Facebook Insights for domains feature now lets you tag your site to show interactions of Facebook users with your site
We know how important social plugins are now (specifically the Facebook social plugins such as the 'Likes' and 'Comments'). Their usage is constantly increasing with over 2.5m web sites now using them since early 2010, and with 600m consumers in Facebook, it represents a huge source for creating awareness about your brand and traffic to your site. This week Facebook just made visualising, monitoring and managing that a whole lot easier with an upgrade to Insights for Facebook - see this post from the developer blog for an explanation of the analytics and how to set it up. We've done this and it's relatively easy - just adding a Facebook specific meta tag to the header of your home page.
Insights (Facebook's analytics tool) isn't new, it's just been…
Words to use and words to avoid to write more engaging email subject lines
Selecting the best subject line, headlines and content types for emails is a constant challenge for email marketers as they write copy for their campaigns and newsletters.
Which are the most engaging words on Facebook post headlines?
I recently found a good source of insight for words to consider by the excellent Dan Zarrella who analyses consumer Facebook behaviour. I hope this inspires you when you're next writing or reviewing email copy or trying to devise ideas for emails. Of course it should help with Facebook and blog posts too! These are the words that the research showed were popular for sharing.
Source: 7 Ways to Get Your Blog Posts Shared On Facebook
What can we take from this? Well, we have to remember this is an analysis across a massive range of…
What you post on Facebook stays on Facebook. Err, not anymore.
The new Facebook plugin allows asynchronous posting between web site comments and Facebook posts. This is the first time Facebook has enabled this kind of automatic external posting - and in truth it's also something that nobody else can currently offer - a killer feature? We think so.
This means that the new Facebook comments system enables you to leave a comment on the host site (SmartInsights.com, if we had it installed) and opt to have that comment shared to Facebook, too. If a friend in Facebook then leaves a comment on Facebook about my comment, their comment will be posted back to the host site, SmartInisghts.com. In other words, any discussion that my comment sparks between my Facebook friends in Facebook will be seen on SmartInisghts.com as well. That’s very powerful I think.
[caption id="attachment_4376" align="alignright" width="568" caption="Using the Facebook comments…
Facebook has begun rolling out the new Facebook pages design since last Friday, so these are the Pages for brands and organisations, since the Facebook profile pages were updated a few months ago.
The up-shot is all good - Facebook are empowering brands to be more interactive, responsive and visible, we've summarised the key changes below - hope it helps.
A word of caution first! It appears to be in beta since the comments on Facebooks official update indicates a lot of problems, mostly around Wall post updates no longer being in chronological order thus making interactions between page owners and Fans very difficult to manage. Expect this will be 'fixed' before the forced roll-out early March. Here's an example from Heather Chastain "please help, this is the second day in a row i've been unable to respond to posts made…
Fascinating infographic from Pixable - more mind boggling numbers from Facebook...
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Facebook is today launching Places Deals in the UK and Europe, I posted on Facebook Deals in early November launching the the USA with Gap and Starbucks, amongst others. Well, as of this week it's in the UK. Facebook users will be able to get discounts and targeted deals in shops and eateries by checking in on Facebook Places using their smartphone. European partners include Starbucks, Yo Sushi, O2, Argos, Debenhams, and Alton Towers. All making offers based on Check-Ins.
To remind you, the concept is simple enough "€“ users look for the yellow icon when they Check In using Places. You then click on the deal to claim it, and simply show it to the cashier to cash in. Deals that a user claims will also be shared on your Facebook News Feed, which will allow your friends to reap the same benefits should they want to.…
How do Fans really interact with Facebook and how can/should you interact with them
You already know that, along with everything else on your plate, you need to develop Facebook as a valuable marketing tool in some shape or form, so how will you do it? There are a number of ways to leverage Facebook as marketing technique and you need to have 'a reason'"€¦
A place to interact with your consumers and potential consumers - brand building in its crudest sense
A means to manage customer interactions and feedback
A source of relevant traffic to your commercial web site
A means to build a list of potential consumers interested in permission-based communications
In terms of applying those goals you need a fan page, and a Facebook marketing plan.
The challenge
Though your window is your Facebook Fan page 96% will come not come back to it after first 'Liking' your brand, in fact Brand Glue estimate…
An update on Facebook statistics at the start of 2011
Here's an interesting graphic I thought I'd share, though I know we a probably not needing reminder of the beast that is Facebook - and our obsession with it.
The infographic itself is also a simple example of shareable marketing for onlineschools.org at the same time. Cool!
If you ever need to check out the latest statistics on Facebook for a presentation, then there's Facebook's own statistics page. Three we think are important as a sign of marketing tactics as we go into 11 are:
Community - the average Facebook user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
Mobile - 200 million active Facebook users who are twice as active as non-mobile users
Widgets - 2 million websites have integrated Facebook, growing at 10,000 day and 250 million people per month engage with Facebook through external websites
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Our advice - be worth Liking
Value: [rating=4]
Our commentary: I've blogged about it in the past, and of course getting Likes is fundamental to not only Facebook marketing but increasingly digital marketing, especially if you're in B2C. Yet at the same time - the drive to Like can sometimes feel, well, desperate. Though I am the first to appreciate strong calls to action - and some traditional "DM" thinking, it's also worth remembering why the visitor or customer would bother, no matter how big or elaborate the arrows on your sign up tab are. We know that collecting Likes is not the point, it is one crucial part of the process, I think it's the result of inspiring someone in the first place (maybe briefly, maybe they've loved your brand for years) - the Like connection then opens up the potential…
