Key Facebook Changes Marketers Need to Know

As Facebook continues to innovate at a rapid pace, it is the marketer's job to translate those innovations into an enhanced experience for their current and potential fans and customers. In the last few months, there have been several changes that affect the looks of Facebook Pages, how they can be promoted, how brands can communicate on Facebook, the impact of sharing, and much, much more. But don't worry. We know that there is a lot to keep up with, so we wanted to lay out all of the recent changes in one spot to serve as a helpful guide.

What's new with the Facebook platform?

Updated Pages
Some of Facebook's changes are minor, but the recent Facebook Pages update is one of the biggest recent changes Facebook's community has seen. The main difference? Pages now look and feel more like user profiles. Page administrators can "Login as Page" and interact with Facebook as they would from their personal profile -- with brands and fans alike. Page admins will even see a specialized news feed and will be able to comment and "like" things from the brand's perspective, making for a more cohesive experience.

The appearance of Facebook Page tabs has also changed.

Iframes are here...
...and they have forever changed the way brands interact with their fans. We can now build even more robust user experiences inside of a Facebook Page, and best of all, we can more effectively track each user interaction.

Basically, many of the things brands have been used to doing with their creative agencies or analytics providers for the last 10 to 15 years was not possible (or at least, very difficult) to do in a Facebook Page tab. For those looking for a deep dive, read more here.

FBML might be gone, but iframes appear to be here to stay.
Sharing is caring (Sponsored Stories)Sponsored Stories marked Facebook's first attempt to let marketers amplify the actions their customers, potential customers, and fans are taking on Facebook.There are now four types of sponsored stories (all of which can only be seen by Facebook friends). The four types are:
Likes: When people "like" something on a Page, brands can employ that "like" in their Facebook advertisements.
Wall posts: The same goes for wall posts. Anything posted on a wall is open to be sponsored by a brand and included in their Facebook ads.
Check-ins: When people use Facebook Places (don't worry, we'll get to Places soon) to check in to a location, that information can be displayed in an advertisement.
Custom apps: Interactions taken on custom applications -- for example, taking a quiz or poll -- can be sponsored.

The launch of Sponsored Stories confirms Facebook's commitment to its Page product, as three of the four initial triggers for Sponsored Stories are tied to Facebook Pages.

Targeting ads to updates
Facebook has started testing ads based on status updates. For example, if a user says something like, "I'm having a baby," or asks, "Hey, what's your favorite hotel in Turks and Caicos?" the ads on the right-hand column will reflect their immediate updates. Instead of saying "Sponsored" above an advertisement, it will say "Related adverts," which makes the presence of the ad seem more natural.

This is essentially the next evolution of "Sponsored Stories." It's still in its infancy and has only been rolled out to about 1-2 percent of Facebook's users for testing. But, if Facebook can combine people -- who they are, how old they are, where they live -- with intent, it essentially becomes the most massive ad platform ever…so stay tuned.

Facebook Places
At the time of the launch of Facebook Places, only 4 percent of Americans had even tried location-based services, let alone used them regularly. Foursquare and Gowalla combined have just a few million users. So when Facebook decided to get into the check-in market, location-based services finally reached the masses. Brands follow consumer habits, and with the implementation of Places, Facebook's huge scale - 700 million accounts - turns an increasing number of consumers into geo-social users. And with the launch of Sponsored Stories, Facebook is reinventing the impact of check-ins by turning them in to targeted advertisements.

Brand tagging (aka, Facebook's biggest minor update)
According to Facebook, 3 billion images are uploaded to Facebook each month -- which is 10 times more than the entire Library of Congress. That's a lot of photos -- and a lot of opportunities for marketers to be featured in real-life product placements.

Not surprisingly, photos represent the most popular Facebook application. Fast Company even believes that the popularity of photos will help "brand tagging" surpass the "like" button. If you think about it, tagging a photo with a brand that's actually represented in the photo is a natural behavior. And it's the embodiment of brand advocacy.

Facebook Deals and social commerce
For those that have been waiting for "the year of social commerce" (we've all been hearing about it since 2008 or so), it's finally here. The launch of Facebook Deals marks Facebook's biggest -- and most notable -- social commerce endeavor. As of now, Deals is only being offered in limited markets, and while the nationwide rollout will be gradual, so was the rollout of Facebook itself (and now we're at 700 million users.

As of now, commerce on Facebook is growing, but limited. Right now, most people are not on Facebook to shop. However, people are shopping in massive numbers on the internet, and sharing the purchases and purchase decision-making process with their social graph. According to Wired magazine, 90 percent of all purchases are subject to social influence.

Right now, we see the value of bringing Facebook to your commerce, rather than (or in addition to) bringing your commerce to Facebook. For example, many brands have sharing buttons on their websites, but they don't know how much revenue is being driven directly via social sharing. Buddy Media recently acquired social commerce company Spinback, which enables brands to answer that question.

There's no such thing as "wasting time" on Facebook
We can't stress this one enough. Understanding the user experience is the most important element to any successful marketing campaign. And with Facebook changes rolling out regularly (there are a few more that have been announced recently), it's the only way to understand the complex and wonderful world that is Facebook.

Optimizing Your Facebook Initiatives

Traditional search marketing holds that there are two ways to get search engine traffic. The first is to pay for it via pay-per-click advertising, and the second is to earn the traffic with optimal search engine placement. In the earned search marketing business of search engine optimization (SEO), a Facebook fan page is merely a web page, just like any other, except that it has the built-in benefit of residing on a very powerful domain. The same goes for YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Smart optimization, combined with the strong domains that house them, can propel your social media pages to the top of search engine results for relevant searches.

With that in mind, here are tips for optimizing your Facebook initiatives, as well as some brands that are getting it right.

Facebook
Quick tips for optimization:

Provide regular updates. Like most social media, a Facebook page is only as good as the content available for fans to interact with. Generally speaking, the more digital assets (videos, photos, etc.) the better. Provide regular updates (at least daily and preferably more, though this will depend on your niche) that encourage user participation. Respond to user feedback. To keep from falling behind, consider creating a calendar of updates at the beginning of each week or month.

Choose a good name for the page. The name of your Facebook page is arguably the most important early decision you will make because this is the very first thing the search engines will see when they visit your page. At the very least, you should include the name of the business. You might also include targeted keywords if appropriate.

Choose a good username. A username allows you to have a "clean" URL. For example, if you choose "dwaynejohnsonrocks" as your username, your page URL will be "www.facebook.com/dwaynejohnsonrocks." These URLs look nicer on business cards and letterhead, and they are easier to remember.

Vanity URLs, as they are called, also provide an opportunity for further optimization with your business name or a selected keyword. Given the choice between the two, the business name will be more appropriate in most cases.

Take advantage of the "about" box. The "about" box is a great place to include relevant content and keyword-rich descriptions. This is one of the only places on a page's "wall" that allows for fully customized copy to be written. Many pages use this space to simply provide a link back to the corporate website or place their tagline, but it is an ideal place to help the search engines understand more about your page.

Customize your page. Facebook allows for a moderate amount of customization. You can't change backgrounds or otherwise skin the page, but you can completely customize other things. For example, you have a large degree of control over how your tabs appear. In addition to adding unique content inside "boxes," you can frame a page hosted elsewhere, which allows for full control over the look and feel of that particular tab (within the confines of the Facebook page that surrounds it, of course).

A customized page immediately communicates credibility to the user and also shows a commitment to your brand's involvement with not only Facebook but also social media as a whole.

Who did it great
Threadless
The online T-shirt company Threadless has been active in social media since its inception. Its business model of printing user-submitted and user-voted designs requires an environment that encourages feedback and user interaction.

Ad Strategy in Social Media

If you use traditional media assessment formulas to plan an ad strategy in the new world of social media, you're making a big mistake. Here's why. If you knew of a way to drive lower cost-per-conversion rates for your online advertising campaigns, while super-charging ad performance, wouldn't you tell your media buyers to adopt that method, pronto?

Advertising against social media (on blog sites or within social networks) promises far better returns than traditional online content, but many advertisers are struggling when it comes to tapping into the power of these user-generated content (UGC) networks.

Social media -- in which word-of-mouth communication reigns -- is unparalleled at building passionate networks of like-minded people, particularly in the blogosphere. Of course, the nebulous world of social media is also a thorn in advertisers' collective sides due to a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the unpredictable content it generates and the difficulty in accurately measuring its impact.

Why is social media so hard to corral and measure? One reason is that the people creating the kind of influential content that impacts consumer behavior aren't necessarily the people who claim the most eyeballs. An "influencer" may have a small audience from a numbers' standpoint but can also have a massive impact on your target customers' buying habits.

The recent Nielsen//NetRatings announcement about the new "time spent" metric underscores this issue. The industry shift away from the page view as the unrivaled metric king demonstrates that the number of hits on a website doesn't necessarily equal the most value for your advertising dollar.

Since the most influential blogs don't always have the biggest audiences, traditional online advertising models can be far off the mark when it comes to reaching the most qualified leads.

For example, an ad buy targeted to a search result is unlikely to place you in front of networks of people with a passion for the product or service you're offering. However, a blog that draws together a community of like-minded readers -- who engage in discussions and share ideas and opinions -- has the loyal audience that can significantly drive up conversion rates.

Initial research bears this out: A recent study from BlueLithium Labs compared ads on sites with UGC, and sites without such content. The ads on non-UGC sites had a 32 percent higher conversion rate; however, due to the lower cost of advertising on UGC sites, the cost-per-conversion for non-UGC sites was 58 percent higher.
Advertisers are sensing this promise. The latest research from eMarketer shows that ad spending on websites that feature UGC (like photo and video sharing) is expected to rise to $4.3 billion by 2011.

The key is for advertisers to define the kind of social media (blogs, for example) that best fits their overall brands and specific campaigns, then design an effective way to surface the content that will truly deliver from an ad perspective.

Finding the people who influence consumer behavior
Locating influencers is a tough online challenge, especially in an internet landscape characterized by traditional media, UGC, social networks and 12 million blogs in the United States alone. Popularity ranking and subjective authority evaluations of a particular website or blog fall short when you take a closer look. A blogger who is considered an authority on a given topic might hold great influence when it comes to that subject but could have less or zero influence if a new topic is introduced. Likewise, a specific web page may be "popular" but ranks very low on the influence scale on a specific topic within a certain context.

A year or so ago, online marketers were advised to listen to online conversations in order to gauge what was being said about their products. Listening will always be critical, but as social media matures as a marketing channel, zeroing in on the content to actually engage with it is becoming increasingly important for brands.
Fortunately, new technologies are making it easier to find the influencers who matter more quickly. And some marketers are finding that, when it comes to social media, simply building relationships with online opinion leaders can create marketing events that deliver measurable business impact.

Screenlife Games, a Seattle-based maker of DVD games, recently used influence-targeting technology to build awareness of the 2007 edition of its "American Idol" game, based on the TV series of the same name.

Screenlife was able to hone in on blogs most likely to attract potential buyers of the game. This was accomplished by searching for conversational phrases specific to the 2007 season, such as "Melinda is the best," that would indicate the presence of a dedicated crowd of "American Idol" fans, or fans of Screenlife games, and not just a blog that mentioned the "Idol" show once or twice.

"We're able to catch general fans of the show and focus in on specific conversations about our game," explains Tony Roscelli, Screenlife's director of consumer research. "We can find out what they like and parlay it into marketing programs."
By monitoring conversations, and understanding who is interacting with the most passionate customers and to what effect, advertisers can generate lists of niche blogs and websites they may not have been aware of, and integrate this data into their online advertising strategy.

Another example of maximizing the power of social media can be seen with Protuo.com, a provider of web-based career portfolio management services. Protuo was in search of the elusive "influencer" audience when it decided to leverage social media technology to help uncover blogs focusing on career and human resources issues.
By monitoring online conversations about recruiting and hiring strategies, the company was able to identify the bloggers most likely to draw an audience that would use Protuo's services. Protuo then invited key bloggers to review its offerings, which spurred discussion and ultimately increased traffic and Protuo.com registrations. During its influence campaign, overall traffic to Protuo.com has risen 27 percent. What's more, Protuo found that traffic from influential websites converted to registration 40 percent better than online leads generated from other sites.

Before you set out to identify the online influencers that are most important to your advertising strategy, make sure you and your team understand how social media requires a different plan of action.

1. Know your marketing goals: Be careful not to get roped into helming a social media marketing or advertising effort simply because it's trendy. Before embarking on these initiatives, take the time to understand what you want from your ad spend. How do you want creators and consumers of social media to respond to your ad efforts? What is their ideal experience? Clicking on a text link off of a blog post, or reading blog coverage of your company from a source they trust and traveling to your site via an embedded link? Figure out the answers to these questions before jumping into a social media advertising program.

2. Rethink the definition of marketing communications: If you use traditional media assessment formulas to plan an ad strategy in the new world of social media, you're making a big mistake. Social media is much more than another way to communicate with your target market; it's a way for your customers to trade information that helps them make better decisions, given that they've become somewhat hardened about marketing spin. These days, they prefer to take their cues from other consumers whom they trust. For a social media-based ad campaign to be successful, it needs to be based on authentic interactions at every stage of the customer lifecycle, not just when you're pushing messages out to them.


3. Find the influencers: You can't plan an online advertising strategy until you know how to reach an audience that's primed to hear your messages. You need to identify where the conversations that connect to your marketing goals are taking place, and who is shaping those conversations. Since influence in the social media world isn't always determined by audience size, this can lead to some interesting surprises. The process of finding influencers turns some conventional ideas about marketing upside down. Rather than first searching for advertising targets and then deciding where and when to advertise, the process begins by determining what's being said, and figuring out who is saying it.

4. See beyond the assumed customer base: Marketers need to recognize that influencers are not always the current customers for their company's products and services. They can be former customers who have become dissatisfied, they may be fans of your competitors, or they may simply have strong opinions about your market. The ability to see beyond your own customer base is an important skill for social media engagement.

5. Redefine what "advertising" means: It's not just about placing an ad anymore. For instance, companies like Protuo can use a social media engagement strategy to generate online leads (which is the objective of many paid search ad campaigns). As a result, the company was able to generate traffic that converted to action better than incoming leads from typical online advertising methods. Marketers don't necessarily associate "influencer marketing" with hard metrics, but the dense network of links that power social media conversations enables consumers reading their favorite blogs to quickly jump to the kind of content that will trigger a purchase.


6. Take a multi-pronged approach: In social media, traditional online ad placement isn't enough to engage your potential customers. Participation is a key step. Comment on the blogs of key influencers. Write your own posts in order to challenge them on important topics. Join in the conversation instead of waiting for the conversation to come to you.

Finally, a key piece of advice for any marketer who wants to stick a toe in the social media waters: If this is your first foray into a social media advertising effort, don't invest too much in the first campaign. Do it quickly, do it cheaply and change strategies if needed. The good news is that social media -- with its low cost of entry and speed of access -- lends itself well to this kind of marketing journey.