The web is turning more social.  But what does that actually mean.

Everyone’s jumping on facebook because they believe it’s ‘the’ social platform to be on.

Truth is, facebook is the catalyst, not the platform.  You’re website’s the platform.

Facebook wants us as marketers to embrace the information it has about consumers and use it to create more personalized experiences for our consumers through our brands online.

It started with facebook platform.  Brands used applications to reach consumers and get them interacting with their brand.  Then pages came out, this product allows us to group our consumers together and message them via a broadcast model.

Now we’ve got open graph, which (granted) has been around for nearly 1.5 years, but is only now starting to bear fruit in the way we can and should use it.

Open graph allows any third party site to gain access to consumers personal data by asking for them via permissions.  The amount we can do with this data opens up a plethora of possibilities, the foremost being personalization.

We can use this data to build branded experiences around the consumer themselves, not the other way around.

Some of you may see this as old news, but I’ve struggled to find blog posts, articles or any written literature that talks to this topic plainly – so this way my 5min attempt to sum it up.

Great examples are of open graph in action include Samsungs mrknowitall and Mashable when you sign in via facebook.

Personalization is the way forward for the web and facebook is the way we, as marketers are going to be able to plan, create and implement strategies that have personalization as it’s core.

“Australians spend longer on the site than anyone else, worldwide.”

Paul Borrud – facebook Australia

It’s a bit late, but I’ll run through the changes and why I think facebook made them anyways. If you haven’t already, you can access your new profile via this link.

In a nutshell the new profile layout has done 4 things

1)

Neatly bundles together basic info about the user at the top of the profile.  This can include job, education, location, relationship status and birth date.

WHY? It gives users viewing the profile a simple, fast snapshot of who that person is, where they are located, how old they are and what type of relationship they are in, if any.  It works to give extremely quick personal context around that individual.

2)

Gives users faster access to the most engaging content about their friends, images. Five images now appear at the top of the profile.  These are the latest images the user was tagged in.

WHY? Again, it is an extremely fast way to understand what the individual currently looks like, who they’ve been hanging out with and essentially what they’ve been doing recently.

3)

Organizes profile information in a smarter way.  New information controls can be found on the left hand side of the profile underneath the profile pic.

WHY? It was tough for users to find personal info about a person through the old profile setup, you had to click the ‘info’ tab at the top of the page then scroll down.  The new design places this info section tab right under the most highly viewed piece of content on the profile page, the profile pic.  I think facebook did some user testing and realized more users would click on the info tab when it was placed here, rather than on the top of the page.

The information displayed on the info page is much more uniform, using images as placeholders as appose to just text.  I would expect this approach to gain more interaction than the previous design.

4)

Provide more social context between the viewer and the user who’s profile the viewer is looking at.  This is by far the coolest thing about the redesign for me.  Social context is key and facebook is just starting to expand out the possibilities that it can provide in this space.  On the right hand side of the page you’ll find info specific to you and the user you are viewing.  Information provided here includes images that both of you are tagged in, interests you both share and the amount of friends you have in common.  Some of you may remember facebook bringing out ‘friendship’ pages about a month or so ago, I believe that was a soft launch for the type of functionality around social context we are now seeing through the new profile layout.

WHY? This info is facebooks greatest strength, it’s secret sauce, it knows more about you and your real-life social network than you probably know yourself and now it’s just starting to surface that information for you to start viewing and using.  It’s THE most potent and engaging information it has about you.  It’s the reason facebook will become the next Google, it’s the reason facebook will run the web for the next 10-15 years.

Hope this gives you get a better understanding about the changes.

FYI – it’s a Richard Branson autobiography

Whoop.

Yesterday it was reported that facebook has dropped the need for page owners to get written permission from a facebook representative to run a promotion or competition through their page.

This is huge news.  Below is a press release facebook sent out to several media outlets on Monday afternoon – see below.

We have some exciting updates regarding the administration of Promotions, Sweepstakes and Contests on Facebook that will help to streamline the process and make your lives a bit easier:

1. We no longer require prior written Facebook approval to administer a promotion on Facebook.
2. We no longer require a minimum media spend investment to support the promotion.

This means that you are not required to have a media campaign on Facebook to run a promotion, nor do you need to ask for approval on the contest T&Cs from the Facebook team. Please note that all promotions are still subject to our Promotion Guidelines (http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php) and Facebook Platform Policies (http://developers.facebook.com/policy/), and that brands are responsible for ensuring that all contests fall within those guidelines.

Note that last point, ‘all promotions are still subject to our Promotion Guidelines’.  So it still seems you have to play by the rules and are just as likely to be warned or shut down if you are caught breaking them.

The reason given for the original setup, whereby a facebook representative approved each promotion was seen by some to be a blatant push for marketing dollars, as a you couldn’t really see a facebook representative if you hadn’t dumped over 10k worth of ad spend into the platform.  But facebooks explanation seems more straightforward.  Apparently they just didn’t have the manpower to monitor all the promotions happening on the platform. Hence the reason for this latest change comes because facebook now believes it has the staff numbers necessary to monitor most if not all marketing activity happening on facebook.

As you can see below, the guidelines – http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php – have not yet been changed, but will be soon.

UPDATE – facebook has now changed the written guidelines to represent the changes explained above.

There are basically 4 different ways you can update a facebook page. If you want to be successful in generating engagement on facebook, its incredibly important you understand how each of these updates vary from one another and what they should be used to do.

Text Update

How to : Write the text directly into your pages update publisher (the box at the top of the page) and hit Share.

Effect : This is the only update that will appear and remain at the top of the page, to the right of your page name after you have posted it.

Tip : Everyone who visits your page will see the wall.  Therefore they will also see your last text update (see ‘Effect’ above).  So it’s a smart strategy to have a call to action here, something short, sharp and relevant that won’t take users long to engage with – a question with 2-3 provided answers always works well.

Image Update

How to : Hit the image icon in the bottom left hand corner of the update publisher on your wall.  Now choose from one of the three options provided.

Effect : Image can be clicked in newsfeed and will bring fans into the photos section of your page.  Image updates DO NOT appear and/or remain at the top of the page.

Tip : Image updates are by far the most effective update to generate interaction with your fans, so make sure the image is as unique and eye-catching as possible.  You MUST accompany image updates with text.  Include a short call to action that encourages the user analyze or acknowledge the image then provide feedback on it.  Image updates will a smart call to action are consistently the highest engagement earners in our experience.

Link Update

How to : Hit the link icon in the bottom left hand corner of the update publisher on your wall.  Now paste the destination link into the link box provided.

Effect : Link can be clicked in the newsfeed and will take fans to the destination of the link.  Link updates DO NOT appear and/or remain at the top of the page.

Tip : Used correctly, link updates are the most powerful weapon in facebook marketing.  They basically act as an instant conduit from your fans to anywhere on the web YOU want them to go in just one click, so if you’re a business it makes sense to send them to your business website.  But be warned, the content on your website must be relevant to the fundamental reason your fans are on your page or else click through will be low and credibility will be lost. Rip out the body text of the link and only leave the title and URL as you see above, no one likes information overload and you’re update will be clicked less if its there.

Video Update (includes youtube)

How to : Hit the video icon in the bottom left hand corner of the update publisher on your wall. Now upload the video and hit Share.

How to (youtube) : Read How to on the link update article, it’s exactly the same.  NOTE, youtube videos are kept as links in your page archive, not videos.

Effect : Allows fans to view videos through the newsfeed. Video updates DO NOT appear and/or remain at the top of the page.

Tip : Remember that the majority of fans will view your video through their newsfeed, so keep it short, preferably no longer than 30 secs.  We’ve also always found that including a call to action at the end of the video increases engagement.

Hopefully this is helpful.

SUPRÉ’s facebook page surpassed the 250,000 fan mark not so long ago.

For those of you unfamiliar with the background of the page – we asked our client, SUPRÉ, to start a page and in June 09′ it launched.

The entire strategy we pitched and were to use was completely unproven and untested, as most new strategies are in social – thankfully the strategy was right.  In the 17 months since we’ve gone through a roller coaster of awesomeness, from humble beginnings with 500 fans and updates that generated 30 user interactions, to 250k fans and updates that regularly hit over 2500 interactions.

In this post I’m just going to share some fundamental stats and if there is sufficient interest, I will aim to write 2 posts a week till the end of the year going into the detail of how this strategy has evolved into a monster and how the page operates on a daily and weekly basis.

You’ll notice I’m using both the old and new insights suites, I like both for different practical reasons.

Total fan numbers

Note the tipping point around June / July.  Note this was not due to advertising, we have not actively advertised for fans since Feb this year.  I’ll write about around this next week.

Active Users

Around half the fan base are actively engaged each month and over 30,000 are actively engaged each day.

Interaction

The page is averaging around 1,400 likes and 1,400 comments per page update.  Note the similarities in levels for both modes of engagement, this is part of an intentional content creation strategy which I’ll go over in the coming weeks.

Media Consumption

Currently the page generates roughly 4,500 photo views per day.  Again this is strategic, 80% of the viewed photos are from fans themselves.

This graph is a bit skewed as we launched a large campaign recently, hence the spike.  Prior to this the page was generating around 2,500 logged in page views per day and 1,750 unique page views per day.

As I said earlier, this is an intro post.  I’ll be committing to writing a series of 8 posts over the coming 5 weeks focusing on sharing what we’ve learned in building this page.

Hope you enjoy!

So facebook had the big unveil of their pro ported Gmail killer today.  However as soon as the event kicked off Mark Zuckerberg was quick to point out that this is not another email client, rather its facebooks own take on a new way to communicate with one another.

It’s smart, practical stuff and gives a great insight into how facebook see’s the communication landscape evolving over the coming months and years.

I’ll break the product into three primary parts. I also want this post to be short, so I will give you my one line take on what each part actually is and why it was created.

Seamless Messaging

One line take – “Send someone a message through one medium and they can reply back through four separate mediums – facebook chat, text message, facebook message or email.

Why? – “Certain people favor certain mediums of communication, everyone isn’t on one medium, usage is fragmented – having the ability to use all four mediums across one conversation brings that fragmentation together, making the entire process easier for all.”

Conversation History

One line take – “You can access entire conversations with friends and family at any time, if the conversation starts now and is still going in 2 years you will be able to review the entire 2 years worth of conversation when ever you want”

Why? – [not sure about this one] “People want memories and a history of their relationships so they can review them later and reminisce, currently this has been impossible for Gen X/Y to do”

Social Inbox

One line take – “Filter emails based on friend connections, the primary inbox will deal specifically with friends, the secondary inbox will deal with less important friends and misc info, the third will house spam or other potentially unwanted material”

Why? – “Make the email process more streamlined, more personalized, it cuts out the clutter and organizes your messages in a far more effective way”

OK, so I’ve tried to put into plain english what it is that facebook has released.  If you’re still struggling you should watch the below video, they do a far better job!

So I’m jumping in here before facebook make an official announcement on this subject tomorrow (overnight our time).  Most commentators believe they will finally be announcing their very own email client which will, of course directly compete with gmail, hotmail and yahoo mail.

Code named internally as ‘Project Titan’ I’m going to guess it’ll be an email client with full POP support, not just a revamp of their current messaging client.  This is awesome news, expect emails that include rich content such as friends photos, status updates and automatic inbox filtering based on strength of connections.

But what’s going to be super interesting to watch over the coming weeks/months/years is going to be the ongoing battle between facebook and google intensifying.  This will be the first big move that facebook had made onto googles turf and I can’t wait to see what their response will be.

M

Heres a tip to grow your facebook page fanbase faster.

Not many people realise their are two distinctly different versions of facebooks new(ish) like button.

Primarily one distributes content.  The other connects users to pages as fans.

Both can look identical, both can appear on third party sites – however the difference is massive.

Lets call the first kind of button the ‘content driver’ button as its purpose is to drive links to content back into facebook for others to see.  I’m sure your all familiar with this version.

So lets call the second kind of button the ‘fan aquisition’ button as its purpose is to instantly connect users as fans to a facebook page.

If you’re goal is to generate new fans for your branded page via your branded third party site you should be placing the fan aquisition button somewhere prominent and above the fold on your homepage.  We’ve done this with a three pages and the result was a consistent increase in fan numbers.

It’s a tip because most people use the Like Box to do this, which does the same thing but looks clunky, takes up space and can seriously throw out the design aesthetic of a nicely built home page.  It also doesn’t convert as well compared like buttons.

Like Box

The fan aquisition button is small, unintrusive and can be placed within a home page alot more comfortably.  As its smaller and looks simpler, it is perceived by users to require less action to click, therefore the interaction levels are higher which means more clicks, which equals more fans.

Like Button (fan aquisition button)

How do you do it? Head to this page.

Once there copy the URL of your facebook page and put it into the ‘URL to Like’ box.  What you should now see to the right is a like box with the approx number of fans of your page.

Now go through the options and tailor the button to what suits you and your site.

Once you’ve tailored the button to your liking simply hit ‘Get Code’ and if you’re code illiterate like me, get someone to implement the code into your site.

The end result should see be an constant increase in overall fan growth.  Of course the rate of growth will depend on the traffic volume of the site you put the button on.

All in all though, we’ve proved several times internally through testing that this is the most effective way of increasing fan page bases on third party sites via facebooks social plugins.

If you do implement it, please let us know some results a week or so in through the comments.

Good luck!

Last night facebook released a new set of upgrades to the backend of their pages product.  Simply put, it affords page admins easier control over their pages, which according to most page admins I talk to is a welcome move forward.

I’ll run through the updated control options as they appear on the tab menu once you access the new backend.

Manage permissions

Country restrictions – It is now possible to make pages only viewable to a certain country or countries.  This is potentially a massive game changer for large multi-national companies on facebook who have several different pages of the same brand name across several different countries – if these companies set each countries brand page to only be viewable in that country, they would save alot of confusion for their users as the only page they would see is the brand page for that specific country.

Age restrictions – This is pretty straightforward. Whilst facebook had it’s own regulations in place for alcohol or gambling related age restrictions prior to the change, this option makes the process even simpler and more straightforward to implement.

Page visiblity – If you’re the secret squirrel type, this option would suit you.  It only makes the page visible to those who have administration rights to the page.  I’m out of ideas as to how this could be useful as the revamped groups offering affords the same closed community controls.

Wall tab shows – Allows you to show what default content fans see when they arrive at your page: your posts, fans post or all posts.

Wall spam filter – This is a facinating change, one that I am yet to see in action across any of our clients pages.  Instinct would presume that facebook will automatically filter out messages that have been flagged as spam elsewhere on facebook if they get posted to your wall – something that would be awesome if you’re running a highly trafficked page.  I’ll update this post when I see evidence of it working.

Default Landing Tab – Here you can choose what page new users of your page will see first.  If you’ve developed a specific FBML landing page and have created a seperate tab for it, this is where you will change the landing page to that specific tab.

Posting Ability – Allows you to choose what your fans can do on your page: Users can write posts and comments on your wall, users can add photos, users can add videos.

Delete Page – Finally, an easier way to delete a page!  I’ve known how to do it for a long time, but the amount of people that were nearly in tears because they didn’t know how to delete a page was overwhelming.  Now its super simple. Click ‘Permanently delete this page’ and you page will be permenently deleted. (or will it? i’ll leave that question to the facebook cynics out there)

Basic Information

No change here, nothing to elaborate on…

Profile Picture

This will be a great change for most newbie admins as changing the profile pic through the old settings proved quite challenging and confusing.  Here you can change the profile pic quickly and easily whilst still in the backend.

Marketing

Again, this will become an incredibly useful section for admins not 100% familiar with the old page admin layout.  It offers you four options:

Advertise on facebook – directs you through to the facebook money making factory, ie the advertising platform.  Advertising is proving to be the single most effective way to grow your page fanbase quickly.

Get a badge – Gives you the code neccessary to create a cute looking badge of your page for a third party website.  This feature is pretty redundant in my opinion as like boxes are less visually intrusive and have far more interactivity options available to them.

Add a Like Box to your website – Behind advertising, like boxes are the most effective way to drive new fans and traffic to your page.  If you haven’t already, I highly recommend adding a like box or button to a third party site that your page represents.

Send an update – I’ll play devils advocate here and say updates are a waste of time.  Please comment if you regularly check your updates, or even know where to find them.

Manage Admins

In the past this task was often difficult.  Now its super simple.  You can add and remove admins as you wish.  A tip - Remember to add admins via email, not via friends.  The majority of companies we work with give us work emails to add as admins.  Most of the time these emails aren’t the ones they use for facebook.  Get them to give you the personal emails they use for facebook and add them as admins this way.  It avoids you having to ‘friend’ them to add them as a admin. Remind them that noone will never be able to see their personal info when they do this procedure, as this is question that often pops up.

Applications

Very similar to the old backend, just with a cleaner and more functional user interface.  It will show you which applications you are currently using and will also offer up application suggestions.

Mobile

None of the options have changed but i’ll run through them quickly anyways.

With mobile email - Allows you to update page status and videos via email on your mobile.

With mobile web – Tells you how to view your page via URL – sends you through to the facebook.com/username page to set your page URL if you haven’t already.

With the iPhone – Briefs you on how to favourite pages within the iPhone.  Do this for pages you admin as it makes the updating and monitoring process of your pages 10x easier.

With text messaging – Allows you to update your page via text.

Insights + Page help

Both are self explanatory, the insights option will send you through to the insights menu, the page help option will send you through to Page help!

PAGE NAME CHANGES – Pages with fan counts under 100 fans now have the ability to change their page name.  If the page is bigger than 100 fans, bad luck.

There you have it, mudos take on the new admin backend.  Big up’s to facebook for making the changes.  What do you think of the upgrade?