Advertising Your Facebook Contest

We all love a good contest and we enjoy winning them even more! Facebook contests are a lot of fun and can really boost a business online. They also allow you to easily collect data about your fans, data you can use to better target ads and specific posts.
There are right way and wrong ways to promote your contest. Setting up and posting once or twice, leaving the rest to fate is wrong. Actively promoting it and advertising your Facebook contest is the right way to go. You’ve spent time and money on your contest app and set-up, and you want to make sure everyone has a chance to enter. Posting the link and hoping they will come isn’t a realistic approach. Active promotion is.
When promoting/advertising your Facebook contest, consider the following:
1. Pin the link to the top of your Facebook page. While I know that research shows that fans do not typically come back to the actual page after liking it, you never know who may be visiting for the first time. It’s prime real estate on your Facebook page and a perfect way to showcase your contest.
2. Promote a post announcing the contest. This is one of the few times I think using promoted posts is okay. You want to make sure everyone knows about your contest. Be careful, though, because any pictures used are subject to Facebook’s 20% text rule. Check out this tool before you upload your image to make sure it’s compatible.
3. Runs a news feed-only ad and target people not currently connected to your Facebook page. The promoted post will, by default, show up to just your fans and their friends (though there are other targeting options available). Running a news-feed only ad allows you to target potential followers, bringing new fans to your page. With this type of ad you specifically target a certain market or group of people.
4. Promote it on other social media sites & your website. If you have accounts on Twitter or Google Plus or Pinterest, create a contest post and share it frequently. While you have a small percentage of fans following you on all platforms, the majority do not. With a different audience on each platform you want to maximize potential new fans and contest participants. Make sure you also have a link or graphic on your website to catch those who may not be connected with you via social media.
These four tips will ensure your Facebook contest has the best chance for success. Have you found other successful ways to promote a Facebook contest?  If so, please share in the comments!

Fall For Facebook Features

Can you believe it’s almost fall? Maybe it’s because it’s been a blistering 90-100 degrees every day here in San Diego, but it’s been quite hard for me to believe that fall is just around the corner. My boots are all eyeing me for attention, but all I can muster the enthusiasm to wear in this weather is sandals!

And much like this hot weather, my RSS feeds are burning up with all the new Facebook updates that have been announced recently. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the new features, here’s a review and some details on the latest Facebook rollouts.

Facebook Login Changes

Whenever you go to a new app on your mobile device, you are often prompted to login via Facebook (or another site) for a quicker login process. One of the major concerns that many users had was that using these login methods allowed the app to post or share on your timeline. However, with the new login features, Facebook must now ask you separately for permission to post or share on your timeline.You can even skip the option to post all together, while still gaining access to the app. Now you can use Facebook Login as a faster means to access app, rather than as a dumping ground of shares and content exchange.

Contests In Your Timeline

This news spread like wildfire across Facebook pages and other platforms. Facebook revoked the requirement that all contests be administered through a third-party app. While the information was exciting and people were drooling over it like any new shiny object, some caution must be advised. Yes, you can now run a contest directly on your page. No, you cannot collect any solid data from a page contest. If you just want to boost some engagement or gain some new fans with a simple “like” contest, a timeline contest will work well. However, if your goal is to grow your list or collect more information from participants, you’ll still want to use third-party apps to administer your contests and help gather the data.

Hashtags Are Activated

It was inevitable that hashtags would be implemented by Facebook. They’re here! You can use hashtags in any post on Facebook to increase searchability. A side note, though, recent discussion and testing has found that including hashtags in your posts may actually diminish initial reach. And while hashtags are activated on all desktop applications, they haven’t been fully rolled out to all mobile users. Along with the introduction of hashtags, Facebook is also testing out trending topics, much like you see on Twitter, for those mobile users who do have hashtag functionality.

New Ranking for News Feed

Facebook announced new changes to their News Feed ranking algorithm and promised more transparency in how the algorithm would work. There has been much talk and complaints about Edgerank and how it penalizes pages, essentially requiring us to purchase promoted posts to get our information into the news feeds of our fans. With the new algorithm, Facebook determines quality content based on a number of factors (including relevance, trustworthiness, shareable, interesting, etc.). Quality content will get priority reach and poor content (including memes or other attempts used to game the old Edgerank algorithm) will be penalized with reduced reach. The new format also includes story bumping, posts that are deemed valuable may get bumped back up to the top of a news feed if it hasn’t previously been seen. This is good news for those pages doing things the “right” way, as we will likely see increased reach and engagement.

Graph Search

While the talk of Graph Search has been going on for a while now, Facebook has now rolled it out to all English speaking users in the US. If Graph Search is new to you, it’s essentially a redesign of your top navigation bar and a new means to “search” both Facebook and the Internet. Graph Search allows you to find connections or pages based on simple, specific phrases. For example, you can now search for “people from my hometown” and Facebook will give you a list of all users (whose security settings allow appropriate display) who match this criteria. The benefit is that search results are custom to you and your queries. However, it is a new interface and takes some getting used to.

Embedded Posts

This was an exciting announcement for a lot of marketers. As of August, you can now embed Facebook posts directly into your blog or website. You can embed your most relevant Facebook posts directly into your website for enhanced visibility and engagement. Posts can include pictures, video and hashtags. And, most importantly, viewers can like and share the content or follow your page directly from the embedded post! Like I said, this is exciting for marketers. If you can include key Facebook content in your blog posts, you can drastically increase your post reach.

New Page Insights

Most page managers have complained about Facebook insights. The confusion behind the numbers and lack of relevant data often left us yearning for more. The new page insights, still in the roll out process, have fixed many pastissues for page managers. With multiple pages of insights and tabs full of detailed information, it is now possible to gather much more relevant data. Some of the best new features include knowing when your fans are on Facebook daily, detailed information about where new fans and likes came from, specific analysis of each individual post and its engagement, page visits, and post reach.

Phew! That’s a lot of new features! And if things keep at this pace, Facebook will roll out even more new features in the near future. The key is to determine how these new features will benefit you and your social media strategy. Take some time to review each of these features and experiment with implementing them into your strategy.

Facebook News Feed Updates: How Marketers Should Respond to Story Bump

Are you wondering how to respond to the Facebook news feed changes?

Have you figured out how Story Bump can help your content remain top of mind with Facebook fans?

If you want to understand how these Facebook changes will impact your marketing, this article is for you.

Keep reading to discover how to take advantage of Story Bump.
What is Story Bump?

Facebook announced that they’ve tweaked their algorithm known as EdgeRank to allow stories that are getting more engagement (more likes, comments and shares) to be bumped up in the news feed.

The change is called Story Bumping and has already rolled out to 99% of desktop users and is still being tweaked for mobile users. The Story Bump shows you posts you may not have seen when they were first published.

For example, say you log into Facebook and scroll through your news feed to view 50 posts. The post you miss at position 51 continues to get lots of likes, comments and shares. Four hours later, you check Facebook and that post is at the top of your news feed, even though it’s four hours old.


Stories can get bumped up higher depending on several factors.



The Story Bump is good news for Facebook marketers for several reasons. In tests done by Facebook, there was an 8% increase in likes, comments and shares on stories posted by pages.

The other good news Facebook revealed is they’re going to be more transparent about changes and post them on their Facebook for Business News area. Notice there’s a category tag for posts about the news feed, so bookmark this site.

Let’s dive into the basics of the Facebook news feed and learn more about how to take advantage of the Story Bump with these four tips.
#1: Not Everyone Sees Every Post in Their News Feed

Facebook states the average person has the potential to see over 1500 posts every day. Their job is to help you see the most interesting things.

They do this by watching your behavior and then showing you more of the things they think you want to see. Facebook has stated the things that affect their algorithm are:
How often you interact with the friend, page or public figure (like an actor or journalist) who posted
The number of likes, shares and comments a post receives from the world at large and from your friends in particular
How much you’ve interacted with this type of post in the past
Whether you and other people across Facebook are hiding or reporting a given post

To make sure you see posts from certain people or pages, you’ll need to create aFacebook Interest List. Just like on Twitter, people create lists to keep track of the people they find most interesting on Facebook.

You can also encourage your fans to create interest lists that include your page. They get notifications about your page by clicking on the Liked button under the right side of your cover photo and selecting Get Notifications. This is where you can add the page to interest lists.


Encourage your fans to create interest lists or get notifications from your page.

Facebook page posts also seem to have disappeared from the Facebook ticker. I’m not sure how many people interact with posts using the ticker and it’s going away with the updated news feed rolling out soon.
#2: Story Bumping Helps the Shelf Life of Your Posts

A recent study by Wisemetrics showed that it only takes 2 hours and 30 minutes for a post to get 75% of its total impressions and less than 2 hours to get 75% of its maximum reach. So you have a very short window of time to get engagement.

With Story Bumping, your story jumps back up in the news feed if it gets good engagement.


Without Story Bumping, your post gets 75% of its reach in less than 2 hours.
#3: Engagement Continues to Be Key

I’m sure by now everyone is tired of the “E word,” but it’s more important than ever. How do you increase your Facebook engagement? Be remarkable. Be interesting. Don’t be boring.

The great thing about the new Facebook Insights is they show you exactly which posts are the most engaging, so you can model those types of posts more often.

To get to the engagement rate on each post, go to Insights, select Posts and then choose Engagement Rate from the drop-down menu.


Look at the engagement rate on each post.

The best thing about this statistic is that it factors in how many people actually saw your post, so you get a true measure of engagement.


Watch your most interesting posts and analyze what worked.
#4: Facebook Page Post Ads Provide an Extra Boost

You can be very effective on Facebook without spending money by focusing on engagement, but you can go farther by spending a little money from time to time.

To take advantage of the Story Bump, advertise your individual posts so they get more engagement through the ad. This boosts the bump the post receives organically.

The Boost Post option has a very wide target if you select “People who like your page and their friends,” which may include a lot of people who have no interest in your Facebook page. If you select “People you choose through targeting” option, you can only target people by location, age, gender and language—not by keyword interests, which again may include a lot of people not interested in your Facebook page.


Do not use the Boost Post option for re-engaging your audience.

The better way to get more engagement on a post is to narrow your targeting by using the Facebook ads interface and selecting Promote Page Posts.


Select Promote Page Posts, then choose the post you want to promote in the drop-down menu.

Now in the Targeting section, you can choose to advertise your post to only your own fans or use the Precise Interests area to target the post to people who would be more inclined to like your page and interact with your post.


Choose to advertise to your own fans to re-engage your audience.

The Facebook ads interface also allows you to precisely control your budget and get more for your money. As with any money you spend on marketing, track your results and do your testing. To really go for more engagement, only advertise posts that are interesting and already getting some engagement organicallyso you know they interest others.

Your Turn

The Story Bump isn’t the answer to all of the frustration around appearing in the Facebook news feed, but it does help pages get seen more often.

Your best bet on Facebook or with any social site is to be a source of information that’s so valuable to your readers that they do whatever they can to seek you out.

What do you think? What are your thoughts on the new Story Bump? Have you noticed a difference in interaction on your page? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Facebook Levels Playing Field for Android, iOS Developers

Facebook announced an update on Tuesday to its software developer kit (SDK) for Android that lets app users share to Facebook without having to log in to the network. Developers can now add a line of code to their apps that allows users to push content from the app to their Facebook page. If a user is already logged in to Facebook on their phone, they won't need to log in again to share content, tag friends or share their location.

Facebook released this same sharing feature for iOS in April. Tuesday's update puts Facbook's Android SDK on par with the iOS SDK, meaning there is nothing developers can do on one operating system that they can't also do on the other, according to Facebook.

"We’re focused on providing the best products and tools to help you build great apps for any device or platform," wrote Facebook software engineer Chris Lang in a blog post.

Facebook confirmed that 73% of the top 100 Android apps already integrate with the platform, and the hope is that this update will elevate that number even higher, said a Facebook spokesperson.

Does your favorite Android app integrate with Facebook? Tell us in the comments below.

Exclusive: Pandora Deepens Its Integration With Facebook

It’s easier than ever to share what you’re listening to on Pandora with your Facebook friends, thanks to an extended partnership between the two companies.

Starting Wednesday, the songs and stations you listen to, as well as the tracks you give a "thumbs up," can be shared directly to Facebook. Details about your activity on Pandora, when shared via the social network, is then aggregated and displayed as part of the music section on your Facebook profile.

Pandora already supported sharing individual pieces of content to Facebook and Twitter. The new integration is the product of a year-and-a-half-long conversation between Facebook and Pandora.

“We’ve been talking to Facebook about how best to embrace this idea of what they call Timeline Apps — 'How do you make it really, really easy for people to update their Facebook identity as they consume content around the Internet and on mobile?'” Tom Conrad, Pandora's chief technology officer, told Mashable.

“Our frame in the conversation with them has always been, ‘How do we embrace this technical opportunity in a way that drives real value for both Pandora listeners and for Facebook users?”


Facebook’s recent Timeline update, as well as its music section, compelled Pandora to pursue deeper integration, Conrad added. Users are now able to seamlessly stream all their activity on Pandora to Facebook through an opt-in program. They can choose to send all data about their Pandora activity, or just a bit of their musical history (e.g. songs you give a "thumbs up"), to the social network.

Shared activity will appear in the Activity Log and the Music section of users' Facebook profiles, as well as on their friends' News Feeds based on Facebook’s algorithm.

“Seeing an ever-updating ticker of what my friends are listening to — what all of my friends are listening to — is less interesting than coming to understand the musical identity of a subset of the people that I interact with on Facebook,” Conrad explained.

Facebook's News Feed algorithm focuses on friends that users regularly interact with. That functionality extends to Pandora’s Facebook integration as well, so they won't suddenly have a News Feed filled with Pandora posts from all their high-school friends. In essence, it's a Facebook-curated feed that is limited only to people that a user is interested in hearing about.

When sharing isn't desired, a prominent toggle button within Pandora allows incognitio listening. This may be enforced, for example, when a user is listening to a holiday-themed radio station, but doesn't want to broadcast those details to their friends.

Intended to enhance the Pandora experience rather than invade privacy, Conrad said the service will be reaching out and educating its users about the new feature, explaining how to opt in, and how to control what data (if any) gets sent to Facebook.

Pandora’s new Facebook integration is live now.

What Pandora activity will you share on Facebook? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of Pandora; Mashable composite: Headphone image via iStockphoto, oonal; Facebook graphic via iStockphoto, pressureUA

13 Million Facebook Users Haven't Touched Their Privacy Settings

As Facebook prepares Graph Search for wide release, some have concerns about the privacy issues the new feature raises.

How can you be sure only your friends will see your name during searches? After all, more than a quarter of Facebook users share information with an audience much wider than their social circle. And 13 million users haven't even touched their privacy settings.


To see how Graph Search will affect you, as well as a few helpful tips for customizing your privacy settings, check out this infographic, courtesy of Marketo.

Are you worried about Graph Search invading your privacy? Tell us about it in the comments.

Homepage image courtesy of Flickr, D. Stenvers

Facebook Tests Links With Larger Photos, Adds Groups To Timeline

Facebook is testing two types of new link in the news feed, one with larger photos and another with icons denoting the link source. The social media giant has also given groups their own separate box on the newly designed timeline.

The new design for posts containing links takes full advantage of the recent news feed redesign, which focuses on providing the user with better, more image-focused content. The first new link being tested is dominated by a picture from the article, which takes up the entire width of the news feed at the cost of a title and summary. Instead, the links source and a sentence from the article sit above the image. Clicking on the photograph takes you to the article – before, it opened the image in a larger lightbox.

The second new link being tested is similar to the current style, with an image on the right and a headline and description on the left. However, the test contains the emblem and the name of the source site across the bottom of the link. Both of the links being tested take full advantage of the redesign’s wider news feed. It is as yet unclear whether the links can contain videos instead of pictures or not, but considering the fact that clicking the photo takes users to the article, it is unlikely – users want videos to play when they are clicked.

It’s been a busy few days for the Facebook team, as they have also added a new groups section to the redesigned news feed. Only open groups that the user has accepted an invite to will appear in the box, closed or secret groups and groups with an invitation pending will not be shown.

Which of the tests do you prefer?

71% of Facebook Users Engage in 'Self-Censorship'

Most Americans now know the feeling of typing something into a social media input box, thinking again, and deciding against posting whatever it was. But while it certainly seemed like a widespread phenomenon, no one had actually quantified the extent of this "self-censorship."

But now, new research based on a sample of 3.9 million Facebook reveals precisely how widespread this activity is. Carnegie Mellon PhD student Sauvik Das and Facebook's Adam Kramer measured how many people typed more than five characters into Facebook content-input boxes, but then did not post them.
They term this "last-minute self-censorship." The research was posted to Das' website and will presented at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence's conference on Weblogs and Social Media in July.

The numbers are impressively large. Fully one-third of all Facebook posts were self-censored, according to the method Das and Kramer devised, though they warn they probably captured a substantial number of false positives. Seventy one percent of all the users surveyed engaged in some self-censorship either on new posts or in comments, and the median self-censorer did so multiple times.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the study was the demographic correlations with self-censorship. Men self-censored more often, particularly if they had large numbers of male friends. Interestingly, people with more diverse friend groups — measured by age, political affiliation, and gender — were less likely to self-censor.
While the researchers declined to speculate in this study about why people may or may not have self-censored, earlier research with a small group of users found five reasons people chose not share what they'd written: aversion to sparking an argument or other discussion, concern their post would offend or hurt someone, felt their post was boring or repetitive, decided the content undermined their desired self-presentation or were just unable to post due to a technological or other constraint.

For Facebook users, the main takeaway here is probably: Feel free not to share. Facebook, on the other hand, has to have a more complex relationship to this research. Their interaction and business models depend on sharing, but it's not hard to imagine some circumstances in which it would be better not to share: racist content, say.

Das and Kramer say future research should address when the non-sharing is "adaptive," (which I think means good, in this context) and when, in the words of Das and Kramer, "users and their audience could fail to achieve potential social value from not sharing certain content, and the [social-network service] loses value from the lack of content generation."

Image via Manjunath Kiran/AFP/GettyImages

Facebook Home Released For Android

Facebook has released Facebook Home, a new patch for Android devices which makes viewing messages and photos from Facebook easier by changing the device’s homepage into a Facebook cover feed.

When Facebook home was announced yesterday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg emphasised that the company’s intention was to build a mobile interface which put people first instead of apps. To that end, Facebook Home replaces an Android phone’s home page with information from the owner’s Facebook news feed, all of which can be clicked on and interacted with. At any point users can get to their apps by swiping up on their Facebook profile photo.

Facebook notifications will appear on the home screen beside a profile picture of the active party, Facebook promises on the announcement post that these notifications will be “bigger [and] bolder”. Notifications can be taken off screen with a simple drag.

Meanwhile, messages – both SMS and Facebook – will appear over apps as pop-ups in the corner of the screen. This feature, called Chat Heads, “will help improve engagement as it lets people jump in and out of conversations without ever having to leave your app”, according to the Facebook announcement post.

Home will be available in the US from the Google Play Store from April 12. Home works on the HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung GALAXY S III and Samsung GALAXY Note II. Home will work on the yet-to-be-released HTC One and Samsung GALAXY S4, and on more devices in the next few months.

What do you think of Facebook Home?

Social Media Marketing Basics

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social Media Marketing, or SMM, is the practice of using social networking websites to promote products, services, and brand awareness.

Who uses Social Media Marketing?

Businesses that want to expand their online customer base use Social Media Marketing.

Why use Social Media Marketing?

Search Engine Marketing (SEM), which uses Search Engine Optimization (SEO), attracts the attention of Internet search engines. People who don't know about your business can find it. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (SMM) attracts the attention of human beings. People who know about your business will tell other people about it. And those people will tell other people. SMM is the Internet's version of word-of-mouth marketing and the Internet is huge. Use SMM well and potential customers will reach out to you before they use a search engine.

How to use Social Media Marketing

SMM is an investment. It is based on building relationships with potential customers. Plan and budget your company's social networking activities. Identify measurable goals. Do you want to drive traffic to your website? Do you want to address customer complaints quickly and efficiently? Choose one goal and focus your efforts. Add new goals later.

Where to use Social Media Marketing

SMM can be time-consuming. Identify your target market. Be specific. Do research. Where do large groups of these people meet on the Internet? Are they in a hurry? Do they like photos? Are they professionals? Use the social networking websites where your potential customers gather.

When to use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube Marketing

Use SMM consistently. Schedule updates as much as possible. People want to know when they can hear from you. Company blog posts, on sites such as WordPress, can be made once a day, once a week, or once a month. Maintenance is key. If you stop updating, people with assume you don't care.

Only reach out when you have something valuable to offer. Do not add clutter to customer timelines and feeds. You will lose followers. "Something valuable" does not mean a well-priced product. Social networking is about engagement. Ask questions. Give advice. Be clever. Then offer your well-priced product.

Social Media Marketing Tips

Be human. Social networking is people talking to people. Facebook, Twitter and Youtube Marketing relies on social networking. Your business needs to care about the people it networks with. It also needs to show that it cares.

Experiment. Track your results (if possible). Social Media Marketing is not an exact science. Learn how much overt advertising your target audience can accept as part of your SMM campaign. What works for your competitor may not work for you.

Evaluate. Reevaluate. Then adapt. The Internet is always changing. If an SMM strategy is no longer working for you, try something new.

New “Tracking Specs” Allow Facebook Advertisers To Track Specs Without Optimising Them

Facebook has introduced tracking specs on the ads API, a new tool which allows Facebook Advertisers to track specs without having to optimise them as well.

Before, only conversion specs were available to advertisers on the ads API. Conversion specs allow advertisers to detail and track their ads, but also automatically optimises ads for actions such as page likes and click-throughs based on the engagement they receive and the ads settings.
By using Optimized CPM, advertisers ensure that Facebook automatically targets users who are more likely to engage with their ads in the way defined in the conversion specs. However, advertisers wanted to be able to track their ads without having to optimise them.

According to the description on the Facebook developers pages:

Tracking specs allow you to track what actions are taken by users interacting with your ad. Tracking specs will only track, it will not optimize for that action nor does it charge based on that action. Please see conversion spec to learn how to create ads that optimize for a specific action.

Now, both conversion specs and tracking specs are available to advertisers using Facebook’s ads API. “Advertisers can define conversion specs to optimize for, then use tracking specs to measure results”, suggests Inside Facebook. Like conversion specs, tracking specs can be used to measure the effect of any Facebook ad type.

What do you think of the new tracking specs?

Facebook Finally Adds 'Reply' Option to Comments

Facebook announced on Monday it is rolling out a new feature so users can reply directly to comments left on their page. Finally.
Followings months of testing, the social network aims to make navigating through conversation threads easier with the new Replies feature. This means that, instead of having to leave a response to a friend's comment way after new ones have been added, you will be able to address each individual comment. Responses will be posted under the original comment too. 

The site is also prioritizing comments based on engagement — the most active and popular ones will surface to the top of your posts. This will be especially helpful for pages with thousands of followers.

"You and your readers will have the ability to reply directly to comments left on your Page content and start conversation threads, which will make it easier for you to interact directly with individual readers and keep relevant conversations connected," said Vadim Lavrusik, Facebook's journalism program manager, in an official blog post. "Also, the most active and engaging conversations among your readers will be surfaced at the top of your posts ensuring that people who visit your Page will see the best conversations."

For now, threaded replies will be automatically applied to profiles with more than 10,000 followers and opt in for brand Pages until July 10, 2013. To opt in, visit the Replies option through the Page admin panel.

"At launch, this feature will only be available on desktop and we plan to make it available in the Graph API and mobile in the future," Lavrusik added.

Mashable composite, Images via iStockphoto, crossroadscreative, and logo courtesy of Facebook

Facebook Tests New Timeline And ‘Like Page’ Button, Announces News Feed Redesign

Facebook has begun testing a new profile page design in New Zealand, with a smaller toolbar beneath the cover photo and an off-centre Timeline. A new ‘Like Page’ button is also being tested.

The toolbar now consists of text boxes rather than iframes, with some of the original tabs moved elsewhere on the page: the About, Friends, Photos and More tabs remain, joined by a Timeline navigation button, but Maps has been recategorised into the Places section and Followers is now in the More tab.

There are Message, Call and options buttons, the latter denoted by the cog emblem, at the bottom corner of the cover photo, as well as an add friend box, which becomes ticked when activated.

A few other sections of the timeline page have been rearranged: the comments section has been moved from left to right, with the activity section beneath, and the About box has been enlarged, with defined sections for job, education, birthplace and location information.

There is also a new three-by-three photos box of friends on the left of the page as opposed to the original two-by-four rectangle. Notes, Likes and Apps are beneath the Friends box and the Places section.

This is the third redesign to be tested in a matter of months, with the off-centre timeline introduced in October and then adjusted a few months later. The previous timeline redesign was also originally tested in New Zealand.

The Redesign also includes an updated link post when articles are shared on Facebook. A new ‘Like Page’ button has been added to the bottom right of links to articles and other offsite content posted on Facebook, allowing friends of the sharer to like the Facebook page of the article’s source.

The new ‘Like Page’ button, if introduced to Facebook users worldwide, will certainly help to drive traffic to company Facebook pages. Its inoffensive yet omnipresent placement, appearing, as it does, in the corner of a friend’s recommendation, will make it an invaluable tool for businesses on Facebook.

In related news, Facebook has sent out invitations to a press event on March 7th, where the company will unveil a News Feed redesign.

The News Feed hasn’t been updated significantly since September 2011, so the announcement has many in the social media marketing world excited.

For a slideshow of screenshots of the Timeline redesign go to Mashable.

What do you think of the new Timeline? Are you looking forward to the News Feed redesign?

Facebook Re-introduces Photo Tag Suggestions

Facebook has reintroduced photo Tag Suggestions in the U.S. having suspended the feature temporarily last year. It was suspended in order to make some technical improvements but has now been brought back.

The facial recognition feature was first distributed across the United States in 2010 and was pushed out to other countries in mid 2011.

It doesn’t look as if Facebook has made any changes to privacy settings with the feature, and that it is still a default setting. Facebook says that the feature has been brought back so that users can use facial recognition “to help them easily identify a friend in a photo and share that content with them.”

“This is the same feature that millions of people previously used to help them quickly share billions of photos with friends and family.”

The social network uses similar software to that found in many image editing tools in order to match new images to other photos that someone’s been tagged in. Photos that are similar to one another are put together and Facebook will suggest the name(s) of your friend(s) for the photo.

The square that finds a face in a photo will suggest the name of a Facebook friend that it believes it to be. The site hopes that this will simplify the process of tagging people, especially if the same friend appears in multiple uploaded photos.



Facebook announced the change in a Facebook and Privacy post but this could mean that many users will not have noticed it. The featured can be turned on or off by the users should they choose to do so.
 
To remove this feature from being default, select the tool icon in the top right corner of the page and then click on ‘Timeline and Tagging’ on the left hand side. At the bottom of the screen is an option that begins “Who sees tag suggestions . . .” which can be edited on the far right side.

For some, this may merely say ‘unavailable’ in which case the feature has not yet been distributed to you. Otherwise, a preference of either ‘Friends’ or ‘No One’ can be selected.

To get more information on Tag Suggestions and face recognition, go to the Facebook Help Centre.

Do you like Tag Suggestions? How useful is its inclusion?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Facebook iOS Update Includes Voice Messaging

An update to the iOS Facebook app allows users to have the same features that have previously been launched on the Facebook Messenger app on both iOS and Android devices.

The updated app for iOS means that users are now able to send voice messages when using the Facebook app.

The ability to send a voice message via the Facebook Messenger app was unveiled earlier this month which was later enhanced with VoIP calling free of charge in the United States and Canada.
Users of the Facebook app are also able to record a video and share it with friends from within the app.

Will you be sending voice messages and video recordings?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below

Facebook Set To Release New Photo Messaging App

Facebook is reportedly developing an in-house version of the Snapchat mobile app, the self-destructing photo messaging service.

Snapchat, a unique photo messaging service which has grown in popularity over the last year, allows its users to choose a time limit on how long their photo messages appear in the recipient’s inbox.

Normally, the photos last a matter of seconds before they are permanently deleted from the sender’s phone, the recipient’s phone and the Snapchat servers.

Facebook currently has four unique apps: Facebook Mobile, Camera, the recently updated Messenger and the self-branded Instagram.
If Facebook’s new app doesn’t catch on, they could feasibly purchase Snapchat, just as they acquired Instagram in September. It would, after all, be far less expensive than Instagram’s $735 million price tag.



Facebook’s decision to move into the self-deleting photo messaging market comes only a fortnight after Om Malik reported that Snapchat, which delivers around one thousand messages a second, is about to receive a rumoured valuation of $50 million after Benchmark Capital’s $8 million venture round.

“We haven’t heard anything from Mark [Zuckerberg] about a Snapchat clone,” said Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel in response to the news. “We’re big fans of Instagram and the Facebook platform and we look forward to watching Mark continue to innovate and grow his company.”

Do you think a photo messaging service like Snapchat is a good investment for Facebook?
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New Facebook Privacy Settings Rolled Out To Users

New privacy and sharing settings will be distributed to Facebook users by the end of the year.
A Facebook release has said that: “We continue to strive toward three main goals: bringing controls in context where you share, helping you understand what appears where as you use Facebook, and providing tools to help you act on content you don't like.”

The sharing platform has released a preview of some of the new options that can be seen in the menu.
Privacy settings could previously be found under different menu paths but will soon all be organised into one place called Privacy Shortcuts.
A new looking Activity Log will let users see more information on their personal data, their photos and all sorts of details regarding their Facebook activity.



A Request Removal Tool has been put into place so that users can ask for photos they disapprove of to be taken down by the person who uploaded them.

If a user should choose to hide something from their Timeline, Facebook will notify them if the content may still be shown in news feeds, searches, or anywhere else on the site.



Also, Facebook apps will have to make two separate requests to gain access to your personal information and post it to your Facebook account.
All users should be seeing these changes by the end of 2012.

What do you think about the privacy updates? Have you had any issues before?
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Facebook Search Bar Can Take You To Specific App Centre Categories

The Facebook search bar now searches for App Centre categories which will lead users straight to those particular sections of the App Centre.

The ability to do so doesn’t seem to have been available since the introduction of the App Centre in June, but Facebook has since introduced a search option within the App Centre which gives users the ability to finds apps by using keywords such as “sport” or “games”.

Only recently has a discovery been made of users being able to use the main Facebook search bar to find specific App Centre categories.

The search bar allows users to go straight to the “games” or “mobile apps” sections and will show different app categories such as action games, card games, puzzle games, photo apps, lifestyle apps and many more that can be found via the main search bar.

The search bar is generally used for Facebook users to find other people, pages and to get around the site. For instance, users can navigate quickly to their photos, notes, friends lists, Help Centre and others.

Adding App Centre categories to the search bar could point more users towards the App dashboard with it already getting 220 million visitors per month.

Are you glad that you can now access the App Centre via the main search bar?

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Facebook Messenger Now Available in Your Firefox Browser

You can now chat with your Facebook friends anywhere within Firefox without having to open Facebook itself.

A new Firefox feature allows Facebook Messenger to show up at the side of your browser window. The integration allows users to see which of their friends are online and chat with them as you would from your Facebook profile, regardless of whether the website is open in your browser window or not.



This integration hopes to help keep you up to date with what’s happening on the social network without needing to constantly be changing between tabs to do so.
The new feature will also allow users to see their notifications when comments are made on posts and when they are tagged in a photo.

The new release is the first application of Mozilla’s new Social API and Facebook is the first to take advantage of the service.
The API now gives other social media platforms, such as Twitter and LinkedIn the chance to benefit from the feature as well.

To try out the new Firefox Facebook integration, download the most recent version of Firefox and then turn the feature on via Facebook.

What do you make of this new update? Do you think it will help?
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How to Use Facebook and Twitter Without the Internet

As Hurricane Sandy makes its way up the Eastern Seaboard, many are without electricity. Without power you could lose your access to Internet via Wi-Fi and, potentially, access to mobile networks. If that happens, how can you still post on Facebook and Twitter to let your friends and family know that everything is fine? Or ask for help?

You can use good-old text messages.

To tweet, first you need to enable your mobile phone on Twitter.com, so do it now while you can. Go to your Twitter homepage, then to “Settings” and then “Mobile.” Insert your cellphone number under “Activate Twitter text messaging,” and then you’ll have to text “GO” to the number 40404.

Once you’ve done that, you should receive a text message telling you that your phone is now activated. You should also see new settings on the webpage that allow you to enable or disable text notifications.
Now, to tweet, just write a text and send it to 40404.

To find out more about how to use other Twitter functionalities without an Internet connection, check Twitter’s official guide.


If you’re more of a Facebook fan, worry not. You can update your status via SMS as well and the social network also gives you the ability to subscribe to your friends’ updates and even use Facebook chat. Again, to access these functionalities, you first need to link your mobile phone to your Facebook account.
Log into Facebook.com and go to your “Account Settings,” which you can find under the arrow next to your name on the top bar. Then go to “Mobile,” introduce your number and click on “Activate Text Messaging.” You’ll have to select your country and your carrier. Once you’ve done that, follow the instructions on the screen and text the letter “F” to the number 32665.

Finally, you will receive a confirmation number on your phone. Insert that number on the page. You should then receive a text message that will confirm that your phone is activated.
Now, to update your status, you simply have to write it in a text and send it to 32665.

Photo credit: Mashable composite, photo courtesy of iStockphoto, SimmySimons.