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

The post Facebook Improves Tools for Measuring Brand Pages appeared first on Digitrock.

The latest update for the Android Facebook app adds the ability to “edit your posts and comments and tap to see all your changes.” However, the editing has not been enabled on any of the Android devices we experimented with.

The editing feature will roll out to Facebook users on the web and Android devices over the next day, Facebook confirmed to Mashable. The editing feature is not included in the latest iOS app, but will likely get pushed out in the next update. Users will see the option to “Edit Post” when they click on the drop-down arrow in the top-right corner of a post.

Editing posts was potentially dicey territory for Facebook, since the it brings the danger of a bait-and-switch with followers. A user could conceivably write, “Who likes ice cream?” and get hundreds of Likes and affirming comments, then edit the post to read, “Who wants to beat up some cats?”

Facebook addresses this issue by marking the post as edited and letting users access the history of any edited post with a click. Google+, which has let users edit posts for some time, works in a similar fashion.

Facebook has been slowly granting users more editing capabilities over their content. Users can edit photo captions (that is, status updates with a photo attached) and the ability to edit comments arrived a few months ago.

It’s likely Facebook examined all the potential abuses and concluded the risk in letting users alter posts was minimal. It makes sense: Any user who would mislead followers or friends with a post they intend to maliciously edit would likely soon find themselves with few followers or friends of any value.

For journalists on Facebook, the value of editing posts is even greater. As Mashable’s Emily Banks has argued, being able to edit a post in a transparent fashion makes Facebook posts more like articles on a website, and now reporters will be able to make corrections without deleting entire updates and losing conversation threads.

What’s your take on editing posts: Yea or nay? Have your say in the comments.

Image: Juan Mabromata/AFP/Getty Images

The post Facebook Finally Lets You Edit Posts – Facebook Marketing appeared first on Digitrock.

That’s the challenge Meg Faure, founder of The Baby Sense Company, and Jeremy Pepper, a Los Angeles-based social media and public relations consultant on our Small Business Panel, are taking on this month. Faure is the international bestselling author of Baby Sense, which over the past decade she has expanded into a franchise that includes several more books, a seminar series and an ecommerce business that spans three continents.

Faure and her company are a natural fit for social media: In South Africa especially, she is a well-recognized expert on child care, and the company’s Facebook page and Twitter account are peppered with questions from concerned parents. With a modest marketing budget (less than $500 a month), Baby Sense has amassed more than 31,000 fans on Facebook and 2,400 followers on Twitter.

Faure, who handles both accounts herself, along with a Pinterest page and a UStream blogger profile, posts a variety of content whenever she has a spare moment. Opportunities for fans to ask questions tend to perform best: A recent question posted to Baby Sense’s Facebook page, “What are your pressing baby skincare questions?” elicited 53 comments in four hours. Faure tells Mashable that for one hour once a month, she holds a “Facebook party” where fans can ask her anything, and that she’ll generally receive upwards of 200 questions in that hour. Faure will also post child care tips, and promote new products and upcoming seminars.

Faure says she’s pleased with the engagement she receives on social media, particularly on Facebook. With around 8,000 subscribers to her email newsletter, she feels it’s the best way to get the word out about new products and events. Faure’s also finding ways to monetize her presence on those platforms by mixing sponsors, including Johnson & Johnson, into the feed.

But Faure would like to use Facebook to generate more sales. She said she’s had some success with Offers, but so far most of her Facebook marketing budget is spent on promoting posts and getting more Likes on Baby Sense’s page — which ultimately isn’t converting to many sales, she said. Faure is also looking for a tool to help her schedule, manage and respond to posts. In addition, she has started a Pinterest page but isn’t sure how to optimize her presence there, and wonders if she should even be on Pinterest in the first place.

The Master Plan

Pepper has devised a social media strategy to help Baby Sense achieve its aims — one that spans Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, UStream and email — and fits within Faure’s current advertising budget and limited spare time. The primarily goal is to grow Baby Sense’s online community, seeking out possible paid sponsorship opportunities. The focus will be on Facebook, where Baby Sense’s community is already strongest.

First off, Pepper suggests that Faure develop an editorial calendar and schedule for Facebook and Twitter. That way she can plan and promote events and products, and the community knows when to tune in. He suggests using an app like Buffer to schedule posts.

The editorial voice of Baby Sense’s online profiles also needs to change, Pepper says. Right now the voice is very corporate. Faure needs to be more “Mom to Mom” — more conversational, engaging. Posts on Facebook should be between 200-300 characters with a call to action (tell a story, share an experience, or do you agree/disagree). Faure should spend more time reading and responding to comments on both Facebook and Twitter. She should also be cross-posting and cross-promoting content from Facebook, Twitter and UStream, encouraging users of each platform to participate in live chats on the other platforms. Faure should also create a YouTube channel to index her UStream chats.

As for the newsletter, that too is an important platform for community-building. Subscribers should be alerted to all of the content that’s going out on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and UStream, and be encouraged to participate on those networks.

Curious to know how it all goes? We’ll check back in with Faure and Pepper next month.

Image: Flickr, Eric Fleming

The post Can a Popular Baby Franchise Turn Its Facebook Fans Into Customers? appeared first on Digitrock.

The interface will keep filmmakers and fans up to date with filming news and opportunities in Dubai, a statement said.

The network for film industry insiders will enable sharing of experiences and latest updates through its dedicated social media platforms.

Through these channels, DFTC will regularly offer new pieces of shareable content, including the latest news and updates from the industry, partners and the film commission itself.

DFTC has also invited its followers – from producers, directors and partners to actors, scouts and all-round film and TV buffs – to join in the conversation and share their own stories, opportunities and tips.

Jamal Al Sharif, chairman of Dubai Film and TV Commission, said: “Dubai and its iconic locations are already well known around the world. By engaging with the film industry through social media, we hope to foster ‘real-time’ conversations with key international and regional industry players that will really raise the profile of Dubai as a location and of the services it has to offer – not just for film, but for TV and commercial productions as well.”

“Dubai is also an incubator of local talent and creative film-making, and we expect our social media initiatives to play a key role in engaging with and inspiring the next generation to grow the domestic film industry.

“Our social media pages are just the latest in a number of initiatives that we are working towards to keep the industry informed and to make filming in Dubai easier. We have received fantastic feedback from our followers so far, and look forward to announcing further online initiatives in the near future,” he added.

DFTC was officially launched during the Dubai International Film Festival 2012, and serves as the sole entity responsible for issuing film, TV and commercial shooting permits for both public and private locations in Dubai.

Source – TradeArabia News Service

The post Dubai Film launches social media drive – Digital News appeared first on Digitrock.

Facebook will conduct a review of ads on the social network beginning next week and said it will remove ads from all groups and pages that contain “violent, graphic or sexual content” by the end of that week, even though that content does not technically violate Facebook’s community standards.

“We know that marketers work hard to promote their brands, and we take their objectives seriously,” Facebook representatives wrote in a blog post. “While we already have rigorous review and removal policies for content against our terms, we recognize we need to do more to prevent situations where ads are displayed alongside controversial Pages and Groups.”

This move comes about a month after more than a dozen companies pulled ads from Facebook in response to a boycott campaign over the amount of domestic violence imagery on the social network.

Facebook said its effort to restrict ads from controversial pages will be manual at first, but in the coming weeks it plans to build an automated feature to handle this process.

Image by Stephen Lam/Getty Images

The post Facebook Will Remove Ads From Pages, Groups With Offensive Content appeared first on Digitrock.

Statistics suggest that the amount of time the average person now spends on Facebook exceeds the amount of time he/she spends watching television. This would imply that the opportunity for seeing advertisements on Facebook is potentially larger than it is on television. This especially holds true today, in the age of digital television, when commercials can be very easily skipped by users, who simply fast-forward them.

Another important fact is pointed out by Adam Berke, president of retargeting firm and FBX partner AdRoll, who say that News Feed ads are basically bought on a per-insertion basis. That is, if a user sees a News Feed ad when checking Facebook on their work computer and then the same ad again when checking Facebook on their home computer, the advertiser only pays for the initial impression, no matter how many times the same user sees it. This is significant, because costs involved in television advertising are very high, as each repeat airing of a TV commercial costs as much as the first. Moreover, there are length constraints in television advertisements, they are short and do not convey much about the product.

A further advantage of Facebook advertising is the ability to reach smart-phone users.

Nutella is employing the decades-old marketing mix model (MMM) – a nuanced sales attribution system for integrated campaigns – to measure the effectiveness of Facebook ads. They combined Facebook ads with TV spots and other paid channels in Germany during December 2011, attributing 15 percent of sales from the yuletide campaign to its Facebook ads. In terms of RoI, the brand told ClickZ that Facebook ads outperformed the TV spend, according to its MMM data.

Socially multiplied advertising, the core of which is contagious brand-owned content on social platforms, is roughly 100 times more cost-efficient for brand advertising than primetime TV on a cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) basis. – Kirk Cheyfitz, Wallblog, UK

One key piece of research that must not be ignored is the Nielsen Global Trust in Advertising survey. The survey’s 2012 edition revealed that 92% of consumers worldwide trust recommendations of friends and family when making purchase decisions and 70% trust recommendations from strangers online. The same survey showed that, at most, only 47% of consumers trust traditional ads—TV, newspaper and magazines. Trust in such traditional ads has gone down the slope in the past three years, according to Nielsen.

Considering human psychology, Nielsen’s data suggests that having a friend or stranger deliver a brand message online through social media is 1.5 to 2 times more likely to influence behavior than delivering the same message in a TV ad.

Do you agree that Facebook advertising is the way to go in the current market? Share your thoughts with us.

The post Is Facebook advertising poised to overtake television advertising? appeared first on Digitrock.

Originally built during a Facebook employee hackathon, photo comments are starting to roll out globally on the web as well as the Facebook mobile site. Users can’t yet leave photo comments within Facebook’s mobile apps, but they are viewable. The feature is expected to come to those apps in a future update.

Adding a photo comment involves clicking a camera icon beside the text box where you would typically write a message and then uploading an image from your computer.

Let us know your thoughts about the new feature in the comments.

Image via Flickr, PhotKing

Source: Mashable

The post Facebook Now Lets You Comment With a Photo – Digital News appeared first on Digitrock.

The new design is simpler, cleaner and more intelligible. Stats that were previously rolled in together (i.e., “People Talking About This”) have been broken down into separate charts that allow Page owners to individually measure the reach and engagement (likes, comments, clicks and shares) of individual posts. Additional charts make it easier for users to see what kinds of posts — say, those with videos, or ones targeted to certain groups — have better reach or more positive engagement than others. Owners can also now break down demographic behavior on individual posts to see, for example, if one was their Pages are better at engaging women ages 18 to 24, or men older than 65.

No changes are being made to the Page Insights export or API for now, Gayln Burke, a product marketing manager for Facebook, told Mashable in a phone interview Tuesday. Once Facebook has taken and incorporated feedback from the beta testing period, Insights will be rolled out to other Page owners, but Burke could not confirm whether that would happen before the end of the year.

For a visual overview of the changes, check out the before and after screenshots below

Old overview tab:

New overview tab:

Old post analysis:

New post analysis:

New “people engaged” tab (by demographic):

The post Facebook Insights Gets a Makeover – Facebook Fan Page Marketing appeared first on Digitrock.

Cost per Like refers to the cost of acquiring a new fan for a Facebook page, either through paid advertisements or, less directly, through earned media efforts.

There are three ways to “buy” Likes on Facebook. One is through “cost per thousand impressions” (CPM). Advertisers bid to target a group of desired users, and pay every time their ad is seen by a thousand of those users. A second option is “cost per click” (CPC) campaigns, wherein advertisers pay every time their ad for their Facebook Page is clicked on. Neither of these options guarantees these users will become fans, however, it simply guarantees that they’ll either 1) be exposed to an ad for a Page or 2) see a Page.

Earlier this month, Facebook unveiled a new metric for evaluating advertising campaigns on Facebook, called “cost per action” (CPA). Now, advertisers can pay not just for impressions or click-throughs, but for specific actions they want consumers to perform once they’ve seen an ad — including becoming a fan of a Page. For example, an advertiser could specify it is willing to pay $2.00 for a “Like” — that is, for a new fan on its company or product Page — and only pay when the Page gets a new fan. Other actions include Offer claims and clicks on links to third-party sites.

For now, advertisers can only select CPA ads through Facebook’s Ads API. They’re not yet available in the Power Editor or Ads Manager, but a source at Facebook said the company plans to make them available there in the near future.

How to Determine the Value of a Fan
It sure is nice to have a lot of Facebook fans. But how much are they really worth, and how much should companies invest in acquiring them?

Recently, social media marketing agency Syncapse and research firm Hotspex conducted a study that attempted to assess the average value of a fan based on collective product spending, brand loyalty, propensity to recommend, media value, cost of acquisition and brand affinity. According to their calculations, a fan is worth an average of $174 to a company. But as the chart below shows, the value of a fan can differ widely across companies:

As such, individual companies need to calculate the value of their fans before they decide to pursue a fan acquisition strategy. I spoke to Max Kalehoff, vice president of product marketing at Syncapse, about how companies can do that.
“Marketers should define the value of a fan based on how it impacts the key criteria that determines the success or failure of their business,” says Kalehoff. Specifically, marketers should measure the spending habits of fans versus non-fans, to see if fans are more likely to make a purchase, make purchases at great amounts and/or purchase repeatedly. Advocacy — the probability of a customer recommending a product to others, and the probability of that recommendation to affect sales — is another key metric. Another area that is more difficult to measure is brand affinity — that is, the emotional draw that a customer feels towards a brand because of the relationship that develops between brands and fans over Facebook. If positive brand affinity tends to be a powerful sales indicator on other channels, it may be worth cultivating on Facebook, too.

Once a company has determined how much a certain target prospect worth, it needs to decide the amount of money it wants to spend to acquire and continue to communicate with that fan. “[Marketers] really need to bring it down to a cost equation,” says Kalehoff. “No one else can say what a fan is worth except the brand itself, and then it has to decide what to spend to acquire fans, and what it costs to communicate with them once a day or week to remind them to buy throughout the year.”

Not All Fans Are Created Equal
Marc Grabowski, COO of Facebook ad-buying firm Nanigans, says companies should go beyond calculating the average cost of a fan, because not all fans are equally valuable. A luxury fashion brand’s fanbase, for instance, might be made up a small percentage of actual buyers and a greater number of aspirational consumers who will never purchase any goods from the company. Likewise, a T-shirt company may have some fans that will only ever purchase one T-shirt, while other fans may purchase repeatedly over months and years. Thus, it’s important to target the consumers most likely to purchase, and to measure the behavior of fan groups over a long time period of time to get a better picture of their lifetime value.

Grabowski also noted, as Kalehoff did, that acquiring a fan is just one part of the cost equation. Once a fan has been acquired, companies need to calculate the costs of developing compelling content to keep that fan coming back.

Once these costs have been measured, it’s then important for a company to see if fan acquisition is the most efficient way to achieve its goal, versus, say, paying for click-throughs to third-party sites. “You might see 1% of your homepage click-throughs end up converting, while 20% of people who watch a tutorial on your Facebook page end up converting,” Grabowski said by way of example. Other companies, as we’ve noted previously, have seen their best conversion levels using Facebook’s mobile app-install ads.

So should your company invest in acquiring Facebook fans? The answer is: maybe. As Grabowski says, Facebook fans are valuable: by becoming fans, consumers are saying that they want to know more about your brand, and are giving you permission to communicate with them, so long as that communication continues to interest them. And many of them are also likely to be your customers. But before you embark on a fan acquisition campaign, you need to determine your goals, the most valuable segment of your Facebook fanbase, and whether acquiring more fans in that segment is the best way to achieve those goals. Don’t acquire for the sake of acquiring — use metrics to support your Facebook strategy.

Source : Mashable 

The post Cost Per Like: A Subjective Valuation of Your Facebook Fans appeared first on Digitrock.

Cost per Like refers to the cost of acquiring a new fan for a Facebook page, either through paid advertisements or, less directly, through earned media efforts.

There are three ways to “buy” Likes on Facebook. One is through “cost per thousand impressions” (CPM). Advertisers bid to target a group of desired users, and pay every time their ad is seen by a thousand of those users. A second option is “cost per click” (CPC) campaigns, wherein advertisers pay every time their ad for their Facebook Page is clicked on. Neither of these options guarantees these users will become fans, however, it simply guarantees that they’ll either 1) be exposed to an ad for a Page or 2) see a Page.

Earlier this month, Facebook unveiled a new metric for evaluating advertising campaigns on Facebook, called “cost per action” (CPA). Now, advertisers can pay not just for impressions or click-throughs, but for specific actions they want consumers to perform once they’ve seen an ad — including becoming a fan of a Page. For example, an advertiser could specify it is willing to pay $2.00 for a “Like” — that is, for a new fan on its company or product Page — and only pay when the Page gets a new fan. Other actions include Offer claims and clicks on links to third-party sites.

For now, advertisers can only select CPA ads through Facebook’s Ads API. They’re not yet available in the Power Editor or Ads Manager, but a source at Facebook said the company plans to make them available there in the near future.

How to Determine the Value of a Fan
It sure is nice to have a lot of Facebook fans. But how much are they really worth, and how much should companies invest in acquiring them?

Recently, social media marketing agency Syncapse and research firm Hotspex conducted a study that attempted to assess the average value of a fan based on collective product spending, brand loyalty, propensity to recommend, media value, cost of acquisition and brand affinity. According to their calculations, a fan is worth an average of $174 to a company. But as the chart below shows, the value of a fan can differ widely across companies:

As such, individual companies need to calculate the value of their fans before they decide to pursue a fan acquisition strategy. I spoke to Max Kalehoff, vice president of product marketing at Syncapse, about how companies can do that.
“Marketers should define the value of a fan based on how it impacts the key criteria that determines the success or failure of their business,” says Kalehoff. Specifically, marketers should measure the spending habits of fans versus non-fans, to see if fans are more likely to make a purchase, make purchases at great amounts and/or purchase repeatedly. Advocacy — the probability of a customer recommending a product to others, and the probability of that recommendation to affect sales — is another key metric. Another area that is more difficult to measure is brand affinity — that is, the emotional draw that a customer feels towards a brand because of the relationship that develops between brands and fans over Facebook. If positive brand affinity tends to be a powerful sales indicator on other channels, it may be worth cultivating on Facebook, too.

Once a company has determined how much a certain target prospect worth, it needs to decide the amount of money it wants to spend to acquire and continue to communicate with that fan. “[Marketers] really need to bring it down to a cost equation,” says Kalehoff. “No one else can say what a fan is worth except the brand itself, and then it has to decide what to spend to acquire fans, and what it costs to communicate with them once a day or week to remind them to buy throughout the year.”

Not All Fans Are Created Equal
Marc Grabowski, COO of Facebook ad-buying firm Nanigans, says companies should go beyond calculating the average cost of a fan, because not all fans are equally valuable. A luxury fashion brand’s fanbase, for instance, might be made up a small percentage of actual buyers and a greater number of aspirational consumers who will never purchase any goods from the company. Likewise, a T-shirt company may have some fans that will only ever purchase one T-shirt, while other fans may purchase repeatedly over months and years. Thus, it’s important to target the consumers most likely to purchase, and to measure the behavior of fan groups over a long time period of time to get a better picture of their lifetime value.

Grabowski also noted, as Kalehoff did, that acquiring a fan is just one part of the cost equation. Once a fan has been acquired, companies need to calculate the costs of developing compelling content to keep that fan coming back.

Once these costs have been measured, it’s then important for a company to see if fan acquisition is the most efficient way to achieve its goal, versus, say, paying for click-throughs to third-party sites. “You might see 1% of your homepage click-throughs end up converting, while 20% of people who watch a tutorial on your Facebook page end up converting,” Grabowski said by way of example. Other companies, as we’ve noted previously, have seen their best conversion levels using Facebook’s mobile app-install ads.

So should your company invest in acquiring Facebook fans? The answer is: maybe. As Grabowski says, Facebook fans are valuable: by becoming fans, consumers are saying that they want to know more about your brand, and are giving you permission to communicate with them, so long as that communication continues to interest them. And many of them are also likely to be your customers. But before you embark on a fan acquisition campaign, you need to determine your goals, the most valuable segment of your Facebook fanbase, and whether acquiring more fans in that segment is the best way to achieve those goals. Don’t acquire for the sake of acquiring — use metrics to support your Facebook strategy.

Source : Mashable 

The post Cost Per Like: A Subjective Valuation of Your Facebook Fans appeared first on Digitrock.