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.

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Facebook and Instagram each captured the hearts of 23% of survey respondents. Clearly, Instagram’s rising popularity among teens took a toll on both Twitter and Facebook’s popularity; Facebook saw a 10% decrease in the survey since six months ago and Twitter saw a 4% decrease.

“The data point is likely unsurprising as the trend in our survey has been moving toward Twitter over the past couple of years,” said analysts Gene Munster and Douglas Clinton in a note to clients.

Statista’s chart, which uses data from Piper Jaffray, shows the changes in teens’ favorite social networks for shopping among fall 2012, spring 2013 and fall 2013.

Image: Image: Sean MacEntee

The post Twitter Dethrones Facebook as Teens’ Favorite Social Network for Shopping appeared first on Digitrock.

Trying to update your status will yield this message: “There was a problem updating your status. Please try again in a few minutes.”

Facebook status update issues are not uncommon, but this one seems global — we’ve tested it from several IPs and received the same message.

According to web service status tracker Downrightnow, Facebook is likely experiencing a service disruption.

Facebook did not immediately respond to our request for comment.

This story is developing…

Image: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images, Facebook

The post Facebook Suffers Sitewide Errors for Many Users – Digital News 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.

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

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Researchers in Norway have even published a new psychological scale to measure Facebook addiction. Yet, while these all focus on personal afflictions, I wonder whether there’s a similar phenomenon with businesses today.

Can a business spend too much time on Facebook? And what are some of the negative consequences?

1. It lowers employee productivity.
When social networking first arrived on the scene, employers’ biggest fear was the time suck — productivity levels would drop as employees spent too much time on their personal Facebook pages.

But Facebook can also be an enormous resource drain, even when employees are using it for business purposes. That’s because Facebook isn’t free. Cultivating a community, moderating discussions, responding to feedback and other Facebook page activities require an ongoing commitment.

Considering that resources are always finite, any resources allocated for Facebook must be pulled away from other activities. Without explicit goals, Facebook can easily become a massive waste of time, draining important resources from other marketing, sales and customer service priorities.

2. It encourages unfair comparisons.
A recent study from the University of Michigan found that Facebook use leads to declines in moment-to-moment happiness and overall life satisfaction in college-aged adults. According to research co-author John Jonides, “When you’re on a site like Facebook, you get lots of posts about what people are doing. That sets up social comparison — you maybe feel your life is not as full and rich as those people you see on Facebook.”

Likewise, small businesses, especially those just launching their campaigns, can easily become discouraged when comparing themselves to Pepsi, Pampers, Starbucks, Virgin Atlantic and other brands on Facebook. Running campaigns at that level takes a tremendous amount of strategy, resources (both internal and external) and expertise.

This pressure to “keep up with the Joneses” can have two negative consequences. One, businesses may end up spending more time on Facebook due to competitive reasons, as opposed to basing their priorities on actual business objectives or realities. Secondly, businesses may end up focusing on the “wrong” aspects of Facebook, such as racking up fans.

3. It’s difficult to measure.
Wanting to succeed on Facebook, many businesses hone in on some of the easiest metrics around: the number of fans and the number of likes. After all, these numbers can be a very visible measure of status, and it’s easy to treat the site like a game in which the whole goal is to amass more likes than your competitors.

However, just how much does the number of Facebook fans matter? Many businesses host contests and offer discounts in exchange for clicking the Like button. For example, I once liked a store that I’ve never shopped at (and have no plans to either), simply because it was raffling off a vacation. I never visited its page or interacted with its brand after that initial like (and shortly after, unliked it because I was tired of seeing the updates). If this brand included my like as an indication of positive consumer engagement, it was definitely wrong.

The real question is, how do you measure the value of your Facebook fans? How many fans do you need to create a new customer or sale? Unless you have a way to prove that your Facebook page is making you money, you may run the risk of wasting substantial resources here instead of focusing your efforts elsewhere.

4. There’s no direct link to sales.
Facebook can be an ideal channel for generating buzz and engagement, but this doesn’t necessarily translate into sales — at least in the short term.

A 2012 Forrester study analyzed 77,000 online transactions over a two-week period and found that less than 1% of transactions could be traced to social media (compared with 40% from organic or paid search, and 30% from repeat business sparked from email).

If you’re looking for more proof that Facebook is not an effective direct sales channel, consider the fact that the number of U.S. retailers with Facebook-enabled checkouts plummeted from 63% in Q4 2011 to just 6% in Q4 2012.

Again, Facebook can play an important role in building relationships, but as a small business owner, I need to make sure we’re investing resources in those activities that have a more direct link to the bottom line.

5. There’s no human connection in the cloud.
Engaging via email or Facebook is entirely different than actually talking to someone in person or over the phone. A one-on-one conversation creates a deeper connection, and a more detailed exchange of ideas. The biggest risk for businesses with Facebook is assuming that social media engagement is the only customer interaction you need.

The New York Times illustrated just how difficult it is to reach a social media company on the phone: “Twitter’s phone system hangs up after providing web or email addresses three times. At the end of a long phone tree, Facebook’s system explains it is, in fact, ‘an Internet-based company.’ Try email, it suggests.”

Facebook and Twitter are excellent initial touch points for customer support, but nothing beats personal conversations.

In the end, be realistic.
I’m not advocating that any business should walk away from social media. However, you need to be realistic about the potential returns. Invest your resources based on the opportunity, rather than just because everyone else is doing it.

Image: iStockphoto, courtneyk

The post Is Your Business Spending Too Much Time on Facebook? appeared first on Digitrock.

Each video will play silently and can be viewed with sound upon clicking.

The new capability will only be rolled out a small group of random users, and videos will only play automatically if they are uploaded directly to Facebook — not embedded from other sites like YouTube. Still, Facebook hopes the added functionality will let users get more out of the video content on their feed, particularly since Facebook lets users preview the video without interrupting the scroll.

This new autoplay feature only applies to videos uploaded by individuals, bands and musicians. In other words, brand pages won’t be able to use autoplay for promotional videos, and Facebook doesn’t offer video advertisements at this time.

No details were released regarding a timeline for rolling out the feature to all users, or whether it will be available for Facebook’s desktop platform.

Image: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

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The company is currently selling a shade of nail polish, “social butterfly blue” at its campus store in Menlo Park, Calif. Although Facebook told Mashable it added the polish to its collection of branded swag at the beginning of the year, its existence was recently brought to light by Huffington Post executive tech editor Bianca Bosker, who tweeted a picture of it on sale at the headquarters’ store.

You won’t find the Facebook logo on the packaging, though. Instead, it’s decorated with a small icon of a butterfly.

Unfortunately, you’ll have to visit the shop in person to pick up your Facebook blue polish; no online orders are available. Each bottle costs $4.95.

Image: Mashable composite; images: iStockphoto, gawriloff; Facebook

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When users sign in to an app like Lyft or Words With Friends using their Facebook login credentials, they can now specify exactly what they would like to share with Facebook in a two-step process. The first step asks for “read permissions,” which dictate the information from the app accessible to Facebook. The second step presents “write permissions,” which if accepted, allow the user to post directly back to his news feed through the app.

Previously, the two permissions were a package deal, meaning you couldn’t agree to one without also green-lighting the other. The update in April granted users more control and enabled them to accept just one or the other if they weren’t comfortable accepting both, according to Chris Daniels, director of business development at Facebook. The update is now fully available to all users, and a recent study of certain “high quality” apps by the social network found that 80% of users accepted the permissions when prompted.

Facebook benefits from users logging in to third-party apps using their Facebook profile. Those who log in with Facebook count as “active” users for the platform — more logins mean more content shared back to the site. Facebook has more than 850 million login events per month, and 81 of the 100 top-grossing iOS apps support Facebook login features, according to the company’s blog post. On Android, 62 of the 100 top-grossing apps support Facebook logins.

The new permission option was based on feedback from users and developers who felt they needed more control, Daniels said. Often, users timid about sharing back to Facebook saw the permissions page and simply elected to bypass logging in altogether.

“We understand people’s concerns about apps posting on their Timeline or to their friends,” Facebook posted on its blog. “The recent changes to Login are just the beginning of more improvements you’ll see as we continue working to provide useful services for developers that are easy for users to understand.”

Have you ever skipped logging into an app because of Facebook permissions? Tell us in the comments below.

Image: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

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