Top Ten Tips for Facebook Pages

Facebook has 1.19 billion monthly active users

We are regularly asked for tips for optimising a Facebook Company page. Here are just a few to get you started...but mostly it is all about engagement strategies.

Top Ten Tips for setting up a Facebook Company Page

1. Know who you want to connect with, what and why you are looking to connect on Facebook.  Define your goals. Develop a strategy to listen and search. 


2. Choose a suitable cover image. First impressions count. Feature Call to Actions just below the cover image. Image dimensions 851px wide x 315px tall.


3. Highlight posts and publish more than once a day. Remember visual content rules on Facebook. Photo posts get 39% more interaction. Reply to comments.


4. Give focus to building your page and to optimise for Facebook Graph Search, make sure your basics are complete (Category, web address, about section, local place page, address). Tag and geo-locate content.


5. It’s not about the number of likes. The metric that matters is the number of people engaging with your Facebook page. Manage page permissions - can people like, comment, share. The average number of minutes users spend on Facebook mobile is 914 minutes.


6. Share your milestones (key dates) and post effective engaging updates, like question, quotes, competitions. Engagement rates are high on Thursday and Friday and highest on the weekend. Posts at 1pm get the most shares and posts at 3pm gets the most clicks. 


7. Use the tools within Facebook, Apps, Highlighting posts, Schedule Posts in the activity log, Personalisation for Custom audiences, Search, watch other pages, get ratings and recommendations.


8. Don’t forget about the opportunities offered by Facebook Adverts and Promoted Posts.


9. People discover more content from the people they know and pages they like. Consider which posts get shared. Add quality articles over memes. Track, measure and tweak.


10. Cross Promote other social channels from your Facebook Company Page within campaigns.

Facebook has 1.19 billion monthly active users and it is always changing; as you will notice from this Facebook engagement blog we wrote back in 2010

Feel free to share your Facebook for Business tips in the comments section below.


Author: Fiona Anderson

Aysegul talks about Facebook Graph Search

Facebook Graph Search has been recently rolled out to everyone using Facebook in US English.

The tool lets users find specific information including their friends’ favourite hotels, restaurants, films and more, using filters such as location, gender, specific personal interests etc...

In some ways, Graph Search is a natural extension to the News Feed. However, rather than reviewing friend’s news feeds, now you can ask questions to Facebook about your friends and quickly find out the results. For example; searching 'Friends that have gone to Barcelona on holiday' would bring up a list of all the friends in your network who have either listed Barcelona as somewhere they have visited on their timeline or have checked in to a location in that city. You can then message your friend to learn more about it.

With its features, Facebook Graph Search is believed to be really big for marketing from creating awareness to purchase decision making process, as most of the people searching for pubs or restaurants etc... that their friends ‘Like’ when they’re figuring out where to go and in general friends’ recommendations are important decision making triggers.

Via this tool, people will be exposed to a huge range of new results.

Let’s try a research for hotels:

You can narrow it down by making it more descriptive:

What does Facebook Graph Search mean for brands and businesses? 

From a business perspective, whether you’re a small or a large business, you would really want to get your data into Facebook so that you’re showing up on the results pages.

Not all the businesses probably have physical locations on Facebook, so that they will need to think of clever ways to get themselves found in Facebook.

In terms of marketing, this change also support the need for an Integrated Social Search approach as this development is additional proof that the search and the social teams can’t be separated anymore. Brands and companies would want the SEO efforts to be taking into account what is happening in the search as well as in social media and in this case Facebook.

Below we have listed a couple of points about how your Facebook pages can best take advantage of the opportunities presented by Facebook Graph Search.

1)      Make sure your Facebook listings include the right information and are optimised.

This can be ensured by checking if the right category has been chosen and the added business address is correct. To fully optimise your page, suggest completing your profile including important keywords, posting and correctly tagging photos and videos, and encouraging your fans to add recommendations to your profile as the reviews will show up in Graph Search results.

2)      Encourage Check-ins

For local optimisation, encourage your fans to check in to your business page whenever they visit. It is one of the most important features as people mainly tend to search by location.

3)      Learn more about your fans to provide more value

This tool lets you learn about your fans’ interests and likes by sorting them into behavioural (hobbies, recent activities) and demographic segments (age, gender, location).

Fans interests can be used for Custom targeted campaigns, contests; and by identifying the other pages your fans like you can learn what content to share will be liked by your fans.

This may help you to provide more value to your fans and to increase brand loyalty.

For more tips and the possible search combinations you could use to help you conduct your research, suggest viewing the article 17 Ways Marketers Can Leverage Facebook Graph Search from Social Media Examiner.

If you have any queries on how social media can benefit your business, please do get in touch with our Sales team.

Author: Aysegul Yigitbasi

Acquiring Fans on Facebook

Research from Efficient Frontier (Jan 2012) found that on average, brands are acquiring fans at a rate of 9% per month.

Are your fans/likes growing at this pace?

If you regularly post updates but get little feedback from fans, it may be because you are talking rather than conversing. Because, people don't go out and "like" random pages for businesses that they haven't already used, or plan to use.

Customer Engagement is key

Facebook isn't just about broadcasting your news; it's about customer engagement and via the sharing of interesting content, enhancing your brand awareness to the friends of your Facebook page fans.  The above image is from the Mothercare UK Facebook page, who regularly post 'Facebook Exclusive' offers, giving their customers a reason to 'like' them and stick around.

To increase engagement on your own business Fan page, consider who your customers are and how your customers want to engage on Facebook (i.e. helping shape the brand, contests, visual experience, events and incentives for sharing).  Secondly, consider what they search for on Facebook, where else are they active, take a look at the other related pages where your target market are regularly commenting, what is a hot topic?

Who are your customers?

Along with viewing popular conversations/engagement, questioning what your fans want from your page and considering who your fans are/will be, will help you develop engaging content.

For example, for hotels, guests' needs will differ from those interested in family breaks to business trips; fun breaks to activity bases; somewhere quiet to a lively restaurant; local attractions to events at the hotel.

Use Facebook to seek out and engage with local news stories and regular events where there may be a potential for a tie-in with your page. For example, hotels could offer group rates to an event or conference organiser and invite the organiser to tag the hotel page when mentioning the discount for the event to attendees/delegates.

Goals and expectations

When tasked with the objective to 'enhance your Facebook page acquisition rate', two good places to start are establishing goals for your Facebook page and considering why your target audience would like your page / what are they expecting?

As a means of example, we have listed below ten goals for a Hotel Facebook page and ten reasons why a fan may want to join a Hotel Facebook page.

Ten goals for a Hotel Facebook page

1. Extend marketing campaigns
2. Community engagement (attract fans of your friends) / be a story teller.
3. Generate extra web traffic
4. Boost brand awareness and increase brand loyalty
5. Support customers and receive instant feedback
6. Increase bookings to accommodation
7. Increase bookings to events
8. Increase bookings to conference and meeting rooms
9. Keep up with the competition
10. Obtain further insight into customer base (using Facebook insights)

Ten expectations / reasons why a customer may 'like' a Hotel Facebook page

1. They are passionate about their location (images)
2. They let me know about events happening in the area
3. They like to share with me the special Facebook promotions
4. They inspire me to get creative in the kitchen
5. They are eager to know how the hotel can make our stay even more comfortable
6. Should I post a recommendation on the page, my Facebook friends will see this
7. They keep me up to date on those who supply the hotel
8. They are helpful and generally care that I have had a pleasant stay
9. They share their latest reviews from customers and citation websites (i.e. Trip Advisor)
10. They make me feel part of their story

We hope you can relate these goals and reasons to your own business and that it will enable you to think more strategically about growing your Facebook page popularity.

Should you require assistance for social media strategy and growth, please visit our Social Media Strategy page or contact our Sales team today to discuss your requirements.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

Facebook Search versus Google Search

The Flashlight Search Marketing team are big fans of blog and article share.  This week we would like to share with you an article we read over at The Next Web website .

The article discusses 'When, why, and how Facebook will take on Google in search'.

Here is a snippet from the article:

"Facebook and Google have been on a collision course for years, and their competitiveness has only increased with the release of Google+ just 14 months ago. As the service becomes more and more popular, one has to wonder how Facebook feels about the search giant encroaching on its turf. More importantly, one also has to wonder if Facebook has plans to hit Google back where it hurts"

Continue reading here: It's inevitable: When, why, and how Facebook will take on Google in search at The Next Web.

The idea of your search results being influenced by people in your network is what Google+ is all about. Facebook are simply doing the same. Or is it the other way round...?

The Next Web article gives further reasons to set a Facebook page for your business.  If you need any help with this, let Rocktime's Flashlight Search Marketing team know.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

Facebook updates Insights; real time analytics

The wind of change is certainly blowing strong in the Facebook camp. Along with their new Timeline format, of which the compulsory switch over for is fast approaching, Facebook Insights (their built in analytics engine) has also had an update.

Earlier this year Facebook updated their own analytics engine, Insights, to now allow statistics to be viewed in real-time, removing the two day delay previously in place. This is a great update for any brand that runs campaigns through their Facebook pages, especially those on a short time scale, as it allows brands to see how fast information is spreading immediately.

This change to real time statistics will also help brands and businesses to see what’s working and what’s not, and allow them to adjust their content or approach appropriately.


The update to Insights also includes a new measurement “People talking about this”, it’s a little ambiguous, and in fact covers quite a range of factors. Ultimately it allows you to view the numbers of Facebook users who have:

• Liked your page
• Liked, commented on or shared a post on your page
• Answered a question you’ve asked
• Responded to any events you’ve announced
• Mentioned your page
• Tagged your page in a photo
• Checked in, or recommended your place

This certainly is great news for marketing and social media strategy, but developers will also need to be aware that certain metrics that once were read by Insights are being removed, check out their Developer page on Insights for more information.

If you’re interested in learning how Rocktime can help you with Social Media and adjusting to changes in the internet environment, then why not get in contact with our Sales Team and arrange a meeting.


Author: Alice Cheetham

Facebook Timeline for brands

As the final roll-out of Facebook Timelines for personal profiles rolls ever nearer, this week sees the introduction of Timeline for brands as well. The option to switch to Timeline is already available for Facebook Pages, and it’s looking like the 30th of March will be the date for compulsory uptake of Timeline for pages. Some well-known brands have already got in there with some great displays of what a business can do with Timeline, but what do these changes really mean?


There's a lot of new changes to take in, perhaps the most immediate change off the bat is the removal of the landing page. In our previous thoughts on organising a Facebook Page, we were all for using iframes to create your own custom, free from Facebook formatting, landing page. In place of a landing page we now have the Timeline page, with its large header banner and Timeline arrangement down the side. Extra tabs that were once the mainstay of Facebook brand pages are now for the most part removed, and instead we have a section for photos, apps and company info.

The large cover photo is a new addition right at the top of your page, which offers a large space to personalise and open the look and feel of your page. Taking into account it’s prominent positioning, updating this regularly offers a great opportunity to make your visitors aware of new opportunities.

The profile image has also changed, from the sizeable rectangle we were allowed before, now we’re reduced to a much smaller square profile image, on the plus side, it will at least thumbnail neatly when making posts on your own wall!

Bear in mind what an app comprises of is largely up the administrator, whether it’s what was once a custom page in an iframe, or a list of free issue apps for things like events and other social network integrations, it’s likely that all previous custom tabs will be converted into ‘apps’ that the visitor can click into.

Furthermore these now load on a separate page. You can also rearrange the order of this section to highlight particular content to users.


When it comes to the actual wall, as you can see on the side, we can now add in significant events from the past and date them appropriately. As a whole the wall becomes a more dynamic and visual experience. Images and videos are larger and take a more prominent position in the wall content over text, and can either cover half or the entire width of the wall.

Timeline also adds the ability to send private messages, meaning that fans and visitors can converse with you privately, adding another dimension to potential customer services.


The backend has also been thoroughly updated and streamlined, as well as the ability to receive and send private messages. Through the admin panel overview you can check out notifications, new ‘likes’ as well as basic analytics for your page. As an administrator you now have more control over the content posted onto your wall by fans, allowing the option for all content to be reviewed before going public on your Timeline.


What are the benefits to brands?

The new cover image is a whopping 850 odd pixels wide, which presents you with a lot of graphical real estate right smack bang at the top of your Facebook page, excellent for grabbing a potential visitor and drawing them in. Its prominent position makes it great for product promotion and pushing, since it’s the first thing your visitor will see.

By pushing the info section right to the top of the page, rather than leaving it lingering in the sidelines, it now becomes a lot easier for users to get the gist of your brand immediately. Furthermore offering the ability to send private messages to and from pages opens up new channels of communication and prevents walls from becoming cluttered with conversation between admin and client, which whilst handy for engagement, may be entirely irrelevant to every other visitor to the page.

The Timeline format itself lends itself to giving out information and content much more so then the previous wall designs. Of course, the conversation between brand and client is as important as ever, and in a sense Timeline lends itself to encouraging such discussion. The constant stream of information is easily accessible on the first page, and limited only by as much information as you, the brand, put in. Offering up more information for the user to consume leads to further engagement, and prolongs the interactions you have with your visitor. Timeline appears to be less a case by case display of content and more of a streamed story, dependant of course on the information you put in in the first place.

As Mashable puts it in their explanation of why Timeline is great for brands post;

“With the focus shifting from building conversation to sharing content, the purpose of a Facebook brand page will be less about selling and more about telling an authentic story. Brands can express what makes them unique and build an emotional connection with fans through behind-the-scenes photos, blooper videos, real-time mobile pictures, sound clips and exclusive news. In addition to expressing the brand in the present, a brand can utilize the Timeline to speak to its past to reignite nostalgia and sentiment that may be associated with it.”

If you're interested in making the most of your online presence, or wanting to find out how you can include Facebook and social media into your online strategy, then why not get in contact with our Sales Team here at Rocktime.


Author: Alice Cheetham

IFrames and Facebook

This month the blog is related to topics that the Rocktime Technical Team discuss. In this blog Craig talks iFrames and Facebook. Think of it as a 'Window within a browser'.

Facebook, as of February 2011, officially allowed the use of iFrames; allowing users to build fully customised facebook pages for their custom page tabs.

An iFrame is a section within a web page that can display another web page. This will allow for externally hosted web applications such as shops, forums, booking forms and more to be included on a Facebook Page.

iFrames allow for more flexibility in pages compared to the FBML (Facebook mark up language) which is now being depreciated; old pages using the FBML will still function however all new pages will have to be created using an iFrame.

FBML was developed to enable users to build Facebook apps that integrated into a user's Facebook. Currently, Facebook app uses iFrames to integrate website content into your Facebook page. It can do whatever a normal webpage can do.

The key advantages of using iFrames include:

• Traffic driven directly through Facebook
• The use of Analytics software
• The use of CSS and your own code, allowing for full brand integration and increased functionality
• embed video
  

To find out more about iFrames and how you can integrate your webpages into Facebook, please talk to our Sales team. Also you may like to note that the majority of our Content Management System modules have the ability to be fed into Facebook via a Facebook Application. The Facebook Application will render as an iFrame, which will stream content directly from your website.

The Flashlight team will be promoting our integration of our Competition Module with Facebook, so if you have this module, then they may be in touch soon to enquire about an update.


Author: Craig Sherlock

Facebook Spam and Online Security

There are many different channels open to spam; it is always annoying, often disruptive, sometimes expensive to repair and frequently avoidable.

The main area of spam in the past had been from unsolicited bulk email messages sent indiscriminately. In today’s blog post, we are concerned with protecting ourselves on social networks and especially Facebook.

There are some interesting words we hear, whilst trying to stay safe online, against spambots, malware, botnets, worms, scareware, attacks, hackers, Trojan, cybercrime, ID Fraudsters, re-directs etc.

Facebook does get spammed a lot with third party apps. The old adage that prevention is better than cure still holds true in the case of Facebook spam. The offending apps are third party and not created by Facebook.

Dangers

Sometimes hackers will simply phish for your log-in information and hijack your account, spamming your friends in the process. Other times, the app will instead download and install malware on your computer.
Be aware that Hackers and identity thieves do get into Facebook accounts and create fake profiles and pages.

There has been about a 75% rise in link-spam in Facebook over the past 6 months. Facebook isn’t alone in these spam issues; Twitter has suffered a similar fate but has been more responsive to dealing with it. This warning sent out today by ComputerworldUK; “It's the hottest invitation in technology right now, an email telling you how to "learn more about Google+." If you get one though, be careful about clicking on it. It may be spam. Linked In has also come under heavy scrutiny.

Avoid online spam

The main thing to remember is Just don’t click a link if you don’t trust it.
Don’t be drawn into following at a link that invites you to view a message like "See who is viewing your profile OMG I cannot believe it!!!!!!", or “see who’s blocking you!”. DON’T click a suspicious link is the simple rule. The links are fake apps and nearly always posted on your wall by someone you don’t have a regular communication with. Criminals are looking for us to open up our computers to viruses and spyware; thus allowing them to infect our systems and thereby increasing the chance that they may stumble upon your banking details.

There are a few simple guidelines we should all follow to keep our Facebook and computer secure. Always run system cleaning tools, as some of the spam is actually malware and is attacking your computer. Always run antivirus scans, McAfee comes highly recommended. Keep your applications updated; after all, if you’ve installed it you should update it. Actually, the same is also true for removing unused programs.

Just as you don’t install software on your computer that you don’t trust, this is the same rule on the social networks.

Facebook Security

Facebook has a page dedicated to Facebook Security and you can read the Facebook Guide to Controlling how you share.

According to Facebook and pertaining to Spam: Ads cannot contain or promote 'spam' or other advertising, or marketing content, that violates applicable laws, regulations or industry standards. Spamming on Facebook will lead to your account being permanently disabled.

The Web-of-Trust (WOT) add-on tells users which websites you can trust, based on other web users' experiences. WOT is building a community of users sharing information on bogus websites. There is a free download available for all major browsers, to stop access to dodgy websites.

There are lots of helpful sites and blogs that alert users to how Cybercriminals are adopting a new disguises, like suggesting that the "Facebook password had changed" but it was in fact a malware attack. Computer users discovered malicious code had been sent to their email inboxes, pretending to be a notification from Facebook that their social networking account has been used to send out spam. Don’t believe the email address as they can disguise and redirect emails.

There are products that can intercept these attacks like Mal/BredoZp-B from SOPHOS. They also post regular Facebook security news and how to Follow Best practices. Only trust what is from someone you know, or something you’re subscribed with. This applies to games as well.

The market for the safe URL shorteners has become a huge opportunity for security companies, that also offer URL shortener providers like Saf.li and Mcaf.ee Their URL shorteners offer enhanced security which is a step in the right direction for bringing down spam and supporting transparency of the destination domain.

Among the many specialists who write helpful blogs about how to remain secure online, there are of course many groups on Facebook offering helpful advice. Some more useful than others!



Make sure you are in control of your page.
Tips:

1. Avoid Infected Apps & Links On Facebook. DO NOT INSTALL APPLICATIONS WHICH YOUR ARE NOT SURE ABOUT.


2. Check your privacy settings related to applications; from the "Account" drop-down menu located at the top of any page on Facebook, Click the "Edit your settings" link under the Applications and Websites section towards the botton of the page, Click on the application you'd like to view. If you don't see the application listed, you can find it by clicking the Edit Settings button towards the top right-hand side of the page.


3. As a Page admin, you can target updates to specific people in your audience and choose to send an update, such as a status or link, to everyone who likes your Page, or to target your update to people in a specific location, or in different language. When you click to update a status, question, photo, link, or video, you will see an option called "Everyone, Friends of friends, Friends only, Customise”. i.e. Click on the small drop-down and select "Customize." Only people who like your Page in the target group selected will receive the update from the Page.


4. Proactively moderate content posted on my Page by adding comma-separated keywords to the "Moderation Blacklist" in the "Manage Permissions" section, available after selecting "Edit Page".


5. When people include blacklisted keywords in a post and or a comment on your Page, the content will be automatically marked as spam. Wall posts will be moved to the Pages Spam filter, which is hidden from public view. Comments will appear in grey to admins, but will not appear to the public.
   
   


6. Use the automatic content filtering on Page walls that will ensure that posts soliciting spam are removed from public view, as well as ensure that posts containing good content remain more visible. Go to the conversation. Open the Actions menu. Select "Report Spam."


7. You can easily remove people connected to your Page if you don’t want to read their posts: Click "See all" under the Likes section, Select the "X" next to a user's name, Click "Remove."


8. If your friends are sending you messages through applications you haven’t added, you will need to either contact your friends to resolve the issue or block the application from its Profile Page.


9. To stop an application from sending you messages, you will need to remove the application from the application's Profile Page.


10. You can report an offending app issue directly to the developer by going to the application’s Profile Page and clicking "Contact Developer" at the bottom of the page, or by clicking "Contact" at the bottom of any canvas page within the application.


11. Report the application for abuse by going to the application’s About page and clicking "Report Application" at the bottom of the page, or by clicking "Report" at the bottom of any canvas page within the application.


12. Be aware that Facebook messages are indexed by Google, which is great for brands but worth mentioning that these messages can be searched for on Google even when they are marked viewable by friends only.


13. Read about Blocking Applications in the Help Centre.


14. Make your profile only viewable by friends. That works well for personal profiles but less easy for Brands trying to be inclusive.


15. Use an email account that isn't attached to your online banking account, your PayPal account, your eBay account, etc.


16. This one is quite funny! Don't use your pet's name as your password if you're going to post your pet's picture and name on your profile!


17. For your password, be sure to use capital letters as well as lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. Also, break up words you use.


18. Sometimes a simple virus can be sorted by just changing your login and password.

Future

Facebook is constantly making security improvements listening to their 500 million active user feedback and there are discussions for future improvements, like Privacy by default, vetted app developers, HTTPS for everything. Until some of these security measures are put in place it is going to make it harder for businesses using social media monitoring tools, as spam skews the metrics.

On a positive note; University of California PhD students and security experts from StopTheHacker.com launched a free BETA app service this week called MyPageKeeper. The App aims to keep spam and hackers off your Facebook Wall and keeps Facebook safe from malware and spam.



We will be interested to find out how it detects a piece of content as spam, but it's most likely that MyPageKeeper is simply database driven. Regardless, if it gives us added security protection by allowing a free safe app, which only takes 2 minutes to download, then it is worth it.


Author: Fiona Anderson

Building a Facebook Page

Alice Cheetham shares her tips on creating a Facebook page. If you have any additional feedback you would like to share, please do send in a comment.

I’ll admit, we do talk a lot about Facebook, but boasting over 500 million active users and said users spending over an estimated 700 BILLION minutes per month alone on Facebook, you can’t blame us.

This month, as you might have noticed, we’re talking channels here at Rocktime and what better than one with such popularity as Facebook!

We’ve talked before about Facebook Pages, namely in our article ‘Facebook Pages – Building the REAL community’, well worth a look at in preparation for putting together or optimising your businesses’ page. Returning to the topic of tips for Facebook, now we’re looking into top tips for building your page.

Firstly, don’t let your landing page default to your wall! Instead, make use of the custom tabs to put together something engaging and eye catching and most importantly, completely under your control.

Why don't you want new users come to your wall first? Well bear in mind, depending on your page’s privacy settings, it could be that anyone can post on your wall, not necessarily new-visitor friendly. Coding for custom tabs used to be exclusively written in FBML – Facebook Mark Up Language – somewhat like a special version of HTML exclusive to Facebook, but now they’re phasing it out. As such you can put together a custom page, with iFrames for example, using HTML , CSS, Javascript etc, allowing much greater variety in the complexity of what you can create, the limit is your imagination and the space requirements!

So now you’ve got your custom tab, set to be your default landing page, you’ve successfully navigated any newcomers to something (hopefully) interesting looking at least, now how to keep them there?

• Applications: Thanks to the Facebook Developer group, there are 1000’s of applications on the Facebook platform, many of which can be directly integrated with your page with little tech know how.
  

• Conversation: The days of a one way conversation between business and client are gone, engagement is important! Let people see that you are attentive, willing to answer and ask questions in return; it all helps with promotion of your brand image.

• Content: Just like any other channel, whether it’s a blog or twitter, it’s important to provide interesting content to your audience to keep them coming back. Sharing content from blogs or Twitter posts, posting and tagging photos and generally interesting topics will encourage repeat visitors.

One other thing to note, the maximum size you can have your page profile image is 540 pixels high by 180 pixels wide, a lot of Facebook real estate! Take the time to put together a graphic for your Facebook Page’s profile image that sits within this ratio. Whilst this is great for having an eye catching presence at the top of every page, for example a flyer or advert style image, one downside is that sadly it won’t fit too easily within the small square thumbnails that Facebook uses for any comments you post, so that might be something worth taking into account when picking an arrangement for your avatar.

If you need help making the decision as to whether Facebook will benefit your brand, or you would like assistance in populating your Facebook page with compelling content, then go ahead and get in contact with Rocktime's Search Marketing team.


Author: Alice Cheetham

Photosharing: Flickr versus Picasa

Introduction

We continue to discuss channel optimisation this month, on the Rocktime blog. This week Fiona discusses her experience in using both photo sharing tools, Flickr and Picasa. She highlights which channel she prefers to use and which she would recommend to Rocktime clients.

In her estimation, Picasa is better than Flickr for certain clients, find out why below, and feel free to send in a comment to let us know which photo sharing service you prefer.

My experience in using Picasa

• Editing and organising

I initially chose Picasa back in 2008, as an editing program because it allowed me to view RAW format image files that I had photographed using a Canon and a Nikon digital SLR camera.

In my leisure time, I promote an acoustic musician through images, social networks and at live events and the photography is mostly shot at these live music events; shooting musicians in limited light and nearly always in a moody environment. I don’t use flash and most of my images are ‘in-camera’.

Picasa allows some basic editing of photos; I mostly do quick adjustments to highlights, cropping, adding some effects, and reducing or increasing the warmth of images. More exacting photo editing would be done in Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop.
Picasa has a good desktop app for organising my pictures into folders, easily tagged for searching and uploading and costs less to upgrade than Flickr.

• Adding text

Picasa allows for adding text to images, which is useful for quick flyers, cards and posters. One feature I really enjoy in Picasa is the collage feature, which is simple and effective for both random selections of images, or quite structured collections of images.

• Social

Picasa has great social share features and allows me to upload the images directly to a blog, share a link to the album, or mark them as private. This is useful for viewing a whole album, or individual images in discussion and then deciding which ones to further edit, or use in a promotional campaign. I just choose the level at which I want to share the images and email the link directly from the desktop.

Did I mention that the basic storage on Picasa is FREE!  There are upgrades available for 80GB and up to 200GB.

• Video

You can also upload videos to Picasa, you could if you wanted, upload one giant 1GB video to fill up your storage quota. You can pay for more storage additions, which can be spread across Gmail, Google Docs as you see fit.



My experience in using Flickr


I do have an account on Flickr, I don’t use it for photo sharing or photo storing. However, I do use it as a content seeding tool for flyers, which promote gigs and events. I still use Picasa for the basic editing of these flyers and Photoshop for more serious editing. As an enthusiastic photographer, I do like to peruse Flickr from time to time, as I like to find the beautiful, interesting and arty photographs that other users have loving uploaded over the years.

You can also upload videos to Flickr and allows users to upload a 90-second video (150 MB) or 500 MB of video with a pro account. Idea: you can, of course, upload a longer video elsewhere and then link to it from a photo page.

The main concern with Flickr is the fact that they have a low monthly upload limit, unless of course you pay for a PRO account. This can slow you down when you are only able to upload 100MB of photos and 2 videos a month. Also, although the audience on Flickr is far greater than Picasa, we have found that the active community members are mainly photographers. Flickr has no significant desktop application. If appropriate, there are ways to migrate from Flickr to Picasa using an application like PhotoGrabbr.

• Social

Flickr is a more socially driven website than Picasa. Flickr is integrated with Facebook. The best use of uploads is in sets, which can be considered a campaign or an event. When you have a series of events then it gets stored as an album. The images can belong in multiple collections. Tags are searcheable in your photostream and highly recommended.

Flickr offers all the same security benefits of Picassa, when you mark the set/collection/photo as viewable to all public, or private and inaccessible. For the professional photographer having the ability to add Rights Reserved to protect their copyright is very important.


Rocktime clients and Picasa

For Rocktime clients I have found much more interesting uses for Picasa, such as the ability to upload to the Panoramio community, which is great for finding locations on Google Earth, Google Maps and Google Search. Picasa also allows the use of RSS feeds, slideshows, post to Buzz, Blogger, Google Talk and Twitter as part of a social media campaign. Our Leisure and Tourism clients, who enjoy beautiful locations, as well as being a viable business, benefit from Picasa.


Further reasons why I sometimes favour Picasa

I found the Google Picasa experience is faster than Flickr, more up to date. The library of images within Picasa are all easily catalogued by date, location and people in the images. The geotags for mapping, text and tags make searches more refined and easily found easily on location searches. Public photos allow users to comment, building a community. Photos can be uploaded Facebook directly from Picasa.

I would recommend that you edit in Picasa and then do a bulk upload to Facebook of the chosen images. The images can be bulk resized for quick upload. The photo gallery template aids the individualisation of albums. The software is uploaded on a regular basis, is very simple to update and has easy to read instructions, plenty of support and question and answer forums.


Conclusion

In my estimation, Picasa is better than Flickr. Read my concluding points below:

Flickr is a great channel for photosharing, however, it can often slow a social media strategy down, unless you have a paid for (Pro) account, due to their low monthly upload limit. Additionally the audience on Flickr is mainly Photographers, so you will find that the professional looking photos will be viewed more.

The big benefit of Picasa is its excellent desktop tool, plus it links with Google GEO targeting features (Google Maps, Google Earth). Also unlike Flickr, Picasa does not have a monthly upload limit, only a limit of 1GB for lifetime (As with Flickr you pay for more storage). There are additional benefits for Picasa including the ability to upload to Panoramio community, which is great for finding locations on Google Earth, Google Maps and Google Search. Picasa allows the use of RSS feeds, slideshows, post to Buzz, Blogger, Google Talk and Twitter as part of a social media strategy.

If I was an art gallery I would choose Flickr, If I was a boutique hotel chain I would choose Picasa, if I was a musician I would use both. Making a decision on which photo sharing tool to use depends on a number of factors including your resources and social sharing requirements.

Similar photosharing programs

There are many other photosharing options like Photobucket, which has been around for years and was used extensively when we all needed to grab HTML code for our images.
Picnik is an online photo editing service, which has grown in popularity since its integration with Flickr and smugsmug. Also note: Google bought Picnik and this is now integrated into Picasa.

Windows Live Photo Gallery, Twitpic, Yfrog, Instagram, picpiz, SmugMug, Path, Imageshack, Snapfish, Zooomr and more.

Even Twitter recently launched a photosharing offer partnering with Firefox, to integrate hashtag and username searching directly into the browser’s address bar.
Based on the reviews, Virgin Media still needs to refine their newly launched TiVo photosharing app, if they are to compete but it does go to show that photosharing is a massive market and everyone wants to be part of it.

I would love to hear which photo sharing / editing service you prefer.

Should you require assistance in determining which photo sharing service will suit your business / brand, then please give Rocktime’s Search Marketing team a call.


Author: Fiona Anderson

Updated Facebook Promotion Guidelines

Promotions have become a core component of brand presence on Facebook. By offering a prize or experience, brands can encourage users to “Like” their pages and share the branded links with friends.

Competitions, contests and giveaways are a great way to increase your fans, increase awareness of your page and retain their interest and keep them engaged. Last week Facebook made some quite significant changes to the Facebook Promotion Guidelines (Updated: May 11th) affecting those who own and run promotions on Facebook Pages.

Facebook have also removed some specific rules with regards to running promotions to minors (13 – 17yrs). They have also provided more opportunities for previously prohibited categories: i.e. stated that there is no longer prohibition on certain types of promotions such as alcohol, diary, gambling.

View more information here over at Inside Facebook: http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/05/17/age-residency-industry-restrictions-promotions/

We believe the reason why they are being quite significant with their changes, is their personal quest (and it makes sense) to remove themselves as middle-men between marketers and the varying laws throughout the world. We share our thoughts on the changes surrounding Facebook Promotions below: looking at what we now can’t do, can do and how to roll with the changes.

Promotions on Facebook

The main point to shout about is that Facebook no longer want you to use their mechanics i.e. like a page, like a post, send a snap as a way of entering a contest.

However section 4 in the guidelines is quite interesting, as it points out that “A like” must not be a condition of entry. Which means you could encourage “a like” to go and find out about the competition. Example: you could run the competition on your own website and give instructions on how to enter on your Facebook page. Hide the competition details on Facebook to “Fans only”. This will encourage people to like your page and will not be in breach of the guidelines.

View the Promotion Guidelines here: http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php (Date of last review: May 11, 2011)

The new guidelines make sense

The new Facebook guidelines do make perfect sense. It takes all the competition queries, complaints etc away from them and passes these back to the brand.

Scenario: Imagine if you really wanted to enter “that competition” to “Win Tickets to see Take That backstage”, you had to send in a story to say “Why you should win”. You spent “1 week working on it” and when you went to upload the entry, “Facebook went down”. You would shout at Facebook wouldn’t you rather than Take That!

So Facebook have released these new easy to read guidelines to basically say: My words:

“You can run the competitions and contests but make sure it is clear that they are nothing to do with us, as we can't handle the grief. Thanks”.

The Future for Facebook promotions

You can keep up to date with the latest happenings, guidelines by following: http://www.facebook.com/FacebookPages. We also like to follow:
http://www.facebook.com/marketing for marketing solutions and inspirational ideas from other brands.


Facebook has included a very clear definition of what constitutes a promotion: “a contest, competition, sweepstakes or other similar offering,” where “by ‘contest’ or ‘competition’ (Facebook means) a promotion that includes a prize of monetary value and a winner determined on the basis of skill (i.e., through judging based on specific criteria)” and “by ‘sweepstakes’ (Facebook means) a promotion that includes a prize of monetary value and a winner selected on the basis of chance.”

By no means is this is not the end of Facebook Promotions, they are simply inviting you to be more creative in your use of external applications and linking into your fans that like to live on Facebook.

Don’t abuse the Facebook mechanics

The new promotion guidelines clearly state that you must not use the Facebook mechanics as part of a contest.

This involves mechanics of any fan, uploading, commenting, or liking a page that will be judged.

Section 4: of the promotions guidelines does however encourage interaction on Facebook and indicates that actual entry has to be through an external application. View the snippet from section 4 below:

Section 4: “You must not condition registration or entry upon the user taking any action using any Facebook features or functionality other than liking a Page, checking in to a Place, or connecting to your app. For example, you must not condition registration or entry upon the user liking a Wall post, or commenting or uploading a photo on a Wall.”

Facebook Promotion Guidelines, May 2011.

So as you 'must not condition registration', this means you can use Facebook Updates to say
“Come and enter our competition here” and off your site you can tell people to join your Facebook Page for exclusive offers from your company as long as the next step is click here to enter the competition.

A few scenario examples of what you can no longer do on Facebook

1. Father's Day promotion: Upload a photo of your Dad and tell us why he is COOL!! for him to Win XY.
2. Share your snap: Please like the snap you want to win.
3. Comment on our update and tell us “why you love us” and you could win XXX.
4. Like us and in XX months, we will choose a random winner of YYYY.
Use of External Applications

The promotion guidelines state that “all promotions” on Facebook need to be run within an App that you or your digital agency have created (you keep the email addresses) or on a 3rd Party Application (such as Wildfire, Involver).

Please note that most third party apps will charge you and they often receive the email addresses, not you, so there are clear benefits of creating your own App or Canvas Page.

Find out more about Apps on Facebook here or contact us.

Be the owner of the competition

The new guidelines strongly indicate that you need to make sure you don’t make it look that Facebook are affiliated with your company / competition, via text and images and logos at the competition landing page and also be clear in the terms and conditions that Facebook is simply a channel.

Remember also re: the 'can't dos', that you are NOW not allowed to contact the WINNER on Facebook, this includes via messages, chat and wall posts. You will need to receive their email address and contact the winners off Facebook. Once you have notified them via an off Facebook channel, then you can post congratulations on your wall and thank others for entering.

How to roll with it

1. Design an App which integrates with your website competition module and Facebook or design an iFrame page and have an email opt in for the competition, or create the email opt in on your site and direct Facebook users there. We saw a great example of a competition Facebook App over at the Science Museum Facebook Page, see the image below, which shows email opt in and link to the terms and conditions.



2. Make sure you list in your Terms and Conditions that this competitions is nothing to do with Facebook

“I give permission for (name of company) to contact me using the entered details provided if I am the successful recipient of the prize. I acknowledge the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. I understand I am providing information to (name of company) and not to Facebook"

3. Notify the winner via email. Once the winner has received notification they you can broadcast their name on the FB page.

“We recently connected XX to let them know that they are the winner of YY...congratulations”

We have a new mantra in the Flashlight Search Marketing office: "when designing social media contests always consider not just the creators but the spectators and the voters too. Create a tick list on contest mechanics, web development and off site integration" This mantra especially rings true with the new FB promotion guidelines.

If you need assistance in running a competition or setting up an onsite competition module to integrate with Facebook, an iFrame app or opt-in form on your website then please give the Rocktime Sales team a call, so that they can organise this for you.


Author: Sarah Griffiths

Facebook Pages - Building the REAL community

Facebook say Facebook Pages allow you to: “Connect with your audience, share your story and participate in real-time conversations quickly and easily on Facebook”. Read more over at Facebook here; http://www.facebook.com/FacebookPages

The below provides quick tips from the Rocktime Flashlight team on how to build a community on Facebook using Facebook Pages.

Building the Authentic Community

Facebook for business should be about genuine, valuable interaction with fans the most effective way to build the community is by engaging with your customer base. Critical mass online often takes time, remember it was the "Tortoise (slowly but surely) that won the race, when the Hare took a little nap”. Talk to us more about this analogy if you like, basically it sums up that slow organic growth in social media is not a bad thing.

Your Facebook Page needs to be engaging and interesting to ensure your fans/customers/potential customers, keep you in their news feeds. It doesn’t need to be “wham bam wham” with production of chat on your page wall, you just need to talk to your fans at a time suitable for them (when they are most engaged).
Ads can be used to give your community a boost, perhaps expanding to a new demographic, but the key is content, content, content.

Lessons in Engagement

• Give your fans a reason to visit
• Get them to love your page so they can recommend you to others
• Provide interesting insights of value (to the fan)
• Share news
• Competitions
• Deliver informative information which indicates that you know your industry and don't constantly promote your products or service
• Give people a reason to talk about the page
• Introduce people to the reasons as to why they should be visiting or liking the page
• Be chatty & human to encourage conversation and ensure ongoing interaction
• When delivering Facebook Ads, keep the target audience in mind, deliver an ad that will resonate with your fan rather than shouting about how great you are
• Advertise on the Facebook page to encourage further interaction on your site
• Make a note of all your customer touch points (Newsletters, Lost password, Page 404 not found) and how you can advertise your networks of interaction there to encourage Facebook Page fan growth
• Finally, keep it real (think topical stories and conversations)

Considerations:

People tend to join a community when they see it has many fans already. You may develop a campaign (on or off Facebook) to encourage fans to join, but you must always return to the quality over quantity argument - will you get return?

You will if you devise a campaign closely linked to your target audience, that will deliver value.
A biggy to consider is that when launching any campaign attention needs to be given to the resource of social media & a strategy established for this to work. Along with delivering Facebook Pages strategy the Rocktime Flashlight team can assist with these Social Media resource issues, talk to us to find out more.

If you would like to share any further tips for Facebook Page Growth, feel free to comment below. I am sure we could share more, re: Facebook Mark Up Language (Facebook HTML) and Social Plugins, Apps, Multi Channel Integration, but we simply wanted to provide a simple list of 'do's', that our readers can use to help them get on the right track to Fan Page growth.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

News Flash: Facebook announce Facebook Places

Facebook have just launched their geolocation service, Facebook Places in the US. Read about it on the Facebook Blog here: Partnering with sites which offer similar service: Gowalla, Yelp, FourAquare, Booyah.

The Flashlight team thought it was quite amusing that: ZDNet described the news as 'the worst kept secret since, Apple's iPhone 4'.

The app will allow Facebook users to provide real time update of their location to their network of friends within Facebook, whilst they are on the move. Initially the service will only be available as an iPhone app and through the website touch.facebook.com - which works well on Android and other smartphones.

One of our favourite things and in the same breath not so favourite things, about Facebook Places is that you can also tag your friends if they are in the same location in a photo or via status updates.

In relation to above point (not so favourite) we all know that Facebook have been critised in the past for privacy features. Well this time round Facebook are making it very clear about the opt in and out features, available on the app. You can even turn off the 'let my friends' check me in feature too.

Facebook are hoping that developers (like us) will soon take note of this and begin to build 3rd party applications to take advantage of the location data available. Time will tell, as we haven't had news when it will reach the UK yet.

For more information, then Mashable have written a fantastic comprehensive guide to Facebook places here, go check it out.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

Choosing a Username for your Facebook Page

If 25 people or more are connected to your page, you can select a username for your Facebook page or Facebook profile by going to: http://www.facebook.com/username/. The Page username must be at least five characters in length and only include alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9), or a period or full stop (“.”).

Facebook state:

“The selected username should clearly identify the artist or business represented by your Page. Create a username that is as close as possible to your public figure or business name (e.g. AshtonKutcher, PizzaHut) to avoid any confusion or misrepresentation. In addition, generic words (e.g. restaurant) are not available as options for Facebook usernames. Think carefully about the username you choose for your Page as once it has been selected, you will not be able to change or transfer it. Be sure to check out Help Center for answers to common questions about usernames for Facebook Pages. If you wish to report an infringing username, please visit our username infringement Help Center”

Full instructions for setting a Facebook Page Username

This should take you 5 to 10 minutes.

• Login to Facebook
• Go to Account
• Go to Manage Pages, Go to page, Go to edit page, There will be a hyperlink on News for page admin - click Usernames
• Click link 'Select a Username' or click: http://www.facebook.com/username/
• Then click the hyperlink - 'Set a username for your pages'
• Check availability and choose your desired URL name for your Facebook Page.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

Facebook privacy changes coming soon

Mark Zuckerberg will be announcing plans to roll out major changes to Facebook privacy settings this week. The news broke from a private email sent from Mark / Mr Zuckerberg to Robert Scoble, who on receiving the email asked for permission to reprint the text on his blog:

The full text of the email is below:

Hey,
We’ve been listening to all the feedback and have been trying to distill it down to the key things we need to improve. I’d like to show an improved product rather than just talk about things we might do.
We’re going to be ready to start talking about some of the new things we’ve built this week. I want to make sure we get this stuff right this time.
I know we’ve made a bunch of mistakes, but my hope at the end of this is that the service ends up in a better place and that people understand that our intentions are in the right place and we respond to the feedback from the people we serve.
I hope we’ll get a chance to catch up in person sometime this week. Let me know if you have any thoughts for me before then.
Mark

Good luck wishes sent to Mark on the roll out of the changes, let's hope they are easily understood by the Facebook growing masses. We will be watching and providing feedback too.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

Facebook Statistics August 2009

The site has more than 250m active users globally

More than 120m users log on to Facebook at least once each day and more than 30 million users update their statuses at least once each day. Combined, more than 5bn minutes are spent on the site on a daily basis.

The average user has around 120 friends on the site.

Every single month, more than a bn photos are uploaded to the site.

More than 50 translations are available on the site, with more than 40 in development.

Mobile is a big issue, with more than 30m active users accessing the site through mobile devices. It's well documented that users who access Facebook through mobile devices are almost 50% more active than those who don‘t.

[All sourced: Facebook, August 2009]