1. The MSLGROUP Guide to Facebook Updates:
What Marketers and Bloggers Need to Know

2. Table of Contents
01 Four-Step Crash Course:
New Facebook Brand Pages
02 Four Reasons Why Facebook’s
Comment Box Will Change Blogs
03 Facebook’s New Analytics:
What We Like and Don’t Like
04 Brand Do’s and Dont’s:
Contests on Facebook

3. 01 FOUR-STEP CRASH COURSE:
NEW FACEBOOK BRAND PAGES
– By Romain Vezirian and Nicolas Sibouni,
community managers, MSLGROUP Paris
Life is different these days for social marketers. The entire layout of brand
pages has just changed. Some brands made the shift in February. For
those who did not, Facebook made the changes for them a few days ago,
just as we were making the final finishes to this paper.
As it is our job to advise our clients about marketing via Facebook, we
are sharing what these changes mean for your brand, your community
manager and your fans.
Here we go:
1. New Look: We Don’t Want to looks a lot more like a personal
Say We Told You So but… profile. We understand why this
…We told you so! The most obvious change was made: Users now
new feature of this update is expect to find their links on the
the layout itself. This is actually left column. The old “tabs”—those
something many of us had boxes on the top of a page—are
predicted here at MSLGROUP: definitely gone!
Your official Facebook page now
Old version of the Renault ZE Facebook page.

4. 2. A New Way to Create Custom This is all for the better as it should
Links So what does this mean? lead to:
The content from your old tabs » Better design: iframes allow for
is now accessible from the left more flexibility so you can make
column, presented as hyperlinks. links more consistent with brand
As this is more than an aesthetic guidelines.
change, developers will have to » Better tracking: Content within
use iframes (typically used to add an iframe actually resides on
an advertisement or small bit of your own site, even though it
text into an HTML page) to build is displayed on your Facebook
custom links. page. This means that you can
use your own web analytics
Facebook has indeed officially program whereas in the past
announced that it is phasing out you had to rely exclusively on
FBML code (Facebook Markup Facebook’s analysis of your
Language), which had made it page’s performance. You can use
easy to develop applications both to measure
for Facebook according to the the effectiveness of your
network’s specifications. Starting marketing program.
March 11, businesses will no longer (For more info on analytics,
be able to create new FBML apps check out article No. 3).
and pages will no longer be able to
add the static FBML app.
The new brand page

5. 3. More Power to the Admin! This Speaking of negative comments,
has been a long-awaited feature for admins can now define a blacklist
administrators of Facebook brand of forbidden words and ensure that
pages all over the world, as they such words do not make it on to the
can finally receive notifications brand’s Facebook page.
(“likes”, comments, etc.) on behalf
of the brand—by email and directly Because of the new brand
on Facebook. notifications, we now have an
“administrator’s view” where we
For example, we manage the see every published post. Posts
Renault ZE community page. In containing any of the blacklisted
the past, even when on Renault words are automatically put aside
ZE’s page, the notifications that in a “spam” section. As the admins,
appeared pertained to our personal we can choose whether to publish
Facebook accounts. Now the the message or not. And if we don’t
notifications pertain to consumers allow it, the user who published the
interacting with the brand. post can still see the message…
but he will be the only one. It’s the
On behalf of all our brands, we ultimate smoke & mirrors move to
used to have to check pages discourage trolls and facilitate a
constantly and use external community manager’s life.
tools such as Conversocial or
HyperAlerts to make sure we were A brand can also decide if it wants
keeping track of all fan activity. to publicize the names of its
Now, we get notifications in real page’s admin(s) in the right-hand
time. column. This feature could be
useful for companies who want to
This means: communicate directly through their
» No more missed comments community manager and give a
» Better overall reactivity, “face” to their online presence.
especially in case of negative
comments about a brand

6. 4. Interactions Between Brand comment as themselves. Time will
Pages Finally, and this is probably tell how this new functionality will
the most exciting new feature, evolve: however, it seems obvious
admins can now “log in as a brand” that new partnerships or co-
instead of through their personal marketing opportunities between
profiles. As a result, admins can brands will emerge, helping them
act on behalf of brands in new and to promote each other’s news,
creative ways. “share” friends and grow their fan
bases.
In the past, despite our ability to
manage brand pages, we couldn’t In addition:
comment on behalf of the brand » When Brand A likes Brand B’s
on other brand pages. Today, we page, Brand B’s logo is displayed
can. A brand can now “like” other on Brand A’s page. The “like”
brand pages (not personal profiles) function replaces the “favorites”
and comment as the brand on category.
another brand’s page, just as » Brand A will now receive news
consumers who like things can from Brand B in its newsfeed.

7. 02 FOUR REASONS WHY FACEBOOK’S
COMMENT BOX WILL CHANGE BLOGS
– by Romain Vezirian, community manager, MSLGROUP Paris
So you thought Facebook might leave the blogosphere alone, that it had
enough responsibility on its hands? If this is the case, Zuckerberg and co.
are about to prove you wrong. The social networking site just launched a
new Comment Box that uses Facebook Connect to make your blog more
social. Moreover, the Comment Box marks the first time Facebook is
allowing automatic external posting (from Facebook to a blog).
Here are the four reasons why we believe this might be a game changer
for blogs and people who read them.
1. No need to log in We’ve all on. But if the blogger has installed
been there: You just read an article the Facebook comment plug-in,
on a blog, you have something and if you’re already logged into
to contribute, you click to post a Facebook, you won’t have to go
comment. But then the torture through this. The Comment Box
begins. In many cases you have lets you post automatically through
to create an account, give your Facebook, making conversations
email, decipher a captcha and so seamless.

8. 2. Say goodbye to derogatory 3. More conversation for your
comments What is more annoying blog This might be the real
than having to read through incentive for bloggers around
insults or derogatory comments? the world to switch to the Facebook
Facebook helps keep blogs clean. system.
Consider this: Insulting someone Whenever you leave a comment on
while hidden behind an a blog using Facebook’s plug-in,
anonymous user name is easy. you will see a box (already ticked!)
When comments you write are that asks you if you also want to
posted under your real name publish the comment on your
(and your Facebook account), Facebook newsfeed.
not so much.
That’s nice but there’s more to
With so much transparency via it: Any friend who responds on
Facebook, will everyone want to Facebook to your comment will
post a comment? We’re not so then see his or her post appear
sure. Nevertheless, we think this on the blog’s comment thread.
system could possibly mean one (This is on the up-and-up, as
thing: bye, bye, spammers and people will see the name of the
people with an axe to grind. blog on Facebook and know where
their comment is going before
deciding to post.) Naturally, the
Facebook Comment Box provides
a multiplier effect for comments,
helping to build the blogger’s
fame and broadening the reach of
conversations and ideas. We bet
this will be the reason why « the
box » becomes a hit.

9. 4. Easy admin This system In general, we believe this could be
also comes with the expected a major advancement for bloggers.
moderation tools: blog admins can Much like when Facebook Connect
moderate and delete comments, was launched, the big question is
check for spam, etc. Moreover, to know whether this system will
as we discuss in the next paper, be broadly adopted. If it is, it could
Facebook has new analytics become a dangerous competitor
tools to measure engagement, for companies like Disqus.
including on the Comment Box. It
is important to note that Facebook
has the right to comments made
via the Comment Box, as the plug-
in is the company’s intellectual
property.

10. 03 Facebook’s New Analytics:
What We Like and Don’t Like
– by Romain Vezirian, community manager, MSLGROUP Paris
Remember that time not so long the Facebook developers’ blog, you
ago when marketing managers can now see the number of times
wanted to install Google Analytics people saw “like” buttons, clicked
to monitor the traffic of their “like” buttons, shared stories on
Facebook brand pages? It seems Facebook, clicked on stories to visit
like this problem is long gone. your website and made comments
Not because Facebook opened its to your blog via the new Facebook
doors to Google (of course not!), Comment Box, the subject of
but because its own analytics article No. 2 in this report.
system is becoming increasingly
efficient. In short, Facebook analytics work
both ways: You get to see the traffic
Some of the new features are you sent from your website to your
great… But are they really going Facebook page (through the “like”
in the right direction? We take you button), and the traffic Facebook
through what we “like” and what we sent to your website (through
dislike about Facebook’s analytics. stories on people’s news feeds).
What we like Know how much of your traffic
The numbers behind your comes from Facebook
“like” button Even if you do not have a “like”
While Facebook has been letting button installed on your website,
webmasters import Facebook the new analytics allow you to
elements for years (Facebook see how people are sharing links
widget, “like” button, etc.), they to your site in status updates and
had no way until now to monitor wall posts on Facebook. To enable
how efficient these tools really this, simply claim your domain by
were. It all changed in the last associating it with your Facebook
week with Facebook’s new user account.
analytics tools. As explained on

11. What we dislike What we really need is more
What is there to dislike, you insight: What are the posts that
might ask? Well, for community work best? What time are they
managers like ourselves, quite a posted? Do your fans comment
few things at least. more frequently under pictures or
videos?
Is bigger necessarily better?
What makes a Facebook fan page Answers to these questions
successful? If you believe the new are key to distinguishing good
metrics logic, you would answer Facebook pages from bad ones.
“numbers”, i.e. the amount of Unfortunately, Facebook does not
traffic you can generate. This is provide such tools to arrive at these
surprising coming from Facebook, answers. Let’s hope they’re on their
the platform that literally defined way.
2.0, where “feedback” and
“engagement” are key, not traffic or
how big you can get. Certainly, we
would trade 1,000 heavy engaged
fans against 10,000 not-so-
interested ones any day.

12. 04 Brand Do’s and Dont’s:
Contests on Facebook
– by Romain Vezirian, community manager, MSLGROUP Paris
Newsflash for you: Facebook is its own. The company will not
changing. All the time. And we assume liability should anything go
are not talking about your friends’ wrong with a brand’s contest—your
updates here: we’re talking new activities are distinct in the strictest
functionalities, new layout for your sense of the word.
brand’s page and even new rules.
This last point may be the most A Company Banned on Facebook
important to keep in mind, even In the past couple of months, a
though it is also the issue that French brand’s Facebook page got
no one talks about: Facebook’s cut off (with no warning) because
official “Terms of Use” can change the company failed to comply with
anytime. Facebook’s Terms of Use. The
page had 130,000 fans, a number
Facebook and Your Brand: significant enough to show that
Separation of Church and State Facebook does not discriminate. If
It is important to recall that you do not respect the rules, you
Facebook does not want to be will log in one day to find your page
seen as endorsing any brand or is missing, even if your fan base is
commercial activity other than in the 6 digits.

13. So here’s a quick recap of what you can and cannot do on your Facebook
page when you want to run a contest for your fans:
The Dont’s  can limit a contest to your
You
 This is the most complicated fans but use the right words
point, but also the most to do so. As opposed to the
important one: You cannot use phrases in the “dont’s” column,
any Facebook functionalities for you could write “Join our
your brand’s contest. “Likes”, community” or “Click ‘like’ to
“comments” and “tagging in a see more info on our contest.”
picture” should not enable one Recall that once someone likes
of your fans to win anything. you, your page opens up and
If you see a brand asking its the person can see all your
fans to “change their profile tabs (including the one for the
picture” or “click on like to enter contest). We know this is subtle,
our contest”, know that this but this kind of knowledge can
company could be cut off any make the difference between a
minute by almighty Facebook. successful contest on Facebook
 It
is forbidden to organize a and a banned one.
contest on your Facebook wall  We
advise including a link to
(see below for what you can do). your brand’s usage guidelines
for Facebook fans. These are the
guidelines typically including
The Do’s language prohibiting personal
 can organize a contest
You attacks and inflammatory
on your Facebook page, but language on the brand’s page.
it has to be contained within a
dedicated tab.
 You
always have to specify
that your brand is the contest
organizer and Facebook is not.
The sad part is: This article could soon become outdated because
Facebook’s Terms of Use continually change. Make sure your agency and
community manager monitor this issue closely.

14. Contact
Thank you for reading, and please send us a note if you’d like:
romain.vezirian@consultants.publicis.fr
community manager, MSLGROUP Paris
stanislas.magniant@consultants.publicis.fr
Digital Practice Leader, EMEA
gaurav.mishra@mslgroup.com
Director of Digital & Social Media, Asia
stephen.marino@mslgroup.com
Director of Digital & Social Media, Americas
pascal.beucler@mslgroup.com
Chief Strategy Officer (Global)
www.mslgroup.com
http://blog.mslgroup.com
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