A month after releasing 60 new Timeline apps, Facebook touted initial results showing big increases in sign-ups and traffic for sites including Pinterest, Foodspotting and Fab.com. The lifestyle apps that went live last month followed Facebook’s launch of Timeline in September. The Open Graph platform allows developers and brands to create apps that integrate with the revamped profile page. Through Open Graph, any verb like “reading,” “watching,” or “cooking” becomes an automatically broadcast activity through Timeline, once a user gives a particular app permission to share that information. The idea is to go beyond the one-size-fits all “Like” button to let users post updates about various activities. That, in turn, would help boost engagement for brands with Timeline apps. So far, things are going according to plan, says Facebook. “We’re now seeing new content discovery and increases in traffic and engagement happening more broadly for companies of all sizes,” stated a post on Facebook’s developer blog today. "Open Graph has driven a lot of discovery and growth, allowing many companies to double the size of their user base in weeks.” Product-bookmaking site and new social media darling Pinterest, for example, has seen the number of Facebook visitors grow by more than 60% in the last month. Flash sale site Fab.com has had a 50% increase in Facebook traffic, while fashion app Pose has had fivefold growth in daily Web sign-ups. In the food category, the Foodspotting app has enjoyed a threefold gain in visits and activities shared as a result of people telling friends about dishes they want, tried or ate with others on Facebook. Recipe site Foodily has seen a fourfold increase in new users. In the entertainment area, social browser Rockmelt has been able to drive 20% new traffic and users to its site, and Artfinder has seen a 60% increase in time spent on the collector site. Among the first batch of Timeline apps that let people tell friends what they’re listening to, Facebook said music apps like Spotify, Songza and Deezer have collectively allowed people to share more than 5 billion songs. The company said it has approved hundreds of new actions for Open Graph apps in the last month, with brands like Vogue Paris, Votizen, Identified, Boxee, MetaCafe and Shopkick introducing new offerings in recent weeks.
A month after releasing 60 new Timeline apps, Facebook touted initial results showing big increases in sign-ups and traffic for sites including Pinterest, Foodspotting and Fab.com. The lifestyle apps that went live last month followed Facebook’s launch of Timeline in September. The Open Graph platform allows developers and brands to create apps that integrate with the revamped profile page. Through Open Graph, any verb like “reading,” “watching,” or “cooking” becomes an automatically broadcast activity through Timeline, once a user gives a particular app permission to share that information. The idea is to go beyond the one-size-fits all “Like” button to let users post updates about various activities. That, in turn, would help boost engagement for brands with Timeline apps. So far, things are going according to plan, says Facebook. “We’re now seeing new content discovery and increases in traffic and engagement happening more broadly for companies of all sizes,” stated a post on Facebook’s developer blog today. "Open Graph has driven a lot of discovery and growth, allowing many companies to double the size of their user base in weeks.” Product-bookmaking site and new social media darling Pinterest, for example, has seen the number of Facebook visitors grow by more than 60% in the last month. Flash sale site Fab.com has had a 50% increase in Facebook traffic, while fashion app Pose has had fivefold growth in daily Web sign-ups. In the food category, the Foodspotting app has enjoyed a threefold gain in visits and activities shared as a result of people telling friends about dishes they want, tried or ate with others on Facebook. Recipe site Foodily has seen a fourfold increase in new users. In the entertainment area, social browser Rockmelt has been able to drive 20% new traffic and users to its site, and Artfinder has seen a 60% increase in time spent on the collector site. Among the first batch of Timeline apps that let people tell friends what they’re listening to, Facebook said music apps like Spotify, Songza and Deezer have collectively allowed people to share more than 5 billion songs. The company said it has approved hundreds of new actions for Open Graph apps in the last month, with brands like Vogue Paris, Votizen, Identified, Boxee, MetaCafe and Shopkick introducing new offerings in recent weeks.
This is an open letter to my 72 followers on Pinterest, including my friend, Sue, who stood next to me in line on the high school cheerleading squad; my sorority Big Sister; Mobile Marketing Association CEO Greg Stuart, fellow Social Media Insider David Berkowitz, and that guy I worked with way, way long ago at Ogilvy & Mather. Here’s what I want to tell you: I’m sorry that my pinning is so sporadic, and so, well, lame. Three weeks in, I have no earthly idea what I should do with this thing, so I’m throwing it out to all of you. What should a personage like me pin? I know! I’ll start a board consisting completely of pictures of question marks, because that’s what comes to mind every time I think about what I might do on Pinterest. And this whole, weird, cart-before-the-horse relationship on Pinterest between followers and my (in)ability to produce meaningful content is only making my case of pinner’s block worse. If you’re wondering exactly what I mean, in all the years I’ve been playing on social platforms, I’ve never seen a platform in which the early adapters that I hang out with professionally, and the aforementioned people from high school, all discover a platform at roughly the same time. (Well, except for Berkowitz, who is prescient enough that I think he joined some platforms before they even existed.) When I joined Facebook, back in February 5, 2007 (thank you, Timeline), I felt like a soccer mom turned stalker, the kind of 40something evildoer who ends up being the centerpiece of a bad movie on Lifetime. The whole experience was unsettling. I was writing a story about social networks for Adweek, and slowly came to the realization that the only way I was going to make sense of Facebook was to join Facebook. Joining Facebook to write about Facebook? What a concept! But back then, joining Facebook felt like going undercover. I spent a few minutes scrolling through other Facebook members from Westchester County, New York, only to find that virtually everyone else was a high school or college student, several decades my junior. Facebook was not a place for women with two kids, dust bunnies for pets, a (then) four-year-old mini-van and a coupon habit. It was several years before people like me were there in any number. As for Twitter, the advancement of the so-called “normal” people in my life onto Twitter has never happened. It’s as though high school and college friends who do follow me only do so because they had a sudden spasm in their index finger one night and started following me by accident. But not so with Pinterest. Sure, its integration with Facebook has helped boost its traffic, but similar integration between Facebook and Twitter never resulted in the same random accumulation of followers that I’ve racked up on Pinterest in only a few short weeks, and all without posting anything. While one can only be impressed with Pinterest’s growth -- the site has reached the 10 million unique monthly visitor mark faster than any site in history -- as I said above, that doesn’t mean I have any clue as to what to do with it. So far I’ve posted a picture of that woman we used to call Madge on my board “Aging Pop Stars.” My second one is of “Social Media Cheat Sheets.” Its only visual is a poster that synopsizes the whats and wherefores of different social platforms (though not Pinterest). Lame. Where do I go from here? Should I post pictures of my cat? Nah, too obsessive. Jeremy Lin? Too trendy. My myriad attempts at making better weekday meals? No, that would only expose my unnatural fixation with making soup. My favorite baseball mascot, Mr. Met? Pitiful, on several levels. Help me out here. This case of pinner’s block is about to drive me crazy. Leave your ideas below.
According to The State of Email Marketing in SMBs, by GetResponse, most small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs) have mastered the basics of organic email list-building, making use of Web-based sign-up forms and even offering incentives to encourage subscriptions, but fewer than half use any type of email-to-social collaboration, limiting the potential of cross-channel marketing. Based on data collected in the Email Marketing Success Tester, designed to test the email marketing level and know-how of email marketers from all over the world to provide them with some insights on what could still be improved, at least half of the respondents know and apply them in their email marketing. However, the differences in results for particular questions demonstrate that some practices are quite popular and others often overlooked. Among SMBs, only 40% of surveyed email marketers say they provide sign-up forms on every Web page and only 41% recruit would-be subscribers via Facebook Pages. Moreover, only 44% collect subscribers from offline sources such as tradeshows. List Building Strategies and Sign-Up OptimizationStrategy% of Respondents Using Use sign-up forms to grow list 79% Confirm emails to new subscriber 72 Newsletter signup in blog 52 Have web form on every page 40 Facebook with signup form 41 Collect contacts at trade shows w/signup forms 44 Tell subscribers specifically what they will receive 66 Web form on home page above the fold 57 Use incentives to encourage subscriptions 54 Source: State of Email Marketing in SMBs, GetResponse, January 2012 Quite a large group indicates that they have high deliverability (62%), low complaint ratio (69%) and effective delivery to major client inboxes (68%). As far as newsletter optimization routines are concerned, there are no major surprises: most respondents realize the importance of regular mailings (70%), personalization (58%), compelling subject line (68%), and stats analysis (61%). But that’s it. The more advanced techniques are often neglected: not many marketers split test, segment their list, or use follow-up cycles. Newsletter OptimizationTactic% of Respondents Using Split messages on any feature 39% Clear, recognizable, branded FROM field 68 Include pre-headers 45 Include sharing icons 47 Personalize email with subscriber specific information 58 Follow –up engagement cycles 56 Analyze stats on newsletters sent 61 Source: State of Email Marketing in SMBs, GetResponse, January 2012 The report notes, though, the weak implementation of social media integrations, especially given the buzz it creates in the context of email marketing. Only 50% of the researched marketers use any type of email-to-social collaboration. This means that, even if their brand is present on various social networks, cross-channel marketing is practically non-existent. Few email marketers follow basic list hygiene practices, says the report. Only 42% of all groups make use of advanced segmentation strategies, which means that the era of a blast email definitely isn’t over yet. It seem that the benefits of having high-quality, engaged contacts are still overlooked, as most respondents neither remove inactive contacts (38%), nor try to re-engage them (36%). Even worse, opines the report, they don’t fully realize the dangers of having lists corrupted with bad addresses, as only 53% use email marketing systems that automatically handle bounces and complaints. The majority of respondents are diligent about legal compliance and subscription-based lead generation:
If you are the owner of a social network, a social website, a social app or any other socially enabled communication platform on the Web, then you deserve to sit back, relax and have a cigar, because you are part of the (hype) machine, and that machine is in full swing! The last month has been amazing in terms of showing the influence of social media. Three events unfurled to tell a story of the scope of social media and the virtual hype machine that it feeds, and you are insane if you’re not paying attention. If you’re a brand marketer, there are some interesting concepts to take away as well. First we witnessed the Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood social media fiasco and the Stop SOPA campaign, both of which -- though not globally on par with last year’s Arab Spring -- were significant watershed moments for the Web and social media to influence real-world activity. In both situations, a movement began in social media that caused the reversal of political-hot-button issues -- and the people’s voice was heard. Neither situation would have occurred without social media, and at the very least neither would have been reversed in such a short time. Then there was the recent passing of Whitney Houston the night before the Grammy Awards. She was a huge influence in music, and one of the biggest, most definable voices ever recorded, and social media was immediately ablaze with the discussion of the sad event. The Grammy Awards followed up quickly, even changing some of its production to fit in the necessary tributes. The third event is one that hasn’t even taken place yet. It’s the IPO for Facebook. Facebook’s impending celebration has the hearts of the Valley all a flutter with the scent of money. It smells like 1999 again, with secretaries and administrative assistants alike projected to be millionaires, and hundreds of people likely preparing to put down deposits on new homes in San Francisco. Facebook’s is likely to be the largest tech IPO in history. The ad business seems in line with this prediction, as they have selected Facebook as a preferred partner for ad dollars, surpassing Google in a recent industry survey. If Facebook is indeed as big as it proclaims it will be, then social will have overtaken search as the premier darling of the data-driven Internet ad business. On the surface these events are connected by only one thing: they all center around social media. That in itself is all you need. Social media is the modern hype machine, but unlike the days of Public Enemy, in this case you probably should believe the hype. The lesson here is that social media, and specifically the advent of Facebook and Twitter, is causing a reversal in media fragmentation. For years we’ve discussed how consumers are more difficult to reach with an effective frequency because of the way they spend their day. What these moments are telling me is that when there’s a topic of interest to a large group of people, and when the hype machine is in full force, fragmentation can be reversed and a singular point of view can actually be established in a small number of places. The fragmentation only takes place before users flock to social media. Social is the new hub. Even in the case of the death of Whitney Houston, USA Today was running news stories on its iPad and iPhone apps that were nothing more than a collection of tweets from famous celebrities. Their version of a news story was the collection of celebrity tweets? That proves, if nothing else, that the journalists for USA Today were going to Twitter for their breaking news. Fragmentation may be alive in terms of initial broadcast, but the machine is alive and well, and it is not going anywhere. The masses can be culled together for a single action, if you have a message that resonates with them. The Super Bowl showed that advertising could be used in this way, if you have the money to spend to reach enough of the audience at least once. The lesson for a marketer is that if you are strategic, and you have enough money, you can indeed influence a large group of people at once. You can put the hype machine to work for you. Don’t you agree? Who do you see that’s doing a good job of this?