Some Facebook page owners can now view certain post metrics directly from their Timeline, including the percentage of fans that saw a given post and the percentage of those who saw the post as a result of paid promotion.

This gives page owners an at-a-glance understanding of how many fans they are reaching. Or, more likely, make them realize how many they aren’t reaching. As users share more and connect with more Open Graph applications, there are more stories competing for placement in News Feed. Increasingly, page owners will have to support their content efforts on Facebook with paid media.

In February, Facebook said that pages reach only 16 percent of their fans each week on average. By showing reach percentages on Timeline rather than requiring page owners to visit the insights dashboard to see them, the social network can subtly encourage page owners to consider spending money on Sponsored Stories or Reach Generator, a premium offering which guarantees that a page reaches at least 75 percent of fans within a month.

More at: http://www.insidefacebook.com/2012/05/24/facebook-provides-reach-data-directly-on-timeline-posts/#

Today, Facebook app discovery too heavily favors the loudest apps with the most users, so Facebook today announces it will soon launch the App Center, a single, personalized hub for discovering the highest quality Facebook-integrated games and utilities from across the web and mobile. And for the first time, Facebook is beta testing the option for developers to sell pre-paid web and HTML5 apps. You’ll be able to access App Center via the web or mobile, and you can send apps you discover on a the web to your littler devices.

App Center could be a huge boon to app growth on Facebook, especially for those that are beloved but not inherently viral.   With any luck, App Center will usher in an age where your news feed is filled with apps you actually want use, not just the spammiest ones or those with the biggest marketing budgets.

Unlike the unpersonalized app directory Facebook shut down a year ago, App Center won’t list every available app, just the ones with the highest customer ratings, engagement, session length, and voluntary sharing. App Center dynamically shows you different apps depending on your habits. If you play games, that’s what you’ll see. If you think those are a waste of time and only use utility apps like BranchOut or Open Graph apps like Foodspotting, those will be what appear.

More at: http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/09/facebook-app-center/

Facebook announced Wednesday it has added yet another way for friends to interact with your Timeline: “action links.”

Instead of just Liking a post about a recipe or product, say, you can now hit “Save this Recipe” or “Fave this Product” in Open Graph apps.

When a friend checks in on Foursquare and the checkin is added to their Timeline, you can remind yourself to visit that location by hitting “Save this Place.”

“These customizable links provide another way for people to do something within your app when your Open Graph stories appear in news feed, timeline or ticker,” Facebook’s Alex Wyler wrote on the company’sdeveloper blog.

Wyler noted that these app links tie one action to another — and developers can choose what they want that action to be. Facebook also added a page to walk developers through how to add action links to apps.

More at: http://mashable.com/2012/05/02/facebook-action-links/#5308510-US-Military

More at: http://wallblog.co.uk/2012/04/30/kraft-sends-personal-thank-you-to-thousands-of-facebook-fans/

While shopping on Facebook is still uncommon, with only 1.5 million of the social network’s total 850 million members buying something via the site each month, the “overwhelming majority” of those who do are women.

Christian Taylor, the co-founder and chief executive of Silicon Valley start-up Payvment, the most popular commerce platform on Facebook – which powers 80 per cent of all shopping on the site, told The Telegraph that most shoppers tend to be stay-at-home mothers shopping for “cute things” for their children.

“The majority of people shopping on Facebook are women and most of them are stay-at-home mums. The most popular items bought on Facebook are by far baby clothes and little things like bows for children’s hair.

“I think Facebook has created an outlet for mothers to talk to other mums about what to buy for their children and share parenting tips. I imagine being a stay-at-home parent was an incredibly lonely job before social networks. The people shopping on Facebook are an incredibly similar crowd to those who play social games, such as Farmville.”

Taylor said that of the men who have shopped on the site, they tended to buy t-shirts and the most popular t-shirts were often cause-based shirts, such as tops raising money for cancer charities.

He also told The Telegraph that the number of people shopping on Facebook was growing by 20 per cent every month and there are currently more than three million items for sale on the world’s most popular social network.

Commerce on Facebook is still small, with most vendors tending to be small to medium-sized businesses – rather than the major brands – who usually have a fan page on the site instead.

This week’s most stunning statistic: In February, Facebook drove more traffic to the Guardian web site than Google did.This fact was proffered (I couldn’t bring myself to write shared) at the Changing Medias Summit Conference by Tanya Corduroy, Guardian’s director for digital development (full text of her speech):

Eighteen months ago, search represented 40% of the Guardian’s traffic and social represented just 2%. Six months ago – before the launch of our Facebook app – these figures had barely moved.

A recent Pew report echoed these figures, revealing that just 9% of digital news consumers follow news recommendations from Facebook or from Twitter. That compares with 32% who get news from search.

But last month, we felt a seismic shift in our referral traffic. For the first time in our history, Facebook drove more traffic to guardian.co.uk than Google for a number of days, accounting for more than 30% of our referrer traffic. This is a dramatic result from a standing start five months ago.

She made her point with a graph showing the crossing of the two traffic lines, even though the Facebook referrals now appear to be receding:

This is obviously a great achievement for the team who created the FB app. Overall, The Guardian’s relentless pursuit of digital innovation is paying off. Its last monthtraffic stats are staggering: more than 4 million unique browsers (+64% vs. Feb 2011) and almost 70 million unique browser monthly (+76% vs. Feb 2011). As for its mobile site, it is growing at a year-to-year rate of… 182%, with 640,000 unique browsers a month.

The Guardian Facebook App played a critical role in this rise in traffic. Over the last five months, 8 million people downloaded it and 40,000 are signing up every day, again according to Tanya Cordrey.

More at: http://www.mondaynote.com/2012/03/26/the-sharing-mirage/

Some have questioned the effectiveness of Facebook as a commerce platform, but can you dismiss an ad and marketing channel with 800+ million users?

Here are some tips for increasing the opportunities for commerce on Facebook.

Recently, Bloomberg published an article about several retailers, J.C. Penney, Nordstrom, Gap and Gamestop, who all closed their Facebook stores in 2011.

As a consultant implementing s-commerce (Social Commerce) solutions for my clients, I am writing to let you know that Facebook commerce (f-commerce) is alive and well and customers are making money selling products and services via Facebook. 

I can’t speak about the f-commerce implementations of the aforementioned companies, only from my own experience.

For one company, Grassroots Festival, we created a Facebook store to sell discounted tickets on the festival’s Facebook fan page.

The Facebook store generated a 4.1% clickthrough rate, resulted in a significant ROI and also cut-out the middle men in terms of ticket sales, who require substantial commission. 

We have also seen considerable success with smaller clients who do not currently sell their products online. The success of their s-commerce efforts has prompted them to commercialize their businesses online with e-commerce functionality on their websites.

For larger online retailers, unless they are offering specific incentives for their Facebook Fans to purchase from their Facebook stores, why would a consumer purchase something anywhere other than their website?

It is even more effective to find a specific niche or focus on clearance lines, rather than replicate your entire inventory in a Facebook store.

We have many hotel clients who have seen considerable volume in their Facebook stores specifically for gift vouchers, a growing category in the hospitality sector. Their websites are not usually geared up for anything other than booking rooms, and even then, they usually use a third party booking engine rather than managing their own functionality.

More at: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/9428-why-facebook-commerce-is-alive-7?

Whether on a smartphone, tablet or laptop, using a second screen to tweet about TV is becoming a common occurrence - and it is called “chatterboxing”.

According to a survey conducted byTV Licensing, those aged 18-24 are the biggest uptakers of chatterboxing, with 46% of people who use social media taking part.

But the 25-34s are catching up - with 43% now chatterboxing, and in the 35-44 age range, 31% are already using second screens.

Communications manager Dan McLoughlin has been chatterboxing for months.

He said: “It makes TV such a social experience. We don’t often sit with family or friends to watch TV any more, so it makes it social.

The way that people choose to entertain themselves now, is not just listening to the radio during the day and watching the television in the evening. It’s far more about getting their news online, some on television, talking about it, recording it.

Emma Mulqueeny, from developer network Rewired State

“On these panel shows like X Factor or Strictly (Come Dancing), I value the comments of my friends and other people tweeting - and celebrities - more than the actual people on the panels themselves.

“I’m more excited by what happens on Twitter than what’s on the programme itself.”

Broadcasters are getting wise to this. They have realised if many people are tweeting about a programme while it is on air, more people will read about it, then tune in.

Social TV applications have been developed specifically for second screens.

On apps like Zeebox, Miso or Getglue you can tweet next to a live TV feed.

This is where money can be made because some of these apps have “click to buy” options, so users can directly purchase products advertised on TV.

Emma Mulqueeny, from developer networkRewired State,said: “With adverts, people can now pause and fast-forward.

“So advertising through television needs to become more clever and more directive marketing, bearing in mind what people are talking about.

“It’s difficult to guess what this is going to be like in two or even three years’ time.

More at: http://news.sky.com/home/technology/article/16189017

Consumers fatigued by tech launches, claims survey

Almost 50% of respondents believed Apple’s new product development is too fast, with consumers unwilling to part with cash for fear their devices will be quickly superseded by updated versions.

Instead of feeling empowered by technology, almost one quarter of the 2000 consumers surveyed said they were scared of having expensive devices stolen. While 8% of respondents felt ‘pretentious’ about the technology brands they used, just 6% felt ‘cool’ for using the latest devices.

The research also showed a surge in ‘Facebook fatigue’, with more than a quarter of consumers saying their life would be ‘better’ without the social network.

Many brands have spent the past several years getting consumers to ‘like’ them on the world’s most popular social network, Facebook. And for a seemingly good reason: when it comes to location, location, location in social, you can’t beat Facebook, which may surpass the 1bn registered user mark this year.

But after a recent lavish event Facebook held for brands in New York, brands may be asking whether Facebook is working for them, or they’re working for Facebook.

As AdAge details, Facebook used the event to remind brands that only 16% of their Facebook fans actually see the content they post organically on the social network. That’s because, in an effort to protect the user experience, Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm filters out content that may not be relevant.

But in the run up to the social network’s IPO, Facebook is willing to give brands a greater ability to ensure that their marketing messages reach a much larger audience. For a price of course.

AdAge explains:

Facebook unveiled a tool, Reach Generator, that will let marketers buy all the reach they want. Priced according to the size of a brand’s fan base, the tool is designed to take a piece of content and amplify its reach by resurfacing it as an ad.

The pitch is that just 16% of fans currently see organic content posted by brands: Most of it is weeded out by Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm, designed to enhance users’ experience by putting only the most relevant content in their news feeds. Using the paid ad tool could increase a brand’s exposure percentage to as high as 75%.

As PHD USA’s chief digital officer, Craig Atkinson, told AdAge, “Many [clients] have spent significant sums to generate these fan bases, and many of them thought of those people as though they’re an owned asset, almost like an email list … but now it looks like rented media.” Rented media indeed.

Brands really shouldn’t be surprised. After all, this has been Facebook’s modus operandi for some time. From the numerous privacy changes it has foisted upon its users to the promises it has made to developers and then broken,

Facebook rarely does favors for others. Now that it’s going public and needs to put the pedal to the metal in the drive for revenue, brands are being taken on a ride many of them didn’t see coming, or didn’t want to see coming.

More at: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/9211-with-ipo-looming-facebook-reminds-brands-all-your-fans-belong-to-us?