What Becomes of Facebook in 2014?

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Facebook in 2014

It’s interesting reading the many discussions on what Facebook will be in 2014. The social network has become an integral part of people’s lives, personal and business, and the latest changes to its NewsFeed, filter algorithms and advertising models have many nervous about what to expect. It’s hard to say whether the changes will have a positive or negative effect on the user experience – which is what the company is touting as the main focus of their changes – though it is clear that Facebook is riding a very fine line between necessary profit growth and ongoing user demand. Here are a few of the major changes and their potential impacts:

1. The addition of play-now video ads in your NewsFeed. This one is being flagged as a major concern from regular, non-business users. The addition of play-now video ads has already begun, with a number of users now seeing these come up. You scroll past them and they mute out and you can go on with what you’re doing, but the potential annoyance factor is high. Annoying enough to turn users away from Facebook? Not likely, but definitely one which would seem to have more impact on the user experience than benefit. This addition opens up a whole new revenue stream for Facebook, so it makes perfect sense that they would be going down this path, but it could be the beginning of the end, depending on how it’s adopted. Possibly.

2. Changes to the NewsFeed algorithms to improve ‘quality’ of user experience. This has been an extremely contentious issue, though one not all regular users are fully aware of. Facebook’sEdgeRank algorithm weights the relevance of all updates that appear in people’s NewsFeeds. This may mean that status update you just posted will not be seen by all your friends, which somewhat goes against the ethos of Facebook in the first place (though the impacts of updates from ‘Friends’ is relatively minimal). Facebook has expressed its intention to create an online newspaper type feel to the site, with the content tailored to you, but a part of that is the addition of, effectively, an editorial process and the rules governing what appears and what does not are tricky. The underlying motivation is that Facebook wants to push businesses towards paying to reach their followers and fans by diluting their ability to connect to those who’ve ‘Liked’ their brand-page organically. This is likely to become more prevalent in 2014, which will drive more businesses to funnel users towards their own websites and away from Facebook. The impact of this is impossible to determine, but it really highlights that fine line Facebook is tip-toeing.

3. The focus on targeted advertising. As with the changes to the NewsFeed, Facebook is hoping more users will interact more with ads to give them more data on what they want, enabling them to improve their individual experience by ensuring the ads they see are of relevance to them. The problem is, most regular users don’t see Facebook as an advertising medium – they want to connect with their friends, not be confronted with sales pitches. Advertising is a necessary part of the business, and as Facebook grows, so does the impetus for increased revenue generation. The underlying idea of targeted ads makes sense, that Facebook wants to ensure they’re not spamming users with stuff their not interested in, but the practical roll-out of this model is problematic. The other potential impact is for small businesses – Facebook has announced that it will focus on small business advertising to capitalise on the millions of small business pages it’s currently hosting – which they, of course, need to do, but as they push towards a paid advertising model, how will those small businesses compete against bigger players for space? And if all of them want to pay for targeted ads, will there be enough room for users to share content with their friends?

No doubt Facebook has some of the answers to these questions, while others will be causing the executives headaches every day. It would seem way too early to be predicting the demise of the largest social network in the world, but some have suggested the writing is on the wall. While the changes will introduce a raft of new challenges for business, they also bring new opportunities which, if utilised well, will remain a key part of any brand strategy. But they also highlight the need to remain active on other social networks and monitor the progress of user migrations, staying in touch with more audience share whilst also leveraging against potential fall-out from ongoing Facebook updates.

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4 Tips For Guaranteeing Facebook Marketing Success

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4 Tips For Guaranteeing Facebook Marketing Success

Facebook Advertising

I’ll be honest. I am getting so tired of reading article after article of people writing about how marketing on Facebook is a waste of time. Whether you are a B2C or B2B company it doesn’t matter. If you are not getting results from Facebook you need to change your strategy plain and simple. While it does take a bit of time, effort and budget there is no doubt Facebook is effective and should be at or near the top of your company’s digital marketing plan.

Below are my top tips for creating a successful Facebook page:

1. Understand Facebook’s EdgeRank System

If you want to be successful using anything you need to first learn how to use it. Facebook uses a system called EdgeRank to determine where and how your post shows up in a user’s news feed. By creating new posts that best follow the EdgeRank criteria you can guarantee that it will be seen by the most possible people. While its worth finding a resource that outlines this in greater detail my quick recommendations include: posting regularly around the same time, include videos, photos and links not just text in your posts, have clear call to actions such as asking questions or creating a poll, and post relevant content to your audience. Essentially, the more engagements your post get the longer they stay in the news feed.

2. Content is Still King

 It all comes down to producing good content. No one is going to engage with your posts and you will have trouble building a quality Facebook community if you are not consistently posting content that is relevant and interesting to your network. No, this does not include posting cute puppy pictures or grumpy cat photos. Those tactics are short lived and will not provide long term Facebook success. Plus that is not what your company is about so why post it? It is good to mix in some funny posts or off topic items once in a while, but you will want to make sure the majority of your posts are related to your company or industry.

3. Sponsored and Promoted Posts

 Going the free route will only take you so far. Sometimes it helps to get a little boost by trying out the Facebook paid advertising options.  If you have a smaller budget try out the Sponsored Stories and Promoted Posts. These two options keep users on Facebook rather than sending to external sites and this is the preferred method of Facebook. Sponsored stories are great since those are essentially word of mouth recommendations from friends. So if a friend checks in somewhere or ‘Likes’ a page your brand can sponsor those posts so their friends will also see and be likely to ‘Like’ it as well. Promoted Posts are also great when you have an important announcement or content that you want the most amount of people to see and engage with. This option allows you to stay at the top of news feeds longer and when people engage with it their friends will also see it as well.

4. Test, Test and Test!

In marketing you can never keep doing the same thing over and over again. You have to constantly switch things up and test your strategies and Facebook is no different. Test different kinds of posts between text, pictures, video, links, polls etc… See which one’s your followers enjoy engaging with more and also what kind of topics resonate most with them. When you try out the paid advertising options test out different budgets, tactics and see which ones provide the best results. Over time you will find the winning formula that works best for your brand or company.

To me there is no doubt Facebook is a viable and effective advertising option that should not be ignored. Next time you read an article about how it does not work for someone don’t jump to conclusions give it a fair shot using some of the tips above and see how it works out for you.

What are your thoughts and experiences with advertising on Facebook? Comment below!

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Facebook Privacy and User Habits [INFOGRAPHIC]

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English: Infographic on how Social Media are b...

English: Infographic on how Social Media are being used, and how everything is changed by them. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Do you really care about your Facebook privacy? Do you know who is seeing your personal information on Facebook? Exposing too much for your personal information can leave you vulnerable to unwanted attention, and even possibly lead to identify theft. While Facebook allows users to control their privacy settings, how often do people actually use them? The team at NextAdvisor decided to find out. They surveyed 853 Facebook users ages 18 and older about how they use their Facebook privacy settings, and here is what they found.

Facebook Privacy And User Habits [INFOGRAPHIC]

Facebook Privacy: How Exposed Are You?

Things to remember for your Facebook privacy

  • Regularly checking your privacy settings is important because Facebook makes changes to the privacy section a few times per year.
  • As a safety issue be aware of whether Facebook is posting your location or not, and toggle this settings every time you post.
  • Your passwords should contain some variation of at least six letters, one number and one special character.
  • Stay aware of what is being published on your Timeline without your knowledge. There’s a privacy feature that allows you to review tags before they are published.
  • When you allow 3rd party applications to access your Facebook, you’re allowing them access to your personal details, Timeline or even you list of friends.

Connect: Twitter LinkedIn Facebook website

Authored by:

Irfan Ahmad

I’m a blogger, social media savvy and founder of Digitalinformationworld. Love to explore the internet and show people interesting infographics. Follow me onGoogle+ and Pinterest.

See complete profile

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How has marketing on Facebook evolved?

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How has marketing on Facebook evolved?
Since we introduced the Like button in 2010, fans have been key to marketing
on Facebook. At first, brands needed fans in order to share their messages in
News Feed, where people spend more than 50% of their time on the platform.
In 2012, to increase the effectiveness of marketing on Facebook, we enabled
marketers to reach all of their existing and potential customers—not just
fans—in News Feed on desktop and mobile.
How can your brand’s messages appear in News Feed?
Brands have always been able to reach some of their fans in News Feed without
using paid media and can continue to do so. But content that is eligible to
be shown in News Feed is increasing at a faster rate than people’s ability to
consume it. People are connecting to more Pages and individuals every day. And
each day, more brands and organizations are posting on Facebook. As a result,
we expect organic distribution of an individual Page’s posts to gradually decline
over time as we continually work to make sure people have a meaningful
experience on the site. Your post has a better chance of appearing organically
to your fans and their friends if it’s relevant to them and if their friends interact
with it (see “Creating a personalized newspaper” below). But to maximize
delivery of your message in News Feed, your brand should consider using paid
distribution, as it enables you to reach people beyond your fan base and move
beyond the organic competition.
Creating a personalized newspaper
To make peoples’ News Feeds read like personalized newspapers curated by the family,
friends and businesses they care about, we continually prioritize content based on a
variety of factors, including (but not limited to):
• The number of times they engage with that friend or brand Page
posting a piece of content
• The number of likes, shares and comments a post has received
How can Facebook work for your brand?
As the world’s largest social network, Facebook offers your brand the opportunity to engage in conversation with a network of 1.19
billion people. As a global marketing platform, Facebook offers the predictability, targeting and scale that enables you to reach all of the
people who matter to your brand. While your fans are likely your most loyal customers, you shouldn’t rely solely on fans to grow your
business. When you reach both fans and non-fans on Facebook, you can achieve your marketing goals with remarkable efficiency when
compared to other media platforms.
[Source: Datalogix study of over 60 campaigns on Facebook, June 2013]
return on ad spend
(70% of campaigns
on Facebook)
3x 5x return on ad spend (over 49% of campaigns
on Facebook)
Publishing “thumb-worthy” content in News Feed
The formula for great, effective creative on Facebook is the same as
it is on any other platform. To develop ads that will help your brand
achieve your desired results, make sure your messaging is grounded in
your campaign objectives, driven by consumer insight, and expressed
through compelling creative ideas.
To create News Feed-friendly content:
• Be relevant by offering something that
provides value in exchange for the time
people spend looking at your ad
• Be compelling so that your ad gets the
attention of your desired audience, even
when it appears next to vacation photos
and birth announcements. Bold imagery
and video grab attention
• Be authentic by remaining consistent with
brand positioning and tone
• Use simple, short copy to ensure message
salience
Think fast.
!
greater return on ad
spend for campaigns in
News Feed versus righthand
side ads
96% of time on Facebook is
>50% spent in News Feed
of US smartphone users
check News Feed several
times a day
63%
of US smartphone users
read their News Feed at
least once a day
90%
[Source: ROAS stat from Datalogix multi-advertiser meta analysis (US), 2013, IDC Always Connected
Report, US, March 2013]
High-impact placements
People are more likely to discover and engage with your brand in
News Feed than on your Page or Facebook app because News Feed
is where they spend the majority of their time on the platform. Your
message in News Feed can reach people across a wide variety of devices,
including desktop, mobile and tablets.
Brazil India Indonesia UK US
Monthly
Active Users
76MM
82MM
65MM
33MM
179MM
Monthly Active
Mobile Users
44MM
62MM
55MM
26MM
142MM
Daily
Active Users
47MM
34MM
33MM
24MM
128MM
Daily Active
Mobile Users
20MM
24MM
28MM
20MM
101MM
[Source: Facebook internal data based on inferred and stated data, June 2013]
Broad reach
The fact that 1.19 billion people globally are on Facebook, and that we
understand who they are and what they like, enables your business to
reach the exact people you’re looking for—at tremendous scale:
• More people every day in the US than the 2013 Super Bowl
• Daily reach in the UK equals the 2012 Olympics closing ceremony on
BBC One
• 1.4X greater monthly reach in Brazil than pay TV
Facebook
Avg.
92%
76%
Broad Demo Accuracy (e.g. All 30+)
Facebook
Avg.
84%
24%
Narrow Demo Accuracy (e.g. W18-34)
[Source: Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings, August 2013. Study examined at Facebook vs. average
online campaigns.]
Highly accurate targeting
People are their true selves on Facebook—they don’t use avatars or
aliases—which means we can deliver more accurate targeting, based
on self-reported information.
How can you use Facebook to move the needle
for your business?
Your brand can generate significant results by capitalizing on the
ability to reach all of your existing and potential customers in
high-impact placements on Facebook.
How should my brand think about having the right
number of the right fans?
To maximize the power of fans, your brand should find and
acquire actual customers and true brand advocates.
• Prioritize fan quality, not quantity, by gaining fans in an
authentic way (i.e., find people who truly want to be connected
to your brand).
• Find high-value fans by using tools such as custom audiences
and lookalike audiences, which enable your brand to find and
reach your existing and potential customers on Facebook.
• Recognize that adding fans can provide value to your business
up to the point when you’re reaching nearly 100% of your target
audience with ads featuring social context. To check what
percent of your ads feature social context, visit the Reports
tab (facebook.com/ads/manage/reporting.php) in your Ads
Manager.
Key takeaways
Reach people in News Feed where they spend the majority
of their time.
Ensure your message reaches all of your existing and
potential customers—not just your fans.
Leverage your fans for the advertising advantage they offer
through social context and organic reach.
Focus on crafting great creative, just as you would for any
other platform.
How can your brand benefit from fans in your
marketing efforts?
We think of Facebook not just as social marketing, but as
marketing that works best because it is social. Your brand can
fully benefit from having fans when most of your ads show social
context, which increases advertising effectiveness and efficiency.
There are several ways that your brand can leverage the benefits
of having fans to help meet your business objectives:
1. Improve advertising effectiveness. Social context in ads can increase
ad recall and impact on brand and sales.
• Ads with social context have 50% higher recall.
[Nielsen study of 79 advertising campaigns on Facebook]
• Ads with social context drove >15% sales lift compared to <5%
sales lift for Facebook Ads with no social context. [A Datalogix
study for a large global CPG brand, Sep. 2013]
2. Lower cost for paid distribution: For any person using Facebook,
brands will pay less to deliver an ad with social context to that person
than an ad without social context because our algorithm favors ads
with social context.
3. Benefit from organic distribution: Although organic distribution is not
guaranteed, you will likely generate earned media by posting quality
content on Facebook to reach a portion of your fan base.
4. Gain audience insights: Fan insights (e.g., geographic, demographic,
likes/interests) can enhance your decision making on and off Facebook
by informing targeting for ad campaigns and providing insights into
the affinities of your customers that can influence creative or product
innovation.
5. Optimize creative: Your brand can conduct creative testing with fans
to generate real-time feedback on content before investing in paid
media.
Making social context work for your brand
Someone associating their friends or family with your brand’s message
(e.g., “Jessica Watson shared Jasper’s Market’s photo) makes your ads more
powerful and more meaningful because a fan’s engagement with your brand’s
messages on Facebook creates social context.
Social context

Facebook’s Feed Adds More Links And “Related Articles” To Battle News Discovery Apps

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This UML diagram describes the domain of Faceb...

This UML diagram describes the domain of Facebook social networking system. It allows to grasp easily which concepts and relations are used and stored by this system. Such a diagram is a (meta)model of Facebook. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Facebook logo Español: Logotipo de Facebook Fr...

Facebook logo Español: Logotipo de Facebook Français : Logo de Facebook Tiếng Việt: Logo Facebook (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Facebook’s Feed Adds More Links And “Related Articles” To Battle News Discovery Apps

Next Story

Facebook is determined to be your top content discovery destination, so it’s making several tweaks to its News Feed including showing more links to articles, displaying a “related articles” box when you click those links, and bumping old links back to the top of the feed when friends comment on them. The goal is to make Facebook the hub for both news sharing and discussion.

Facebook says referral traffic to news sites increased 170% this year, outpacing its user growth. Still it’s up against serious competition in the news discovery space from specialty services like Flipboard, Prismatic, Circa, and others, as well as social networks like Twitter and Google+.

Today’s move could be designed to box them out. It also ties in with Facebook’s overarching initiative to become the global watercooler for real-time events. Facebook doesn’t just want to host random commentary, but link sharing related to big moments as well.

Specifically, in an effort to help people find more interesting news stories, it will show more news article links in the feed, “particularly on mobile”. It will also show a Related Articles box below links you click. This can show other articles by the same news outlet or that a related to the same topic.

image001

Facebook will also resurface links you might have already seen in the feed, but that have received new comments from your friends. Facebook believes the highest potential for engagement is not just in helping people broadcast news but giving them a place to talk about it.

Finally, Facebook also says it’s going to work on distinguishing between shallow meme posts and true news articles so there’s less click-bait in the News Feed. Facebook warns ”This means that high quality articles you or others read may show up a bit more prominently in your News Feed, and meme photos may show up a bit less prominently.” That’s a big deal to content publishers who rely on Facebook for traffic. Facebook Pages may not be able to score as much easy visibility for their brands by just spewing Lolcats and other image macros.

While Facebook’s relevancy-sorted feed works fine for discovering evergreen articles and the big ideas of the day, it lacks the immediacy of chronologically-sorted real-time feeds that excel at breaking news. To win the news discovery battle, Facebook may need to devise a way to recognize and surface not just what content is the best, but what’s important right this minute.

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How to create great content for Facebook

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April Fools, Facebook Style (Photo credit: william couch)

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English: Data from April 2011 Editor Survey that lists Social Media activities (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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facebook nonprofits (Photo credit: cambodia4kidsorg)

English: Graph of social media activities

English: Graph of social media activities (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This UML diagram describes the domain of Faceb...

This UML diagram describes the domain of Facebook social networking system. It allows to grasp easily which concepts and relations are used and stored by this system. Such a diagram is a (meta)model of Facebook. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Cover of "Facebook Marketing For Dummies&...

Cover of Facebook Marketing For Dummies

facebook

facebook (Photo credit: sitmonkeysupreme)

How to create great content for Facebook

Creating great content for Facebook is now more important than ever for brands. Whether you’re a small business, a startup or a large company, good content allows you to build a relationship with your fans online.

Tip #1: Make it visual

Facebook Tips

Social media researchers have found that images consistently perform better than other types of posts. In fact, after Facebook launched its new version of the News Feed showing more visual content, brands saw 46% more engagement with their posts. Over the past few years, photos have grown to account for 50% of News Feed stories, and Facebook  continues to make changes so that images are even more prominent.

There’s some good evidence behind it too. Social media “scientist” Dan Zarella undertook research into what content performs the best on Facebook. He collected data on more than 1.3 million posts published on the top 10,000 Facebook pages and found that posts with images performed better for likes, comments, and shares, than those without.

Tip #2: Ask questions

Facebook Tips (1)

Facebook is one of the best ways to have a direct conversation with fans of your brand. You can make the most of this by encouraging discussion and sharing on your page. One of the best ways to do this is by asking questions. According to social media blogger, Jeff Bullas, Facebook posts that ask questions result in double the comments of other posts.

Tip #3: Keep it fresh

Facebook Tips (2)

Like anything, building a presence on Facebook takes time. Posting regularly will make sure your followers get new content. Facebook suggests posting about once a day to ensure people keep returning to your page. However this will vary depending on your business. There can also be a risk with posting too much. As Mashable explains, posting more than that can have an adverse impact on your page engagement. It’s always best to post content that is well thought-out and valuable to your audience.

Tip #4: Determine your tone of voice

Facebook Tips (3)

An effective social media presence requires a well planned strategy. This strategy should guide everything you do and say online. John Hayden, the author of Facebook Marketing for Dummies, suggests that there are three key pillars to consider when defining your social media strategy:

  • Your brand. The feeling you want people to get from their interactions with you.

  • Your audience. The different people you’re trying to reach.

  • Your message. The two-way conversation connecting your brand with your audience.

Once you’ve defined your strategy, the next step is  developing a ‘tone of voice’ for your Facebook page . This will ensure your brand is consistent — some brands will be cheeky and irreverant while others will have a more formal style. Actually determining the character traits of your page will help determine things such as whether or not you should use emoticons and  how you speak to users. Social media agency 360i has posted some great tips on its blog about how to develop your tone of voice.

What’s your experience been with Facebook? Share your tips on creating great content below.

Read more at http://blog.canva.com/how-to-create-great-content-for-facebook/#IbSZ6mgCq7e8vpzS.99

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