users to Like Your Page: The First Step to Engagement

Posted: 28 Jun 2011 02:06 PM PDT

Facebook Marketing Bible

Managed correctly, your Facebook Page can quickly become your company's second home on the web, both in how well it ranks on Google and the frequency with which it is visited by your customers and audience.

Because your customers are already on Facebook (spending on average  25-30 minutes each day on the site), they have a significantly higher chance of seeing your brand's messages within their News Feed than they do of frequently re-visiting your website or any other medium on their own initiative.

As fans engage with your Page by commenting on, Liking or sharing content, awareness of your brand is extended to that person's friends, helping you reach additional customers. Once users granted you permission to communicate to them by Liking your Page, you can continue to market to them ad infinitum, essentially for free.

In the following article, available in our Facebook Marketing Bible service, we go over how to reach users using the main two types of channels available for getting and re-engaging users through getting them to Like your Page:

  1. Paid – Likes are collected via an advertising campaign for the Page using Facebook Cost Per Click (CPC)
  2. Non-paid – Likes that occur through proactive means or naturally, which will refer to hereon in as organic

We also detail the following ten tips for getting non-Paid Likes:

  1. Get The Basics Right
  2. Secure Your Page’s Username
  3. Build A Customized Landing Page
  4. Incentivize the Like with Contests
  5. Install A Like Box On Your Website
  6. Leverage Your Database And Contacts
  7. Suggest Your Page To Existing Facebook Friends
  8. Promote Your Facebook Page Everywhere
  9. Don’t Ignore Your Biggest Fans
  10. Update, Listen And Engage

For example:

2. Secure Your Page's Username

When your Facebook Page reaches 25 Likes, Facebook allows you to customize your Page's username.

This is important for a number of reasons.

  • It reduces the size of the URL. The default URL for your Page on Facebook will be something like http://www.facebook.com/pages/Page-Name-Here/ followed by a 15-digit number. A customized URL can be any number of characters after the Facebook URL – for example, http://facebook.com/InsideFacebook is a customized URL. It's far more elegant and quite a lot shorter, which is ideal for sharing your Page in emails, on websites, business cards, flyers, TV and radio ads, and so on.
  • It looks professional and provides a measure of authenticity to the first-time visitor.
  • A customized URL that matches your brand name will help with search engine optimization (SEO), and increase the likelihood that your Facebook Page will be a top search engine result for a search of your brand name.

Your Page username needs some thought – ideally it will be your business name if available, or a close variation thereof if not. When you customize your username the change to the URL is made immediately and seamlessly throughout Facebook, with no loss of existing fans, comments and Likes.

This is another reason why the use of CPC to generate immediate Likes is important for the new Facebook Page as it will allow you to quickly secure your customized username.

Warning: Please note that once set, your Page's username cannot be changed or transferred. Be very mindful to avoid a typographical error.

The full article can be found in the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network's complete guide to marketing your brand using Facebook.

HP Preps Facebook App for Its Palm WebOS TouchPad Tablet With Flipboard-Style News Feed

Posted: 28 Jun 2011 10:44 AM PDT

HP will release its TouchPad tablet next week, and the Palm WebOS-running device will have its own quasi-official Facebook app, according to TechCrunch. Unlike the Facebook for iPhone and Android apps which Facebook develops internally, the app is being developed by HP’s team, and it will be the second device-maker produced Facebook app following the May release of RIM’s Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

The TouchPad app appears to include a Flipboard-style news feed view as well as support for Places and Events. The inclusion of the Facebook app amongst the small list of around 300 TouchPad apps that will be available at the device’s launch may be important HP. The company will need all the selling points it can get as it looks to compete with Apple’s iPad, which currently controls 70% of the tablet market and will soon feature an official Facebook app.

HP’s existing smartphone app Facebook for Palm webOS hasn’t been updated since December and is slowly losing users, dipping from 516,000 to 483,000 daily active users this month. This isn’t a good sign for the HPs devices or its mobile platform. The iPhone and Android apps continue to climb quickly, and even the BlackBerry smartphones and Windows phones Facebook apps are gaining users. If the TouchPad can achieve strong sales though, it could attract more developers to the ailing mobile webOS.

The leaked shots of the Facebook for TouchPad app show a multi-pane interface allowing users to quickly jump between apps without returning to the home screen. The app appears to include the ability to view Events and checkin via Facebook Places– two features lacking from RIM’s Facebook for Blackberry PlayBook. The Places functionality positions the TouchPad’s app as more of a mobile experience, while the PlayBook’s app seems more like a couch-dweller’s alternative to the website.

What may be most innovative about the TouchPad app is its tile view of the news feed. Similar to on the Flipboard iPad app and the now defunct-PostPost website, news feed stories are displayed in tiles of differing sizes and shapes to create a visually appealing mix of text, links, and photos. This approximates the feel of reading a social magazine, and may not cause the fatigue produced by a uniform stream of updates.

If HP can show off a Facebook TouchPad app with eye catching new interfaces and support for core features, it could help convince consumers that the tablet will have high quality apps, even if it has less than the 400,000 available on iTunes or the 300,000 in the Android Market.

Just Bieber, “Harry Potter,” CNN, American Express and More on This Week’s Top 20 Growing Facebook Pages

Posted: 28 Jun 2011 09:41 AM PDT

Musicians, TV shows and movies made up the bulk of the Pages on our list of the top 20 growing by Likes this week. Facebook, YouTube, Cristiano Ronaldo and American Express also made the list, although it's interesting to note that most of the TV Pages were not associated with traditional broadcast networks. The Pages on our list grew from between 450,700 and 1.8 million Likes, we measure the growth of Pages with our PageData tool.

Top Gainers This Week

Name Likes Gain Gain,%
1. Justin Bieber 31,988,184 +1,803,199 +6%
2. How to Train Your Dragon 1,353,835 +1,126,759 +496%
3. Facebook 46,980,487 +692,171 +1%
4. Katy Perry 30,311,287 +682,518 +2%
5. Marvin Gaye 943,014 +655,998 +229%
6. YouTube 40,275,248 +635,789 +2%
7. Nessma 627,386 +627,386 +0.0%
8. Rihanna 39,067,440 +620,153 +2%
9. Shakira 35,394,144 +619,269 +2%
10. Eminem 41,876,931 +589,241 +1%
11. CNN 2,831,549 +563,428 +25%
12. American Express 1,627,304 +521,300 +47%
13. Lady Gaga 39,327,779 +514,141 +1%
14. Yetenek Sizsiniz Türkiye 498,317 +498,317 +0.0%
15. Lil Wayne 27,988,978 +489,421 +2%
16. AKON 26,601,911 +488,683 +2%
17. South Park 30,868,685 +487,823 +2%
18. Harry Potter 27,349,120 +475,857 +2%
19. The Simpsons 30,889,819 +472,186 +2%
20. Cristiano Ronaldo 29,815,223 +450,675 +2%

Justin Bieber's Page grew by 1.8 million Likes this week, as he promoted his media appearances, and frequently updated his Page with his activities. Katy Perry was next with 682,500 Likes; she's been promoting her new mobile app and her tour. Marvin Gaye's Page grew by 656,000 Likes; it was probably a Page consolidation as in the span of two days the Page more than tripled. Rihanna's Page grew by 620,200 Likes as she posted video and status updates, Shakira's Page grew by 619,300 Likes and she also updated with videos and activity updates.

There was Eminem's Page with 589,200 Likes; he's been promoting the release of his new music video. Lady Gaga's Page grew by 514,100 Likes and has been frequently updating her Page with information about her tour, media appearances, performances, promotion of gay marriage in New York and merchandise. Lil Wayne's Page grew by 489,400 Likes by updating his Page, as did AKON's Page.

There were television networks and TV shows on the list, too. Nessma, a Tunisian TV channel, grew by 627,400 Likes. CNN's page grew by 563,400 Likes this week; it's curious why either because the landing Page asks users to Like the Page, or because of a Page consolidation. Yetenek Sizsiniz Türkiye, a Turkish TV show, grew by 498,300 Likes. "South Park" grew by 487,800 Likes by promoting episodes and "The Simpsons" grew by 472,200 Likes by doing the same thing.

And finally, there are a few movies that made the list, including "How to Train Your Dragon" with 1.2 million Likes (a likely Page consolidation) and " Harry Potter" with 475,900 Likes as the Page continues to promote the July premiere of the final film. Facebook's Page grew by 692,200 Likes and YouTube's by 635,800 Likes. American Express' Page grew by 521,300 Likes; the company recently launched a Foursquare integration nationally. Lastly, Cristiano Ronaldo's Page grew by 450,700 Likes.

New Facebook Platform Industry Hires: Work4Labs, Nanigans, Wildfire and Efficient Frontier

Posted: 28 Jun 2011 08:51 AM PDT

Companies continued hiring interns, as well as web designers and account management staff this week.

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:

Work4 Labs

  • Baptiste Jésu, Web Designer – formerly did similar work as a freelancer.

Nanigans

  • Adam Mustafa, Software Development Intern – formerly an intern at Microsoft.

Wildfire

  • Justine Thomas, Recruiting Intern – formerly a Activities Coordinator at Stanford University Education Program for Gifted Youth.

Efficient Frontier

  • Aliki Askitopoulou, Associate Account Manager – previously an Account Manager at DDB Worldwide Communications Group Inc.
  • Ali Khan, Media Delivery Trafficker – formerly worked in technical support at Microsoft.
  • Leah Hunt, Senior Account Director – previously worked as a Senior Account Director at Catalyst Online/GroupM Search.


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Inside Facebook

Inside Facebook

Platform Update: FQL Page_Admin Table Access, Uploading Videos, App Feedback Insights

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 05:40 PM PDT

Facebook’s latest Platform Update to the Developers Blog announced that starting September 22nd, apps will require the manage_pages permission to access the FQL page_admin table and the accounts endpoint that list a user’s Pages and apps. Developers were given their final reminder about the July 1st mandatory migration to Facebook Credits, and informed that new data regarding user feedback to apps would soon appear in app Insights.

Finally, in the previous Platform Update post, Facebook documented how videos can be uploaded to Pages, applications, Groups.

Starting 90 days from last Friday, both the FQL page_admin table and the graph.facebook.com/me/accounts endpoint will only be accessible to apps that have been granted the manage_pages permission. This will limit which apps can tell what apps and Pages belong to what admins, but also make this information more secure. Apps that depend on this data should seek permissions from users before the migration date, September 22nd, 2011.

As part of Facebook’s transition to the Graph API from the now deprecated REST API, videos can now be uploaded to Pages, applications, and Groups via the Graph API. Publishing to a Group requires the publish_stream permission, and developers must swap in a Group’s ID. Publishing to Pages or applications requires the corresponding access token attained through requesting the manage_pages permission.

Facebook has provided code examples, and notes that videos may take a few minutes to finish uploading and become visible.

Disabled App Appeals, Feedback Insights

Late last week Facebook changed its automatic application enforcement system to take negative user feedback more into account when choosing apps to disable. This led several developers that have received negative feedback to suddenly have their apps removed from the Platform. This has caused a stir in the developer community, with some saying they were treated unfairly because they weren’t given early warning, and aren’t provided with deep enough data about user feedback.

Developers can check the email address they’ve listed in the Developers app for a notice about whether their app was disabled or had features removed. If they believe they were disabled in error, they can use the Disabled App Appeal form to request their app be reinstated. If their appeal is granted, all their app’s content and users will come back.

In response to the situation, Facebook has announced that more user feedback data will soon be included in application Insights. Developers will be able to see data including the quantity of posts marked as spam and stream story hides. This will allow them to better test new features and monitor to see their impact on feedback. If a new communication feature causes a spike in negative feedback, they’ll know to remove this feature before being shut down by Facebook’s automatic enforcement system.

Without Proper Recruiter Search, Monster’s BeKnown Facebook Professional Networking App Lacks Value

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 04:36 PM PDT

Late Saturday, employment website Monster.com launched a professional networking app on Facebook called BeKnown. Users can import work history details from Facebook, LinkedIn, and Monster.com, connect with contacts from these sites, Twitter, or their email, and browse jobs posted by these and their second degree connections.

However, BeKnown does not let recruiters search for job candidates by parameters such as qualifications or work history unless they’re already connected to them. This significantly reduces the service’s value to recruiters, which in turn reduces the value of maintaining a profile on the app to users, as there’s little chance of being passively recruited.

Users may therefore be better off joining a more populated professional network such as LinkedIn or BranchOut, or browsing job boards than having to rebuild their graph on BeKnown.

The social recruiting space has gotten some more attention lately with Facebook app BranchOut securing an $18 million Series B round of funding and briefly topping 200,000 daily active users. Monster is now hoping to offer exposure to Facebook users as part of its service offering to job posting clients by launching BeKnown with support for 35 countries and 19 languages.

Unfortunately, BeKnown is more of a Facebook portal to Monster.com than something truly effective for recruiters or job seekers. Its layout is almost identical to BranchOut’s, but less polished, with its home page displaying prompts to invite friends and endorse connections, a profile completion wizard, and updates from a user’s network. Both services let users can import their LinkedIn profile, though BeKnown also lets users pull profile info from Monster.com.

BeKnown’s job listing database appears to be smaller than BranchOut’s as well. A search for “software engineer” in San Francisco and the nearby area returned 463 listings on BeKnown, but 95 official listings posted to BranchOut and another 1864 listings that BranchOut aggregates through job search service Indeed.

BeKnown’s most useful feature, its “Social Referral Program” which isn’t live yet, will cause a company’s job listings to appear to the friends of every employee of that company. This means recruiters won’t have to direct employees how to repost listings themselves. However, since the referrals to the listings don’t actually come from a user’s friends, they’re less trusted.

The service has a somewhat unique take on endorsements wherein user check boxes to declare a friend has a general skill such as “vision” rather than writing a custom text recommendation. Users can also earn badges, not just for in-app behavior, but for job milestones such as working at one company for five years.

Building Trust, but Not Value

The major missing functionality of BeKnown is actually a conscious choice by Monster. The company has decided not to currently allow recruiters to search the profiles of all the app’s users for people who meet the criteria for certain jobs. This is ability is both crucial to recruiters who need to find candidates outside their network, and to users who want to be eligible for discovery based on their skills by recruiters they’re not connected to. Without this feature, users may as well just browse Monster.com.

Matt Mund, the company’s global VP of product and Tom Chavallier, global product manager, told us the reason this feature was left out was because “we want to make sure we’re building up trust, and are engaging you on your owns terms. You have to treat a network differently than a database.” While this respect for the privacy of users is admirable in concept, it somewhat defeats the purpose of the app.

With BranchOut launching its enterprise recruiting search solution on August 1st to compete with LinkedIn’s Recruiter, and Jobvite offering better options for distributing links to job listings on social networks, BeKnown’s position in the larger social recruiting space seems unclear. The 38.2 million Monster.com users with Facebook accounts may still find BeKnown useful to conduct searches of jobs posted by friends, but it’s the chance to stand out and be discovered for one’s competencies that makes a professional social network more valuable than a job listing site.

Facebook Disables Numerous Apps That Have Negative User Feedback, May Need to Improve Enforcement Communications

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 12:15 PM PDT

On Friday, Facebook increased user feedback’s weight in its automated Platform enforcement system. This caused it to automatically disable a number of app that had received a large volume of negative feedback. Now, some developers are upset that they weren’t given fair warning to correct their apps, and several claim they haven’t done anything wrong — and a few who were taken off have been reinstated already.

So far, Facebook has provided an appeal process for developers of apps that have been disabled and has said that improved feedback monitoring in app Insights will launch soon. Still, the site’s effort to protect the user experience from spam apps has hurt its relationship with some in the developer community.

Reports in the Facebook Developer forums indicate the disabled were mostly small to mid-sized, with some in the 10,000 to 20,000 daily active user range including one called Game of Truth, which you can see above has dropped to zero DAU. Many of the affected developers are threatening to leave the Facebook Platform, while other are calling for better benchmarks for assessing how much negative feedback is too much.

The company’s goal is to keep the user experience enjoyable for both applications users and non-users so developers have  healthy Platform to work on long into the future. Facebook CTO Bret Taylor said that by improving its automatic enforcement systems, the site reduced spam by 95% in 2010 while also reducing enforcement actions.

In a statement, Facebook said “we started getting a lot of user feedback, spiking significantly over the past week, on the amount of application spam people are seeing in their feeds and on their walls. As a result, we turned on a new enforcement system [Friday] that took user feedback much more heavily into account. This resulted in a number of applications with high negative user feedback being disabled or having certain features disabled.”

This means that the apps which were disabled didn’t necessarily violate Platform policy, but somehow led users to mark their posts as spam or report them. The apps may not have made it clear to a user when they would post to their wall or send invites to friends. It’s also possible that users who received wall posts from apps their friends were using marked those posts as spam because they had never personally used the app.

Enforcement Warning Systems and Negative Feedback Benchmarks

Some developers in the forum and who have emailed us directly claim they’ve lost development and marketing investments as well as the trust of their core user because their apps were removed from the Platform. They believe they were treated unfairly because they weren’t given advance notice or the opportunity to fix their apps.

Facebook may need to reconsider the warning and communication protocols for its enforcement system. Leaving apps with negative feedback running for a few more days after warning developers may in fact be better for the Platform experience, as users may grow skeptical of spending time and money on games if they fear they may be suddenly disabled.

Other developers are seeking a better way to gauge what level of negative feedback Facebook deems unacceptable. A Hong Kong developer posting on the forum under the alias ‘takwing’ explained [edited for clarity]:

“For example, I include a wall post feature, and it turns out that 99% of the users love it and 1% always mark the wall post as spam. Does this 99% good out-weigh the 1% bad? How about the case of 90% good vs 10% bad?  We need a certain guideline so that we can review and make judgement on whehter we should implement a feature or not. As I may think that the feature is good and most people love it… but it turns out Facebook thinks 10% bad feedback is unacceptable and bans my app.”

Facebook should consider releasing some sort benchmark for an acceptable level of negative feedback. This would allow developers to test new features, but know to remove them if negative feedback exceeds the benchmark.

A Facebook engineer named Eugene responded to the developers in the forums stating “Where we have failed is not providing enough feedback about negative engagement metrics to developers before needing to take this action. This is something we are working hard to fix with the new Application Insights that will be launching over the next few weeks – you will have detailed information about both positive and negative engagement of the content your application generates.”

The planned improvements, which include the ability to see how quantities of posts marked as spam and stream story hides, should make it easier to monitor feedback fluctuations. Developers will need to either need to confer to establish benchmarks or Facebook will need to provide one to make this Insights data as useful as possible.

Some developers have posted to the forum saying their apps have been re-enabled, and others have been allowed to recreate their apps with a new app IDs and have users re-grant permissions. Several others, though, report they’ve received automatic denials when they tried to appeal their decision.

Even if Facebook is trying help users and preserve trust in the Platform so it can continue to make money for developers, the site will need to learn from this incident. It should consider being more cautious when changing its automatic enforcement systems, and look at how it can improve data and communication regarding Platform enforcement.

Just a month ago, Facebook angered some in the developer community when several developers received notice that they had 48 hours to change fix authentication data leaks, even though they weren’t leaking data. Communication needs to improve if Facebook wants to entice developers to build on its Platform.

Featured Facebook Campaigns: Coca-Cola, Qatar Ariways, Clearasil and Esurance

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 11:12 AM PDT

Brands in our weekly look at Facebook campaigns made some excellent use of Places integrations. Giving out free stuff (airline tickets) continued to be a popular Page growth method, and charity attracted thousands of Facebook Likes.

We've excerpted two of the campaigns below. You can see the full week's coverage in the Facebook Marketing Bible, which also includes detailed breakdowns of dozens of other featured campaigns by top-performing brands and businesses on Facebook.

Coca-Cola's Recycling, Places Campaign in Israel

Goal: Network Exposure, Brand Loyalty, Product Purchase

Core Mechanic: In Israel, Coca-Cola distributed 10,000 recycle bins across the country and assigned each one a Places page on Facebook.

Method: The company encouraged users to check-in to the bins as they recycled, as well as upload photos of themselves interacting with the recycle bins, and eventually crowned a Recycling King for being the most active. Though it might be somewhat awkward to check in to a recycling bin, the campaign trades on users wanting to tell their friends that they are helping the environment.

Impact: The campaign made good use of user-generated content and, since Coca-Cola is one of the biggest brands on Facebook, likely received exposure across networks in that country. The campaign will help improve Coca-Cola’s public perception as an environmentally conscious company, and make users feel that interacting with the brand on Facebook has a positive impact on the world.

Qatar Airways' Be Where You Want To Be Contest

Goal: Page Growth, Engagement, Brand Loyalty, Product Purchase, Network Exposure

Core Mechanic: The Like-gated promotion allows users to enter to win free airline tickets on the Page.

Method: In order to celebrate recently offering 100 worldwide destinations, the airline is giving users a chance to travel on Qatar Airways by answering questions on thePage, using clues from videos. By offering valuable prizes that connect directly to the brand’s identity, Qatar Airways can position its own services as something to be desired.

Impact: Thus far the Page has grown to 162,300 Likes and the contest still has a week to go.

How are top brands in the industry designing their Facebook marketing campaigns? See the Facebook Marketing Bible for detailed breakdowns of dozens of Featured Campaigns by top-performing brands and businesses on Facebook.

Quotes, Badoo, BranchOut, Photos, VEVO, Videos, Horoscopes and More on This Week’s Top 20 Facebook Apps by MAU

Posted: 27 Jun 2011 08:15 AM PDT

Quotes topped our list of the top Facebook applications by monthly active users this week, while the rest of the list was pretty varied, and included dating apps Zoosk and Badoo, the professional networking app BranchOut, Page tab apps, and many others.

The apps on our list gained the most MAU out of any app this past week, and grew from between 623,400 and 8 million MAU, based on AppData, our data tracking service covering traffic growth for apps on Facebook.

Top Gainers This Week

Name MAU Gain Gain,%
1. Empires & Allies 41,057,173 +8,082,664 +25%
2. Quotes 10,433,408 +4,647,949 +80%
3. Zoosk 17,873,051 +4,518,039 +34%
4. 60 Photos 23,973,485 +4,022,324 +20%
5. Badoo 33,998,303 +3,959,615 +13%
6. Monster Galaxy 19,288,292 +3,121,544 +19%
7. Static HTML: iframe tabs 27,236,147 +1,679,325 +7%
8. Amor 5,137,716 +1,155,752 +29%
9. FBML Tab Maker 3,759,764 +1,113,909 +42%
10. VEVO for Artists 9,899,033 +1,031,072 +12%
11. Phrases 15,609,817 +1,000,466 +7%
12. Video House 1,758,158 +967,132 +122%
13. Facebook for Every Phone 1,399,466 +941,048 +205%
14. Zoo World 3,080,087 +901,868 +41%
15. Army Attack 5,073,363 +891,134 +21%
16. Pieces of Flair 4,310,997 +868,243 +25%
17. BranchOut 1,791,250 +865,157 +93%
18. HTML + iframe + FBML = iwipa 10,922,066 +811,165 +8%
19. Daily Horoscope 13,047,246 +754,418 +6%
20. Gardens of Time 13,979,066 +623,426 +5%

Quotes grew by 4.6 million MAU this week; the quiz app asks users questions about their friends, then posts the answers to their Walls. Then there were the dating and professional networking apps. Zoosk grew by 4.5 million MAU, continuing its growth in the United States, while Badoo grew by 3.9 million in countries other than the US. BranchOut, a professional networking app, grew by 865,200 MAU this week.

The Page tab apps saw some significant growth this week, too. Static HTML: iframe tabs grew by about 1.7 MAU, FBML Tab Maker grew by 1.1 million MAU and HTML + iframe + FBML = iwipa grew by 811,200 MAU.

Some apps to watch this week were VEVO for Artists, an app that grew by 1 million MAU and allows users to upload VEVO videos to their Page, being used increasingly by popular artists to feature music videos on Facebook. Then Phrases, with more than 1 million MAU, but is not available in the US. Finally, Facebook for Every Phone from Snaptu grew by 941,000 MAU.

The rest of the apps included photos apps like 60 Photos with more than 4 million MAU; the app allows users to rate friends' photos, then publishes feed stories to their Walls. Amor grew mostly in Mexico by 1.1 million MAU. Video House grew by 967,100 MAU and is a Turkish video app. Pieces of Flair grew by 868,200 MAU and Daily Horoscope by 754,400 MAU.


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tirsdag den 28. juni 2011 at 07.20 Write your comment Write a comment!