Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Testing, Testing, Facebook Tests Their Own Mobile Ad Network” plus 2 more

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• Testing, Testing, Facebook Tests Their Own Mobile Ad Network
• Facebook Bumps Page Content From News Feeds Again
• Hangout with Andy Beal & Discuss How to Crush Bad Reviews – Jan 29

Testing, Testing, Facebook Tests Their Own Mobile Ad Network Posted: 22 Jan 2014 04:05 PM PST After telling businesses that their Pages aren’t engaging enough to make the grade, Facebook announced a feature that’s aimed directly at businesses on Facebook. Big difference? The first one was free, the second one is paid. Starting right now, Facebook will begin testing ads in the mobile app. As mobile continues to move to more app-based experiences, advertisers want to reach people spending their time in apps and developers need new ways to make money. All true. To improve the relevancy of the ads people see, provide even greater reach for Facebook advertisers and help mobile developers better monetize their apps, we're running a small test to show Facebook ads in mobile apps. Our aim is to demonstrate even greater reach with the same power of Facebook targeting for advertisers both on and off Facebook. Which totally makes sense. Some people are web only, some are mobile only but many go back and forth depending on the situation. The only way to cover your advertising bases these days is to run ads across all types of platforms. While we have run similar tests in the past, this current test is more like a mobile ad network in that we are working directly with a small number of advertisers and publishers rather than an outside ad-serving platform. The current test is limited to a few advertisers and partners, and we will share more details over the coming months. As I understand it, users won’t really notice the difference. The ads they see will look like the same ads they’ve been seeing. The difference is on the backend. By working inside a Facebook only ad network, marketers can use Facebook’s targeting options to reach who they want to reach without paying for people they don’t. This is particularly important if your brand has geographic boundaries. For Facebook, running their own ad network means more control and more money in their pocket. Which, I’m okay with, as long as the ads actually work. I still see just as many people saying Facebook advertising works as those who say it’s a waste of money. People I know personally, say that a paid Facebook campaign helps bring in large numbers of “likers” but that doesn’t mean it’s worth it. A large number of Facebook followers doesn’t always translate into more green in the cash drawer. Especially with Facebook pulling even more Page posts off the news feed. Paying for Page traffic could work if you’re selling an impulse buy product or if you’re just looking to increase brand recognition. It can also be worth it if you have an email gathering giveaway app on your Facebook page. As for Facebook’s mobile ad network. . . it’s going to happen. More ads will begin to appear in the feed. More people will complain and 2 people will quit using Facebook. We’ve seen this before. As much as Facebook claims to be concerned about customer backlash, it’s hard to imagine what they could do – short of charging for access – that would cause a mass exodus at this point. Here’s your chance to speak up in favor of Facebook. Are the ads working for you?

Facebook Bumps Page Content From News Feeds Again Posted: 22 Jan 2014 12:33 PM PST Once again, Facebook is changing the news feed to pump up the volume of personal updates vs branded Page updates. At least this time, they’re being honest about why they’re making the shift. Usually, they play the “we’re just giving you what you want” card which never made any sense. I follow Pages for a reason, yet Facebook assumes to know what I want better than I do. This time they’re admitting that it’s all about the numbers: Through testing, we have found that when people see more text status updates on Facebook they write more status updates themselves. In fact, in our initial test when we showed more status updates from friends it led to on average 9 million more status updates written each day. Because of this, we showed people more text status updates in their News Feed. Over time, we noticed that this effect wasn’t true for text status updates from Pages. Let’s stop and think about this a minute. When my friend posts a message to me about a vacation she’s planning. That might prompt me to write an update about my vacation plans. I also wonder if this applies to shared responses. For example, my friend posted one of those “share this to your feed” chain letter thingies, which I dutifully copied to my feed. There’s social cause and effect there, I get it. When I see a post from my favorite grocery store, it’s unlikely to cause me to post about my recent grocery shopping trip. However, that grocery store post has a $5 off coupon so it’s more valuable to me than my friend’s chain letter. So assigning value based on response is ridiculous and yet it’s another blow to Pages managers. As a result, the latest update to News Feed ranking treats text status updates from Pages as a different category to text status updates from friends. We are learning that posts from Pages behave differently to posts from friends and we are working to improve our ranking algorithms so that we do a better job of differentiating between the two types. This will help us show people more content they want to see. And there they go, saying it’s all about helping me see what I want to see. Facebook! I follow brand Pages for a reason. Why would I NOT want to get their updates? Still. . . Page admins can expect a decrease in the distribution of their text status updates, but they may see some increases in engagement and distribution for other story types. What’s less than zero? Facebook goes on to say that this is just about “Text” updates (as opposed to. . . . ?) and they recommend a change in how you share links which I also don’t understand. They say don’t put the link in the status box like this: Use link-share so it shows up like this: I’m confused because when I type a link in the box (example 1), I often get a result that looks like example 2. But I don’t have control over that. Sometimes it formats properly, sometimes it doesn’t. If anyone can tell me how to make it work every time, please do. At this point, Facebook might as well just make brands pay to use the service in return for visibility. At least we’d all have a clear understanding of what’s going to show up and what’s not. Time to stop wasting time and find a system that works.

Hangout with Andy Beal & Discuss How to Crush Bad Reviews – Jan 29 Posted: 22 Jan 2014 08:32 AM PST I have to admit, when I was first asked if I would help lead a HOA, I wondered which Home Owners Association cared enough about reputation management. Apparently, it’s actually a Hangout On Air where y’all can join in and listen to a discussion I’ll have with James Wirth and Erik Koto from QuestionPro. The HOA is titled "4 Steps to CRUSH Bad Online Reviews” and I’ll be there to give my advice on handling bad online reviews as well as to talk about my upcoming book, Repped. The Hangout will take place on January 29th at 11am PST/2pm EST. You can register at http://bit.ly/crushbadreviews If you're new to Google+ Hangouts on Air – all you need is a Google+ account to register – or just come back on the day and watch live without registering. See you then! Andy

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