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!

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.

Social Media Rules of Engagement

We often refer to the rules of engagement within social media.

Mashable neatly rounds-up the top 10 here. Handy for any brand or marketer considering dipping their toe into the social media space.

- Sam

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.

Social Media Triumphs during Obama Inauguration

Hello and a belated Happy New Year to you all. What better way to kick off the blog in ‘09 than with what is surely already one of the biggest news stories of the year, the inauguration of Barack Obama as US president.

Social media played its own leading role as Obama was sworn in, with extensive internet coverage via live video streams, blogs, social networks such as Facebook and micro blogging sites such as Twitter. The latter surpassed fellow social media site Digg for the first time since its launch, with five times the average number of Twitter messages, or “tweets,” per second.

Over 7.7m people watched video streams simultaneously, according to the Associated Press, in what is potentially the most widely covered breaking news event on the internet in history.

See below for a round-up of activity on key social media sites:

The offical inauguration blog, www.pic2009.org, contained real-time updates from staff throughout the day. US citizens could also submit photos, videos, quotes, links and blogs to the site, with the chance to appear in the official inauguration book.
Microblogging site Twitter set up the official presidential Twitter stream @obamainaugural.Current TV, the user-generated TV network co-founded by Al Gore, combined a live-stream of the event with "tweets." Messages from viewers played at the bottom of both Current's broadcast and webcast.

Photo sharing site Flickr created a special Inauguration 2009 group with members adding their photos throughout the day.

Meanwhile on Facebook users could friend "Barack Obama Inauguration" and send a glass of champagne to friends in the US using the Real Drinks application. The social networking site also partnered with CNN to allow members watching the event on CNN.com to sign in and update their status alongside the video stream, all in all resulting in over one million inauguration-related status updates.

- Sam

Yahoo! Mail – the Social Inbox

Yahoo! Mail has launched a newly designed Welcome page with a much heavier focus on social activity and less on news and messages, i.e. why you might traditionally access your inbox.

New feature “My Connections” contains messages from your most regular contacts, with the option to keep updated with their activities. Yahoo! properties such as Flickr will become an integrated part of the page, while the space will soon be opened up to third party applications.

Expect to see an influx of new applications once Yahoo! opens up their new smarter inbox in early 2009.

Check out the four minute video at the bottom of the article for a walk through of the changes.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081215-yahoo-begins-rolling-out-social-extensible-e-mail-inbox.html

- Sam

LinkedIn Looks For Fresh Revenue in Research

LinkedIn, the global social network with 30 million professionals across 150 industries, has unveiled plans to open up its global network to test market research as a potential new revenue model.

The announcement demonstrates attempts by key social networks to generate revenue within social media outside of simple advertising or sponsorship. One thing is for sure, the surveys should be highly targetable due to the transparency and trustworthy nature of the site, as well as its ability to select groups according to specialised sectors, including experience, seniority and geography.

Trials have been taking place for six months and already have a participation rate of up to 20%, suggesting LinkedIn could take a strong hold in the market against its competitors.

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=132003

- Sam

JanRain helping the extension of OpenID (TechCrunch)

Anyone who has heard my trends presentation knows that I am keen on the topic of OpenID and OpenSocial. Below is a great development of the technology that will allow more sites to begin offering it to their users.

JanRain, creator of some of the most popular OpenID software libraries and a forum-like communications tool called Pibb, has released a new SaaS offering for websites that want to become relying parties for OpenID.

We’re told that the service, simply called RPX, makes it possible to start accepting users with OpenID accounts within one day. This is actually the second SaaS solution provided by JanRain, the first being the similarly named OPX, which lets websites do the opposite: provide OpenID accounts to users, who can then sign into any other websites that accept them. JanRain also provides OpenID accounts to users directly through its myOpenID service.

Helping websites become relying partners is more important (at least at this point in the game) than helping them become providing partners. That’s because few popular sites accept OpenID and, consequently, consumers see little reason to set up OpenID accounts for themselves. This is an even bigger problem than the user experience issues that have plagued the movement over the last few years.

RPX is being marketed toward medium sites that want to increase their registration conversation rates, import user information from elsewhere, and build out connections to other social services via oAuth. It’s not meant as much for big internet sites like Blogger, Plaxo and AOL, who have become relying parties using their in-house technical resources.

The question stands as to whether OpenID will gain momentum through the long tail or adoption by a critical mass of the big players. It will probably take a few very popular services, such as MySpace and Facebook (through their respective Data Availability and Connect services), to popularize the protocol. But once they do, services like RPX should help the long tail take advantage of it.

RPX comes in two flavors: “plus” for smaller sites and “pro” for bigger ones. Pricing starts at a flat fee and then increases based on how many people sign into your site using OpenID during the span of one year.

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.

Great Article on Social Graphs and OpenSocial

Please click on the link below for an interesting article on social graphs, i.e. our online peer network, how this influences user behaviour within social networks and the broader web, and the significant impact this is having on marketing and advertising.

The article also talks about how OpenSocial is going to make people’s social graph more portable, exploring the possibility of bringing consumers' social graphs to a brand website.

Happy reading!

http://www.goingsocialnow.com/2008/08/a-new-frontier-of-social-influ.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

Need examples of Social Media? Use this.

Hello all,

When pitching in ideas around social media, it is always great to show our clients that they aren't going to be the first ones implementing a campaign in this space. However, it is sometimes difficult to highlight examples of how other large companies are leveraging this media vehicle.

Check out the link below for a great curated list of examples (134 at last count!). They are mainly U.S. based but still provide a great framework for brainstorming or for building an education deck.

http://www.beingpeterkim.com/2008/09/ive-been-thinki.html

Happy surfing,

Rick