The Facebook Page: The Good, The Bad, The UGLY

Facebook. Everyone knows what it is and I’m pretty sure mostly everyone has an account.  You can post an update, message a friend, create an event, post photos, and read the news of everything posted.  Another part to it is where you can create a Facebook Page of whatever is of interest to you.  There are many different kinds of fan pages where mainly your goal is to get as many likes as you can.  Once they like it, they can read about it and see your posts on their news feed.  This allows you to get yourself out there and recognized by more people which in turn could help improve your business.  It’s one of the methods to advertising.  

Facebook Page Metrics and Insights

To utilize the Facebook Page to your advantage, Facebook provides you with aggregated anonymous insights about people’s activity on your page.  This is where you can view the different Facebook metrics like how many people your post reached, how many people clicked it, how many people liked it, how many people commented on it or shared it.  If you don’t know how to utilize this Facebook fan page to your advantage, don’t worry there’s a breakdown on “6 Facebook Metrics Marketers Should Be Measuring”. [1]  This might be a little outdated so you can always go to the Facebook help option as well to get more up to date information on your fan page. [2]  With these metrics you can learn which posts are good, which posts aren’t as good, and how to improve your page based on what you see. 

Optimize Your Page Post Metrics

Once you know how to navigate throughout the page, you’ll find that there are many metrics for you to work with.  By knowing how each of these key metrics work, you should be able to analyze how effective your web page is and what needs to be done to boost the company sales. [3]  From the perspective of Facebook, there are also specific ways to promote your page and increase your likes.  Some methods - such as contests, promotional offers and promoting through other social media – won’t cost as much as others. [4] 

How NOT To Optimize Your Page

Now there are genuine ways to boost these Facebook metrics and then there are fictitious ways.  You want to be careful and make sure that your metrics are accurate because with all metrics, there’s always the possibility that they could be unreliable.  For instance, the Facebook Page Likes metric could be helpful or could not.  As I stated above, the more likes you have, the more detailed your metrics will be on your Facebook dashboard, but that’s if those people that have liked your page are actively participating in your posts.  On your Facebook page, there is an option to promote your page and get more likes.  The problem with paying to promote an ad is that there are businesses in other countries that get paid to like your page.  This technique, known as “click farming”, will definitely increase your likes, but it could even lessen your engagement metric. [5]  There’s more to this and I would love to discuss it, but since there are great links that describe it better and an even better video linked below about it all I’m pretty sure you’d rather read about the fraud and all those fake Facebook profiles there.[6] [7]  This video is a really good one about Facebook Fraud. 

Know Your Metrics

Overall, if you’re trying to increase your engagement and utilize the Facebook metrics to your advantage, you need to know how each one works and if they’re truly a good metric.  This also applies to all other metrics and how you analyze them.  Knowing how each one works and which ones are needed will allow you to use them to your advantage and analyze the data based on your company requirements as well as compare them to competitors and the industry.  Particularly, you would also want to make sure what you’re paying for is authentic and that you’re not getting ripped off.  If this is occurring on Facebook what happens to other social media that you pay for?  Are those authentic metrics that you're looking at?


References:

[1] Ernoult, E. (2013, March 18). 6 Facebook Metrics Marketers Should Be Measuring. Retrieved February 18, 2014, from Social Media Examiner: www.socialmediaexaminer.com/facebook-page-metrics/

[2] What's new in Page Insights? (2013, November 18). Retrieved February 18, 2014, from Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/help/247808452010769

[3] Tabita, J. (2014, February 11). Beyond Tracking: How to Improve Your Web Metrics. Retrieved February 18, 2014, from SitePoint: http://www.sitepoint.com/beyond-tracking-improve-web-metrics/

[4] Steeves, N. (n.d.). 7 Ways to Increase your Facebook Likes [Guide]. Retrieved February 18, 2014, from Wishpond: http://blog.wishpond.com/post/52815764009/7-ways-to-increase-your-facebook-likes-guide

[5] Schneider, J. (2014, January 23). Likes or lies? How perfectly honest businesses can be overrun by Facebook spammers . Retrieved February 18, 2014, from TNW: http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2014/01/23/likes-lies-perfectly-honest-businesses-can-overrun-facebook-spammers/#!wgii9

[6] Cellan-Jones, R. (2012, July 12). Who 'likes' my Virtual Bagels? Retrieved February 18, 2014, from BBC News Technology: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18819338

[7] Hicks, J. (2013, July 3). IG report: State Department spent $630,000 to increase Facebook ‘likes’. Retrieved February 18, 2014, from The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/07/03/ig-report-state-department-spent-630000-to-increase-facebook-likes/

[8] Facebook Fraud . (2014, February 10). Retrieved February 18, 2014, from Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag

Facebook advertising and the value of a ‘like’

You might be wasting your social marketing budget.

In a recent upload by YouTube educational science channel Veritasium[1], Derek Muller exposes what he believes to be a major problem and conflict of interest with Facebook’s page promotion services.

Muller describes his recent page promotion results and finds that the massive amount of ‘likers’ he gained engage far less often and less deeply than his initial fan base.

The reason, he thinks, is simple:  they’re fake. Click farms generate the likes.

His hypothesis is supported by the fact that the likes are almost exclusively generated in parts of the world notorious for the forbidden practice: India, Egypt and the Philippines.

Although Facebook does employ algorithms to detect fake accounts, he says these likers avoid detection by indiscriminately ‘liking’ just about everything, regardless if they’ve been paid by that particular client to do so. The real ah-ha moment comes when Muller explains that even if Facebook were to detect these likes, it has a vested interest in perpetuating the status quo.

Facebook makes a profit with the initial advertising fee and once the client has their new ‘likes’, the engagement level is so low that they have no choice but to invest further with Facebook’s page promotion services.

The problem is that once these fake likes have been added to your page, they don’t go away. Any subsequent marketing campaign is then distributed to a subset of your likers and the truly engaged fans never get a chance to see the content. Your campaign is lost in a sea of fake accounts and the vicious cycle continues.

In my research, I found some very interesting mobile metrics, reported by the Search Engine Journal [2] in which they compare iOS and Android Click-Through rates (CTR) with marketing spend ROI.

The study shows that iOS devices have the lower CTR of 1.25% with an astonishingly high 162% return. Conversely, Android operating systems show a CTR of 2.73% with a ROI of -10%.

This information was puzzling at first. Why would iOS users convert at such a high rate in comparison with Android users?

I realized this too can be attributed to click farmers. Android phones are particularly dominant in the emerging markets and in developing nations. It is certainly possible, if not likely, that click farmers are performing their duties on Android devices!

Although this seems like an insurmountable obstacle, the problem of social advertising cannot be ignored; there is simply too much opportunity.

In the April 2013 Syncapse research paper, “The Value of a Facebook Fan 2013: Revisiting Consumer Brand Currency in Social Media[3],“ they report the average value of consumer brand fans has increased 28% since 2010 to $174.17.

One of the most valuable fan bases appears to be BMW, with a fan value of $1613.11. This makes sense considering the price of an average BMW is much greater than say an average cart of goods at Wal-Mart. The value of a Facebook fan then, increases at a rate in proportion to the average retail purchase price.

Another key finding in the Syncapse research points to the actual revenue these companies are deriving from engaged Facebook users. Fans spend upwards of $257 more, on an annual basis, than non-fans.

So, for the brands in the Syncapse study, it appears to be paying off, but how? There is one major distinction with the Syncapse data.

Most brands in the study have reached an established, mature presence in their respective markets and some have attained the coveted lifestyle status. In addition, their marketing budgets and count of Facebook likes far exceed that of a start-up or a fledgling blogger.

They can afford to bear the burden of fake likes. Their ubiquitous brand can reach enough fans that the impact of fake likes is far less burdensome.

This really is an issue of conflicts of interest. If Mark Zuckerberg wants to create his own mini version of the Internet, he has an obligation to users and advertisers to maintain objectivity. At the very least, Facebook should be providing some level of transparency with its paid promotion practices.

Most importantly, Facebook must find a way to identify and delete fake likes and associated accounts. Until then, small to mid-size companies and their marketing teams will continue to suffer on an uneven playing field.

Small scale marketing teams would be wise to use Facebook's promotion services sparingly and keep a close eye on the results. At this point, once the damage has been done, it is difficult to overcome. 

---

[1] : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag

[2] : http://www.searchenginejournal.com/retail-advertisers-facebook-average-152-roi-162-roi-ios/73911/

[3] : http://www.syncapse.com/value-of-a-facebook-fan-2013/#.UW6uQrVJNQU

Browser Cookies 2.0 - Google AdID - The Holy Grail of user information

Browser Cookies?!?!

Tania recently posted a blog entry explaining what web cookies are, how they work, and how to manage them.  At a basic level cookies allow information to be aggregated about you and your browsing habits.  This helps content providers (but mostly marketers) tailer a more relevant experience for users but also raises privacy and security concerns as these shadow profiles are enriched over time.

Browser cookies come in two varieties, first party and third party. [1]  The first party variety are generally the more benign of the two and only aggregating data in the current site where you are visiting.  Third party cookies however, go where you go.  They can collect product preferences from Pinterest, employment information from LinkedIn, and just about anything else from social media.  This cocktail of information can be powerful for marketers and potentially dangerous in the wrong hands.

As users, we tend to leverage multiple browsers, tabs, and even platforms (phone, tablet, desktop, e-reader, gaming systems, etc) to facilitate our data and connectivity addictions.  This makes it more difficult for the third party cookies to get the "full" story.  Users can also block and delete cookies (see "Do Not Track").  These weaknesses have lead to companies like Google to create solutions to stitch some of these data holes together (like linking all your Crome profiles together, platform agnostic).

Holy Grail?!?!

It would be naive to think that companies would stop short of the 'Holy Grail' of user information. Google is already working on an alternative to cookies called AdID.  Essentially, the search giant is building an "anonymous identifier for advertising, or AdID, that would replace third-party cookies as the way advertisers track people's internet browsing activity for marketing purposes." [2]

There are interesting implications of this development [3] but its important to note that the devil is in the details, all of which are speculative at this stage of development.

The Good:

• The AdID is intended to be an anonymous
• Ownership of the AdID is consolidated which can allow for better governance. This is a slight improvement over the smorgasbord of third parties tracking user traffic with almost no governance.
• Users will theoretically be given tdiscretion over how much data (or which data) is aggregated
• There might be a "private browsing option"

The Bad:

• Although intended to be anonymous, it has a huge potential to be linked to something not anonymous like an email or G+ profile
• Tracking is tracking. The information can be willingly sold, lawfully subpoenaed, or wrongfully stolen
• If you are a company tracking users with cookies, future browsers like Crome, may auto-block (verses the current opt-in) cookies. Your only option will be to pay the big boys for that information.

The bottom line

Should we hate Google for doing this to us? It's hard to blame them for wanting to profit off the information that they serve us for free.  Besides; Microsoft, Apple, and FaceBook are in the game too. [4] Users need to take more ownership of their personal information and activities and choose when and how it can be used, otherwise, someone else will.


=========================================================
[1] http://adage.com/article/digital/google-s-plan-replace-cookies/244302/
[2] http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/18/google-adid-an-anonymous-identifier-advertising-cookie/
[3] http://www.digitaltrends.com/opinion/what-is-google-adid-and-how-will-it-replace-browser-cookies/
[4] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304682504579157780178992984

What does Facebook’s Graph Search mean to analytics?

What does Facebook’s Graph Search mean to analytics?

Paid search has been dominated by Google so far. The company holds enormous amounts of search data that it is able to sell as part of its advertising packages. On top of this, Google runs its free web analytics engine that integrates with its search platform to deliver even better ad placements and results. Advertisers are able to see what people do not just on Google, YouTube, and in Gmail, but also take advantage of Google’s reach across third party web sites in its current ad presence. Google can help to build intimate customer profiles based on these browsing habits, and turns that data into very, very accurate advertising placements based on users’ web history. (Salesforce is a good demonstrator that customer profiles are worth big money) Power plays to fight Google’s foothold in analytics data, search, and search advertising, even those made by Microsoft, have fallen flat so far.

The massive volume behind Facebook’s user base puts the company in a theoretical power position to leverage personal information. The site holds an extensive network of information and social connections that it has never properly leveraged in the past. Running a search had previously only turned up sporadic friends and few relevant results, yet Facebook has seemed relatively uninterested in reworking its data to improve search results or ad revenues.

Press reaction was heated after the publicity surrounding Facebook’s public launch. With 1 in 6 people on the planet (a substantial ratio of whom are active participants in the global economy, rather than an isolated one, which in turn could drive ad sales) on the service there is a wealth of data to be examined and mined on the back end. People put fairly intimate public profiles on the site, build photo libraries with family experiences, make friends, and actively communicate on Facebook’s servers. All of this is fair game for search analysis, and can allow the site to suggest search results that a friend likes. Just as importantly, it is possible to filter out results based on what friends don’t like, or customize results based on other users who also like ‘Game of Thrones’ and Mexican food in the San Francisco area (Facebook’s chosen example).

This information is predicted to have an excellent impact on analytics. Facebook should be able to use customer profiles to deliver extremely targeted results. This should result in excellent placement for things like restaurants or attractions, and should allow Facebook to charge a premium for ad results because friends and friends of friends can be accurately profild and targeted.

What will the results consist of?

Zuckerberg’s stated goal is that:

“We are not indexing the Web,” Zuckerberg said. “We are indexing our map of the [social] graph.” Users can navigate through the 240 billion photos on the network, the trillions of user “likes,” and the connections between users. (Bloomberg)

This is a brilliant concept with a huge flaw. This is a massive network. The data is overwhelms belief. Yet it only consists of data within Facebook. While most news articles fawn over the idea that Facebook will be able to rival Google, the engine currently relies upon core results results that are billed from Bing. Microsoft was in the news for Bing’s results when it first launched, yet it was not the most favorable reporting:

By now, you may have read Danny Sullivan’s recent post: “Google: Bing is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results” and heard Microsoft’s response, “We do not copy Google's results.” However you define copying, the bottom line is, these Bing results came directly from Google. (Google)

Suddenly the issue becomes clearer; Google has been collecting information on its users for longer than Zuckerberg has been programming. The wealth of data contained in their servers extends across the web; the site runs a mapping service that contains location data on every business in the world. The service is supplemented by a review engine. Search users are tracked through YouTube and Gmail profiles to directly monitor viewing habits and conversations. AdSense, DoubleClick, and any site they connect to can trace exactly what users are seeing in enormous portions of the web. Google may not be directly serving the page views on these sites to boost its comScore rating but it certainly benefits from the user data it collects in each and every interaction. It’s worth going deeper here to see where benefits come from.

If Zucks likes it then it must be good for me because he's rich and I want to be rich too!

There is a big component here that is another problem; companies have been buying ‘likes’ on Facebook for years and have turned these trillions of impressions into a garbage pile. If a company bought a ‘like’ so a user would enter a raffle, is it valuable for this or any other company to re-pay to advertise to this person’s friends or to friends of their friends? Facebook has poisoned its ‘likes’ data with bad data through extensive advertising sales, which could make useful analytics data very, very difficult to leverage for beneficial search results.

Why is a customer profile important in search?

Any field a user enters information into on their own should be valuable to shaping results. Case in point; a frequent early complaint about online dating sites like eHarmony was that they would pair vegetarians to hunters. Modern user habits that are monitored and controlled through analytics should actively eliminate these types of mismatches. The concept is simple on the surface but becomes difficult in aggregate. It could be valuable to take everyone who says in their Facebook profiles that they like Tibetan prayer rugs, own a dog, and drive a Subaru, and then list advertisements for Purina’s new vegan dog food as a relevant search result. If this user were shown advertisements for a Christian Singles dating service it may not be a valuable use of the space.

Facebook holds a huge amount of this cross-referential data and has built extensive profiles on all of its users. They also collect information from users who ‘check in’ at events and locations, which can help to build a large map of businesses around their individual business fan pages (that in turn contain huge amounts of business data). This data has shortcomings though; roughly 1% of Facebook users are estimated to interact with advertising. On top of this, almost half of Facebook users say they find Facebook’s interface boring and minimize Facebook interactions. (CNN) This is backed up by the numbers from my last post; 85% of posts are interacted with by less than 5% of users. (Business Insider) Suddenly Facebook’s enormous market advantage could become a huge liability as it depends on the habits of a minority of users.

Mind the gap

The concept that most social users are ‘lurkers’ is backed by hard data, (Wikipedia, Reddit) and it’s actually pretty cool to think about. Facebook has a problem when people don’t fill in their profiles. You may be friends with Pat and Pat may like base jumping, but you could be an avid botany lover who never actually filled in your ‘activities’ section. When Facebook suggests that you graphically line up because you’re friends, they aren’t getting the same type of information that Google has on all of the searches you’ve run in the past.

Instead of being able to look at your history and say ‘You don’t want to see an ad about parachute accessories, you should see an ad about a local gardening store,’ the best Facebook can do is show you what Pat likes. The idea of getting a contextual search answer is great, but analytics need to have more clean data than Facebook can access if they are going to deliver good results.

This is where Facebook holds a great advantage it doesn’t seem to like; the company is ripe for partnerships. The data Facebook holds on users could build phenomenal success on top of Bing’s search if it can leverage all of Bing’s resources. While the information and results are stuck to what’s inside of Facebook there are limitations here. The question is whether Facebook will truly partner with Bing to improve its analytical reach and build a foundation for search results so it can have an excellent set of data to draw from. Until the response engine is broadened and more information is gathered on lurkers, Facebook is going to be playing the search game with a short deck.

You Can't Just Google It!
by: SweetSearch

Edit: 1/27/13
Maybe Graph Search's answer engine will solve first world problems like these.

Some additional, and substantially more bullish, readings on Facebook's new search engine:
http://newsroom.fb.com/News/562/Introducing-Graph-Search-Beta
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-new-search-engine-2013-1
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-01-15/facebook-radically-revamps-its-search-engine
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/01/15/facebook_announcement_graph_search_engine_is_like_a_personalized_google.html
http://searchengineland.com/facebook-search-not-google-search-145124
http://www.wired.com/business/2013/01/facebook-event/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/15/facebook-graph-search_n_2480624.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lisaquast/2012/04/23/your-social-media-profile-could-make-or-break-your-next-job-opportunity/

Personal Analytics - Metrics closer to home.

We regularly see articles and blogs discussing steps to improve all aspects of your life; each one touting the true secret to being more productive, using your time better, finding peace and balance, becoming a better leader, and more. All of those posts are really quite appealing because they describe things that we all want to find. Many of them have some excellent suggestions about how to do this, usually in the form of “Be more productive with these 3 simple steps.” Most of those steps find their way into New Year’s resolutions or goals, all with good intentions. This will be the year! But how do you know you have successfully implemented those resolutions and goals? To quote Jon Soldan, “what does success look like?”

Analytics: Social Media

For years, businesses have been analyzing data to determine how best to market and sell to clients and customers. Surveys, focus groups, industry trends, etc. are all tools that they use; however, within the last few years, a new and more powerful tool has been brought to light. Social Media Analytics is the collection and analyzing of data that customers are putting out on the internet through blogs, social sites, and more. The problem comes in that many people do not realize the value to businesses and customers these tools have, as well as how to use them.

Marketing in the social media sphere is not as complicated as you might think. When deciding on a new store location, business leaders will look at demographics, where the customers are most likely to be at, and have the best access to what they want. The same goes with Social Media. Businesses need to understand what each of the platforms is best for and where you market is and isn't.  They also must understand what is being done on these platforms. It all boils down to a simple point: “social media provides a human connection that is often missing from most websites.” Social media gives a place for a community to be built, allowing customers to connect, share, and participate with others who share a common interest. The goal is to engage the customer and participate in the social dialogue.  Pushing content to customers through web links does not work. Focusing on solving customer problems is the key. (Tom Morse, SAS)

How does this relate to analytics you may ask? Analytics is the tool used to determine whether or not the social media efforts are being effective. Goals should be made as social media platforms are used. How many likes did a Facebook page or post get? How many followers were gained on twitter or how many people re-tweeted your twitter post? These are only a few examples of metrics that can be used to rate the effectiveness of a business’s social media efforts. Collecting this data and mining customer response so that analysis can be done is where the real power of analytics lies. A business can evaluate the interest in a product or get feedback for free regarding how they are doing. Monitoring social media can provide great benefits as text is analyzed to rate the positive or negative tone of feedback on a topic, or how often a product or company is referenced in comments or posts.

As with any analysis initiative, business goals must be clearly defined and translated well into how performance will be measured. Without this, the data that is collected could be completely worthless, for example: tracking the number of twitter followers and un-followers. Does this really tell you anything about how your message is being received?  There may be a little correlation until you realize that there are a number of malware bots that follow and un-follow people all the time. Are your customers even using Twitter or would Facebook be a better fit for a social connection with customers? Are your initiatives bringing more attention to your website and product or just keeping customers on the social platform? Having the ability to identify where, when and how social media effectively influences customers helps to determine the appropriate strategy to take advantage of the potential that is there. (Avinash Kaushik)

What are some best practices for analytics you've seen in developing a strategic plan for social media?