Facebook is changing and evolving all the time. Outdated features are being removed and new and more exciting features are added regularly.

These updates are added to make Facebook better and more convenient for its users.

If you want to succeed with using Facebook, you need to evolve along with it and learn how to manage it better. If you can use it better you will be able to take advantage of these changes and promote yourself better with it.

Three of the most important Facebook changes and how to make the most of them have been listed below.

Update 1. Subscriptions

Before, the only way users could get the latest updates from you or your company was through your Facebook page. People needed to like your page to get your latest updates. But now with the subscribe feature, people can just subscribe to your facebook profile. It’s like your profile has been made into a page. With this feature, your subscribers can check out all the public updates you post.

People actually like subscribing to public updates because a profile has a face and a personality, which is different from a page which sounds too official and salesy. When they subscribe to a profile it feels like they’re making contact with a proper human and not a brand. You need to take advantage of this and use your profile accordingly to form closer relationships with your subscribers.

So How do you use your Profile Effectively?

1. Promote your Profile

Promote your profile and encourage people to subscribe to your updates. Try and get as many subscribers as you can and increase your reach.

A good place to promote your profiles is on your website or blog. Facebook has introduced the subscribe button which can be placed on websites and blogs. This button displays the number of subscribes you have got too – all people have to do is click on the button to subscribe.

Another way to promote your profile is by displaying the owner of the Facebook page at the bottom of the facebook page. This will make it easy for people to locate the profile and subscribe to it. This can instantly increase the number of subscribers you have got, especially if your page has got a lot of “likes” already and is well managed.

The page owner can be displayed on the page by clicking on edit page which is located on the top right hand corner of your page.

Then visiting the “Featured” section and clicking on “Edit featured page owners.”

Here you can choose the page owners you would like to display on your Facebook page – choose the owners and save your changes.

You could also actively take part on Facebook to get more subscriptions – this can be done by “liking” or commenting on popular pages or on the updates of people you have subscribed to.

2. Share Different Kinds of Content:

When people “Like” a page they usually do it because they like something about it or because they want to receive updates from that page. Normally on your page, you share relevant content from your own blog and from other blogs. It’s the same with profiles you have to share useful content too, as people expect to see these updates – this is one of the main reasons why they subscribe to your profile, and when someone comments on these updates make sure you respond to them with comments and “Likes”.

Another important point you need to keep in mind, is to share anything interesting you come across. This could be funny pictures, interesting articles, etc. Your profile is different from your page and as it’s on Facebook, people will want some insight into your personal life. So make it a point to share some personal pictures, views, articles and images you come across.

Always make sure you use the public option when you want your subscribers to see what you share, as they can only see it when you share it with the public.

A great example of someone who uses their profile effectively is Mari Smith. If you visit her profile you will see that she not only shares her content and other’s content relating to facebook and social media marketing, which she is an expert in, but also all other kinds of interesting  articles and pictures. She also subscribes to other users and pages and actively “Likes” and comments on their updates. This is one of the reasons why she has more than 124,000 subscribers who actively “Like” and comment on her updates.

Update 2. Posting Facebook Updates

Before the posts that appeared in your news feed were the popular updates. These were the ones which received the most number of shares, “likes” and comments. The more the number of “likes,” shares and comments the updates received; the higher the updates were positioned, in your feed. This meant that the popular updates received the most attention. So if your post received many accolades it stayed at the top and received more and more attention. But with the recent facebook updates only the latest updates stay on top.

It doesn’t matter how many likes, shares or comments your updates get, they will still be moved down, as more new updates are posted.

So how can you take advantage of this new feature?

The best way to take advantage of this feature is to post more often. Normally people post updates only one or two times a day, but with this new feature you can actually post more often, maybe three to five times a day. You shouldn’t worry about people unsubscribing, as people will unlike your page only if your content isn’t helpful. If you share good, helpful content, more often, everyday, more and more people will subscribe to your profile or your page.

The best thing to do would be to share content from your blog once, content from another blog another time and ask your followers one or more questions which don’t lead to any link. People like being asked about their life and when you share an update which doesn’t lead to a link people will love commenting on it or liking it, it’s just like tweeting something without a link. When you tweet something like a quote or question which has no links, on Twitter, you will notice that many people will either retweet it or reply to it.

An e.g. of a Facebook page that does this right is the Social Media Examiner Facebook page. If you observe their Facebook page you will find that they not only share content from their blog every day, but also content from other blogs. They also post one or two questions each day. Questions like asking fans; how their day was, how effective is their social media campaign, etc. These questions receive responses through many comments and likes. All these updates by Social Media Examiner are interspaced by comments from their fans who appreciate all the great content they produce and asking more questions about Social Media which Social Media Examiner happily clear, making this a really good and interactive Facebook page.

So if you want to take advantage of the new feature, make it a point to post several updates each day.

Update 3. Tagging People

Now on Facebook you can tag your friends. When you type in@ and follow it with the name of the user they are automatically tagged. When you do this the person you have tagged is informed and they can check out why their name has been mentioned.

This might seem like something that’s not important and redundant, but it’s actually more important than you think. In the first webinar of Mari Smith’s latest webinar series, she mentions that relationship marketing is all about making people feel special.  When you tag someone and write their name in full, people will feel special about it and will treat you better or want to work with you. They will know that you took the extra effort to tag their name.

Even Leo Widrich of Buffer mentions this in his post “7 Twitter Habits to Adopt in 2012 to Double Your Followers”. In this post, he writes that on twitter when you tweet someone else’s post make sure you mention them and add a comment along with it – this will not only help you make a special connection with the user you mentioned, but will also help you get many twitter followers. This could apply to facebook too – when you mention someone’s name on facebook along with a good comment, you will not only make a special connection, but also increase your page’s likes or the number of subscribers you have got.

So at every opportunity you get make sure you mention your friend’s or your subscriber’s facebook name.

If you follow the above tips you will evolve along with Facebook and use it better to get more subscribers and build stronger relationships, which will prove helpful in the long run. Also make an effort to find out more and more about the latest facebook updates and use them to your advantage.

How About You?

What do you think about the latest Facebook updates?

Are there any other ways you can use these features effectively? What are your favourite updates?

Please leave your comments in the comments box below.

Guest Author: Mitt Ray is an inbound marketer and white paper writer. He blogs about Social Media on Social Marketing Writing. He blogs about white papers on The White Paper Blog and is the author of the book White Paper Marketing.

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• Social Media Marketing – 10 Inspiring Infographics
• 6 Fantastic Facebook Marketing Infographics
• 20 Stunning Social Media Statistics Plus Infographic
• 11 New Twitter Facts, Figures and Growth Statistics plus [INFOGRAPHIC]
• Past, Present and Future of Blogging: 3 Infographics
• How Do You Use LinkedIn [INFOGRAPHIC]
• How Do You Use Twitter [INFOGRAPHIC]

Image by dearanxiety

It is projected that Facebook will have one billion users by 2013. The world has just over two billion internet users globally which means that nearly one in two people on the web is a Facebook user.

Facebook as a marketing medium cannot be ignored despite the misgivings of senior management (who grew up in the analog world of Print, TV and Radio) to commit marketing dollars to something their daughter uses to post Saturday night party photos on!

Many CEO’s do not know the difference between a “Brand” Facebook “page” and a personal Facebook profile!

The penetration of the digital social web world into our lives is not a fad that is going away, it is here and it must be embraced.

Bricks and mortar retailers are bringing down the shutters while online shops are feasting on their carcasses and going global with the viral marketing power of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Some Revelations

• 93% of Facebook users share shopping suggestions
• Brands are only responding to 50%  of brand page posts
• 80% of users who received a response to their post made a purchase as a result of the interaction
• 47% of companies have generated leads from Facebook
• 41% of companies have closed deals from Facebook
• Average cost of  obtaining a fan is $1.07
• Almost two-thirds of businesses surveyed use Facebook as their main marketing tool
• 87% of Facebook fans said they are satisfied with a particular brand. Only 49% of non-fans said they did
• The cost per click using Facebook advertising for e-commerce is 31 cents

1. Anatomy of a Killer Facebook Ad Campaign

Source: AES Connect

2. Social Media Makes the Sale

Source: AllFacebook

3. Digital Marketing Report

Source: Webmarketing 123

4. The Cost of Marketing on Facebook

Source: Flowtown

5. The Importance of a Fan Base

Source: KISSmetrics

More Reading

• Social Media Marketing – 10 Inspiring Infographics
• 6 Fantastic Facebook Marketing Infographics
• 20 Stunning Social Media Statistics Plus Infographic
• 11 New Twitter Facts, Figures and Growth Statistics plus [INFOGRAPHIC]
• Past, Present and Future of Blogging: 3 Infographics
• How Do You Use LinkedIn [INFOGRAPHIC]
• How Do You Use Twitter [INFOGRAPHIC]

Image by _tar0_

Before the rise of the social media age obtaining feedback negative or positive was restricted to private abuse over the phone, compliments in a personal email or a glowing testimonial in a letter.

Today by giving your fans or opponents access to a Facebook page, blog comment box or a Twitter account, you can be praised or heckled in a matter of seconds. This is what scares the CEO or CMO who has grown up in a previous traditional world with limited and more discrete feedback!

The upside is that a Facebook Page, Twitter and a Blog can provide you with instant feedback and keep you highly relevant in a connected social web that far outweighs the negatives.

I don’t know how many times I have a had conversations with executives about receiving real feedback about their brand. It scares them and many are still getting their heads around it!

10 Best Practice Tips For Facebook Publishing

These tips will help you increase your engagement and interaction with fans so that they will keep coming back and provide you with valuable feedback that will drive inquiry and sales and keep you on top of your market segment with real time comments.

1. Keep Your Posts Short

The news feed of your Facebook page typically contains a lot of information so having a good headline for your post and keeping the post length to less than 250 characters generates the more interaction and engagement. According to Facebook  posts of that length generate 60% more likes, comments and shares than posts greater than 250 characters

2. Post Photos, Videos and Quotes

We no longer live in a monochromatic 2 dimension world of  the Gutenberg press and the ancient world of the black and white TV. High definition photos and videos in graphic detail and vivid color provide engagement levels that far exceed plain and simple text.

Research shows that “Posts including a photo album, a picture or a video generate about 180%, 120%, and 100% more engagement than the average post, respectively“. What should also be kept in mind is that simple text that is in the form of a quote can drive high interaction!

3. Post Consistently

This is not an exact science but once a month is not going to cut it. Some brands and business can post several times a day but once a day is normally a good place to start. Educational or entertaining content will not be seen as oversharing or too promoting. A good rule of thumb is to have one marketing message for every nine to ten informational posts.

4. Ask for your Fans Opinions

You might be thinking about launching several new products and this will allow you to quickly crowd source opinion that may determine which one you actually manufacture or produce!

5. Ask Questions using the Facebook Questions App

Facebook has a native questions app that is very easy to use. You can find out what is important to people by asking questions of your customers and prospects of how you can improve your business. The interaction and vote can be as simple as one “click”

I posted this question just prior to publishing this post so to vote, go to my Facebook Page.

6. Try Posting “Fill in the Blank” Posts

If you want to give your fans a very simple way to engage with your post, ask them to finish your sentence. If you had a fashion brand you may want ask people a simple statement that requires them to finish off the sentence as to why they like it or how they use it.

Fill-in-the-blank posts generate about 90% more engagement than the average post.

Facebook fill in the blanks posts

7. Give Fans Access to Exclusive Information

This could be done by either breaking the news first on Facebook or providing special content such as a video or an article when they “like” your page.

8. Reward your Fans with Deals and Perks

You can use your Facebook “Page” to not just promote but distribute coupons or link to promotions.

9. Be Timely

Breaking news on Facebook that is relevant for your audience can drive more interaction and engagement. According to Facebook “posts mentioning Independance Day on July 4th generated about 90% more engagement than all posts published on that day”.

10. Localize your Posts if they are Relevant to a Specific Audience

Some of your posts might only be relevant for a subset of your fans. For example, if you are only making some products in specific countries, you might want to promote these products only to people in this country. When using the status button when you post to your News feed  you can send a post just to one country.(see screen shot below)

Use the geo-targeting feature to make sure that only the people who would find your post valuable will see it.

What has been your experience with posting content to your Facebook Page wall?

What has improved your engagement?

More Reading

• Do Shared Links Last Longer on Twitter or Facebook
• What 3 Content Types Drive the Most Interaction on Facebook
• How to Increase Your Blog Traffic by 55% with One Button
• 5 Motivations for Sharing Content
• 20 Ideas for Social Media Content that Engages
• Is it Better to Share on Google, Facebook or Twitter?
• 9 Questions to Ask your Customers When Creating Content

Note: Some of the data from this post was sourced from the Facebook Marketing Bootcamp being run by Facebook from November 1-16.

Image by Gideon Burton

People have been looking for the next big thing for decades, and many believe they’ve finally found it! “Social Media”. From MySpace to blogging, finding a way to make a living off being popular is the new frontier.

Of course, not everyone views social media as a profession: many of us mistake traffic on our blogs and Twitter streams for actual popularity and social interaction. And companies and businesses have discovered that social media networks can offer them an almost endless market for advertising.
But the visit count on your blog, the number of Twitter followers or your Facebook fan “likes” doesn’t necessarily mean you have a captive and active audience. Various factors—most of them completely out of your control—can affect who sees your content, whether they follow you or not.

Facebook Content is Viewed by Less than 10% of Fans

While Facebook’s “Pages” allows individuals and businesses to amass a fan base, that doesn’t mean that people see it. A recent article on All Facebook explains how fan pages’ performances are exponentially less effective than their owners believe they are.

This secret is what most people don’t know!

The breakdown of the article demonstrates that content on fan pages is viewed by only 3 to 7.5% of people compared to the total number of fans subscribed to the page.

What that means for small businesses and companies is that a platform they might use for the majority of their advertising is woefully underperforming.

So, how do you fix it? Facebook uses an algorithm called EdgeRank that determines what users see in their feeds. With a little online training, you’ll be able to understand EdgeRank more, but there’s no surefire way to “game the system” (not that you’d want to do that anyway).

Still, there are things you can do to make your page more accessible to fans.

1. Fresh content is one of the elements EdgeRank uses to rank fan pages, so keep your content current and engaging.

2. Polls and questions are another great way to keep your fans interacting with your page.

Tweeting Tactics and Strategies

Twitter’s 140-character constraints force users to be both succinct and creative: it has given voices to millions of people for whom a website or blog is either too time-consuming or too intimidating. Businesses have used it successfully to reach out to consumers and to perform customer service functions.
For individuals and small businesses, a good tweeter is well-rounded and able to tweet about current events and Twitter trends as well as their product. That doesn’t mean you follow trending topics, but it does mean that mixing your company message with current events is a good idea. And more retweets expands your audience, so make sure your tweets are RT-worthy.

Social media is a relatively new medium, and it’s still changing and evolving. That means users of social media must also learn to adapt to the ever-changing landscape. Fresh and meaningful content, interacting with your fans and asking for feedback are the best ways to make your social media experience productive.

More Reading

• Do Shared Links Last Longer on Twitter or Facebook
• How to Increase Your Blog Traffic by 55% with One Button
• Is it Better to Share on Google, Facebook or Twitter?
• Does Twitter or Facebook Drive more Traffic to Your Blog

Guest Author: Lindsey Harper Mac

Image by Ksayer1

There are two companies we can blame for creating time wasting “apps” and ecosystems on the social web that distract us from the serious matters at hand every day.

It is not hard to guess…. Apple and Facebook!

In fact walking down the street is becoming more dangerous as people with their earphones plugged in and their eyes peering at their 3.5 inch phone screens are very likely to walk into you, or an immoveable or fast moving object.

Facebook “Apps” have become prolific in the last 2 years.

• On average, people on Facebook install apps more than 20 million times every day
• Every month, more than 500 million people use an app on Facebook or experience the Facebook platform on other websites
• More than 7 million apps and websites are integrated with Facebook

Video and Photo Apps Grow in Popularity

Video apps such as “Vevo for Artists” are popular, along with image and photo apps such as Instagram continue to reveal the power and importance of multi-media on the Facebook social network.

Membership sites and daily deal online stores such as Living Social and Groupon are also creating apps for embedding their brand and websites on Facebook and keeping their daily offers in front of their subscribers from places they never leave!…”Facebook”

Most of the Facebook apps are entertainment focused but along with these frivolous but fun distractions, serious business and marketing apps have emerged.

Apps can be used for creating custom tabs such as a “Welcome” page for your brands Facebook page, provide a complete environment to market your bands music or place your online store in Facebook.

5 Top Facebook Business Apps

Most of the top apps on Facebook are for games and entertainment but amongst the top 500 apps there are a few that are some great tools to optimize your Facebook marketing.

1. PM Custom Welcome Page “App” by PageModo

Pagemodo created a Facebook app that makes it easy for brands to create a much more visually and user friendly “Welcome” page tab as well as other tabs with website type functions.

This Facebook app has as its bragging rights:

• 300,000 daily active users (DAU)
• 6.5 million monthly active users (MAU)

Their description of what the app can do “Create stunning and engaging custom welcome pages and tabs for your business page on Facebook. No coding or FBML required!”

Features

Other features include the following tabs functions

• Welcome tab
• Video
• Twitter feed
• Coupon
• Contact form
• Map and location

The “App” also includes the “Like” gate function as part of its feature set (see screen shot below)

2.  Band Profile “App” by ReverbNation

ReverbNation.com is the leading online music-marketing platform used by over 1,721,000 artists — plus managers, record labels, and venues — to grow their reach, influence, and business across the internet. ReverbNation.com provides free and affordable solutions to individual artists and the music industry professionals that support them in the areas of web promotion, fan-relationship management, digital distribution, social-media marketing, direct-to-fan e-commerce, fan-behavior measurement, sentiment tracking, web-site hosting, and concert booking and promotion.

The Band Profile Facebook app that they have created to complement their web based platform is one of the top musician and artist apps on Facebook

Their bragging rights are that there are currently

• 621,000 daily active users (DAU)
• 12.3 million monthly active users (MAU)

Their description of what the app can do “Promote your band with this application for musicians and artists. Upload music, photos, show schedules, and more. Customize your page and get a Free Music player for all types of bands, hip-hop, rock, alternative, pop, blues, country, and more!”

Features include

• Social Functions
• Mailing list feature
• Download songs
• About
• Videos
• Recommendation
• Fans
• Show schedule
• Press
• Photos

Example of Band Profile Facebook App

3.Causes Facebook “App”

The Facebook  ”Causes” app allows non-profits and supporters to set-up campaigns through Facebook’s “Causes” app. Non-profits can create a page and accept donations directly, while everyday users can set up a page in support of non-profits already on and approved by Facebook

Their bragging rights are that there are currently:

• 100,000 daily active users (DAU)
• 2.3 million monthly active users (MAU)

Their description of  the app: “Causes strives to empower people to have a positive impact on the world“.

4. Contest “App”

This “Contest” Facebook app by Wildfire Interactive can create contests for Fan Pages that enables companies & agencies to easily create & launch branded contests within minutes on Facebook Fan Pages. The following contest formats are available:

• Photo contests
• Video contests
• Design contests
• Logo contests
• Essay-based contests

Their bragging rights are that there are currently

• 30,000 daily active users (DAU)
• 600,000 monthly active users (MAU)

Case Study

Chocolate Bakery wanted to increase awareness but to also gain fans– it chose to use a sweepstakes with a cake as the ultimate winner’s reward. This type of promotion is engaging for users because of the chance to win a compelling prize. It also motivated them to “Fan” Chocolate Bakery in hopes of keeping up with future giveaways of the same sort.

Results

By running a standard sweepstakes, Chocolate Bakery received 264 sweepstakes submissions over 7 days and the buzz around the free cake grew the Fan Page Fans by about 250 fans over the two week promotion.

5. Market Place Facebook “App”

Facebook first introduced the Marketplace application on Facebook Platform in May 2007 as a way for people to post classified listings on the site. Marketplace helps people buy and sell furniture and household items in a trusted environment. Late last year, Facebook turned to Oodle for its expertise in online classifieds, and Oodle has built an entirely new version of Marketplace focused on giving people a place to buy, sell or give things away to the people they know.

Their bragging rights are that there are currently

• 70,000 daily active users (DAU)
• 1.4 million monthly active users (MAU)

Their description of the app: “Buy, sell, and trade with your Friends, Friends-of-Friends, and the Facebook Community”

Read more:

Image by Steve Rhodes

Facebook is constantly tinkering with its ecosystem and manages to stir up and annoy its natives as they attempt to adapt to the new changes.

Protests and feelings ran so high with the latest changes that a Mashable survey found over 70% “hated” the new Facebook news feed changes.

The challenge for Facebook marketers is keeping up with the changes that matter. Some are cosmetic others will possibly impact engagement by fans and  increase or reduce “likes”

Recently there have been some announcements by Facebook that have impacted both the personal and brand pages of Facebook that will need to be considered by Facebook marketers.

5 Facebook Changes to Personal Profiles

1. Newsfeed Ticker

This has maybe created the most discussion with personal users of Facebook. The news feed ticker contains posts and contains “activity stories” such as likes and comments. It is real time and is almost a “mini me” version of a Google+ live stream.
The “recent stories” area now only contains posts from friend, pages, subscriptions and stories posted by apps.
Previous posts may now have a longer life as they will again appear in the ticker when people make comments and you can click on the ticker item to see the post again.

2. Smart Lists

Facebook automatically creates several lists these are school, family and your city ( you can even edit the radius of this list beyond the pre-set 10 mile setting). You can also easily merge lists and easily send a post to just one list. You cannot delete them once you have created them, only hide them.

3. The News Feed

The news feed has now been changed to Top Stories (indicated by a small blue triangle in the top left corner) and is determined by Facebook according to your interaction. Also added is Recent Stories, which are a chronological feed.
Remember only posts such as status updates, photos, videos, check-ins and posts from applications like “Networked Blogs” will appear in the news feed.

4. The Subscribe Button

The subscribe button allows you to make your personal profile more public. You can ensure that subscribers see your public updates. This can be done without having to “friend” people. This is a feature well suited to a more “public figure”

5. Timeline

The personal profile page is now called “Timeline”. It has also now been called your personal scrap book. So you now have the ability to go back in time. You can also hide stories, feature a story or change the privacy settings
For more detail on these changes read Social Media Examiners article by Andrea Vahl.

5 Facebook Changes to Company “Pages”

Facebook has introduced a new metric called “People Talking About This” which will publicly reflect the number of conversations happening about the brand “page”. So we now have a new number to measure in the new page “Insights” analytics tool.

1. New Page Insights Analytics Tool

With the new “Page” Insights tool, Pages can:

• See how posts they put on their Page reach people on Facebook – beyond their fans.
• See Total Likes, number of Friends of Fans of a Page, the new public and internal Pages metric, ‘People talking about this’, and Weekly Total Reach of a Page
• Optimize content for posts -whether they’re photos, videos, questions, etc. – see what’s working best at reaching the most people, and how to increase the viral nature of these posts.

2. People Talking About This

This new metric  measures the number of stories that measures people’s interaction with your fan page opver the past seven days. This includes

• Liking your Page
• Posting to your wall
• Liking, commenting or sharing one of your Page posts or other content on your page  such as photos, videos and albums
• Answering a question you posted
• RSVP-ing to one of your events
• Mentioning your Page, phototagging your Page
• Liking or sharing a check-in deal, or checking in at your Place.

Apart from the number of “likes” this will measure your Brand “Buzz” on Facebook.  This metric appears under the number of “likes” in the left column.

3. Conversations on Pages

Conversations on Pages let brands reach more than just their Fans – which is important in increasing awareness, finding new customers, and even driving sales. This reach extends to “Friends of Fans” which would give my Fan page a reach of nearly 2 million.  Studies by Starbucks has found that friends of fans transacted 11% more frequently. According to CommScore they are also much more likely to to visit a store, website and purchase.

4. Premium Ad Unit

Facebook is also introducing a new expanded Premium ad unit that combines Page posts with social context from your friends when available. When the person viewing this brand’s ad has friends connected to this brand’s Page, Facebook will expand the unit to include a line above that shares which friends like the Page – thus combining the brand’s voice in the ad with a friend’s voice, together.

5. Facebook Page Insights API

To encourage third party development and analytics innovation, Facebook is also announcing a Page Insights API for the analytics developer community, so that they can create customized Page Insights solutions for existing and potential clients.
For more on these changes read Search Engine Land’s article

More Reading

• Do Shared Links Last Longer on Twitter or Facebook
• How to Increase Your Blog Traffic by 55% with One Button
• 5 Motivations for Sharing Content
• 20 Ideas for Social Media Content that Engages
• Is it Better to Share on Google, Facebook or Twitter?
• 9 Questions to Ask your Customers When Creating Content

Image by David Berkowitz

Social media is evolving so quickly that it almost makes your head spin.

Google+ arrived on the scene only a few months ago and has quickly gathered nearly 50 million users, Twitter continues to grow past 200 million and Facebook continues to evolve both its personal profiles and company Fan pages.

The social web is the third phase of the Internet’s evolution which has followed the portal phase around 1995 (such as Yahoo and AOL) and search phase which commenced in earnest in the late 1990′s ( including Google and Bing).

One of the  fun parts of social media marketing is that it is still so new that you need to test things to see what does and doesn’t work.

Recently I have been experimenting with Facebook to see which type of content creates the most interaction with readers and what drives sharing.

This has been driven by some studies and research that I had discovered.

3 Research Results to Make you “Think”

Part of the reason I have held my own little Facebook “Science Lab”, has been these recent research and studies

1. How much sharing is done on Twitter
2. The 5 motivations for sharing content on social media
3. How to get 50% more impressions on your Facebook page

These made me start thinking, sit up and start my own experiment and trial, publishing and posting some different types of content on my Facebook “Page” to see what drives the most interaction.

Facebook has a tool that allows you to measure this content interaction called “Insights”

Four Ways to Measure Your Content Interaction

There is a  new version of Facebook “Insights” analytics tool, that allows you to monitor and measure in more depth, the effect of different post and content publishing, to see what does and doesn’t resonate with your fans.

1.Reach

The number of unique people who have seen the post for 28 days after you have published the post

2.Engaged Users

This includes the number of unique people who have engaged with your post (again over 28 days since posting). This includes any click on the post including link clicks and stories generated.

3.Talking About This

This measurement includes the number of unique people who have created a “story” from your page post.

Stories include any of these types of actions on your brands Facebook “page”

• Liking
• commenting on a post
• Sharing a post
• Answering a question
• RSVPing to an event

Virality

This measures the number of  unique people who have created a “story” from your page post as a percentage  of the number of unique people who have seen it.

Five Facebook Content Posting Experiments

Content on any media is what drives sharing and interaction. The better the content, the more it gets shared.

Also the type of content is also what generates nore sharing and interaction.

The five content types that I have recently tested on Facebook.

1. Photos
2. Questions or Survey
3. Posts from my blog
4. Quotes
5. Infographics

The Results

1. Top Four Facebook Updates for “Reach”

1. Photo with a reach of 1,030
2. Blog post with a reach of  938 (7 Ways to Protect Your Brand’s Online Reputation)
3. Blog post with a reach of 808 (Google+ Growth Explodes)
4. Quote with a reach of 808 – Steve Jobs exhortation to his staff and engineers to build not just good but “insanely great” products. “We’re here to put a dent in the universe“

2. Top Four Facebook Updates for “Engaged Users”

1. Photo with 52 engaged users
2. Blog post with 37 engaged viewers – 6 Fabulous Facebook Marketing Infographics
3. Blog post with 36 engaged users – 11 New Twitter Facts, Figures and Growth Statistics plus [INFOGRAPHIC]
4. Blog post with 36 Engaged users – How to Get 50% more Impressions on your Facebook Page

3. Top 4 Updates Ranked by “Talking About This”  Results

1. Quote – with 24 stories created “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” Steve Jobs (1955-2011)
2. Quote –  with 18 stories created Steve Jobs exhortation to his staff and engineers to build not just good but “insanely great” products. “We’re here to put a dent in the universe“
3. Photo – with 15 stories created
4. Blog Post – with 12 stories created - 11 New Twitter Facts, Figures and Growth Statistics plus [INFOGRAPHIC]

4. Top 4 Updates by “Virality “

1. Quote with 3.2% virality- “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” Steve Jobs (1955-2011)
2. Quote with 2.23% virality – Steve Jobs exhortation to his staff and engineers to build not just good but “insanely great” products. “We’re here to put a dent in the universe“
3. Blog post with 1.63% virality – 11 New Twitter Facts, Figures and Growth Statistics plus [INFOGRAPHIC]
4. Blog post with 1.61% – 6 Fabulous Facebook Marketing Infographics

It was also interesting to note that the photo still ranked in the the top 8 in this measurement!

What should be also considered is that I have only posted one photo and 3 quotes to Facebook, so this little experiment was rather revealing about the power of  quotes and photos for sharing and interaction.

Takeaways

Photos create a lot of interaction along with quotes. The other surprising result that I have noticed since experimenting with “Infographics” on my blog is the increased traffic to the blog and the high engagement and stories that it created on Facebook.

So consider these three top takeaways:

1. Include photos in your Facebook updates where you can
2. Add quotes where appropriate
3. Readers and viewers love Infographics

These all create more sharing and inteaction on your Facebook page and should be woven into your content mix along with good blog post articles.

What drives interaction on your Facebook page?

More Reading

• Do Shared Links Last Longer on Twitter or Facebook
• How to Increase Your Blog Traffic by 55% with One Button
• 5 Motivations for Sharing Content
• 20 Ideas for Social Media Content that Engages
• Is it Better to Share on Google, Facebook or Twitter?
• 9 Questions to Ask your Customers When Creating Content

Image by ratterrell

Social media marketing is dominated by Facebook with research revealing that over 90% of all social marketing endeavours include a Facebook marketing campaign.

Twitter is still used by brands and organisations to engage with an audience and run marketing promotions but its lack of a self service advertising platform has restricted its ease of use as a marketing tool.

There are many ways to market on Facebook including paid self serving banner ads that can be the catalyst to kick off an immediate start to a Facebook marketing campaign or creating custom tabs to capture Facebook “likes”

Many companies marketing teams are still learning to optimise and utilise the reach and the power of  Facebook’s 800 million users as a marketing platform, from when to post an update to what are the best tactics to implement.

Here are some infographics that will provide some tips, tactics and insights into the world of Facebook marketing.

1. The History of Advertising on Facebook

Facebook was founded in 2004 and its main revenue driver is its self service advertising platform that allows companies to create design and place their own banner advertisements on Facebook. It was only in July of 2009 that the self serving feature for brands to advertise was introduced.

Source: Mashable

2. 64 Facebook Marketing Tactics

The number of Facebook marketing strategies and tactics that you can create comes down to the creativity of the marketing team. Here are 64 ideas including.

• Feature a fan of the month
• Create a contest
• Award a prize for fans that share the most

Source: Maria Peagler of Socialmediaonlineclasses.com

3. Five Questions and Answers for Facebook Marketing

There are many questions that are raised during planning your Facebook marketing campaign including:

• What is the best day to post an update on Facebook?
• What time should you post?
• What is the best type of content?

Source: DanZarella.com

4. The Anatomy of a Fan

Capturing fans for a brands Facebook page is the “new” social media marketing equivalent of building an email database. There are many ways to engage with fans on a company Facebook page such as ”Likes”, Shares and “Apps”

Source: MoonToast

5. How Facebook Generates Business for Companies that Use It

It is always good to know what the competition is doing and this survey reveals how companies are using Facebook to market their business.What is revealing about this survey is

• Nearly 20% of companies had a Facebook page before they even had a website
• 23% of Companies hold contests and giveaways on Facebook

Source: PageModo

6. Twitter vs Facebook

The battle for the marketing dollar is dependent on many factors and this infographic looks at the factors that help drive those decisions such as.

• Gender
• Age distribution
• Sharing power

Source: BuySellAds.com

More Reading

• 20 Stunning Social Media Statistics Plus Infographic
• 11 New Twitter Facts, Figures and Growth Statistics plus [INFOGRAPHIC]
• Past, Present and Future of Blogging: 3 Infographics
• How Do You Use LinkedIn [INFOGRAPHIC]
• How Do You Use Twitter [INFOGRAPHIC]

Image by Eveline314

The web was for many years a static one way medium with no features and functions that allowed you to comment or interact with the published content.

It was set and forget.

The social web and social business is about publishing content that is designed to create interaction and engagement. Initial small engagement leads to deeper interactions with the ultimate action being a “sale” There are many types of content we can publish on our web properties to drive this engagement.

• When publishing to Blogs, content is typically more text based with photos added to enhance the look and feel of the article.
• On Twitter, it is text which can include a link with no multimedia due to its 140 character limit and inherent platform design.
• Facebook is a publishing multimedia platform that makes it easy for people to post a variety of media including text, photos and videos

One of the challenges for the modern marketer is to publish content that engages with their audience and drives the most sharing so their ideas and brand will spread on the web. On Facebook the marketer is looking to create engagement and drive more likes, comments and shares.

What are the Three Best Ways to Achieve more Engagement  on Facebook?

According to a study by Roost.com after evaluating 10,000 Facebook and twitter posts by 8,000 small businesses across 50 industries they found that if you wanted to drive more engagement then these are the top tactics.

1. Photo posts – they received 50% more impressions than any other post type or media type
2. Quotes – these provide 22 percent more interactions when compared to all post types
3. Questions generate almost twice as many comments as any other post type

The report also showed that if you want to have your published content shared across fan’s networks then links were 87% more likely to be shared than any other type of post.

What are the Top Two Tactics for Driving Twitter Retweets?

As Twitter is much more text based and driven by the pithy soundbite, it was not unexpected to discover the following from the report:

• Quotes drive 54% more ReTweets than any other type of Tweet
• Status updates are the second highest driver of engagement

I certainly have noticed on Twitter that there are people with large Twitter follower numbers that seem to have been primarily created by posting quotes regularly on Twitter. How to apply quote updates that are relevant to a business setting may require some creativity! The essence of this study is to not forget the importance of photos in your marketing tactics on Facebook to drive deeper engagement with your customers and prospects.

How are you using photos in your marketing tactics on Facebook? More Reading

• Do Shared Links Last Longer on Twitter or Facebook
• How to Increase Your Blog Traffic by 55% with One Button
• 5 Motivations for Sharing Content
• 20 Ideas for Social Media Content that Engages
• Is it Better to Share on Google, Facebook or Twitter?
• 9 Questions to Ask your Customers When Creating Content

Imageby bethers

Facebook has an image problem.

It started as a social network that was initially invented to provide a voting platform on rating the popularity of the fairer sex. It was more about girls than commerce.

The CEO who might be on Facebook  with his own personal profile, often has trouble seeing its value beyond its initial primary use as a channel to connect and share with family and friends.

Senior managers who were not brought up in the world of texting, instant messaging or watching YouTube videos often do not know that there are 3 types of  Facebook profiles.

1. Personal Facebook profiles for individuals
2. Groups for community organisations and clubs
3. Facebook “Pages” for brands and companies

It is often forgotten that brands and companies on Facebook is only a relatively recent addition to the web (less than 3  years)

Facebook is Growing Up

The young pimply adolescent social networking platform is becoming a serious grown up business marketing channel.

It started light and fluffy but now it’s full of application interfaces, apps and advertising. Facebook design and its interfaces and features are now even extending into online stores that reside within the Facebook ecosystem.

Facebook is Not Just a B2C Marketing Channel

The image of Facebook as purely reserved for B2C  with its casual terms of “fans” and “friends” has slowed its adoption by companies that sell to other business not just consumers. Facebook as a “B2C” (Business to Consumer) marketing and online asset is easy to see but you need to think a bit harder and longer to realize its potential as a B2B (Business to Business).

Facebook should be thought of as an extension of a businesses website, blog and online store that promotes and publishes to the channel where its customers are hanging out.

10 Facebook Tips and Tactics for B2B Marketers

These are just some of the key ways to use Facebook for B2B marketing. I am sure that once you put your creative hat on and spend a bit of time brainstorming you will be surprised by how many more ideas you will come up with!

1. Video Channel with “How To” Tutorials

Don’t just publish or embed videos in your blog or website also place them onto your companies Facebook “page”. It could be just as a news update to your wall if it is topical.

If you are providing evergreen content via videos that describe how to use equipment or explain a difficult concept visually it is best to create a separate Facebook  ’Tab” that provides a quick click to your online video library of educational videos.

2. News Updates in Your Industry

Keeping up with trends is important in any industry so placing the latest breaking news can provide yuor customers and prospects with a resource that keep them up to date and informed.

3. Provide an Incentive for Growing your Facebook “Likes”

Facebook “Likes” are the social networking equivalent of those all important email subscriber lists. Provide a reason for customers and prospects to give you their email address  and you will drastically improve your email acquisition rate.

Clear Risk has a compelling reason to “like” its company Facebook page.

4. Capturing Email Subscriptions for Lead Generation

The “shiny new toy” syndrome of social media marketing and Facebook has blinded many marketers to the continuing power of  capturing those all important emails for lead capture and ongoing marketing.

5. Targeting Decision Makers

If you want to target decision makers with paid advertising on Facebook  then tight demographic targeting can be achieved via Facebook’s self service advertising feature.

6. Market Research and Surveys

Capturing information from prospects and customers is vital to understand what is important to them and provides valuable feedback to bring new products and services to market. Facebook provides a simple but free question tool that is placed in the main share tab section of your Facebook page. If you want to  get a little more funky and complex “Survey Monkey” has a Facebook app that makes it easy to run market surveys without having to custom build your own.

7. Promote your Thought Leaders

People buy from people and showcasing your experts is a great way to build trust and position your company as a thought leader in its industry. Here is how GE promotes its “Guru’s” on its company Facebook page.

8. Sell Your Products and Services

There are many apps emerging that make it possible to sell your products and services without making people leave your Facebook page. One example of this is Big Commerce’s online store app for Facebook.

9. Leverage the Trust Factor through Shareable Content

Research shows that we trust our friends and peers 90% but advertising only has a 14% trust factor so making it easy for people to share with friends and colleagues via Facebook is vital

Create engaging, interesting photos and videos that people will share on Facebook. Humour helps! Watch this Cisco video that they embed on the Facebook page.

Click here to view the embedded video.

10. Make your Company Human

The social web has created a much more casual, real and authentic web. Use your Facebook page to highlight the human side of your company. Post videos and images that are not photo shopped models or plastic people and write articles that are more about educating rather than putting corporate spin on your image.

11. Provide Customer Service on Facebook

What is often overlooked is the marketing power of great customer service to encourage that all important word of mouth referrals. Here is how “Get Satisfaction” an Internet software company that uses Facebook to achieve that goal.

How are you using your Facebook “page for marketing in a B2B environment? Look forward to hearing your stories

More Reading

• How To Take Your Company’s Facebook Fan Page from Zero to 40,000 Fans
• The 10 Best Facebook Campaigns
• The World’s 10 Most Popular Company Facebook Pages
• How to Increase Your Facebook Page Fans by 1,000%

Image by topgold