But how are Facebook users actually using the social network after a decade?

According to a recent survey conducted by Pew Research, 54% of female responders said they use Facebook to view photos and videos, while 42% of male responders said they use it to share with a wide audience — the top two reasons cited by women and men, respectively. Other uses include seeing funny posts, following news and using the platform as a support network.

Created by Statista, the following chart shows the eight “major reasons” that male and female users cited for using Facebook.

The post Top 8 Reasons Why Men and Women Use Facebook appeared first on Digitrock.

But Zuckerberg also knows you could be reading Facebook more in any given day. What about those times when you’re just skimming the app during a spare minute? What if you don’t have time to read any of those fascinating links?

If you’ve ever gone hunting through your feed for an article you saw earlier, you’ll welcome the news that Facebook appears to be testing a “save for later” feature. This isn’t the first time the company has tested the idea, but it does appear to be more advanced and closer to wide release.

The concept first cropped up on a version of the Facebook app for iPhone and iPad in 2012. In that iteration, you held your finger on a story to save it to a separate list. Now, according to the blog MyTechSkool, which first spotted it, users will see a button with a bookmark icon they can press.

This is what apps such as Instapaper, Pocket and Read It Later have been doing for years, of course. The Apple browser, Safari, added a similar feature called Reading List (available on mobile in iOS6 and on the desktop with Mac OS X Mavericks).

But the Facebook feature differs in significant ways. First of all, you can save more than just articles — in theory, you’ll be able to set aside anything from your cousin’s holiday snaps to a change in your secret crush’s relationship status. Call it a social To Do list.

Secondly, it allows you to do your later reading within Facebook — meaning Zuckerberg gets to monitor and monetize ever more of your reading behavior. What we don’t know yet: whether you’ll be able to read those articles, links and saved social snippets when you’re offline.

We’ve reached out to Facebook to find out when the company intends to roll this out to all users. In the meantime, let us know in the comments below whether you see the Saved feature yet.

[via AllthingsD]

Image: Stephen Lam, Getty Images News

The post Facebook Will Let You Save Links to Read Later appeared first on Digitrock.

Facebook has impressed analysts and investors in each quarter so far this year by reporting strong growth in mobile ad revenue. The company revealed that mobile ads accounted for 41% of total ad revenue in the second quarter this year, up from 30% in the first quarter and essentially nothing a year earlier. If that growth continues, Facebook could approach or even surpass the 50% mark this quarter.

Facebook has taken steps in recent weeks to make mobile ads more effective, including testing autoplay video ads in the news feed and introducing more calls to action on mobile app install ads to entice users to click, though it’s doubtful either had much impact on the previous quarter results.

Beyond the mobile ad stats, analysts will likely be looking for any updates or hints about the company’s new and as yet unannounced ad products. Instagram is expected to introduce ads this week, perhaps finally justifying the amount Facebook paid for the company. On the other hand, Facebook has repeatedly delayed introducing video ads on the homepage raising questions about when and how the company will choose to go this route.

Overall, Facebook is expected to report earnings per share of $0.19 on revenue of $1.91 billion for the quarter, up from earnings of $0.12 a share on revenue of $1.26 billion in the same quarter a year earlier.

Facebook stock has been on a tear this year, rising to as high as $54.83 earlier this month, roughly three times the low of $17.55 a share it hit a year earlier. The stock was hovering just below $50 a share in early trading Wednesday, an increase of 1% on the day.

Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty

The post Is Facebook a Truly Mobile-First Company Yet? appeared first on Digitrock.

Facebook has impressed analysts and investors in each quarter so far this year by reporting strong growth in mobile ad revenue. The company revealed that mobile ads accounted for 41% of total ad revenue in the second quarter this year, up from 30% in the first quarter and essentially nothing a year earlier. If that growth continues, Facebook could approach or even surpass the 50% mark this quarter.

Facebook has taken steps in recent weeks to make mobile ads more effective, including testing autoplay video ads in the news feed and introducing more calls to action on mobile app install ads to entice users to click, though it’s doubtful either had much impact on the previous quarter results.

Beyond the mobile ad stats, analysts will likely be looking for any updates or hints about the company’s new and as yet unannounced ad products. Instagram is expected to introduce ads this week, perhaps finally justifying the amount Facebook paid for the company. On the other hand, Facebook has repeatedly delayed introducing video ads on the homepage raising questions about when and how the company will choose to go this route.

Overall, Facebook is expected to report earnings per share of $0.19 on revenue of $1.91 billion for the quarter, up from earnings of $0.12 a share on revenue of $1.26 billion in the same quarter a year earlier.

Facebook stock has been on a tear this year, rising to as high as $54.83 earlier this month, roughly three times the low of $17.55 a share it hit a year earlier. The stock was hovering just below $50 a share in early trading Wednesday, an increase of 1% on the day.

Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty

The post Is Facebook a Truly Mobile-First Company Yet? appeared first on Digitrock.

The study, published by the Pew Research Center on Thursday, found that almost half of American users click on news in their Facebook feeds. Since 64% of adults in the United States use Facebook, that means one in three Americans consumes news on Facebook.

However, only 22% of the 30% who get their news on Facebook think the site is a useful source for information about the world, and only 4% of those think Facebook is “the most important way” to get their news.

“People go to Facebook to share personal moments — and they discover the news almost incidentally,” Amy Mitchell, Pew Research Center’s director of journalism research, said in a statement. “The serendipitous nature of news on Facebook may actually increase its importance as a source of news and information, especially among those who do not follow the news closely.”

The study quotes one respondent, who said he believes “Facebook is a good way to find out news without actually looking for it.”

The importance of the social network also depends on how much of a news junkie the user is.

Among those who click on news links in their Facebook news feeds, just 38% of heavy news followers think the social network is “an important way to get the news,” but among those who follow news “less often,” 47% consider Facebook as an important source.

On Monday, Facebook announced that it was driving 170% more traffic to media sites this year than in 2012.

This is the first of a series of studies on social media and news published by Pew in collaboration with the Knight Foundation. For this study, Pew surveyed 5,173 Americans ages 18 and older. You can read the full report here (.PDF).

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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Nanigans is one of Facebook’s largest ad buyers specifically focusing on retail advertising. According to the company (via VentureBeat), iOS-based ads have shown a surprisingly high click through rate:

“Retailers are realizing significantly greater return from audiences on iOS than audiences on Android,” the report says. “For the first three quarters of 2013, RPC [revenue per click] on iOS averaged 6.1 times higher than Android and ROI [return on investment] on iOS averaged 17.9 times higher than Android.”

“Audiences cost more on iPhone, and the reason is that it’s worth it,” Slagen said. “Typically, we’re not looking to acquire one-time customers, we’re looking to invest over time … so we pay more up front for better long-term results.”

The graph above shows retailers’ return on investment for Facebook mobile advertising. It’s definitely an interesting study considering that Facebook seems to be deeply integrated with Android. It’s also important to note that these results will vary across different industries.

According to VentureBeat, Nanigans SVP Dan Slagen said that this data is very different when looking at the gaming or e-commerce industries, but when it comes to retail, iOS is the clear winner. Apparently, iOS users click on ads and buy more merchandise than Android users. Could it be that the mobile shopping experience across various sites caters to iOS devices over Android devices?

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Image: Flickr, Simon Q

The post Facebook Ads Are 1,790% More Profitable on iOS Than Android appeared first on Digitrock.

Nanigans is one of Facebook’s largest ad buyers specifically focusing on retail advertising. According to the company (via VentureBeat), iOS-based ads have shown a surprisingly high click through rate:

“Retailers are realizing significantly greater return from audiences on iOS than audiences on Android,” the report says. “For the first three quarters of 2013, RPC [revenue per click] on iOS averaged 6.1 times higher than Android and ROI [return on investment] on iOS averaged 17.9 times higher than Android.”

“Audiences cost more on iPhone, and the reason is that it’s worth it,” Slagen said. “Typically, we’re not looking to acquire one-time customers, we’re looking to invest over time … so we pay more up front for better long-term results.”

The graph above shows retailers’ return on investment for Facebook mobile advertising. It’s definitely an interesting study considering that Facebook seems to be deeply integrated with Android. It’s also important to note that these results will vary across different industries.

According to VentureBeat, Nanigans SVP Dan Slagen said that this data is very different when looking at the gaming or e-commerce industries, but when it comes to retail, iOS is the clear winner. Apparently, iOS users click on ads and buy more merchandise than Android users. Could it be that the mobile shopping experience across various sites caters to iOS devices over Android devices?

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Image: Flickr, Simon Q

The post Facebook Ads Are 1,790% More Profitable on iOS Than Android appeared first on Digitrock.

Previously, teens using Facebook were only able to share content with friends, friends of friends and custom groups like “family.” Now, they can choose to share posts to anyone on Facebook, just like users 18 and older.

“Teens are among the savviest people using of social media, and whether it comes to civic engagement, activism, or their thoughts on a new movie, they want to be heard,” Facebook wrote in a blog post. “While only a small fraction of teens using Facebook might choose to post publicly, this update now gives them the choice to share more broadly, just like on other social media services.”

Any teenager wishing to share a status update or post publicly must first manually change the audience setting on his post to “public” before sharing. After doing so, a pop-up explains that the post will be visible to everyone on the site. The post will go live once the user clicks “ok” on this pop-up box, acknowledging he has seen the warning and intends to share publicly.

Facebook’s audience settings remain unchanged from post to post for all users, including teens. For example, if a user shares a post publicly, the audience setting will remain on “public” for the user’s next post. For teens, a second reminder message will pop up if they choose to post publicly the next time around.

Teenagers can also change settings to allow non-friends to follow public posts. Users who choose to follow a teenager will be able to see these public posts, with the exception of posts that have not been shared with them. Teenagers will not be followable automatically, and will need to manually update their settings to enable follows.

A new teenager who join Facebook will have his audience settings automatically set to “friends,” and will need to manually change that setting in order to share with the public.

Wednesday’s update will not impact existing Facebook posts from teens, and it won’t automatically change the audience for any future posts. That must be done manually. The update simply gives teenagers the ability to share publicly, just as they can on other social sites like Twitter.

The new update will begin rolling out slowly to all users starting Wednesday afternoon.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Image: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

The post Facebook Lowers Age Rule to Allow Teens to Post Publicly appeared first on Digitrock.

Those who have used Ads Manager and Power Editor in the past know that neither tool is the simplest or most logically designed. Previously, ad buyers were asked to choose from a range of ad options and then select their campaign objectives and optimization methods.

Now, more reasonably, advertisers are first asked to identify their objectives. That could be a sales conversion on a website, for example, or an increase in mobile app downloads. Other objectives include increasing total page Likes, increasing engagement with particular posts or a Facebook app, boosting in-store Offer claims and upping RSVPs to a Facebook event.

Once an objective has been identified, Facebook guides advertisers to the most appropriate ad. It’s up to the advertiser to choose where that ad appears — in the News Feed, for example, or alongside it.

In addition to the new ad-buying interface, users can also now upload multiple images for a single campaign, allowing five different ads to run at once. In the analytics dashboard — also part of the overhaul — they’ll be able to quickly assess which images are performing best. They can also easily sort all of their campaigns to see which delivers the best conversion value.

Although their interfaces are the same, the Power Editor will continue to offer additional functionality to ad buyers. In addition to the new streamlined buying process, Power Editor users can also manually select their ads.

“Ad managers know how to buy ads already; we don’t want to make ad changes forced,” David Baser, product manager at Facebook, said.

Images: iStock, hh5800 and Facebook
Source : Mashable 

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On Wednesday, the social network released a new version of Page Insights, a dashboard that allows page managers to monitor traffic and engagement. The tool’s newest version breaks down engagement metrics into individual tabs, such as check-ins, likes and the number of people engaged. Managers can also compare these metrics to previous weeks or months to better understand how engagement on their brand page is changing.

The updated Insights tool also lets managers view positive (i.e. likes, shares) and negative (i.e. blocks, reports) interactions side-by-side to determine which content is performing well with visitors. The hope is that these new features will enable managers to populate their pages with content that Facebook users most want to see, making the experience better for both parties.

Facebook created a video — which you can watch, here — explaining the new features, and how page managers can use them.

Image: Acid Pix
Source : Mahable

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