2 Facebook Changes Affect Page Admins

Yesterday, Facebook discreetly rolled out two Page updates that will affect your ability to grow your fan base and interact with your fans using the Facebook platform.

Merge/Unmerge Places and Pages:

Suggest to Friends:

Amplify’d from blog.hubze.com

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Google and Bing know what you friends think

The search engines are tracking what gets tweeted and "liked" on Facebook.

Do you like search results with friend connections?

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Why Most Facebook Marketing Doesn't Work

So What Does Work?

Promotions and Consistent, Lightweight Engagement

Make sure your fans get something in return for liking your page with promotions likes offers for fans that they can easily redeem. The more lucrative the deals offer, the more sharing with friends with happen. Fans want things like exclusive products/services, drastically discounted prices akin to Groupon type deals, and early notification and registration for upcoming events, ideally exclusive to fans. Promotions should make the fan feel like they are a brand insider, not just a standard consumer.

A big secret of Facebook marketing is that it is easy and cheap to drive promotions using ads targeted only at your fans that link to landing tabs that deliver the offer and encourage fans to share to their newsfeed.

A brand on Facebook should be like a casual friend or neighbor and not try to suck people into heavy levels of interaction. What do you do with a friend? Comment on their photos, like their status, vote on their outfit. These types of interactions take seconds, not minutes, and definitely not hours.

A brand on Facebook should offer their users regularly updated, simple to interact with engagement features. Each of the engagement apps should be fully branded, and run in a separate tab with traffic driven from wall posts, newsfeed and Facebook ad units to increase engagement. Start with a personality quiz. Then two weeks later put up a poll. Then try a trivia app. For special events, put up a gifting app for Valentine's Day, or for the holiday season, a holiday song card.

Some brands, like media properties and well-known consumer brands, get an immediate fan base for this type of lightweight engagement. For the rest, building a fan base on Facebook is no different than building a mailing list in the previous generation of the Internet. It takes consistent engagement, and builds over time.

Methods to accelerate growth include tying Facebook ad campaigns with engagement apps and driving traffic from the homepage. The apps should still be lightweight and fun, with the conversion goal of getting the user to like the brand.

The point is to regularly put up new, fresh engagement features that are easy and fun for users to interact with, that they will want to post to their wall and share with their friends. Then users will interact with your brand just like they interact with their friends on Facebook!

Amplify’d from www.readwriteweb.com

First, deep campaigns don't work. Digital agencies love deep, expensive campaigns on Facebook, with tons of pages, interaction, and art. It fits in with how agencies build microsites and websites, and justifies the $100,000-plus price tag that they like to charge. Examples include lightweight games, prediction contests, treasure hunts where you include friends, and such. Unfortunately for agencies and the brands that drop a lot of cash, Facebook users decidedly don't like deep campaigns.

Facebook users are very sophisticated, and there is no way a single campaign is going to compete on game mechanics with CityVille. If you want to build CityVille, it might work. But, even Netflix pulled their Facebook app. You're better off putting up a bunch of funny videos from around the world and leave it at that. Read more at www.readwriteweb.com

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Survey shows: It cool to like social media

Finally, a trailing report on whether suggesting social media for your company will get you fired.

Study shows that INC 500 companies use social media (which could mean anything) and they report that they will keep doing it.

Another chart we can throw on a slide for the next seminar session where someone asks "How can I convince my boss that social media is worthwhile?"

(my standard answer.. If you boss isn't begging you to do more social media, you need to spend more time on LinkedIn.com.. looking of a new job)

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I don't read books. I read Facebook status updates

this is not my status update

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How Big is the Internet?

Newest stats compiled by Pingdom.

Amplify’d from royal.pingdom.com

152 million – The number of blogs on the Internet (as tracked by BlogPulse). 25 billion – Number of sent tweets on Twitter in 2010 100 million – New accounts added on Twitter in 2010 175 million – People on Twitter as of September 2010 7.7 million – People following @ladygaga (Lady Gaga, Twitter’s most followed user). 600 million – People on Facebook at the end of 2010. 250 million – New people on Facebook in 2010. 30 billion – Pieces of content (links, notes, photos, etc.) shared on Facebook per month. 70% – Share of Facebook’s user base located outside the United States. 20 million – The number of Facebook apps installed each day. Read more at royal.pingdom.com

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How to Use Facebook Tags Without Being Annoying

I love to share, show appreciation and get a discussion going, so I try to answer anyone who reaches out to me through any medium.

You can get my attention by putting addressing a question to me, or including me in a relevant conversation.

It's parties. You want to talk to someone, so you get their attention and talk.

But if you go into a room and yell "LOOK AT ME" you are annoying.

@MariSmith shared some tips to use tagging on Facebook

Amplify’d from www.marismith.com

Do use @ tagging:

To acknowledge and give credit. To provide attribution for content you share. To show appreciation. To help promote other fan pages. To cross-reference other fan pages, assuming there is no conflict of interests. To @ tag your own page strategically (e.g. by way of a signature when making wall posts).

Do not use @ tagging:

As a way to “poach” fans from other pages that offer the same/similar service as you do to the same/similar target audience. As a way to post your own affiliate link on the wall of the affiliate program owner’s fan page. As a way to get someone’s attention for self-serving reasons. As a way to “imply endorsement” by that person/page. Read more at www.marismith.com

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Who says we can't have more friends? (thanks @geoffliving)

I haven't read the source and admit I'm uneducated on Dunbar's assumption that our brains can only handle 150 relationships.

No matter how he comes up with that number.. he didn't include all the tools we have today.

Let's stipulate that we are using a new defination of friendship. There are limits to how many people we can spend time with in person.. but so what?

When I get a tweet from a Twitter friend I talk to every day who says "I hope we get to meet some day" I'm a bit confused.

"Didn't we meet last year?"

"No, I mean "in person"

"Yes, that would be nice.. but would be be closer friends?"

Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com

Put simply, our minds are not designed to allow us to have more than a very limited number of people in our social world. The emotional and psychological investments that a close relationship requires are considerable, and the emotional capital we have available is limited.

Indeed, no matter what Facebook allows us to do, I have found that most of us can maintain only around 150 meaningful relationships, online and off — what has become known as Dunbar’s number. Yes, you can “friend” 500, 1,000, even 5,000 people with your Facebook page, but all save the core 150 are mere voyeurs looking into your daily life — a fact incorporated into the new social networking site Path, which limits the number of friends you can have to 50. Read more at www.nytimes.com

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Why does JCPenney spend so much on Facebook?

I read the bit about JCP putting up banner ads with like buttons and started wonders.

Supposing I had access to million of dollars to get millions of people into my thousand of store locations, and/or my online shopping site, would I set up a DESTINATION on Facebook?

The ordering on Facebook bit make sense.. it's like putting up a new store in a new town. "Go where the people are"

But what about the ads. A banner is luck to get one click. Would you use that to go to Facebook, or send people to your own site?

Amplify’d from mashable.com

JCPenney currently has 1.3 million fans on Facebook. The company moved closer to Facebook integration in October when it began running Facebook “like” buttons in its banner ads. Read more at mashable.com

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Every Author Needs Facebook

Amplify’d from www.bestsellerauthors.com

After turning down thousands of Facebook friend invitations due to their cap on the number of connection one person can have, I finally put up my own page.

Now I get to write a message when someone send a friends request.. it’s got to be unique… if you cut and paste, Facebook will give you a spam warning. This would have been so much easier if I had not waited. Read more at www.bestsellerauthors.com

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Isn't censorship of Wikileaks like closing the barn door after the cow gets out?

I was curious enough to read just how many pages of #Wikileaks were indexed by #Bing and #Google, but does it really matter?

As far as I can see, no one has accused @Wikileaks of breaking and entering or stealing the information. I don't think the coerced anyone to give them the info... so if it's a big deal to keep it secret, why aren't they trying to stop the leak?

Most likely they are... applying heat to Wikileaks to make the most noise... but it seems like they have a misunderstanding of digital data... it's like a tattoo.. once it's up on the net, it out.

If you don't want something repeated, don't say it. If you can't live with that policy and want to keep a secret, make sure you can trust the people you are telling your secret to.

Amplify’d from www.readwriteweb.com

Facebook: We're Not Kicking Wikileaks Off Our Site By Marshall Kirkpatrick / December 6, 2010 5:47 PM / 32 Comments Share 1113283diggsdigg

Classified document publishing website Wikileaks has now been kicked off of Amazon, Paypal, its DNS server and its Swiss bank account - but it lives on, including across hundreds of mirrored sites and is the subject for widespread discussion on Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook's response, from Andrew Noyes, the company's D.C. based Manager of Public Policy Communications: "The Wikileaks Facebook Page does not violate our content standards nor have we encountered any material posted on the page that violates our policies."

That's notably different from what Twitter told us today. Twitter passed around a press statement this morning stating that it is not censoring Wikileaks from its "trending topics" section, but when we asked point blank about whether it will permit the Wikileaks account to remain online or whether it will be shut down, Twitter's Matt Graves told ReadWriteWeb, "We've got no additional comment beyond the statement."

Every company online is likely considering how to relate to Wikileaks. Google, for example, appears to have indexed almost 1500 pages of the site, while Bing appears to have indexed only 10 pages of Wikileaks.ch. Read more at www.readwriteweb.com

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The Facebook Cartoon Hoax.

When I saw the reports tying the Facebook profile pic change nonsennse to pedophillia, I thought "easier to believe than it stopping child abuse"

However it started, it's harmless nonsense. You aren't covering for pedophiles, you aren't going to stop abuse, and you aren't going to loose you Facebook account.

I did like the comment "Can I leave my profile pic the same if I promise to stop hurting children?" That just might be more effective.

Amplify’d from www.thatsnonsense.com

CHANGEYOUPRFILE PIC BACK TO NORMAL!! this cartoon thing has been set up by pedos using a registered charity thing to entice kids. Apparently on the 6th of december you will be kicked of fb if u hv cartoon pics. the more folk that put up the cartoon pics the harder it is for the police ...to catch the sickos!!!

Of course the above message is utterly untrue. The whole cartoon profile picture has got nothing to do with any registered charity and Facebook have not announced they will be kicking people off Facebook for having cartoon profile pictures. Fabricated nonsense. Read more at www.thatsnonsense.com

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One more step towards Facebook's goal of global domination

Facebook moved one step closer to securing a trademark on the word “Face” when it’s used with online chat rooms or bulletin boards, after receiving a notice of allowance from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today.

Amplify’d from www.insidefacebook.com

The trademark would cover the word “face” when it pertains to:

Telecommunication services, namely, providing online chat rooms and electronic bulletin boards for transmission of messages among computer users in the field of general interest and concerning social and entertainment subject matter, none primarily featuring or relating to motoring or to cars. Read more at www.insidefacebook.com

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Will Facebook announce email on Monday #titan

I've got mixed emotions on this.

At first, I used email to track my friends on Facebook... then I turned them off to use Facebook directly.

When I got it tuned to not get 4700 Farmville notes, I started noticing that business friends actually paid attention to message sent in Facebook.

So if I had a @Facebook.com address, would I have to reprint my business cards?

Amplify’d from www.tcmagazine.com

This coming Monday, November 15, will see Facebook holding a new press gathering, and the rumors say its focus will be Project Titan, an email service to rival the likes of Yahoo, Microsoft and Google.

The new service would enable Facebook's 500+ million users to get an @facebook.com email address, and have a more integrated social/email experience. Just bring together emails from other accounts, add Facebook friends, updates, deals, and you've got yourself the next thing to keep people on Facebook even more than before. There's great potential to such a solution so it will be interesting to see how Facebook plays its cards. Read more at www.tcmagazine.com

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Mark Zuckerberg: "The iPad Isn’t Mobile"

I explain that why the iPad is NOT a "game changer" about 23 times a week.

Once in a while, I get thinking that I may be wrong... maybe Apple will live up to the hype and we'll all be talking about another category they dominate soon.

At least Zuck is on my side.

The iPad is a great piece of hardware. One of the MANY MANY coming that will put computer and connections everywhere.. but when the flood of other tablets, giant phones, small computers and tablets of all sizes come out, it will not be a "new category"

Get an iPad, use it for anything. No problem.. just not a "game changer"

Amplify’d from mashable.com

Mark Zuckerberg: The iPad Isn’t Mobile

The real hint to Facebook’s iPad plans, though, is that Tseng focused on the form factor and not iOS. This could mean that Facebook’s looking to build an HTML5 version of its website optimized for tablets. At the very least, Facebook seems intent on keeping a consistent experience across all tablet devices. Read more at mashable.com

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The Future Of Facebook - Forbes.com

URL:  http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/26/facebook-google-micros...

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Twitter to Facebook by Lionel Tilmont ✔ (@vonbrucken) - oneforty

URL:  http://oneforty.com/vonbrucken/twitter-to-facebook?utm_...

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New Flash @BrianSolis is alive

I loved the headline Brian used to talk about Twitter stats.. but thought I'd try to create my own here.. (sort of a market test.. I've already retweeted his version)

And this topic cries out for a little more discussion. Just what Amplify.com is great at. So take a look at all the stats from Edison report and Brian's take on them.. and let's have add our thoughts here.

My take.. Twitter is getting to be very well known, but clearly not as ubiquitous a Facebook or BREATHING.

What do you think? Will everyone tweet? Does Twitter work if you just log in once a week? (I know better than to suggest anyone use it as much as me

What would it be like all your friends were accessible by Twitter the way they are by phone?

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Facebook Kills a Company.. Then Brings Them Back to Life

LOLapps needs Facebook to survive.. but for two days, Facebook cut them off.

Now back up, it make us wonder.. Can Facebook protect your personal data and still provide all the personalization we have come to love?

Amplify’d from venturebeat.com

The incident raises a number of issues. Try as it might, Facebook is finding that protecting privacy is easier said than done, since it must enforce its policies among more than 550,000 apps. Also, for companies such as LOLapps, the bans can come as complete surprises. LOLapps users were completely in the dark, as the apps just vanished from Facebook with no explanation. They worried that their accounts might have been permanently deleted, even though they had poured many hours into cultivating their characters.

Now it has restored them and LOLapps fans can begin playing their games again. According to AppData, LOLapps has more than 16 million monthly active users playing games such as Critter Island (pictured). But the San Francisco-based company said it has more than 150 million users if you consider all of the users who have created quizzes and personalized gift apps. Those apps show up as created by the individuals, not by LOLapps. But LOLapps can make money from those apps. Read more at venturebeat.com

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Skype adds Facebook. Do you want Skype updating your news feed?

Skype 5.0 is out.

Amplify’d from blogs.skype.com

With Facebook integration, you can:

see your Facebook News Feed in Skype post status updates that can be synced with your Skype mood message comment and like friends’ updates and wall posts call and SMS your Facebook friends on their mobile phones and landlines make a free Skype-to-Skype call if your Facebook friend is also a Skype contact

Video calling accounted for approximately 40% of all Skype-to-Skype minutes in the first half of this year, and with the new version of Skype, you’ll receive a free trial of group video calling in beta. We’ve added a dynamic group video calling view, which it easy to follow who’s talking by moving the focus to the person speaking on the call – try it out!

See more at blogs.skype.com

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