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Facebook Reach Down But Engagement Up

Monday, November 19th, 2012

A new study by Group M shows organic posts on FaceBook are reaching less people but when it does the engagement rates are up. The study measured 25 brands on the social network in the five weeks after FaceBook’s September 20 update to Edgerank. The reach of an organic post, which is a post from a brand the user has ‘liked’ as opposed to a post that the brand is paying to seed feeds, fell from 15.56% of a brand’s followers to 9.6%. That is a 38% drop in reach.

That is disheartening news for the social media agency because it mitigates the effectiveness and importance of building a followers list. The good news of this study is that even though reach has dropped a user’s willingness to engage the brand has increased. Before the change to Edgerank only .76% of the views generated engagement, but after the change engagement jumped to 1.49%. Engagement is measured by likes, shares and comments.

FaceBook’s change has made it harder to reach users, but those users that are reached are more likely to be real fans and to spur some sort of interaction. The digital marketing agency will need to decide which is the more important number factor for its clients. Conversion is more likely to happen among those users that engage so the Edgerank change is good, but some industries may favor the reach, for example very unique items. If that is the case, then more brands may need to increase their ad spending on FaceBook to compensate for the Edgerank update’s diminished reach.

Group M Facebook Study: Reach of Organic Posts is Down, Engagement is Up

Tags: Business, Digital Marketing, Facebook, social media
Posted in Digital Marketing, Facebook, social media | No Comments »

FaceBook Testing New Timeline Layout

Thursday, November 1st, 2012

FaceBook has confirmed that it is testing a new Timeline layout with a small number of users. The layout is not immediately discoverable because it requires going to a specific page for a person or brand. Currently, there are two columns and the stories and activities are then displayed in chronological order alternating from the left column to the right column and down the page. What is different in the new layout is the status updates are now listed serially don the left column. The right column entries are now smaller and include the information that is more automatic and not the entries the user typed into FaceBook.

This is not expected to be a major change for the social media agency. There are now many efforts underway to remove Timeline and maybe this layout change will help assuage some of those efforts. It will make for easier reading, creating the impression of a more seamless record. FaceBook has not said if any brand pages are involved in the redesign, but when the redesign becomes final, then a brand’s page will be easier to read. The social media agency might find old updates gain more engagements, as users will have an easier time navigating a brand’s page and seeing older updates.

Facebook tests Timeline layout with single column posts

Tags: Business, digital agency, Digital Marketing, Facebook
Posted in Branding, Facebook, digital agency | No Comments »

Smaller Social Networks Better for Consumption

Monday, August 20th, 2012

FaceBook clearly leads all social networks in sheer size and the volume of sharing and consumption of content. Smaller social networks, however, are much better for the social media agency that is trying to spread content and have people virally share a brand’s content.

In a survey which asked respondents if they use a certain social network for sharing or observing, respondents ranked observing on FaceBook as 20% higher than sharing. The easy marketing winner was Foursquare, where 44% of respondents use the network to share content instead of for observing content. Whereas LinkedIn is the loser in the sharing possibilities as most people are there to read about employment experiences. 68% of respondents say they use the network only for observing purposes.

The lesson for the social media agency is mainly about diversification. Having an item widely shared on FaceBook is the most lucrative because of the sheer broadcast potential. However, getting an item on FaceBook to achieve widely shared status is very difficult. The users on other social networks are much more wiling to share content, but the upside is smaller as there are less people to receive the broadcasts. If, however, the content can be specialized, then that can help boost its sharability. Foursquare’s applicability outside of restaurants tapers off and seems to be irrelevant if the digital marketing agency in question turns more and more big budget and/or white collar. These are all measures the social media agency needs to better evaluate when taking a client’s needs into stock.

Users of Smaller Social Sites Share, Consume More Content

Tags: Facebook, foursquare, Linkedin, Social Networking
Posted in Business Social Networking, Facebook, social media | No Comments »

New Mobile Advertising Venture May Change It All

Thursday, August 16th, 2012

Wrapp is a new company that allows people to purchase gift cards for friends. Not only can the cards be bought for friends, but groups of friends can “pile on” to purchase large gift cards for friends. The recipient has to go to the vendor for redemption of the gift card. Wrapp takes a small percentage of the total value for its share.

The advantage to the vendor besides the value of the gift card is the free advertising that comes with each transaction. Because it is a FaceBook app, all of the transactions occur inside the newsfeeds of users. Wrapp is hoping to attract the social media company to its service because it can offer advertising, even on mobile platforms, that does not involve charging for impressions or charging for clicks. Not only do the newsfeed inserts promote advertising but the gift cards are like other gift cards. They force people to come into the stores. They often force additional point of sales purchases and there is a likelihood that some of stored value becomes unused, which is added value to the vendor.

FaceBook has purchased a startup, Karma, which offers a similar service. As of yet, however, FaceBook has not made anything out of the startup. If Wrapp does live up to its promise, then we can expect FaceBook to enter into the fray which will increase the quality of services to the internet marketing agency as well as bring down the fee charged for each gift card redemption.

Are Gift Cards Mobile Advertising’s Money Maker?

Tags: advertising, Facebook, Internet Marketing, Mobile
Posted in Facebook, Mobile, advertising | No Comments »

FaceBook Updates Brand Targeting

Wednesday, August 15th, 2012

As of August 1 Facebook’s Page Post Targeting Enhanced was available to some brands and will soon be available to all brands. Before this update brand pages could be targeted by country and language, which is of almost zero help in the US and other countries where local marketing is important. Now Facebook allows targeting along such a broad range of factors, that the social media agency will be busy for quite some time figuring out whom to target and whom not to. The basics are all available, age, sex and location but so too are relationship status, education level and as specific as where people work. It will now be possible to target married IBM employees in the Dallas area.

The digital marketing agency workload will significantly jump because of this update. The ability to specifically target people will make the need for content to also be targeted specifically. Brand pages will now become small laser focused updates fed into pre-arranged newsfeeds. Those people will respond differently and the testing to figure out those nuances will be hefty but also lucrative.

Facebook Moves Away From Dumb Broadcasting Tool to Marketing Database

Tags: Brand Pages, Facebook, social media, Targeting
Posted in Digital Marketing, Facebook, social media | No Comments »

Facebook Testing “Save For Later”

Thursday, August 2nd, 2012

Facebook is testing a new feature on both desktop and mobile platforms. When users are given a link to a story, Facebook will allow the user to save it in a folder and then read it later. Currently, if a user is too busy to read something, then she needs to remember it and return to it later. It’s not a huge issue on desktop where browsers have numerous tabs, but mobile devices are notoriously difficult for saved reading.

Social media agencies are increasingly being turned towards content creation This is also a key change Google is trying to create with its latest updates. One of the failures of the new focus on content is that Facebook, as the leading social network to distribute the content, did not make it as easy as possible to read the content. Stories become lost in the ever moving newsfeed and people might feel overwhelmed by the chase to read what is being shared. This change should help the internet marketing company better expose people to its content and to what brands are trying to sell.

Facebook Testing “Save for Later” Feature

Tags: Facebook, google, Mobile, social media
Posted in Digital Marketing, Facebook, social media | 1 Comment »

Facebook Is Shifting Metrics

Friday, July 20th, 2012

With Facebook’s new advertising exchange it is able to open up some avenues for marketers. One of these is the ability to use data from outside the Facebook ecosystem for evaluation within the Facebook ecosystem. One of the larger problems Facebook has faced is its inability to drive conversions. The social network is able to drive other calls to action, but the big one has always seemed elusive. The new data collection abilities of the exchange will make it easier to measure conversions.

Facebook is now beginning to slowly shift its emphasis on metrics so brands can better see how a long chain leading to a sale might have involved Facebook. Facebook will be able to better sell itself as the data will now will be available to show social media’s importance.

These new metrics will also help the social media marketing agency. The agency will be able to better show results to its clients as well as be able to better measure effectiveness of efforts and focus on those more lucrative channels. The process will not be without missteps though. New metrics will be devised and some will need to be discarded. It is an exciting time for the digital brand, but also one certain to be fraught with red herrings and missteps that are intuitive and persuasive. Vigilance will be necessary as these new waters are tested.

Changes in the Way Facebook Measures Brand Impact

Tags: brands, Facebook, Metrics, Social Media Marketing
Posted in Digital Marketing, Facebook, social media | 1 Comment »

ShareThis Offers a Better Frictionless Sharing on Facebook

Friday, July 20th, 2012

Facebook introduced frictionless sharing a few months ago and it has, if anything, created buzz. Third party apps, like The Guardian’s, will automatically post to a user’s Timeline articles read on the site. While this is good for publishers looking to spread their content, this created privacy concerns and many users backlashed by not adopting the apps that used frictionless sharing.

ShareThis is a service that places social media buttons on pages to make them easier to share. It has just released a new service, ShareNow, which enables frictionless sharing, but should allow users to bypass their privacy concerns. The button can be turned off and on, enabling and disabling frictionless sharing onto the user’s Timeline. If a page is viewed and the button was turned on, then toggling the button will remove the entry from the user’s Timeline.

This will help the internet marketing agency by making content easier to share over Facebook. A share button on the page is good, but it requires the user to actively seek it out and select it. Frictionless Sharing was supposed to be the solution, but the privacy concerns and the concerns about non-anonymous prevented many people from adopting it. This new service should ease all the concerns and make content sharing even more productive.

Finally, Control over Facebook Frictionless Sharing

Tags: Facebook, Privacy, share, ShareThis
Posted in Facebook, digital agency, social media | No Comments »

Google+ Earns High Marks For Customer Service

Wednesday, July 18th, 2012

Each year the American Customers Satisfaction Index is released which ranks different vendors in different industries according to how happy its customers are. This is the first year the ACSI has measured Google+, Twitter and Linkedin. Google+ scored a 78, which earns it the highest rank for social media sites. FaceBook came in last with 61 points. Except for Google+, Pinterest beat the other social networks.

The features that set Google+ apart are the lack of ads, a superior mobile service and a commitment to privacy. These stand in contradistinction to how people think of FaceBook, which is about intrusive, irrelevant and frequent ads. FaceBook has also been heavily criticized many times for a lack of concern about the privacy of its users.

This difference in approach does not, however, make Google+ the clear winner for the social media agency’s efforts. It does mitigate the likelihood of Google+’s collapse as some predict. The social network is still growing and as more and more people find it a more peasant experience than FaceBook—except for the absence of people—then it is possible that Google+ becomes more frequented by many users. That growth will then make people check it more often and turn it into an important social network for brand messaging.

The lack of clutter might also make a brand’s efforts on Google+ more effective than FaceBook. There is less to distract customers, and the lack of ads means users are seeing brand messaging inside newsfeeds where updates about friends are also seen.

Google+ earns highest ranking for social media sites

Tags: Facebook, google, social media, social networks
Posted in Facebook, google, social media | No Comments »

Best Metrics For Facebook Page Optimization

Friday, July 13th, 2012

The social media agency is constantly on edge to prove its value to clients. The lack of immediate conversions is a problem, but a larger issue is how to show that the Facebook pages for brands are getting traction and actually improving the awareness of the brand. Amy Porterfield has an essay where she points out the three metrics provided by Facebook Insights that the social media agency ought to pay attention to.

The first metric to watch is Engaged Users. An engaged user is one that clicks on a post. Some users that are responsive will be lost in this measure, but there is a guarantee that these reflected users are engaged. Each post is broken down by Facebook Insights, and the social media agency can use this measure to see what type of post is gaining the most traction with fans. Commonalities like calls to actions and questions being asked can be measured and this metric can then help answer which of those are working best.

Traffic coming in from external referrers is the next metric. Even Facebook pages need to be geared to draw people in to it. FaceBook Insights allows this to be tracked. If the number is low, then the social media agency can take appropriate actions such as optimizing the page for search engines and by including social buttons on other web sites.

The final metric offered is the Talking About This score. This metric will catch all of the engaged users and then some. It measures all of the people who over the past 7 days had any sort of engagement with the post by clicking, sharing, commenting or liking. The best way to boost this number is to ask fans to share with their friends. Fans are often willing to do so.

The social media agency is increasingly inundated with metrics and things that need to be done on a daily basis. This essay helps simplify matters and helps direct the agency to places that can produce the most and best information about its efforts.

How to optimize your Facebook page

Tags: Facebook, Metrics, optimization, social media
Posted in Digital Marketing, Facebook, social media | No Comments »

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