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Social Media Newsfeed: Facebook News Feed Ads | Hashtags Harmful?

March 27, 2013 / Tim Sohn / No comments

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Facebook Exchange Ads Being Tested on Desktop News Feeds (AllFacebook)
The lines between different ways to advertise on Facebook are beginning to blur, as the social network Tuesday announced what it called a “small alpha test” of running ads delivered by its Facebook Exchange real-time-bidding ad-purchase platform on the desktop version of its News Feed, while at the same time assuring users that the number of ads in their News Feeds would not increase. Facebook added that it would expand availability of this new ad format in the coming weeks. CNET “We wanted to give advertisers and agencies the opportunity to deliver highly relevant ads in News Feed, the most engaging place on the Web,” the company wrote in a blog post. “We also believe that ads delivered through FBX will create more relevant ads for people.” Reuters It ties together two of the most significant innovations that Facebook has made in the past year to its advertising business, which accounts for roughly 84 percent of the company’s revenue. Marketers last year welcomed the launch of Facebook Exchange as it provided a common online advertising technique long missing on the social network. Adweek For now, the FBX News Feed ads are limited to Page Post link ads. Those units would allow, for example, a clothing retailer to promote a specific dress to someone who had recently checked out the item on the retailer’s site and include a thumbnail image of the garment plus a brief description with a link back to the product’s landing page on the retailer’s e-commerce site. Inside Facebook The company is working with a small group of demand side platforms (DSPs) including TellApart, MediaMath and Nanigans. It has also said it will begin making the ads available for more DSPs and advertisers in the coming weeks.

Hashtags Considered #Harmful (Nieman Journalism Lab)
New York Times social media editor Daniel Victor says hashtags don’t attract an audience and “are aesthetically damaging.” There are many useful exceptions, but hashtags for big news stories are particularly vulnerable to mathematical futility. The Next Web Speaking of hashtags, Path has followed in the footsteps of Twitter and Flickr (and possibly Facebook?) with the addition of support for hashtags to its iOS app. The new feature links hashtagged comments to a search across moments, aka posts, but the resulting search will pull non-hashtagged posts as well.

Is Social Media the New Chocolate During Lent? (Mashable)
Hourly Facebook checks were standard for Lucy Church, and Lent became a time to make the change. Like many others, Church sacrificed Facebook-use for the religious season.

Serendip Taps Human Intuition Over Algorithms for Music Discovery (SocialTimes)
Serendip has redefined music discovery by adding the human touch, serving up music that’s recommended by your friends and other music connoisseurs that share your unique taste. SocialTimes had the opportunity to speak with Sagee Ben-Zedeff, founder and CEO of Serendip, to find out more about the service and how it works.

Anonymous Uses Twitter to Highlight Humanitarian Crisis in Burma (The Verge)
The formless hacktivist collective Anonymous, which often hits the news for hacking governments, big corporations and other websites to champion its causes, has taken to Twitter to highlight the mistreatment of the Rohingya Muslims in Burma. “Operation Rohingya” began on Sunday as an effort to bring the plight of the Rohingya people to attention of the mass media.

Twitter Focused on Building Global Town Square (and Dodging IPO Questions) (AllTwitter)
In an interview with Emily Chang on Bloomberg Television, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo spoke of user growth driving everything at Twitter. And when pressed about a potential IPO, he pulled a typical Costolo providing zero scoop intel.

Flipboard Launches Custom Curation Tools, Wants to Unleash Your Inner Magazine Editor (GigaOM)
Flipboard has carved out a niche as one of the leading news and content-consumption apps for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, with its digital magazine look and easy user interface. Now the company wants to turn all of those content consumers into publishers as well: a new version of the app was released Tuesday that gives users the tools to create their own topic-specific magazines.

New Tool: Pingage Helps You Test it Before You Pin It on Pinterest (SocialTimes)
Pingage has launched a new service for optimizing posts on Pinterest. With crafty users who like to post their ideas for everything from their dream weddings to their next tattoos, Pinterest recently beat out Yahoo!, Bing and Twitter to become the fourth-largest driver of traffic to other websites.

Facebook Touts Gaming Numbers at GDC, Lays Out New Plans (AllThingsD)
After a “dark time” of balancing unhappy users and unhappy developers, Facebook turned around its gaming unit in 2012, the company said Tuesday at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Games will be increasingly woven into the “whole experience,” starting with games-focused sections of the new News Feeds and Timelines that the company has started rolling out to some users.

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Category: anonymous, Daniel Victor, Dick Costolo, Facebook Exchange, Facebook Games, facebook news feed, Facebook Timeline, flickr, Flipboard, hashtags, music discovery, Newsfeed, path, pingage, pinterest, Serendip, Social Media, social media during Lent, twitter /

Facebook Relaxes Page Cover Image Rules: Use This Tool to Test 20% Rule

March 25, 2013 / Mari Smith / No comments

Facebook recently (quietly) changed its Page Guidelines around Cover Images. Previously, you could not have any price or purchase information, contact information, references to Facebook features, or calls to action. Now, you can.

The main rule that remains in place for Cover Images is that you cannot exceed 20% text. Why is this? So that the News Feed remains visually appealing and isn’t covered in giant text-based advertisements.

Not sure what 20% text looks like? See below for a nifty tool to test whether your cover image (or any fan page cover image!) adheres to the 20% text rule! Just pop in the fan page ID (the part after the facebook.com/), click load Cover-Photo, then click the areas of your image containing text:

Got Facebook questions? Come join my community of over 470,000 Friends, Fans and Followers! Just click the Follow and Like buttons below to connect with me on Facebook!

Cover Image examples

By way of example, here is a cover image I threw together as a demo (top screenshot) and how it looks after going through the 20% test tool (lower screenshot). My simple calculation was 851 x .2 = 170. Everything to the right of the white vertical line is 170 pixels (with one excerpt on the left as my logo). One critical component when including calls to action on your Cover Image is to make sure you have the actual link in the description part of the photo, e.g. this is the narrative I have: Please take a just a few minutes to complete this 2013 Social Media Survey and get instant access to my latest FREE Special Report: 10 Facebook Marketing Do’s & Don’ts as a thank you! You ROCK! http://bit.ly/mari_survey

Mari Smith - Facebook cover image 20% test

After putting my cover photo to the 20% text test!

Here is HubSpot‘s revised cover photo. Of course, with a call to action like this, you have to be sure to include the link you want your visitors to click through to! HubSpot’s narrative for this image is: Download “16 Companies in ‘Boring’ Industries Creating Remarkable Content” here: http://hub.am/14caEHw

Facebook’s revised Page Guidelines

As you can see from the screenshot below, the rules have been significantly relaxed. Though the newest Page Guidelines revision date now states March 6th (the day before Facebook’s last press conference when the new News Feed design was unveiled), the change of date was made retroactively on March 20th.

Facebook’s revised cover image rules

Just as an aside, I posted the above screenshot with the new cover image rules (thanks to a heads up from Grandma Mary and Social Identities) on my Facebook fan page on March 19th, and it’s since become my MOST popular post of all time with an organic + viral (not paid) reach of 137,024. This surpasses my previous most popular post from September 24, 2011 with an organic/viral (not paid) reach of 133, 431. Though it’s taken me 18 months and twice the fans, it’s good to see the reach numbers up so high again.

Permanent change?

(Of course, we never know if anything is “permanent” on Facebook!) InsideFacebook, HubSpot and MarketingLand were among the first to blog about the change to Facebook’s cover image rules. However, not everyone was in full agreement as to whether this change was official and/or permanent.

It seems that Facebook’s Manager of Small Business, Australia and New Zealand addressed a local conference stating that the cover image rules had not been changed officially and that they would be reverting back to the original terms of service within a couple of weeks. Hm, say whaat? This caused a great deal of frustration and confusion among local social media experts and business owners presenting this information back to U.S. based counterparts. Despite the fact both InsideFacebook and HubSpot stated in their respective articles that they had verified the change was official and permanent, I also reached out to my Facebook contact, who confirmed there had been a change in the rules:

“Reason being is that with the new news feed design change, Page like ads take the cover photo from a Page, so we relaxed the rules a bit.”

Cover images in new News Feed

Yes, that’s right. Not only will your Page like ads showcase your cover image, when the shiny new News Feed rolls out, whenever someone likes your fan page, a portion of your cover image will go out into the News Feed of that person’s friends. This is something to get excited about and to keep in mind when designing your future cover images. Along with the new relaxed rules, you’ll want to get strategic about what you place and where, given only a portion of the cover image seems to display in the News Feed. (Just as soon as we find out the dimensions, I’ll be sure to update this post and announce on my fan page). Actual cover image dimensions are the same: 851 by 315 pixels.

Facebook page cover image displays in new News Feed

So, how will you make use of the new relaxed rules? Have you already updated your Facebook fan page cover image? Please do share in the comments below and feel free to post a link to your page to let us see!

Category: facebook 20 per cent text rule, facebook advertising, facebook cover image, Facebook Fan Pages, facebook for business, facebook marketing, facebook new news feed, facebook news feed, facebook page guidelines, Facebook redesign, Facebook Tips, hubspot, insidefacebook, marketingland /

Facebook News Feed Redesign is a Serious Challenge for Brands

March 16, 2013 / LisaBarnett1 / No comments

“Goodbye clutter, hello beautiful new stories,” Facebook said last week when it showed off its redesigned news feed. But none of those beautiful new stories will be from branded pages.

Category: branding, brands on Facebook, Content, facebook, facebook news feed, strategy /

Social Media Newsfeed: LinkedIn SlideShare Ads | Social Ad Disclosures

March 13, 2013 / Tim Sohn / No comments

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LinkedIn to Let Marketers Use Slide Shows in Ads (SocialTimes)
Marketers on LinkedIn will now have the option of embedding slide show presentations into their usual ad slots. LinkedIn has added SlideShare presentations to its portfolio of content marketing ads, the company announced on Tuesday. CNET The network has signed on General Electric and marketing firm Constant Contact as the initial brands to try out this type of advertising. The advertising will appear as a “sponsored presentation,” and users can click through it within the advertisement or they can expand it into a full-page view. Adweek The ads are being priced on a cost-per-thousand-impressions basis and can be targeted to LinkedIn users’ profile information, such as company name or size, seniority and job function, said a LinkedIn spokesperson. MediaPost When clicked on, the SlideShare ad expands from a 350 x 250 box on the right side of the page to take up most of the screen for easier viewing of presentations. The SlideShare ads reflect LinkedIn’s broader embrace of content marketing as a way to engage its professional user base with advertising that blurs the line between media and advertising. Bloomberg Businessweek In related news, according to a number of reports from insiders close to the company — including some who have talked to GigaOM’s Om Malik and others who have talked to AllThingsD.com — LinkedIn is considering an acquisition of news-reading app Pulse for as much as $100 million. Pulse is one of several news recommendation apps that try to apply algorithms and other filters to suggest content to users — a group that includes Zite, News360, Flipboard and Prismatic.

Tweets Need to Include Disclosures, FTC Says (The Wall Street Journal)
Short-form ads on Twitter and Facebook have the same basic requirement as any old-fashioned ad: They can’t mislead consumers, federal regulators said Tuesday. Whether it is including the average effectiveness of a weight-loss shake or noting that a celebrity was paid to push a product in a Twitter post, marketing companies need to apply the same standards to online ads as they long have to older media, according to guidelines released Tuesday by the Federal Trade Commission. The Verge In a series of mock tweets for a weight-loss pill, the FTC explains that a link out or a follow-up message isn’t enough to cover any disclaimers. Instead, they’re supposed to be included in the text itself. AllThingsD Ugh! This peddling bogus diet pills on Twitter thing is hard! Is there any way to do this with the FTC’s seal of approval? Yes. Yes, there is. You say “Ad” before you start typing.

Facebook VP Talks Ads, News Feed, Graph Search, Algorithm At SMX West Conference (AllFacebook)
At the SMX West 2013 conference in San Jose, Calif., Marketing Land founding editor Danny Sullivan sat down with Grady Burnett, vice president of Global Marketing Solutions at Facebook, to talk about several topics. Burnett discussed ads within the redesigned News Feed, the controversial algorithm that many know as EdgeRank and Facebook’s relationship with Bing.

Social Media Coverage Of Private Pope Elections (WNEP)
Father Rick Malloy is tackling an interesting topic with his class at the University of Scranton: the top secret selection of the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church in a world that treats almost nothing as top secret. “They’ve got a machine in the Sistine Chapel so the cardinals can`t tweet!” said Fr. Malloy, S.J.

AllTwitterLister: A New Series Highlighting Notable Twitter Lists (AllTwitter)
Twitter lists are under-utilized in general, but specifically so in terms of finding and following others’ well-curated lists that could save you time in your Twitter reading and help you form new contacts and leads. So we’re launching a new AllTwitter post series called AllTwitterLister, highlighting notable Twitter lists that are worth your click of the “follow” button.

This is the First Vine Art Ever Sold (The Daily Dot)
If you’re a struggling artist who can still somehow manage to afford a smartphone, good news! There’s money to be made through making videos on Vine.

Mass Relevance Puts Social Media in Motion with New ‘Dynamic Mosaic’ Product (LostRemote)
Austin-based Mass Relevance has been enjoying another SXSW, and the company released a new product to coincide with the annual gathering. Called “Dynamic Mosaic,” it enables clients to plug in content from Instagram, Facebook, Vine, Twitter and Google+ to create a real-time display.

Vimeo Now Lets Pro Subscribers Charge for Access to Their Videos with ‘Vimeo On Demand’ (TechCrunch)
Over the years, Vimeo has provided a platform for artsy creatives to distribute high-quality video clips and films to viewers. Now the company is finally allowing the creatives who contribute to its site to also begin charging for access to their videos.

Republicans are Looking for a Silicon Valley Tech Genius to Solve One of the Party’s Biggest Problems (Business Insider)
The Republican National Committee announced Tuesday it is searching for a new chief technology officer to lead a digital makeover that will put data and technology at the center of its operations. It’s part of a broader effort to modernize the party in the wake of its 2012 election losses.

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Category: Bing, Dynamic Mosaic, edgerank, facebook, Facebook disclosures, facebook news feed, Ftc, google, Instagram, linkedin, LinkedIn SlideShare ads, Marketing Land editor Danny Sullivan, Mass Relevance, Newsfeed, pope election, Republican National Committee, SlideShare, SMX West 2013, Social Media, Tweet disclosures, twitter, Twitter Lists, Vimeo on Demand, Vine /

Facebook News Feed Changes: This Week in Social Media

March 9, 2013 / Cindy King / No comments

Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention. What’s New This Week? Facebook Announces New Look for News Feed: The “new version of Facebook designed to reduce clutter and focus [...]

Category: cindy king, facebook new look, facebook news feed, facebook update, google+ new look, google+ update, linkedin company page, linkedin endorsement, linkedin update, networking club discussion, Reviews, social media news, twitter mobile app, twitter update, wordpress.com business, youtube music /

Social Media Newsfeed: New Facebook News Feed | Pandora CEO Quits

March 8, 2013 / Tim Sohn / No comments

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Facebook’s Revamped News Feed Aspires to be a Personalized Newspaper (AllFacebook)
In an effort to clean up the clutter, Facebook introduced a redesigned news feed Thursday. Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, ironically enough, compared the company’s vision to that of a newspaper. Inside Facebook Zuckerberg and other key employees involved in the redesign showed off a feed that emphasizes photos for all post types. Users can now select category-specific feeds, including feeds focused on photos, music, games, pages and public figures users follow, as well as different friend lists. SocialTimes Facebook’s new Time Line will also feature larger ads. Wrote Brittany Darwell of Inside Facebook: “Just as user stories are richer, advertisements too get more engaging visuals in many cases. At the same time, ads have a new prominent ‘hide’ button that is not hidden under a drop-down menu, as it continues to be for most non-sponsored content.” The New York Times The changes are designed to address the company’s two most vital challenges: how to hold on to users at a time of competing, specialized social networks and how to draw more advertising dollars to please Wall Street. Facebook introduced the new design to some users of the Web version of its service on Thursday, and will extend it to all Web users and to mobile apps in coming weeks. Wired Facebook executives said the new design would more readily grab people’s attention across a range of devices, from tablets to mobile phones to notebook computers. The design is intended to have the exact same navigation across all devices.

Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy Resigns as Pandora Reports a Strong 2012 (VentureBeat)
Pandora may have had a good fourth quarter in 2012, but CEO Joe Kennedy is on his way out. “As part of our board discussions of the road that lies ahead, I reached the conclusion and advised the board that the time is right to begin a process to identify my successor,” Kennedy said in a statement on Thursday. The Wall Street Journal Kennedy has led Pandora through a brief yet bumpy existence as a public company following an IPO in 2011. Pandora has quickly gained listeners, but it has also been tripped up by royalty costs and a lag in making ad revenue from mobile devices.

Sen. Rand Paul Tweets During His Filibuster (The Huffington Post)
Senator Rand Paul spent what seemed like all of Wednesday speaking on the Senate floor in order to filibuster the nomination of John Brennan as CIA director. The senator was tweeting incessantly, so it seems clear that someone else is running his Twitter account.

Former Wired.com Editor Evan Hansen Joins Obvious Corp as Medium’s Senior Editor (The Next Web)
Evan Hansen, the former editor-in-chief of Wired.com, has announced that he is joining Obvious Corp., the creators of publishing service Medium and the habit social network Lift. In his capacity, Hansen says that he’ll be the senior editor for technology and science on the company’s editorial team at Medium.

Follow All the SXSW Twitter Buzz on This Interactive NewsHub (AllTwitter)
Even if you can’t attend SXSW, you can still follow along – if you know where to look. We’re not talking about just following the #SXSW hashtag on Twitter, we have a NewsHub to share with you that plans to track the events and people so closely, you’ll feel like a stalker (a good stalker, not a bad one).

Twitter Approaches Holy Grail of Interactive TV Advertising with New Partner Ad Tool (LostRemote)
With the recent purchase of Bluefin Labs, a ratings deal with Nielsen and the release of its advertising API, Twitter is clearly the most serious new player to pursue the Holy Grail of interactive television ads. We’re starting to see some of the early products, and as is customary with Twitter, we’re seeing it first with an API partner — TBG Digital.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Whips Reddit into Shape with Fitness Advice (The Daily Dot)
Arnold Schwarzenegger returned to his fitness roots by paying a surprise visit to the r/fitness subreddit on March 6. Well before becoming famous for everything from The Terminator to Batman and Robin to the California Republican ticket, Schwarzenegger impressed international audiences by winning the Mr. Universe bodybuilding contest in 1969.

FTC Files Charges Against Spammers Accused of Sending 180 Million Text Messages (The Verge)
Last year, the Federal Communications Commission put new measures in place to protect consumers from spam text messages, and now the Federal Trade Commission is taking actions of its own by filing complaints against 29 individuals in connection with a massive spam SMS operation. According to the FTC, the defendants were responsible for sending more than 180 million spam text messages promising free gift cards from the likes of Target and Best Buy.

With Users in Over 83 Countries, Social Discovery Platform at the Pool Wants to be the Anti-Facebook (TechCrunch)
At The Pool, the Los Angeles-based social discovery platform, is rolling out a big redesign that sees the startup becoming laser-focused on creating the “anti-Facebook” social network for young people. In its February 10-K report, Facebook said that it is at risk of losing young users to other services that are similar to or act “as a substitute for Facebook.”

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