Facebook 2010
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Facebook doesn’t want to be the biggest social network on the Internet. Facebook wants to be the Internet. Late 2009 and early 2010 have shown some pretty big changes in the world’s largest social network from privacy settings, to promotion guidelines to Facebook Markup Language. Come and learn what about the possible pitfalls your business could face with these changes. And see how you can take advantage of recent changes to Facebook Fan Pages.
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Facebook 2010
- 1. Facebook 2010 What your business should know about Facebook’s recent changes.
Editor's Notes
- Hello,My name is Will Flavell and I am the Director of Social Influence for Bozell. What that means is that I put together social media campaigns, strategies and more for a variety of companies. I also speak on the topic fairly frequently, which is why the folks at the chamber invited me here today. First of all, here are some things that we are not gonna talk about. We are not gonna talk about the history of social media, or theories on why social media works so well. Simply because we do not have time. So if you have any questions on social media as a whole, stay after and chat with me.So, what are we gonna talk about today. Well, the presentation is going to be broken down into three parts. First, the current state of Facebook today and a little bit of history. Second, we will talk about some of the new opportunities that these changes have brought to businesses. Then, we will talk about some challenges for companies that have come from recent Facebook changes. Finally, I’ll leave you with recommendations on five easy and free ideas to expand your social media presences.If you have any questions on Facebook, feel free to throw a hand up and we can discuss. Also, I will leave some time at the end for questions. We have about two hours, so let’s get started.
- So, why are we going to spend an entire hour talking about just one social network? Why just Facebook?Well, Facebook is not just the largest social network in the world roughly 500 million users (quoted by Mark Zuckerberg at UK developer’s conference in June), more than 100 million of those being users from the US, it is also the most used social network by online shoppers in the US. (stats based on hitwise tracking numbers) If you look at the graph above (shows weekly market share growth changes) you will see the growth in US traffic for Facebook and Google over the last year. In fact Facebook often overtakes Google as the number one most visited US site. Facebook traffic has grown 185% from last year at that time. Facebook also received more traffic than Google on important shopping holidays such as last Christmas, Christmas Eve day and New Year’s day. Facebook also refers a lot of traffic around the Web too. It currently directs more traffic to other websites than Google News does. As the biggest site in the US, Facebook offers a wide variety of opportunities for businesses. Due to its robust communication tool set and it’s ease of linking between other networks, it is often the hub of a company’s social networking strategy.
- All those visits that Facebook is receiving aren’t just coming from GenX and Millenials anymore. In fact one of the fastest growing age segments in the United States are Baby Boomers. The age demographic of 35-44 grows by more than 650,000 a month on Facebook. If you look at the graphic above, you will see that recent stats released by Facebook in Jan. of 2010, only 40% of Facebook users are under the age of 25 – 60% are 26 or older, and nearly 20% are 45 are older. 20% of 500 million is 100 million users that are older than 45. While it started as a site for students at Harvard, American use of Facebook has grown to encompass millions of every generation.
- So how did Facebook get so big?On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook", originally located at thefacebook.com. Originally launched just for Harvard students. In the first 24 hours they had around 1,500 signups.
- Membership was initially restricted to students of Harvard College, and within the first month, more than half the undergraduate population at Harvard was registered on the service. In March 2004, Facebook expanded to Stanford, Columbia, and Yale. This expansion continued when it opened to all Ivy League and Boston area schools, and gradually most universities in Canada and the United States. In June 2004, Facebook moved its base of operations to Palo Alto, California. The company dropped The from its name after purchasing the domain name facebook.com in 2005 for $200,000.Facebook launched a high school version in September 2005, which Zuckerberg called the next logical step. At that time, high school networks required an invitation to join. Facebook later expanded membership eligibility to employees of several companies, including Apple Inc. and Microsoft. Facebook was then opened on September 26, 2006 to everyone of ages 13 and older with a valid e-mail address. Also in September of 2006, a News Feed was announced, which appears on every user's homepage and highlights information including profile changes, upcoming events, and birthdays of the user's friends.In October 2008, Facebook set up its international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.But it wasn’t till September 2009 that Facebook claimed that it had turned cash flow positive for the first time. In 2010 Facebook is projected to make $1 billion in revenue. Here are some of the different evolutions of the Facebook page. Each time Facebook has changed, they have given more tools to businesses and to consumers. What we are going to be talking about today is just the options available from the changes since late last year. Facebook is also working to become the doorway to more types of information and interaction for users. Facebook doesn’t want to be the largest social network on the Web, they want to be the Web.
- With all of the changes that Facebook has gone through, I thought that it might be nice to give a quick breakdown on all the communication possibilities that businesses currently have. These are all the on-network methods of communication that a company can do from their fan page, group page or application.I also wanted to lay these out right now so that from a businesses point of view, you could see what users expect in the form of communication from a page. Also, several of these are changing right now and we will talk more about them later in the presentation.
- All right, enough intro, now to the goodies. The first opportunity that we will talk about is Vanity URLs. Back in June of 2009 Facebook announced that all personal profile pages would be allowed vanity URLs. Shortly after, they announced that pages with more than 1,000 followers and that were started before May 31st were also available for vanity URLs.The requirements have since relaxed and today your company’s or organization’s Facebook Fan Page could have its own vanity URL if you have more than only 25 followers.You have probably heard about these, but they are a great boon. It is an easy change that can give your company or organization a lot more brand awareness. And a lot more memorable presence name. Basically it allows you to change the name from http://www.facebook.com/pages/Your-Page-Name/25912949806?ref=ts to http://www.facebook.com/YourPageName To get your fan page’s vanity URL, just go to www.facebook.com/username and it will allow you to register you vanity URL.
- It is no secret that Google indexes Facebook Fan Pages. Speaker’s Notes:(go to Google and search “Can this pickle get more fans than Nickelback)Continuing the expansion of its real-time Web search, which was first announced in December, Google has added updates from Facebook Fan Pages to its data source. This allows access to Facebook’s three million Fan Pages, but not to data from all of the social media network’s 500 million active users.This means that status updates, links, photos and videos shared on Fan Pages are now indexed by Google Real Time Search, making Facebook the latest addition to Google’s real-time initiative that includes Twitter, MySpace, FriendFeed and more.This also means that you can leverage Facebook’s high Google Page Rank (they have a 9/10) to build Google juice to pages you want to promote. AT THIS POINT I WILL EXPLAIN SEO FROM GOOGLE’S PERSECTIVE. SERP listings are ranked by relevant content and inbound links. Link value is determined by the value or rank of the sites that link to you. So links from a huge, highly ranked site, like Facebook, are worth quite a lot. So you can indulge in a little SMO while you build your Facebook fan page. *Only 11 ULRs in the world are 10/10
- All of the images above are screen grabs from real Facebook Fan Pages. You may notice that they do not look a lot like the the usual Facebook wall homepages. That is because they each have a custom canvas page. Facebook recently released a new application called Static FBML that uses Facebook Markup Language. FBML has long been the language of Facebook Application developers, but only recently has it been applied to canvas pages. This allows you to add a tab to your Fan Page and then build a mini-website on that tab. Some ideas for using the Static FBML application include:-Promotional text/graphics that click through your Facebook application or website-HTML version of your latest newsletter in its own tab (with signup box!)-A shortcut to important links on your website-Contests-Any other place where you want a custom look and feel within your fan pageCurrently the Static FMBL application is the third fastest growing application on Facebook and the number 3 used application. It has roughly 783,000 users daily.Speaker’s Notes:Now go tohttp://www.facebook.com/redmangolegacyomaha and peruse a few examples of Static FBML pages.
- Long before Static FBML pages, in May of 2007 Facebook started providing a framework for software developers to create applications that interact with core Facebook features called the Facebook Platform.A markup language called Facebook Markup Language was introduced simultaneously; it is used to customize the "look and feel" of applications that developers create. Using the Platform, Facebook launched several new applications,including Gifts, allowing users to send virtual gifts to each other, Marketplace, allowing users to post free classified ads, Events, giving users a method of informing their friends about upcoming events, and Video, letting users share homemade videos with one another. Now there are more than 550,000 applications. I promise we are not gonna talk about building applications. That is another whole presentation. Instead, I wanted to highlight a recent design change and how it benefits companies/organizations that use applications to attract fans/group members. In the latest version of Facebook, the navigation has been changed to provide more emphasis to applications. More than 70% of Facebook users interact with applications on Facebook.This is good for businesses because, now they have more ways to contact potential customers through applications.They have made it easier for users to find and interact with your applications on Facebook. Facebook recently released the new Applications and Games dashboards, accessible via the "Applications" and "Games" links on the home page. These dashboards show the applications users have interacted with most recently as well as their most recent application activity and their friends' activity. (go to http://www.facebook.com/?sk=apps).Facebook is also working on introducing counters next to the applications that users have bookmarked on their home pages.-Counters will notify users when their applications have a specific action to take, so that they never miss their turn in a game or an update from a friend in an application.-Application designers can now build in bookmarking options that will keep their bookmarks at the top of a users Applications Dashboard (if checked by the user).-Applications will also have the ability to email users directly.In a nutshell, the latest version of Facebook is working to give applications and the companies/organizations that develop them many more touchpoints with users.
- www.facebook.com/insightsThink of Insights as Google Analytics for the social web. Just like Facebook is taking on Google in search and referral traffic, this is their answer for Google Analytics. Everything that we are doing is trackable. Facebook Insights provides Facebook Page owners and Facebook Platform developers with metrics around their content. By understanding and analyzing trends within user growth and demographics, consumption of content, and creation of content, Page owners and Platform developers are better equipped to improve their business with Facebook. To see metrics on your Facebook Page,Platform application or Open Graph integrated website, go to the Insights Dashboard. Only Page administrators, application owners, and domain administrators can view Insights data for the properties they own or administer. To view comprehensive Insights on your specific Page, Platform application or website, click on the corresponding item on the left navigation bar.As I said before, Insights is like Google Analytics, except that it gives you more insight into social interactions such as: Quality of Interaction, reviews from around the network, and in-depth user-interaction with your posted content. These are things that Google Analytics does not provide and can’t provide.Speaker’s Note: Go here for working examples: http://www.facebook.com/help/?search=insights#!/insights/?__a=6&ajaxpipe=1
- Originally unveiled during Facebook’s developer conference,in2008. Facebook Connect is a set of APIs from Facebook that enable Facebook members to log onto third-party websites, applications, mobile devices and gaming systems with their Facebook identity. While logged in, users can connect with friends via these mediums and post information and updates to their Facebook profile. Developers can use these services to help their users connect and share with their Facebook friends on and off of Facebook and increase engagement for their website or application. (To see a list of examples, go to http://www.facebook.com/connectnews?v=app_4949752878#!/connectnews?v=app_7146470109)So why would you do this? Simple, it will get you more traffic and more registration because it is coming from a trusted source. But also it will greatly increase the opportunity for your site to interact with users. You can get access to users’ name, photos, events, friends and connections that can be used to develop a richer experience for users on your site. And these users contribute more, in fact connected users create 15-60% more content than users who have not connected with Facebook Connect. (http://dsc.discovery.com/sharks/frenzied-waters/).A few examples of Facebook Connect Success:"Since implementing Facebook Connect, the Insider has seen a significant increase in traffic on theinsider.com, and over 85% of new registered users are using Facebook Connect."- CBS Insider"Since integrating with Facebook Connect, more than 1/3 of their new commenter signups come through Facebook."- Huffington Post"Since implementing Facebook Connect, daily registrations have tripled, and connected users are twice as engaged as users not using Facebook Connect. 94% of users who write reviews share those reviews back on Facebook, where 70% of their friends who see the review click on it, and travel back to Citysearch.com.- CitysearchSince integrating with Facebook Connect, page views for the sites are up 99%, pages per visit are up 34%, and average time spent on the sites is up 20%."- Lollapalooza
- http://developers.facebook.com/docs/opengraphAT The 2010 F8 Facebook Developers Conference (held in April), Facebook announced the release of a new set of APIs that allow anyone to connect their website with Facebook. By adding some simple code to your website, you can allow Facebook to see your website and its pages as permanent objects within Facebook. This is the next step of Facebook Connect, instead of integrating one small experience on your website with Facebook. You can intregrate everything, all of your content. Why would you want to do this? This provides a serious list of benefits:1. Fan’s stream communications: Using Open Graph will allow you to communicate user action, back to their Facebook wall.2. Facebook Insights: Using Open Graph allows you to access Facebook Insights on your website. (Think of this as Google Analytics, but with Facebook information.)3. Big Variety of plugins: The simpliest version of this is the Like Button. You can add this feature to your website with just one line of code. It allows users to post back (to Facebook) things that they liked about your website or page. This is currently being used on more than 100,000 websites.But, the end result will be increased traffic. You can now leverage the largest human referral network in the world to drive traffic to your website. Today, more than 150 million people engage with Facebook on external websites every month through some form of open graph.Think of it like this: A Facebook user comes to your Website and they “Like” a story. That story is then published back to their Facebook Wall. All of their friends see it. Facebook Insights tracks the traffic to that piece of content on your site, telling you how they got there. Another user searches for your company name or the category of your company and because you are open graph integrated, your site or story comes up first in Facebook search.To turn your web pages into graph objects, you'll need to add Open Graph protocol <meta> tags and the Like button to your webpages.Bing.com is a good example (on their purchase pages)TripAdvisor.com is another good exampleOther examples: CNN, Pandora and Amazon
- Social plugins are short pieces of HTML code that you can add to your website, so it works with Facebook. Social plugins let you see what your fans/customers have liked, commented on or shared on sites across the web. All social plugins are extensions of Facebook.More than 300,000 websites currently feature at least one social plugin from Facebook. These plugins help drive traffic to your site and they help you leverage your site visitors’s connections to create more leads and customers.Every month, Facebook users sharemore than 25 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.). Facebook wants to expand its sharing and ranking of the internet by allowing Facebook Fans to share from individual websites outside of its network. Plugins allow them to do that. This is good for Facebook and for your Website.More info: http://developers.facebook.com/plugins
- Welcome back from the break. Let’s pick up with some more opportunities.Facebook Advertising is Highly Targeted. It offers low costs per impression, but it should be integrated with other campaign types.According to a study conducted in June of 2010 by Syncapse, a Facebook fan is worth $136.38 a year to your company. This study also found that on average, fans spend an additional $71.84 on products for which they are fans compared to those who are not fans.The study also found that Fans are 41% more likely than non fans to recommend a fanned-product to their friends.You can select your audience from the following criteria. LocationAgeSexKeywordsEducationWorkplaceRelationship StatusRelationship InterestsLanguagesYou can also target adds by current connections: Connections targeting allows you to target your ads to users who have become a fan of your Page, a member of your Group, RSVP’d to your Event or authorized your Application. If you are the admin of a Page, Group, Event or Application, use the type-ahead to target your connections or exclude your connections from seeing your ad. You can also target friends of connections.
- Word-of-mouth communications is consistently ranked as the most trusted form of brand communication. And while today’s direct mail can be very targeted and today’s online buys can be based on user activity, we (as brands and marketers) have never been able to recreate the success of personal messages. Facebook is the largest word-of-mouth engine on the planet. And it has now allowed us to combine word of mouth and advertising. They offer targeted ads (like we discussed in the last slide) with a list of those our friends who already like it. A consumer’s endorsement is carried with the traditional ad unit, allowing the reach that can be gained through paid media impressions to be combined with the impact associated with an earned endorsement.-Source Nielsen and Facebook
- One of the most talked about changes on the horizon for Facebook, is the addition of location based sharing of information with third party services. With Facebook integrating location based services into their platform in the coming months, many are wondering how the new service will be implemented. What’s becoming increasingly clear is that Facebook will definitely be enabling services like Foursquare and Gowalla, rather than competing with them directly. This is something that Twitter implemented in March.Here’s a quick recap of recent Facebook location news. McDonald’s is reportedly building location data into a custom app for a Page-based marketing campaign. Facebook’s new Open Graph Protocol allows third parties to share specifics like address, and latitude and longitude. Facebook has also had discussions with location-based services like Foursquare and Loopt — possibly about acquisitions and possibly about partnerships — and it even recently hired a Loopt engineer to work on its mobile team.Like many of their current settings, this will probably have a privacy opt-out.For businesses, this could mean more geo-locating options, tools for promoting local businesses and location-based discounts like those currently offered through Foursquare. It also opens the door to the development of many place-based applications.
- One of the most popular tactics for companies to draw new followers on Facebook has been to hold a contest or give something away. Everyone likes free stuff right? Well, Facebook has greatly pulled in the reins on this activity.What is clearly not allowed under the new rules:1.) “Status update” contests2.) “Photo upload” contests3.) Any kind of contest that requires commenting on or responding to items in the News Feed (brands could otherwise boost their News Feed engagement and thus distribution by constantly running contests in the feed) Like the one featured above in the Turbo Tax Super Status Contest which resulted in more than 1 million direct impressions.In November of 2009 Facebook released a new set of promotion guidelines that seriously limited the use of Facebook contests and promotions. All promotions that run on Facebook must be fully located on either 1) the canvas page of an application, or2) in an application box or tab on a Facebook PageTheir guidelines also state that all contests must have written approval from Facebook and that can be a lengthy and possibly expensive process. Some companies have waited months for approvals.On the bright side, this push has been accompanied by more leeway with applications and 3rd parties on Facebook hosting contests. Like this one from Express (http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=Express&init=quick#!/express?v=app_6009294086&ref=search) While third party services might cost a little more in build time, they have a much more branded look and feel and offer a much greater amount of functionality.
- Facebook wants businesses, other organizations, public figures and other “official” entities owning their own pages. But, since the Pages launched as a feature of the site a couple years ago, how do we say… non-representatives of these entities have been making Pages on their own.Facebook regularly takes Pages away from these people and gives them to the rightful owners, which is one reason why you might see certain slow-growing Pages gain thousands of fans overnight. Other times, it just shuts them down. Unlike domain squatting on the open web, Facebook doesn’t allow first come, first serve Page creation. It wants authorized Page owners actively doing things like interacting with users, spending on advertising, etc.So Facebook created Community Pages. One thing to watch out for: Generate support for your favorite cause or topic by creating a Community Page. If it become very popular (attracting thousands of fans), it will be adopted and maintained by the Facebook community. -From Facebook’s terms of serviceI bring this up as a challenge because it has been a marketing tactic to spring up many Facebook Pages or to try and own generalized topics. This is getting a lot harder to do and if your work makes it successful, then Facebook can take it over.Go to http://www.facebook.com/cooking#!/pages/Cooking/113970468613229?ref=ts (the cooking page) as an example.
- Late last year, Facebook made several types of pages public. This included personal profile pages and fan pages. While this is an immediate boon for companies looking to increase their SEO efforts and build links from a highly ranked site like Facebook it has also come at a cost. You may remember the privacy battles that occurred after this announcement. Users are now and were then presented with a lot more options when it came to privacy settings. Users now have the opportunity to set different levels of privacy controls as to what part of pieces of profile information are shared publicly and with applications.So, if your business uses an application to contact users, they can now opt. out of providing you their email and of receiving updates from your application.
- In the February 2010 round of layout changes that we discussed earlier, Facebook changed the way that users receive updates from Fan Pages. When you send a message (or an Inbox Update) to all of your fans. You think that an update is automatically going out to fans. And it is, but where the fans receive the updates has changed. They are no longer delivered to your inbox.The most recent redesign moved Messages, Friend Requests and similar actions that require attention to the lefthand side of the page. It moved Fan Page updates a little more. Fan Page Updates are now buried as a subset of Messages.Sadly,there is no notification system to alert you to new Updates from the standard home page. You have to know to click through to Messages and look for UpdatesThis means that for most fans who are not actively seeking out your information on a daily basis, will not see your fan page updates. The challenge then becomes to create strong enough incentives to bring the user back with them having to check their update sections.
- Facebook is big. And it hosts a lot of competition for user attention. Currently there are more than 3 million pages and 1.5 active local business pages on Facebook and that number is rising very rapidly. As a company on Facebook you have to offer users something that brings them back. Offer them something that makes them want to share your link with their friends.Facebook is a pull media. It does not come with a built-in audience and if you start an account without reaching out to users and offering them something worth their time and attention, then you will publish into a vacuum.Again, you just have to keep in mind ways to get users to keep coming back to your page. You also need to motivate them to share the link with their friends. The best Fan Pages do this with contests, fresh content, user interaction and genuine conversation. How will you do it?
- So, we have talked about a lot of challenges and a lot of opportunities. And you may already have a huge list of things that you want to do as soon as you get back to your office. But maybe, some of these ideas are just a little to big to do right now. So, I have put together a list of five things that each of you can do Check out your page’s value and recommendations for growth.Check on the amount of interactions. Spur some action. Go back to Facebook Insights for a more in-depth look.Get a vanity URLAdd a Like Button to your website.Make something exclusive to fans.
- I said before in the presentation that each Facebook fan is worth about $136 a year. Well, how much is your Facebook page worth? To do a quick check and to get a quick evaluation of your site for free check out: http://evaluator.vitrue.com.Speaker’s Note: Go to the site and do an evaluation on M2M Relay. Go through Recommendations section on the site and explain.
- Interactions are the lifeblood of your Facebook page. Are people talking back with you? What is the most popular type of content? What is getting shared the most? Use Facebook Insights to monitor this and more. Then build from your strongest posts.Speaker’s Note: Go to Facebook Insights for M2M Relay or CWS and work from there. Focus on interactions, new fans, post quality and mentions.
- All you need is 25 fans and you can have a vanity URL on Facebook. I would hurry on this one too, names cannot be reserved. Also, be sure before you register your name, because it cannot be changed once it is added. Go to facebook.com/username to show how to do this.
- The Like button is clicked more than 65 million times a day. We talked a lot about social plugins and open graph earlier today. Remember, the Like Button shares your content back to Facebook walls giving you exposure to all the friends of people who have Liked your work/content/products. The Like Button is where you want to start. It is just one line of code that needs to be added to your website. So, talk to your webmaster today and start leveraging the traffic and on-network messaging that a Like Button provides.Speaker’s Note: Go to Bozell.com/insights and your Facebook profile to show it in action.
- The biggest challenge that all Facebook Fan Pages deal with is competition for attention. There are currently more than 1 trillion unique pages on Facebook. What keeps your users coming back? What makes them want to share your stories and posts with their friends. You have to give people a good reason to come back to your page. Hold a contest, offer a fan-only discount, build a cool game? This strategy will depend on what kind of company you run and what type of brand you are, but in the end, only Pages that offer exciting exclusivity enjoy the real sharing power of Facebook.
- Speaker’s Note: Might not use this slide. Depends on Time.This powerful medium is changing everyday. And it affords an amazing outreach potential for companies of all categories and sizes.RECAPOpportunities:Vanity URLSEO Benefits from Public PagesCustom Canvas PageNew Application optionsFacebook ConnectOpen GraphSocial PluginsInsightsFacebook AdvertisingLocation ServicesChallenges:Promotion GuidelinesCommunity PagesPrivacyNotification ChangesCompetition for AttentionWe have talked about a lot of opportunities and a lot of challenges. If you take only one thing away from this presentation, it should bethat it is more important than ever to incentivize Facebook visitors to return to your site. We really have to strive to see the value from the visitors perspective and see beyond our own business goals. This isn’t pay for play, it’s play for play.
- I would be happy to field any more questions that you have at this time. I also just wanted to let everyone know that this was a lot of information to absorb at once. So, just think of this as a starting point, if you have any questions or are unsure about how to get started, please feel free to get in contact with me in any of the following ways.