Facebook Patents The News Feed

According to a report by AllFacebook, the Facebook patent for its News Feed (submitted in 2006) has been approved. This could hold serious implications for all other social networking sites using this functionality. Twitter however, is not to fear as the patent covers “implicit actions” and not status updates which is what Twitter is based on. The patent covers stories about the actions of a user’s friends and so perhaps not as substantial as first thought, but it may still affect local social networks if the patent is applicable outside the US – watch this space!

Disaster at the Speed of Light

In this age where speed is King and the internet our support system (look at what happens in the office when the internet goes down), we can see that ever-shortening time frame reputations can be tarnished. Corporations now live in glass houses. If something can be known by the public, it will be!

When Dominos Pizza experienced its crisis involving employee videos aired on YouTube, it reacted with a press release – the lesson to be learnt here is that you have to fight like with like, and the trouble continued until the company responded with its own video.

We need to be prepared in all areas for a crisis, although quite a negative outlook on life, it is realistic. Don’t wait until the damage has been done to develop a presence online, play ahead of the game. The great thing about the internet is that you can react instantly whether the comment is good or bad, and interact with the public like never before.

It’s Not Easy Being Popular. 77 Percent Of Facebook Fan Pages Have Under 1,000 Fans

Sysomos (a social media monitoring and analytics firm) have reported that a full 77 percent of Facebook fan pages have less than 1,000 fans, only 4 percent have over 10,000 fans and 0.047 percent have over 1,000,000 fans. That’s 297 pages in total, which is very small when you think that Facebook reports approximately 632,000 fan pages at the moment. Bearing in mind that many fans are passive and become a fan as a form of support, rather than for active participation (like with Twitter), I have to wonder: How many of these fans even care?

So what can we learn from this?

If we are to set up a Facebook fan page, we should set realistic metrics of success, having fans may be relevant but it is what we do with those fans that matters. We need to give them a reason to become a fan and actively communicate with them to encourage feedback. We need to be as valuable to them as they are to us.

SocialMedia Launches “Word of Mouth” Ads

The concept of OpenID and using a user's social graph to distribute content is starting to gain steam. While I am confused as to why the major portals aren't using this more, companies like SocialMedia are offering advertisers a way of syndicating content and using other people to promote engagement with the brand. See the post below from TechCrunch for more information:

SocialMedia, a company that specializes in advertising across social networks, has released a new form of advertising dubbed the “WOMI”, or Word of Mouth Impression. WOMI campaigns present visitors with ads asking them for some kind of input either though a multiple choice question or using a text field. SocialMedia then uses this input to customize ads which are shown to the user’s friends on the same social network.

For example, if an ad for Star Wars had a call-to-action asking if I was on the Light Side or Dark Side of the Force, it could take my response and then present my friends with an ad that said “Jason is on the Light Side, how about you?”. In turn, their responses are passed on to all of their friends, making this among the first kind of advertising with a viral element. This interaction makes the ads mini-social applications in and of themselves, and have proven to be very successful in trial campaigns.

Research firm Dynamic Logic found that over three months WOMI resulted in increased awareness, favorability, and purchases for the Fortune 500 company running the campaign. In fact, the campaign did so well that it placed among the top 20% of all social media campaigns ever analyzed by the firm, which has been in the business for nine years.

WOMIs are compliant with industry-standard IAB ad sizes, so they can be shown on most sites and social network applications without any customization needed. SocialMedia says that publishers outside of the social networks can also deploy the ads by tapping in vistors’ social graphs using services like Facebook Connect.

MySpace Launches its own Open Platform

Following on from the launch of Facebook’s Facebook Connect and Google’s Friend Connect, MySpace is launching its answer to open ID, “MySpaceID.”

Consisting of two core components, Open Standards and Google Friend Connect, MySpaceID’s purpose is to serve as a tool to aggregate web spaces across MySpace, just as Facebook Connect does across Facebook. Users will be able to publish activities from MySpace partner sites such as Eventful, Flixster, and new partners Vodafone and Netvibes — all of which are developing MySpaceID implementations.

Content will become increasingly personalised due to information provided by users, increasing options for consumers and marketers.

For the full post, click here:

- Sam

50% of Social Media Campaigns Fail

I think that we can all relate to the fact that there is a Facebook craze going on with our clients right now. The link below refers to new research from Gartner coming out next week that highlights the failure rate for social media campaigns by Fortune 1000 companies.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10058509-36.html

If you haven't seen the main goals of social media campaigns which Ali Little has been presenting within the Wave 3 decks, please ask him for them. The article touches on the need for a 'mutual purpose' where the community is benefitting from the marketing activity as well as the client. This is part of the overall list which we have been presenting and a simple requirement that is often overlooked.

Please check with Gartner to get this research when it is released and use it as fodder for properly guiding your clients' budgets.

How Search will Revolutionalise Social Networking

This is the future!

Check out this interesting article on the impact of search on social networks, looking at how social networks are in effect the search engines of the future, hence the significance of the Microsoft Live Search deal with Facebook.

http://www.micropersuasion.com/2008/09/how-search-will.html

- Sam

6 Degrees of Separation now 3

In a new study released by O2, they have stated that people are more connected than ever before. In surveying three age groups (18-25, 35-45, 55+) they found that the average user is connected by three degrees within a 'shared interest or social group'. The study went on to state the people normally are part of three main groups: family, friendship, and work.

Here is a link to the press release:

http://www.o2.com/media/press_releases/latest_pr_14276.asp

The three different groups outlined above highlight what we are currently telling our clients around the fact that 'online schizophrenia' can exist within current users. Work colleagues are asking to be part of your Facebook profile, friends are asking to join your LinkedIn profile, there is a blurring of these three groups. Additionally, there are things that you are comfortable showing your friends that you wouldn't be comfortable showing your work colleagues or family. Therefore, there is a threat of social networks and tools for being 'watered down' versions of one's self rather than what one would normally want to post, comment, or upload.

There are existing companies that are looking to help with this problem. One to check out it MOLI (http://www.moli.com/). While it is doubtful that people will abandon the MySpace's and Facebook's of the world for this network, the concept is important. The ability to manage one profile across your three social groups is important and could lead to an evolution in how the big social networks allow you to display data (rather than the basic 'limited profile' view on Facebook).

Take this trend into consideration when building campaigns. What are you asking the individual to do within the social network? How can we supplement their experience to help them manage these different social groups. Is the time of day indicative of the social group that they most represent?

Go forth and test,

Rick

Facebook……the film?!

Some latest news surrounding Facebook is that a feature film is to be made about the social networking site by Hollywood writer Aaron Sorkin.
Sorkin, who wrote “The West Wing” and “A Few Good Men” and who is famously something of a technophobe, agreed to write the film for Sony Pictures studio Columbia and has started a Facebook group talking about the project. Even though a Facebook spokesperson has denied the deal, it seems a story of the Harvard graduates who went on to found the global phenomenon which is Facebook is inevitable..

Facebook's new ad format

Latest news from the Facebook camp is that they are trialling a new advertising format called ‘engagement ads,’ dovetailing off three of the network’s common user features, ‘commenting,’ becoming a ‘fan’ and giving ‘gifts.’

Dubbed an ‘engagement ad,’ Facebook is hoping that these ads will prove to be more interactive for users than those in the standard format. The idea is that advertisers will become part of the community, interacting with users in the same way users interact with each other.

Engagement ads can be broken down into 3 categories:

Comments:
For example if a new movie is advertised, users will be able to comment in the space beneath the video, and when the ad is then served to the user’s friends, they can see the comment and add to it; also their news feed will show that their friend has commented on the ad.

Fan:
While it’s nothing new to be able to visit a brand page and become a fan, this simply allows the brand to go out across Facebook in order to draw in fans.

Gifts:
Facebook is differentiating between offering standard gifts (such as a teddy bear) and those created by advertisers. The ad-created gifts will only be distributed through the engagement ad format and will be charged on a CPM basis, plus additional fees for the level of targeting required by the advertiser.

Our initial reaction is a positive one, especially to the ‘comments’ option, as we see advertisers and publishers working harder to deliver relevant advertising to the target audience and encouraging user interaction. It will be interesting to see how advertisers choose to incentivise users to leave comments, thereby personalising future impressions.

Initial beta tests are being carried out with a select number of advertisers during September so we’ll keep an eye out for timing and development updates.

- Sam