Facebook Page administrators can add your app directly to their Page by navigating to the following URL:
http://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=YOUR_APP_ID&next=YOUR_URL, where YOUR_APP_ID
and YOUR_URL can be found in your app settings. You can also integrate the new Add to Page Dialog.
from Social Commerce Today
The social commerce objectives open to you will of course depend on how you define social commerce. Definitions abound but the simplest definition is perhaps selling with social technology, i.e. using social technology – media and tools – to assist in the buying and selling of products and services. From this perspective, social commerce objectives are related to but distinct from other social media objectives
Static HTML: iframe tabs, which has 61.8 million monthly users, will simplify the process of making a custom landing page by automating many of the steps. Forget about creating a developer account and your own application — this app provides copy and paste textboxes for your custom HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It also offers checkboxes to remove the scrollbars and to enable Facebook’s FBML. If you want to incentivize Likes on your Page, the application enables you to “like-gate,” and show different content to those who have and haven’t “liked” your page.
It’s worth noting that you will still need to host your own files, and you won’t be able to remove the scrollbars for any design over 520 pixels wide and 800 pixels tall.
From Inside Facebook
Advertisers can now use tracking tags with several of Facebook’s Sponsored Stories types, allowing them to clearly measure how much traffic the social ad units are driving to their Pages and applications for the first time. A new field called “Optional URL Tags” now appears in the self-serve ad tool, allowing advertisers to append tags that can be tracked with third-party analytics tools. This helps advertisers determine which clicks to their properties came from Sponsored Stories, and more specifically from specific campaigns, targeting parameters, and ad creative.
Facebook has also increased the flexibility of Page Post Sponsored Stories such that advertisers can buy additional traffic for any of their Page’s posts, not just the most recently published update. These changes will make it easier for advertisers to determine the value of Sponsored Stories and integrate the ad unit with their existing Facebook Page publishing strategy. This could attract more ad dollars to Facebook’s unique way of amplifying word of mouth.
A Facebook Help Center page confirms the introduction of “Optional URL Tags” which was originally named “Optional Tracking URL”. The name was likely changed because advertisers enter just their tags, not the whole URL, and because Facebook may be weary of the privacy implications of the word “tracking”. The Help Center page explains that “Previously, for Sponsored Stories leading to Apps or to content off Facebook, it was difficult to distinguish whether clicks coming to your App or website were from a Sponsored Story or News Feed story.”
Tracking tags can now be appended to Domain Stories for amplifying shares of off-site content, App Share Stories for amplifying shares from within Facebook apps, App Used or Game Played Stories for promoting usage of apps on Facebook, and Page Post Stories for driving traffic to news feed updates by Pages. Advertisers could tag their ads to indicate their Sponsored Story type, geographic or demographic targeting, what Page post they promoted, their bid, or what campaign the ad belonged to.
Facebook doesn’t offer any tracking or analytics software, but these tags can be recognized by third-party advertising software to show the source of a click and identify trends in performance. For example, by tagging their ads with what age group their Sponsored Story ads are targeted to, advertisers could view what age groups responded best across campaigns.
Ads API partners will be able to append tags to their ads and feed the tracking data into their sophisticated targeting and bid management systems to improve the efficiency of Sponsored Stories campaigns run through their tools and services. This in turn help advertisers drive cheaper, more qualified clicks through Sponsored Stories. With both self-serve and Ads API advertisers able to use Sponsored Stories more effectively, the Facebook could see the social ad unit become a tool powerful enough to attract new advertisers and shift spend of existing advertisers to ad types only it offers.
All of Facebook’s Sponsored Stories are triggered by a user action such as clicking a Like button, except for one — Page Post Sponsored Stories. To make its social ad units easier to explain Facebook has reclassified Page Post ads in a “Sponsored Page Post” subcategory within traditional Facebook Ads rather than as a Sponsored Story.
It has also corrected the biggest problem with the ad unit. Previously, Pages could only sponsor their most recent Page post, meaning if they couldn’t publish any new updates if they wanted to buy traffic for an especially important post. Rather than ceasing to publish to the news feed for a sustained amount of time, this likely limited Pages to short Page Post ad campaigns, or dissuaded them from using the ad unit at all.
Now, as first spotted by Justin Oh, Facebook has added a “Page Post Selection” option the self-serve tool’s builder for Page Post ads. Advertisers can choose from a list of their Page’s recent posts or enter a specific “Custom Post ID” number that can be found at the end of URL of its timestamp. To automatically promote their Page’s latest post the same way the ad unit previously worked, advertisers can select “Most Recent Eligible Post”.
With this new tool, a Page could pay for ad units promoting a story about a big product release, announcement, contest, or application while continuing to publish posts that are less critical to drive traffic to, such as photos or messages of thanks. It also allows Pages to run multiple simultaneous Page Post ad campaigns for different posts. This will allow a brand’s advertising and Page management teams to work more independently rather than wasting time coordinating pauses to the Page’s publishing schedule.
Page Post Selection also unlocks opportunities for marketing campaigns that reward users or unlock content when a Page post gains a certain number of Likes or comments. For example, a Page could publish an update saying it will give away 50% off discount coupons for a day when the post reaches 5,000 Likes. If the post doesn’t reach the milestone organically through news feed exposure, the Page could buy Sponsored Page Post ads until it received 5,000 Likes rather than have the campaign appear to have failed.
In the same vein as the new Timeline profile redesign allows users to make their most important life moments more visible, Page Post Selection for Sponsored Stories will let brands amplify the reach of their most important or compelling content. As Facebook typically strives for a consistent browsing experience across the site, Timeline could be coming to Pages, which would fit well with the enhanced flexibility of Sponsored Page Posts.
For now, though, brands will be able to pay not only to drive traffic to their Pages, but to any post they’ve published that could aid their business.
Facebook Pages that automatically publish content to the news feed through third-party apps such as HootSuite, TweetDeck, and NetworkedBlogs receive an average of 70% less Likes and comments on their posts per fan, according to a new study by Applum, developer of Page tool EdgeRank Checker. The study says the difference is likely due to Facebook reducing the prominence of posts published by third-party APIs, and Facebook collapsing updates from the same API from across a user’s friends and Liked Pages.
As Likes and comments increase a post’s prominence in the news feed, driving more impressions and clicks, all Pages using auto-posting apps should look to switch to manual posting if possible.
Many companies, public figures, organizations, and news outlets (including our own) use auto-posting apps to create Facebook Page updates by syndication their Twitter posts or converting their blog post headlines. This increases efficiency but relieving the admins of these accounts from having to copy and paste headlines and links from one platform to another.
The practice is subjectively considered sub-optimal, though, as different platforms have different publishing capabilities and norms. Facebook for instance allows for rich media posts, so authors can select a thumbnail image and caption along with posting a link and headline. It’s typical for Twitter accounts to post up to a dozen times a day but that volume could be viewed as spam on Facebook. Therefore, auto-posts can appear robotic and less compelling.
EdgeRank Checker’s study is the latest of several reports we’ve covered that reveal obstacles to engagement on Facebook. A recent PageLever study showed the average Page gets only 7.49 daily unique news feed impressions on its posts and only 3.19 daily unique Page views per 100 fans.
Now, EdgeRank Checker has revealed empirical data that automatically published posts perform worse than manually published one. EdgeRank Checker analyzed over 1,000,000 Facebook updates by more than 50,000 Pages with a combined reach of over 1,000,000,000 fans including duplicates. It then calculated the engagement ratio of the total Likes and comments on a Page’s post divided by the total fans of the Page the at the time of the post for the ten most popular third-party publishing APIs.
The study determined that compared to the engagement of posts published manually to Facebook’s web or mobile interfaces, the reduction in engagement ratios of the top third-party publishing APIs are:
These averaged out such that posts published through a third-party auto-posting app saw roughly 70% fewer Likes and comments than those published through Facebook’s first-party interfaces. This is in part due to Facebook’s direct punishment of the EdgeRank of posts by third-party APIs. Also, if a user’s news feed contain multiple posts from a single API, whether from a single author or several different Pages and friends, the posts are collapsed and must be unfolded to be seen.
The takeaway point of the study is that it is well worth it to take the extra minute it to manually craft a Facebook post rather than auto-post. This might require changes to workflows or allocation of additional human resources. Still, Page owners could be sacrificing a lot of their social media performance and return on investment to save a small amount of time and effort.
From Inside Facebook by Josh Constine
Adobe has just published a short whitepaper on the business value of Facebook Likes, including a practical hands-on guide for leveraging the ubiquitous button (download).
It’ll be motherhood and apple pie for many, and is a soft-sell for the Adobe Online Marketing Suite, but it contains one of the best articulations of what social commerce ‘does’ we seen – social commerce transforms purchase funnels into viral loops. Sweet.
The paper can be downloaded here, but heres the speed summary:
The Like button drives word of mouth and referral traffic from Facebook, and when optimised can generate significant, measurable returns.
Over 40% of Levi’s traffic from all sources came from Facebook after the company added the Like button to its website. Facebook visitors spend on average 57% moreAmerican Eagle added the Like button next to every product on its site and found Facebook-referred visitors spent an average of 57% more money than those not referred by Facebook.
The average media site integrated with the Like button sees a 300% increase in referral traffic.The Like Button transforms the purchase/marketing funnel into a viral loop – awareness-interest-decision-action-recommendation-awareness…
A four step process will help businesses optimise business returns from the Like button;
Track interactions to determine how effective the Like button is on site traffic, engagement, and conversion
Capture available data through Facebook Insights (at www. facebook.com/insights) to better understand the demographic profiles of visitors and customers who interact with the Like button
Leverage these insights to optimize Like button placement and style, and help ensure a positive experience on the website and on the Facebook fan page
Use this data to reach potential customers on Facebook more effectively through targeted advertising campaigns and Sponsored Stories (at https://www. facebook.com/adsmarketing/)
Monitoring your social media presence is incredibly important - but many business owners and marketers are concerned it will take too much time.
You don't need a whole team devoted to social media monitoring - with some tools and these free tips, even one single person can keep an eye on your social media presence. Cover these 5 steps over a cup of coffee and you'll build social media into a healthy daily inbound marketing routine!
1) Check Twitter for chatter about your company ( 2 minutes ): Use tools like TweetDeckor Twitter Search to monitor conversations about your company in real-time.
2) Scan Google Alerts ( 1.5 minutes ): Check Google Alerts for your company name, products, executives or brand terms. To set this up, enter your search terms in a Google Alert and select to receive updates as they happen or once daily. Now, when people blog about your products, an alert will be sent to your inbox. You can read the articles and respond right away!
3) Check Facebook stats ( 1 minute ): Visit your Company Page's Faacebook Insights. This can be found under the page's main photo if you are an admin for your page. Scan your active users and interaction stats. Check out your wall posts or new discussions if you have them enabled for your page.
4) Answer Industry-related LinkedIn questions ( 3 minutes ): Search for questions on LinkedIn that you or members of your company can answer. You can set up an RSS feed for specific question categories to go to your Google Reader as well. When you find a relevant question, respond and include a link to your website or a relevant blog post that might be helpful to your audience.
5) Use Google Reader to check Flickr, Digg and others ( 2.5 minutes ): Also set up RSS feeds for searches on your company name and industry terms in other social media sites. Similar to monitoring LinkedIn and Twitter, your Reader will serve as a great place to centralize your other searches too!
In a sweepstakes the winners are selected by a random draw; there is no skill involved in winning a sweepstakes. In a contest the winners are selected either by a jury or audience voting or a combination of both and the entries are evaluated according to the skill of the submission (e.g. a photo contest or a recipe contest).
Sweepstakes are a powerful way to:
Entrants submit their original work (e.g. photo, video, essay, recipe, t-shirt design, etc.) and either public voting, the company, or a combination of both will determine the winner(s). Available contest formats:
Contests are a powerful way to:
You can use our application to distribute coupons, vouchers or give-aways within the social networks and from your website.
Source: http://bit.ly/qXmlzM
After working with many companies on Facebook marketing, I’ve discovered some common mistakes that hold companies back from getting results. If you want to get better Facebook fan page marketing results, check this list and find out whether you’re making any of these mistakes.
Most people, if they ever go to a fan page, only go there once. Some highly interactive pages get more visitors, and you can bring fans back to the page or to specific tabs with posts or ads, but usually fans see your page’s posts via their news feed.
One of the biggest surprises to me, in teaching Facebook marketing, was that most business owners don’t understand how people use Facebook:
This is also a good reason to look at Facebook Groups, because every time any Group member posts or comments, everyone gets a notification.
Reveal tabs, aka Fan Gates, are very popular. Some people think they possess magical powers. But they don’t help most businesses very much because:
See that big circular diagram from the last mistake? Notice how many fans go to the actual page? That’s the percentage of people likely to see your beautiful welcome tab. Actually, less, because once they’re fans, they’ll go straight to the Wall.
Some people also seem to think creating a Facebook app is a magical move that will create all kinds of buzz and engagement. While this may be true for big companies who can get mass media coverage for deploying a clever new app, for most companies this the long way around to less results.
The Facebook app’s fatal flaw is the ominous opt-in page that requires you to share your Facebook data with the App. I can’t find any authoritative percentage of how many people bounce away from that page, but anecdotally, I know the number is high. I only became more willing to allow once I knew where to go to remove App access from my account. But this extra step means at least 25 percent and maybe as many as 75 percent of people who go to try an app will not carry through with it.
What that means is- you spend all kinds of money and time programming a new app (and programming efforts, especially if you’ve never been involved in one, are always more money and time than you expected), and may come out with less results than if you just use the incredible tools Facebook has available.
Think about it, if 100 percent of users already interact with posts and pages and groups, won’t you have a better chance of getting engagement by using those, than by using a weird new app that they have to give up privacy to opt-in to?
As discussed above, the cheapest way to get targeted fans for your page (fans who are likely to be good customers), is with Facebook ads. The power, depth and precision of the Facebook ad platform is unrivaled and historic. And you can get fans for anywhere from 1 cent to $1.50, depending on your niche and parameters. You can’t get email subscribers that cheap anywhere, and this is the same kind of owned media.
But so many companies go to ridiculous lengths to avoid spending money on ads, or they just don’t have ad spends in their paradigm. They use a ton of time on roundabout tactics that yield fewer and less qualified fans. They forget about the cost of the employee time required to do so. And then when their fans don’t produce a return on investment, hey wonder why. Well, because you went cheap and you didn’t get good prospects. That’s why.
You’ve seen it on hundreds of corporate blogs: post after post about them, them, them, and few comments, if any. Comments from sycophantic employees who want their company to look good. You can see it on Facebook pages too: me, me, me posts, and very few likes and comments, especially compared to the fan base. Your actual active fan base is about 100 times the number of likes and comments you usually get. How does that compare to the number of fans you have?
You would think by now that everyone would understand the lessons of web 2.0; push and pull, conversational marketing, etc. But no. So many marketers have never learned to care about what their audience cares about. You can’t communicate effectively until you know your audience. You can’t get responses if you don’t ask for them. You can’t get enthusiasm until you stimulate it.
And if you don’t get responses, you become invisible.
If you don’t have a metric for every stage of your marketing, you simply can’t optimize your tactics for that stage. Your goals for the fan page should include:
This is very similar to the “me, me, me” selfish mistake discussed in #5.
Think about the typical conference. There’s a reason they have a separate area for vendors: The selling approach doesn’t always jibe with the conversational focus of the main part of the conference. And similarly, a fan page is a bunch of fans who typically are fans of something besides your offering. What they’re fans of is related to your offering. You have to continue to fan the flames of desire around that passion. My rule of thumb is to engage, converse and stimulate four times as much as you sell. Go for 80 percent interaction, 20 percent selling. There’s a wisdom to this that goes beyond Facebook.
Why does Corona sell relaxation and the beach rather than just show people drinking beer? By reaching beyond features and benefits to sell the dream implied by the offering’s benefits, playing with follow-through, focusing on the vision beyond, companies knock the ball out of the park.
Conversely, companies that focus on themselves and selling immediately end up disappointed, much like the college freshman looking for a one night stand. Not knowing the value of romance, he ends up rejected and alone. There’s a reason why it’s called foreplay and there’s a reason that flowers are a billion dollar business.
This is a repost from an excellent article by Brian Carter, CEO FanReach
http://www.allfacebook.com/7-biggest-fan-page-marketing-mistakes-2011-05
From Facebook:
"We're currently investigating an issue with API response times. We will update the status when we have further information."
This app lets Corporate Pages display a Store Finder and links to their Local Branch Pages
In mid-July, Facebook confirmed to us that it began testing a new Parent-Child Page management system for business with a corporate / local structure — those with a central brand Page as well as Pages for each individual branch or franchise. The limited private beta program’s first public facing component is now live, with Regal Entertainment Group movie theaters now showing a new Facebook-developed Page tab app called Locations.
The new app allows parent corporations Pages to display a map of nearby branch locations and links to their individual Pages. The app should help corporate Pages drive more Likes and foot traffic to their local branches, and could replace the “store finder” tab app found on most corporate websites.
Prior to the the start of the Parent-Child Page management system, it was very difficult for corporations to manage a hierarchy of Pages. A single person had to be added as the admin of every Page, and multiple Pages could be posted to, have apps installed, or have settings changed simultaneously. It was therefore very difficult to coordinate large scale cross-Page marketing campaigns, such as offering a coupon on the Facebook Page of every McDonald’s restaurant.
First, a third-party tool called Hearsay Social launched to address the corporate / local problem. Over the last few months, though, that company worked with Facebook to create a native Parent-Child Page management system, complete with APIs and a basic graphic user interface. Now the initial tests of the system by a select few corporations are launching for public use.
The Regal Entertainment Group Page now uses the Locations tab to show a map of all its movie theaters and links to their Pages. The map, powered by Bing, defaults to a tight radius around your current coordinates, but lets users search any address to pull up nearby locations represented by child Pages and the faces of friends who’ve checked in there. These child Pages now feature a link back to the parent Page, facilitating cross-Page promotion.
The Locations app also turns corporate Pages into a portal for local branches. Users can simply visit the corporate Page to find links to a nearby instance of the business or organization, rather than leaving Facebook to use a store finder on a client’s website. Once access to the Parent-Child system and Locations is rolled out, it could significantly increase Facebook’s utility as a sort of Yellow Pages with social recommendations.
This is a repost from: http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/08/05/facebook-locations/
As brands continue to increase their ad spending on Facebook, there is an ongoing conversation on how to most effectively deploy those dollars. Below is a six-step 'Blueprint' for effective brand advertising on Facebook. It combines the most efficient advertising medium (marketplace right-hand-column ads) with a splash of user engagement and re-targeting. These steps are not exclusive -- you should not skip No. 1 and move on to No. 2. Rather, these should be added to the campaign one at a time, and by the end, all 6-steps should be running concurrently.
1) Standard Marketplace Ads | Objective: Grow your fan base
After you have built out the framework for your fan page -- an attractive image, a thorough set of information, images, videos, as well as some custom tabs as you see fit -- your initial marketing spend should focus on growing your fan base through standard marketplace ads. These ads pointing to your fan page will allow users t either "like" your fan page directly within the ad unit or click on the ad and "like" from the actual fan page. The goal will be to drive as many fans as possible at the lowest Cost Per Fan (CPF) rate possible while staying within your core target market. Ad copy should be kept short and effective (i.e., "If you like Cars, Like X") and should be very direct in asking the user to like your page. Ideally, give the user a reason to like your page, effectively reducing your CPF rate (i.e., by liking X, your fans get access to exclusive content).
2) 'Page Like' Sponsored Story |Objective: Grow your fan base
A "Page Like" sponsored story is very similar to the standard marketplace ads. The difference is that it will be shown exclusively to friends of your fans and you have less control over the copy. For the user seeing this ad unit, he or she will specifically see some friends who have liked your page. The idea is that if one of my good friends has "liked" the page, I should also be interested. This ad unit becomes more effective as you grow your fan base. This is why it is important to first build up your fan base through standard marketplace ads before introducing "Page Like" sponsored stories.
3) Post Frequently |Objective: Engage your fan base
This is not an ad unit but it is crucial to mention posting strategy as part of brand advertising. Ensuring that you are engaging your fan base with regular posts will give you the ROI from steps 1 and 2 -- and is essential for steps 4, 5, and 6. Since there is a load of literature on fan page posting frequency and strategy, I will just provide a few quick tips. Post at a minimum once a day. Keep your posts short (under 80 characters is ideal). Post when your audience is there (it may not always be during 9 to 5 working hours, depending on your brand). Provide clear instructions if you want them to engage. (i.e. 'I think X is amazing. 'Like' this post if you agree!). Pose questions when you post to your fan page -- these typically drive responses and a higher level of user engagement. If you do not engage your fan base with frequent and effective posts, you will be wasting your marketing dollars.
4) 'Page Post' Sponsored Story |Objective: Engage your fan base
This ad unit specifically leverages your hard work posting frequently in step 3 by taking the posts you make on your fan page and turn them into an ad unit which is shown to your existing fans. Here is the idea behind it: If you post to your page, it is quite likely that your fans may not even see it. They may log in several hours or days after the post has been made, and miss that post altogether. The page post sponsored story will convert that post into an actual ad unit and display it on the right-hand column -- resulting in a much higher chance that your fans will see and engage with the posts that you make.
5) 'Page Post Like' Sponsored Story |Objective: Grow your fan base
This ad unit again leverages frequent posting to your fan page and is a hybrid of the page like sponsored story and the page post sponsored story. This ad is "created" when one of your existing fans likes one of your posts. It is then shown to the friends of your fans who liked your post. The concept is similar to the page like in leveraging the fact that a users' social circle will influence their actions. This can be an extremely effective way to grow your fan base as the social context is thereand the content is something much more engaging than simply your page alone. The content is leveraging a post on that page that can have a strong statement opinion, or question. Friends of your fans will be very likely to want to jump into the conversation if the post is powerful enough.
6) Standard Marketplace Ads |Objective: Leverage your large and engaged fan base
One of the biggest mistakes that brands make is feeling that growing their fan base and engaging them within the Facebook fan page is as far as this platform can go. This is not true. By growing your fan base and keeping them engaged you now have a phenomenal opportunity to direct these users elsewhere. By creating standard marketplace ads specifically targeted to your existing fan base, you can drive your fans to an external page. To give you an idea of how effective this can be, we ran a contest for a large telecommunications company that was looking for contest entries. When we targeted the brand's existing fan base, we were able to get contest entries at 10% of the cost compared to advertising to the general public. These savings can become very significant as your fan base continues to grow and you can come up with effective ways to re-target your fan base. You can leverage your fan base for contests, market research and even promoting a sale and driving them directly to your e-commerce website to make a purchase. Be sure to use unique tracking links when targeting your existing fan base versus advertising to the general public and you will then be able to directly measure the difference in performance. This final piece is crucial for brands because it allows them to see a real and direct ROI on their entire Facebook ad spend.
Article by: Hussein Fazal from AdAge Digital http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/brand-advertising-facebook-a-6-step-blueprint/229166/
Odyl has added the ability to Like Gate your entire Odyl tab of content.
The percentage of Facebook Users who have Liked a Brand has increased over 12% in the last 9 months, up from 47% in September 2010 to 59% April 2011.
Like Gates create a simple exchange, where the concept of “Like” is an exchange for 'access'. Simply asking users to "Like" your page is a direct way of converting users, but other approaches including combining a Like Gate with a special offer available only to 'fans' (like an exclusive Author interview or a Giveaway) are more of an exchange.
Odyl gives you choice as Like Gates can be placed in front of a Tab, Giveaway, Exclusive Content (e.g. an excerpt) or Photo Contest.
Example Like Gate in front of a Tab:
http://www.facebook.com/BrainQuest?sk=app_189142481117279
Example Like Gate on a Giveaway:
http://apps.facebook.com/penguinusa/giveaways/
Example Fan Gate on a Photo Contest:
http://apps.facebook.com/beakina/PhotoContests
If you are interested in pricing, please comment below and I'll get back to you.
Facebook has added a new “Merge” option to the Resources tab of the Page editor. It allows Page admins to apply to roll duplicate community Pages into an identically named official Page they control, adding the fans and check-ins of the community Pages to the official Page. Facebook has privately done this kind of merger in the past for prominent celebrities and businesses, but the option has never before been publicly available.
The merge tool will allow official Page admins to gain the ability to publish content to and target with ads users who’ve accidentally Liked an unofficial version of their Page, helping some Pages instantly grow to their rightful size.
For background, Facebook has two kinds of Pages: official, and community. Official Pages are those purposefully created by a user to represent a business, public figure, or piece of content they own, and they have the ability to publish content to those that Like them. Community Pages are created when users create a new Place to check in, or add something without an existing Page to their Likes, work places, or education history. Community Pages have no admins or ability to publish content to the news feed.
Sometimes users accidentally create or Like community Pages for things that have an official Page. These duplicate community Pages clutter the search experience and confuse users trying to Like the official Page of something they care about. This led Facebook to at one point offer a merge tool for duplicate Places, but bugs and misunderstanding of how to use the tool led to issues so Facebook removed it. Recently, Facebook launched the Places Editor to get users to flag duplicate Pages.
Previously, when prominent official Pages found they were missing thousands or even millions of fans that were scattered on various community Pages, Facebook has agreed to merge the Pages. In one situation, this led soccer player Lionel Messi to gain seven million fans in seven hours. This was only available to admins who had an direct line of communication with Facebook, though, such as big advertisers and celebrities.
Now, any Page admin can apply to have Pages merged through the “Merge duplicate pages” tool in the Page editor’s Resources tab. Instructions for the tool can be found in the Help Center documentation, confirming that this isn’t just a limited test.
If there are any eligible community Pages with identical names to the official Page being edited, admins can select them and initiate the merge. Admins can apply merge up to five community Pages at a time, and can submit multiple merge requests. Facebook will then take a few days to verify the application and ensure the Pages are in fact duplicates.
If approved, Facebook will take the fans and check-ins from the community pages and add them to the admin’s official Page. No other content from the community Pages is carried over, the official Page’s content will remain unchanged, and the newfound fans of the official Page are not notified of the change. The Help Center states that “merging is irreversible”, so admins should be sure they know what they’re doing.
The option should excite Page admins, as they may have the opportunity to quickly add people who truly care about their Page to their Like count. It should improve the Facebook experience for Page admins who’ll no longer have to ask “why can’t I market to these people who were clearly trying to Like my Page”.
Mergers will lead to more news feed impressions and clicks of a Pages links, helping the drive a return on investment on their Facebook marketing. All Page admins should check to see if there are any community Pages eligible for them to merge.
This is a repost from http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/08/02/merge-pages/
In response to a comment below -
If you click Edit Page, Resources and Merge Duplicates and see the following:
This means either
1. You *are not* the Admin of the duplicate page. Then, you will need to ask the Page Administrator to make you an Admin.
Directions are here: http://marquina.onsugar.com/How-make-someone-Page-Admin-your-Facebook-Fan-Page-14829671
2. You *are* an Admin of both Fan Page, but Facebook doesn't recognize that they are the same and need to merge. Contact facebook aj@facebook.com to change both Fan Pages to have identical names. Then, you should be able to merge Page A into Page B.
There are many tools out there to help you run a successful Facebook campaign but, in the end, the success of your promotion also depends on your own efforts. Here are a few things that you can do to give your campaign a better chance of success:
The more exciting your prize, the more interest your promotion will generate. High value prizes are of course very attractive, but we've found that the kind of prizes that work particularly well are those that money can't buy - such as a meeting with a celebrity, tickets to a limited-access event (e.g. a backstage pass at a show), or a limited edition or early release product etc. Of course, not every company has access to prizes of this nature, so offer whatever makes sense for your businesses, be it a free t-shirt for you and ten friends or a free teeth whitening treatment, but do be aware that the more attractive the prize, the more buzz your campaign is likely to generate.
In order for the word about your campaign and your brand to spread, you need to encourage as many initial entries as possible. These initial entrants will invite their friends, who will invite their friends, and so on. But if nobody knows about your promotion in the first place, there will be no one to spread the word. Here are some ideas for generating initial entries to your campaign:
For sweepstakes, encourage entrants to invite their friends to your promotion by offering prizes that can be shared. For example:
You should run your promotion for at least a month (longer is better) so that there is sufficient time for the word of mouth to spread to as many people as possible
Make your campaign as fun and interesting as possible. If it's a user-generated contest, make sure the topic is something that's likely to generate lots of entries and that others are going to enjoy looking at the entries.
Source: http://bit.ly/qon9BX
The report shows that 27% of Facebook browsing is on the news feed and home page — 4% of all time spent online in the US. 21% of time was spent on profiles, 17% on Photos, 10% on applications, and 25% on the rest of the site.
Most engagement with branded content happens on the news feed, not Pages, yet the average brand in the top 100 Facebook Pages reaches only 16% of their fans per week if they post five days a week.
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/07/26/most-facebook-browsing-on-news-feed/
One last thing you may try - - I’ve noticed they’ve now added the ability for third parties to mark the duplicated page.
On any non-Community Page click `Report Page` -> `Duplicate or miscategorized Page` -> `Duplicate of another Page` -> Search for Community Page -> Click `Continue`.
EXAMPLE BELOW: I report that the Fan Page "Marquina" is a duplicate.
Just converted your Personal Facebook Profile to a Business Account by mistake!?
Never fear - you can convert it back.
You can convert your newly created Business Page back into a profile by submitting a Migration Appeal here: http://www.facebook.com/help/
Here's more information found from the Facebook Help Center: http://www.facebook.com/help/?
Official Rules for the
-BRAND NAME- -NAME OF CONTEST- PHOTO CONTEST
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. A PURCHASE WILL NOT ENHANCE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING.
Open to residents of the fifty United States and the District of Columbia, age 18 or older.
How to Enter:
1. If you are not a fan of -BRAND- , become a fan by liking the page, then review these Official Rules and upload your photo to the Contest entry page. Your photo must include a -YOUR PHOTO REQUIREMENTS-. You must have permission from the photographer and any persons who appear in the photo before submitting it. You may enter as many photos as you want. Photos may not include obscene or offensive material or defame any person, or otherwise infringe on any person’s proprietary rights. Enter your name, full mailing address and email address on the entry page and submit your entry. Contest begins on -START DATE- and ends at 11:59:59 PM Eastern Time (ET) on -END DATE-. The sole determinant of time for the purposes of receipt of a valid entry will be the computer servers of -BRAND- (“Sponsor”). Proof of transmission (screenshots or captures, etc.) does not constitute proof of receipt. Limit one entry per person.
2. Your entry may be judged void if it is in whole or in part late, lost, misdirected or incomplete, or contains false information, or does not conform with or satisfy any or all of the conditions of the Official Rules, as determined by Sponsor in its sole and absolute discretion.
Voting:
1. Winners will be chosen based on voting by fans of the -BRAND- Facebook page.
2. Voting will be open from -START DATE-until 11:59:59 PM ET on -END DATE-(the “Voting Period”). Fans may vote for as many entries as they wish, but may vote only once for each entry.
Winner Confirmation:
1. Following the close of the Voting Period, the three (3) -YOU MAY HAVE AS MANY WINNERS AS PRIZES AVAILABLE- eligible entries that receive the most votes will be declared the first, second and third prize winners. In the event of a tie or ties in the number of votes an entry receives, Sponsor will do a random drawing to determine the prize winners.
2. Selected winners will be notified by email. To be confirmed a winner, a selected entrant must respond to the email notification within five (5) business days of it being sent. If any selected entrant cannot be contacted and confirmed a winner as above, his/her entitlement to receive a prize may be forfeited, and prize may be awarded to an alternate eligible entrant.
Prizes:
1. There are three prizes available to be won, each consisting of a custom-made skateboard deck, designed with a -BRAND NAME- cover. The first prize is…; the second prize is… and the third prize is…(Approximate Retail Value: $XXX.00 each). Prizes will be mailed to confirmed winners.
2. In the event that there are an insufficient number of eligible entries, Sponsor reserves the right not to award the prizes. Prizes must be accepted as awarded, without substitution, transfer or assignment. Prizes are non-refundable, not convertible to cash, and cannot be replaced if lost or stolen. Sponsor may substitute a prize of equal or greater value (based on the approximate retail value of the prize as stated in these Official Rules).
Eligibility:
1. To be eligible, you must be a resident of the fifty United States or the District of Columbia, age 18 or older.
2. You are not eligible if you are an employee of Sponsor, Facebook, Odyl, their respective affiliates, or other party in any way involved in the development or administration of this Contest, or a member of the immediate family or household member of any such employee.
Release of liability/Consent to publicity:
By entering the Contest, you: (i) confirm compliance with the Official Rules; (ii) consent to and grant Sponsor a non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free license to use your name, city, comments, photographs and/or other likenesses for publicity, advertising or informational purposes, including posting on the Contest page without further notice or compensation, and agree that you may be required to sign an agreement to that effect, except where prohibited by law; and (iii) release Sponsor, Facebook, Odyl, their respective affiliates, and other parties in any way involved in the development or administration of this Contest, (collectively the "Releasees") from and against any and all liability from any claims, actions, damages, loss, injury, costs, demands and liabilities arising in connection with the Contest and/or the prize.
General:
1. This Contest will be run in accordance with these Official Rules, subject to amendment by Sponsor. These Official Rules shall govern in the event of any inconsistency with other Contest-related materials.
2. In the event of a dispute over the identity of an online entrant, entry will be deemed submitted by the authorized holder of the email account.
3. By participating in the Contest, you acknowledge that you have read and understood these Official Rules, including our Privacy Policy, which is available to you at the point of entry, and agree to abide and be bound by them and all decisions of Sponsor, which shall be final and binding, without right of appeal, in all matters relating to this Contest and the awarding of prizes.
4. Sponsor, in its sole and absolute discretion, reserves the right to modify or terminate the Contest and amend the Official Rules at any time, without individual notice, and for any reason. In no event will more than the stated number of prizes be awarded.
5. All entries become the property of Sponsor and none will be returned. No correspondence will be entered into except with selected entrants.
6. This Contest is void where prohibited by law and is subject to all applicable laws and regulations. To the extent permitted by law, any dispute arising from this Contest will be determined according to the laws of the State of New York, without reference to its conflicts of law principles, and the entrants consent to the personal jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in New York County and agree that such courts have exclusive jurisdiction over all such disputes.
Winners List:
To receive a copy of the winners list, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope within six (6) months of the end of the Contest to -BRAND- Online Marketing-YOUR ADDRESS-, Attention: Winners Lists.
Sponsor:
-BRAND-
-YOUR ADDRESS-
New York, New York
This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by or associated with, Facebook or Odyl. Any questions, comments or complaints regarding the promotion should be directed to Sponsor, not Facebook or Odyl.
PRIVACY POLICY SAMPLE TEXT
-COMPANY NAME-Privacy Policy for information collected via sweepstakes and contests on Facebook
This Privacy Policy explains generally what information is collected when users enter a promotion, sweepstakes or contest (a “Promotion”) that is sponsored by -COMPANY NAME-via Facebook and how that information is used. -COMPANY NAME-whose offices are located at -ADDRESS-, is referred to in this Privacy Policy as “we,” “us” and “our.” By entering this Promotion, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy as amended from time to time, and the official rules of the Promotion, as provided at the Promotion’s point of entry on Facebook (the “Official Rules”), of which this Privacy Policy is a part. This Privacy Policy is governed by and interpreted under the laws of the United States.
What personal information may be collected through this Promotion
In order to administer this Promotion, we request and collect personal information from you when you enter the Promotion, such as your name, date of birth (if required for participation in the Promotion), address, email address, and photograph (if required for participation in the Promotion).
How we may use your information
We will use your information to process your entry in the Promotion, and to notify you and mail a prize to you if you are a winner. We may also use your personal information for internal record keeping and to administer the Promotion.
In addition, you may have the right to “opt in” to certain of our uses of your personal information. For example, when you enter the Promotion, you may have the opportunity to choose, by checking the appropriate box, whether you want to receive promotional emails from us or to receive an email alert when a particular author publishes a new book. We will only communicate with you in this way if you consent by opting in.
If you opt in, you may later opt out of receiving our promotional e-mails by clicking on an opt-out or “unsubscribe” link within the promotional e-mail you receive. Please understand that if you opt out of all future promotional emails, we may still contact you in connection with the Promotion.
We may use third parties, to help operate and administer the Promotion and deliver prizes, and we may share your information with them to use on our behalf on an as-needed basis for such non-marketing purposes. We will not share your information with any third parties for marketing purposes.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, we, including any co-sponsor of the Promotion and the author of the book(s) associated with the Promotion, may use your name, city, photographs and/or other likenesses for publicity, advertising or informational purposes, including posting on relevant pages on Facebook without further notice or compensation, as set forth in the Official Rules.
We may disclose user information to government authorities and to third parties if required by law (including police investigation) or if we have reason to believe that someone is injuring or interfering with us, the Promotion, other users or third parties, or is violating the Official Rules.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy from time to time and such changes will be incorporated herein.
Contact Us
If you have any questions or comments regarding our privacy practices, you may contact us at: -EMAIL-
Effective Date: 3/3/2011
http://socialtimes.com/how-
As the article describes, Page administrators can convert their friends into dedicated fans using the “Invite Friends” tool which sends notifications to friends suggesting they Like a Page. This can help jumpstart growth for new Pages or facilitate further viral growth for established Pages.
“Invite Friends” can be accessed from the right-hand Page admin menu that admins see when viewing their own Pages. It is the most direct and visible way Facebook has ever allowed Page invites to be sent. Therefore, we recommend using this tool now in case Facebook removes the feature or begins delivering the invites through a less visible channel.
Facebook Profiles Can Now Convert Into Pages
From http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-profiles-can-now-convert-into-pages-2011-03
You can now convert a personal profile into a business page. Just use Facebook's migration tool: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php?migrate
The social network never formally announced this new capability but Facebook’s help center explains how to convert a profile to a page.In fact, seven different help entries describe this process, making it look like this has been an option all along when in fact it’s news to us — as it was for blogger Josh Constine.
Converting a profile into a page retains all of one’s friends as fans, but all other information gets lost in the process if a user doesn’t first copy and save all of their personal information onto their computer. And once you convert your profile into a page, there’s no way to reverse the process.Facebook’s help center describes how to download the contents of one’s profile in ample detail.
The ability to convert a profile to a page seems like a logical next step in functionality for the site, given how Facebook redesigned the layouts of profiles and pages to look alike.Converting a profile into a page would suit someone who is simply more interested in maintaining a business presence on the site than a personal one. Small companies and sole proprietors might have a stronger inclination to do this, but so would page administrators whose usage of Facebook has become so professionally focused that they no longer use it for their own social lives.
One in five divorces are blamed on Facebook. And 69% of parents are friends with their children on social media. Those are just two of the facts included in the latest installment of “Social Media Revolution.”
The video is produced by Socialnomics author Erik Qualman, who has created several similar videos and has updated them as new data surfaces.
Social Media Revolution 3 (4:15 version via Erik Qualman)
The latest video in the series is updated with data up to June 2011 and contains several interesting highlights:
Check out the video below and tell us in the comments what you think.
A repost from AdAge: Five Social-Media Strategies to Avoid
With All the Online Noise Out There, Don't Annoy Consumers With Missing Mascots and Shameless Self-Promotion
By: Peter Madden Published: June 27, 2011
http://adage.com/article/small-agency-diary/social-media-strategies-avoi...
While companies busily high-five each other over implementing social-media plans that have limited strategy around them -- and while the majority of celebs send tweets that make them look like twits -- let's look at a few rules of thumb that I hope can help those jumping into what can be awfully frigid waters.
1. Celebrities/CEOs/Politicians/VIPs/Elvis/Persons of Note: Put down that iPhone. Never have I seen a better excuse to employ a PR expert than the almost daily implosions of everyone from pro athletes to comedians on Twitter (especially). If anything, learn from Kim Kardashian, who keeps it vapid and harmless. Don't be like LeBron, whose reference to the "Greater Man Upstairs" dictating his fate on the court after not showing up in the Finals didn't win him any fans.
2. Shameless Self-Promotion: To be online is to embrace ego on a continuum, create one's own world and rule that tiny electronic universe. Any company impeding that world by selling anything will be ignored like I was at the junior prom (before I built this incredible hair). Ask a few simple questions: Who's your audience? What will engage them in a real way?
3. We've Kidnapped Your Favorite _____: Lately I've seen mascots and other supposed icons of companies go on vacation/disappear suddenly with the company asking fans and followers to like their page to bring back the mascot. Cue the sound of one hand clapping or liking the page. Also, as a lover of mascots from outside the New York area, it's just personally upsetting for me to think of a large Styrofoam character bound and gagged in the back of some trunk.
4.Play This Game! Or … don't. I think a burger chain offering someone the opportunity to see if they can dip sauces in the right sequence using their mouse is the equivalent of offering them a crack at Space Invaders or Asteroids. Note: If born after 1980, I just wrote something borderline hilarious. If you're going to create a game, it better be hot and if it's not hot, it better be funny. Entertain the people!
5. Great Questions = Real Engagement: You can always tell when a company has put serious thought into a question. Good questions make you stop, think, reflect and, most importantly, beg you to be a part of the discussion. The most powerful component of social media is handing the reins over to your (hopefully growing) audience by tossing a question that's the equivalent to a softball to Ryan Howard. Make them hungry to hit it.
If the brand isn't already built to last, ignore all of the above and get your eye on the ball. The strongest brands who weave their essence into their social strategies per the above are also the smartest brands.
