Zuckerberg was keen to stress that the new product was not simply web search:

What’s more interesting than any of these things (that Facebook currently does) is giving people power and tools to take any cut of the graph that they want.

Zuckerberg explained the difference between web search and Graph Search. “Web search is designed to take any open-ended query and give you links that might have answers.” Linking things together based on things that you’re interested in is a “very hard technical problem,”.

Graph Search is designed to take a precise query and give you an answer, rather than links that might provide the answer.” For example, you could ask Graph Search “Who are my friends that live in San Francisco?” Zuckerberg joked that a difference is “filters,” which grabbed a few chuckles.

Zuckerberg says that Graph Search is in “very early beta.” People, photos, places and interests are the focus for the first iteration of the product.

Finding brand content on Facebook has often proved tricky for users, with Facebook keen to push a move of branded content to the news feed rather than exclusively on a brand page through the use of sponsored stories.

It is not yet clear to what extent Graph Search will be opened to third party developers, giving users the ability to search custom open graph actions associated to apps and pages.

It is hoped graph search will open up the ability for users to search custom open graph actions linked to custom apps in the near future.

Work on a mobile interface is currently in progress and will launch shortly.

News via TechCrunch and Facebook.

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The new feature, called Sponsored Results, allows advertisers to appear more obviously giving them a better reach, and making them easier to discover on Facebook through one of its most used features: the search bar.

Ads can be targeted against Facebook entities, including Pages, Places, Apps, and people who have subscribe enabled. People will see the ad when the targeted entity appears in their search results.

More information in this Sponsored Results Product Overview PDF from Facebook.

What’s the best way to share content on social media that will get your fans and customers sharing, liking and commenting on your content? Well, according to some research* by a couple of stats and Social Media Marketing experts, the adage of a picture being worth 1,000 words is still as true today as it’s ever been – even on social media.

It’s always been true, but the rollout of the Timeline for brand pages in March 2012 has introduced bigger pictures, and more emphasis on telling stories through photos. According to the research (by MBooth and Simply Measured), photos are liked twice as much as text posts, and as an Internet Nation we seem to have become addicted to sharing our lives through photos.

Instagram said, when they launched on Android, that they had over five million photos per day being uploaded. Since then, the publicity generated by the purchase by Facebook has made the service even more popular: mostly people uploading photographs of their dinner, in an attempt to make friends jealous of their culinary skill, but all telling the stories of their lives through photographs. For when 140 characters just wasn’t enough…

One brand that stands out as being good at using photographs on their Facebook page is Starbucks who post pictures of their products being enjoyed and used, regularly reacting to weather, or events and asking their users questions.

What Starbucks posts is a very carefully thought about, and clearly planned, set of messages which tie in closely with their marketing campaigns in store – the Refresha beverage is being marketed heavily in stores as a summer alternative to coffee. The post included above, you’ll notice, doesn’t even mention what is being marketed. The picture has two drinks, looking bright and fresh, two huge and clear Starbucks logos, and some people clearly enjoying themselves, and their drinks. You want one now, don’t you? Scroll down their page and you’ll find yourself wanting all sorts – posts tied in to the patriotic celebrations of the Olympics (a Starbucks cup, landmark and a Union Flag), the good weather (a cup lying in the sun) and some photographs of stores. All with a few Instagram-style filters applied.

Even big Starbucks-competitor Costa, recently launched as a convenience brand as Costa Express and currently in the process of a nationwide rollout of a Costa at Home range of products, but previously stuck with store managers using fax to communicate with most people have started to do the same. Always having focused in their marketing on photographs of their drinks, Costa’s marketing has recently developed with a focus on emotion and their Facebook stories tell much the same story.

While there’s a couple of Instagram-type photographs of a muffin and coffee, Costa’s are using user-generated images in their cover photo to show their customers enjoying drinking their products. Instead of promoting running to the nearest store to grab a takeout, Costa’s page makes me wish I could take the rest of the day off, grab a few friends and sit outside one of their stores – with a coffee, obviously.

As well as posting photographs, both brands are interacting with their fans. You won’t find an “ask and run” type question, and the engagement this is providing is bringing fans back for more, and solving problems – customers will often take to social media with complaints or comments, rather than to a brand’s own website.

In an ideal world, matching up your online and offline campaigns will drive a more consistent response, but for success on Facebook brands need to be somewhat more stealthly about what they’re marketing.

As an example, a post urging you to purchase a product from Gregg’s The Bakers directly links to the product and is clearly a piece of directed marketing: it’s managed to achieve 237 Likes per hour. Starbucks’ post above, with two Baristas enjoying their Refresha drinks is a little more subtle with a slightly better 439 likes per hour, but Costa’s picture of some PacMan-based Latte art is probably least like an advert, and is driving the best engagement of them all with 906 likes per hour.** Even this very brisk look at the stats shows that pictures are effective in telling stories – but what story they tell is an issue that needs to be thought about very carefully before posting anything.

**Figures are approximate and based on “around x hours ago” legends on the posts at time of writing.

At the moment, brands are able to re-use apps for as long as they are one of our customers, change their own artwork, and see insights. In the future… Who knows what they could be doing. Well, we’ve got a pretty good idea – but are we right?

So if you have anything at all to do with apps, social media marketing or management within an organisation, then head over here and fill out our quick survey.

It should take about 4 minutes, although that does depend on how good you are with a mouse.

The idea of Open Graph apps was that users would constantly share how they interacted with applications following the one-time authentication when they first installed the app. Information would also be added to a box on the user’s timeline, and shared with friends via the ticker. Whether or not the update appeared in the newsfeed depended on the kind of update or the weight of the action. Rare achievements in games carried a higher weight than a foursquare checkin, but that’s not what users were expecting, and it gave app developers a hard time creating reach.

Now, updates posted through apps can act as if they were posted directly to Facebook when developers specify that those updates should be more prominent, while frictionless, perhaps softer, actions will be distributed in the same way they were before.

In their blog post announcing the news, Facebook said: “We expect this change will drive more traffic to apps that people use to proactively share content to Facebook and result in no significant impact for all other types of apps.

“Explicitly shared actions are eligible to appear as stand-alone stories in news feed and they’ll appear consistently on the left side of a person’s timeline”

When the Open Graph was first introduced just over a year ago, Facebook pushed ‘frictionless sharing’ as its key feature – this is one that’s been picked up, but almost too much and some – like InsideFacebook.com – say this change is a form of damage control from Facebook.

Developers wanting to change their applications to include Explict Share options will need to resubmit their applications to Facebook for review, a process that could take around 7 days. In our research, documented in a White Paper published on this blog soon, we found that although lots of brands were doing social media, a lot of them weren’t taking advantage of tools like the Open Graph to build relationships with their fans.

Despite being branded in a cartoon-like style, the application will only be visible in the UK, and only displayed to those who are over 18 preventing children from seeing, or installing, it. Such real-money applications won’t be permitted in the US, due to local laws.

Facebook reported that it generated $192m last year from gaming on its platform, and after the launch of this application, the Telegraph reports that real money versions of gambling applications from other developers, including Zynga – the maker of FarmVille – are on their way.

In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson said, “Facebook is a place that allows people to connect and share. Real money gaming is a popular and well-regulated activity in the U.K. and we are allowing a partner to offer their games to adult users on the Facebook platform in a safe and controlled manner.”

(InsideFacebook.com)

Previously, Open Graph like buttons could be mapped to Open Graph Objects, and administrators of those applications could send updates to people who had clicked the button, landing up in their timeline. No-one, tough, it seems, had realised that and even fewer had used it – and so not much is going to change.

The only problem really is that Likes themselves won’t be transfered, so Facebook is recommending that users create a separate Facebook page for their site or product, and update users with a prompt to like the new page. So, while potentially brands could be losing out on audience, the attention turns to why this feature wasn’t being used.

The big question here is: if brands and the marketing people didn’t know that this was possible, then it’s likely that neither did users. What could have happened if users’ Facebook experience had been changed, dramatically, with updates from every sporting player, blender and Iron that they’d automatically clicked Like on, a few months ago? We’ll never know.

What we do know, though is that the Open Graph itself remains one of the most powerful tools for brands on the web to interact with their users, and build relationships, while using the data they get to help them better target future marketing campaigns. It builds a relationship between the brand and the user, and keeps that alive even when users aren’t on Facebook.

The RSPCA recently launched an app powered by PageHub that takes full advantage of the Open Graph to frictionlessly share users’ opinions and views – and the RSPCA see the app as changing the way that they campaign forever.

As well as the advantages of using the PageHub dashboard, where someone without technical skills can control everything easily and monitor results, the use of the Open Graph means that scores given are shared with users’ friends, and they make history. The RSPCA will run the campaign on a regular basis, building up a connection and history with their users as they give scores on animal welfare issues.

(via Inside Facebook)

Here’s what Startups had to say on their website about PageHub’s history/mission and why the company made the list:

“While working in a marketing agency running promotions on Facebook for clients, James Wood realised that it was too complicated for brands to evaluate, and therefore get the most out of, their campaigns. The 25-year-old decided to set up an online service to rectify this. Using PageHub, brands can easily manage their Facebook marketing activity without using an agency, and use instant customer insights to improve their campaigns as they are running. Several high street brands are already using the platform, including Monsoon Accessorize, The Open University, RSPCA, Lucky Voice, Heinz and Majestic Wines. The business, which is one of just 11 UK companies to be recognised as a ‘Preferred Marketing Developer’ by Facebook itself, is now planning to launch several new products, as well as working on a tablet version of PageHub.”

Thanks for everyone for their kind messages of support.  2012 is set to be a big year for us with further product launches and exciting announcements.

The UK version gives users access to the same popular apps such as Spotify and Words With Friends, as well as personalised recommendations and the ability to see what apps and games your friends are using.

Facebook says the App Center is “now rolling out in the UK,” so it may not be live just yet for all users. Hopefully other regions will be gaining access soon as well.

Via The Verge.

Launched today, the app shows the ‘top 12 tastebud-tickling’ burgers which have been shortlisted for the Britain’s Favourite Burger. Users can log on and select their favourite burger through the app.

The app is part of the brands’ joint plan to put Britian’s favourite burger on the map, and will include 3663 and Heinz offering customers a range of tools, recipes and advice to help them to increase the money they make selling burgers. The competition and app will be promoted using table talkers, posters and other marketing material in catering outlets around the country.

Catherine Hinchcliff, Head of Customer Marketing at 3663, said: “The burger is an extremely versatile staple of many outlets’ menus that can deliver strong sales and profits. We’re delighted to be partnering with Heinz and Tim Anderson on this campaign and couldn’t have teamed up with two partners that are more passionate about making burgers brilliant.”

The app is online now at http://facebook.com/BritainsFavouriteBurger

The app is hosted on the PageHub platform, allowing 3663 & Heinz instant access to insights – and allowing them to easily change and update the app – as simple as drag and drop.

At the time, insiders speculated that General Motors just wasn’t getting what it wanted from its ads. Today, though things have changed as a report points to a rather different explanation.

Published today, the report by AdAge says that far from thinking Facebook wasn’t a viable platform for their ads, General Motors instead wanted to take over entire pages with their ads and when Facebook said no, they walked away from the deal.

Facebook VP Global Marketing Solutions Carolyn Everson told AdAge that the problem lay in Marketers’ misunderstanding of Facebook’s differences: “Marketers that don’t quite get that those are the two fundamental pillars that make us different often will refer back to the formats that they’ve been used to over the past couple of decades.

“We have 900 million-plus people on the platform, and our job is to make the advertising on the platform as good and as compelling as content from [users'] parents, or their friends, or their boyfriends or girlfriends. So when a marketer asks for something like that, that’s just not what works on Facebook, so we would say no.”

But, while General Motors have pulled $10m worth of advertising from Facebook they have continued their commitment to a $30m spend on creating other content – like apps – on the social media site.

While these actions might indicate General Motors would love to see Facebook turn into the graphical mess that MySpace became, the commitment GM have made to content creation shows that while adverts might not be directly selling their cars (and other car dealers have found the same across the whole web) engaging with customers and creating a positive brand-image remains a priority.

A small competition might encourage thousands of users to take part for just a small cost, but brands doing things right and engaging with their customers will be gaining more than just more likes. Brands using the PageHub platform to power their apps, for example, are just a few clicks away from valuable customer data which allows them to analyse what they’ve done well, where things could be hitting the target better, and make sure that their next campaign is spot on, while all the time getting instant insights into who and how they’re interacting with.

James Wood, Founder of PageHub, said he thought….

Interacting with Facebook users is key, using apps and content production to drive home the message, sponsored stories and the Facebook Reach generator are great tools for turbo charging the exposure of user generated content in place of more traditional ad units.

The incredible popilarity of the world’s biggest social network, Facebook, is top of the mind for small and large businesses who have been pouring increasingly large portions of their advertising budget into campaigns to engage better with their loyal customers, and to entice new ones into their stores. From competitions to product promotion pages or just an app extending their existing eCommerce site, retailers have been trying just about everything to attract  everyone they can.

I looked at 280 retailers who operate in the UK’s biggest shopping centre, Bluewater in Kent, and their Facebook presence. Apps on each page were then categorised depending on what their apps did, and the way they were aiming to get interaction with from visitors.

The result show that by far retailers are choosing to use Store Locator apps on their pages, with Welcome Page apps coming in a distant second – 27.5% of retailers are using them. Competitions, Like-gates revealing discount vouchers or codes, and on-Facebook stores are next on the list, unsurprisingly, with retailers focusing their efforts on getting customers to visit their pages in return for spending money, even if it is a little less than they might have spent otherwise.

Facebook App Types Used By Bluewater Retailers

How this changes over the coming weeks will be interesting to watch, as adoption of the Facebook Places and removal of default Welcome Pages for Timeline takes effect.

Proportion Of Apps Used By Retailers With Deprecated Apps Removed

In my opinion, using these pages effectively is important for any business to reach their existing and potential customers, from the smallest to the largest; with the right type of offline and online marketing, competitions and discount coupon apps can be used to engage with their customers, with future communications getting a bigger audience as a result. Most important, though, is good management of the brand’s Facebook presence – and that, of course, requires that the business is watching how their users are interacting with them on Facebook, and constantly looking for ways to do it better. 

PageHub is an all-in-one platform which allows brands to run smart, agile campaigns on Facebook. Real time insights give brands the opportunity to optimise and tweak their campaigns immediately, uploading new artwork and content as they need to – helping them increase user engagement, and conversions.

The app launched on Tuesday, allows users to fill out a virtual report card on the Government’s latest animal welfare policies; scores are automatically shared with a user’s friends via their timeline, encouraging others to rate policies.

James Wood, founder of PageHub said:  “We’re really excited to be helping the RSPCA pioneer in using the Social Graph to promote their work

“The RSPCA are really leading the way in integrating the social graph into their campaigning, with the launch of this new Facebook app.”

Running on the PageHub platform, the app allows users to support and promote causes with their Facebook friends in a frictionless way, and the RSPCA to manage the app using the PageHub dashboard.

Violet Donohoe, Political Campaigner for the RSPCA said that the launch of the app marked a change in the way the RSPCA campaigned:

“We recognise that people who care about animal welfare are likely to associate with people of a similar disposition. The PageHub system is a perfect fit.”

“The RSPCA have little manpower to monitor and moderate. PageHub have managed to create a user friendly platform simple to use for ‘non-techy’ types.”

“The integration of the Facebook open graph was an idea brought to us by PageHub as a means of amplifying the way participation in our campaign was communicated.”

The RSPCA have also published their ‘school report’ for the Government and have also made this available on Facebook. The app has increased engagement with the RSPCA on Facebook by an average of 300%.

James Devonport Wood, Founder & CEO of PageHub said “After many months of work we are hugely excited to announce to have been selected as a Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer for Apps, a recognition that the PageHub Platform is delivering innovative enterprise solutions on Facebook.”

PageHub is an all in one solution which allows brands to run smart, agile campaigns on Facebook, with access to instant insights on customer interactions and trends.

PageHub passed a huge milestone of 1 Million app deliveries in November 2011, and growth has been increasing significantly month on month as brands seek to collect and manage customer data more effectively from social networks.  In March this year we celebrated our first birthday and look forward to making further announcements on exciting new enterprise products built on the Facebook Open Graph API.

Customers using PageHub to manage their campaigns include Monsoon, Accessorize, T-Mobile, Lucky Voice and The Open University.

The new Facebook PMD initiative was announced on 19th April 2012 and PageHub are one of the first companies accepted on to the new program, you can find more information over at Facebook.

A new study which delves into the stats for these social media icons says (in the US) 1 in 3 TV viewers went on to socially interact with a brand as a result of seeing one of these ads…

The most common action for those who did interact with the brand was to Like it’s Facebook page (20%), 7% went on to search for a hashtag on Twitter and another 5% used Shazam right on their Sofa. Surprisingly 11% of the people that interacted with the brand scanned a QR code on their smartphones, a rather large number seeing as these have had far from mainstream public uptake so far.

 Now comes the negative part, people aren’t necessarily engaging with these ads as they want to be social or connect with the brand but more for access to deals and coupons. This is something that Europe seems to be slow to catch on to, meaning we very rarely see any real reason to get our iPhone (or Andriod equivalent)’s out and search for that #cornflakes tag that Kelloggs just had stuck to the bottom of their ad, not at least until we get something tangible in return.

“I’ll always feel pretty close with the culture and all my friends there, so I immediately thought ‘Man, this should be on FB’s campus,’” Putnam said. So he posted a picture of it to Facebook with the caption, “Facebook NEEDS this sign.”

Current Facebook Engineer Serkan Piantino  saw this update and took Putnam’s request super duper seriously, starting negotiations with the sign’s owner, a one Mr. Roger Hacker, in order to bring the sign to Facebook’s new Menlo Park HQ at, fittingly enough, 1 Hacker Way.

While Putnam has no idea how much money Facebook paid for the sign, he does tell me that Roger Hacker was considering getting a new sign anyways. And it shouldn’t be too hard to make a new one, as “The Hacker Company” is actually a sign manufacturer.

“This was like a seven month project,” writes Facebook Facilities Manager Scott Oligher, ”Negotiating with Mr Hack for his beloved sign, shipping this huge thing, permitting it and finally getting it installed. We have had the install scheduled 6 different times. Glad it is finally in, it will be lit up on Monday.”

While it might have the sweetest backstory, the sign isn’t the first piece of HQ hacking to come out of Facebook. Two weeks ago during a “Space Hackathon,” six engineers initiated a project that ended up in a giant QR code painted on the company’s roof. Yeah.

Image via. Story via Alexia @ TechCrunch.

The service can be used to turbo boost any kind of post, from posts made by apps to timeline milestones.  Facebook says the product has delivered up to 3x ROI and reach as high as 98 percent of fans for clients such as Ben & Jerry’s. It allows brands to leverage their existing investment in building a fan base for their Pages, but won’t address reaching new customers.

Facebook has made three core recommendations for making effective posts suitable for use with Reach Generator.

1. Post once a day to maximize reach. Posting too frequently reduces the amount of time needed to distribute each Page post to your audience.

2. Express your core message within the first 90 characters of your post to ensure your audience sees it when your Page post becomes an ad or sponsored story. Longer messages will be truncated.

3. Post at the optimal time. Only you know what’s right for your business, and you can use your Page Insights to figure out what’s working. Many restaurants find that posting between 7am and 12pm is ideal, while retailers find that posting between 8am and 2pm works best. People engage with Pages the most between 9pm and 10pm and the 18-24 age demographic is the most engaged during this time.⁵

Since Reach Generator is only offered through Facebook’s premium managed spend ad account teams, it could shift some spend away from Ads API, or just increase the size of the pie. Facebook will be able to show Reach Generator-bought ads in whatever inventory is available, allowing it to earn revenue on ad placements that didn’t sell for much or even exist before.

Reach Generator will shift the burden of ad targeting and measurement from brands to Facebook, and prevent advertisers from accidentally showing a single fan multiple ads while missing others. By allowing brands to blanket their fans with a specific message, Reach Generator could become an important component of giant nation- or worldwide ad campaigns where brands typically buy tons of TV commercials.

Via TechCrunch.

Rolling out over the next few weeks, Interest Lists could give users enough curation ability to follow friends, brands, and thought leaders in the same interface. The release continues Facebook’s battle to usurp Twitter’s control of the interest graph. The feature combined with Subscribe could be good enough to jeopardize Twitter’s long term growth.

Accessed through the home page’s left navigation sidebar, Interest Lists can be clicked to switch to a view entirely comprised of stories from a list’s members — Pages and public updates from users with Subscribe enabled. Only the creator can edit a list, and they can select to make it private, or set it as public so it will appear in Facebook’s list recommendations to others.

When creating new lists, a wizard helps users pick from their Liked Pages, subscriptions, friends, and members of categories like Art, Entertainment, and Games. Users can also select to add a Page to an Interest List from a Page’s Timeline. This functionality actually leaked with the launch of Timeline for Pages giving us a hint that Interest Lists would launch, but Facebook quickly hid it until now.

Unfortunately, you’ll also see the most popular stories from lists you’ve subscribed to in your primary news feed, which you can click through as a portal to your lists. However, this will prevent users from adding lists they might only want to check occasionally without polluting their main news feed. The only solution is to hide posts from lists one by one when they appear in the main news feed. I find it very useful to be able subscribe to a niche Twitter list without affecting my feed, and Facebook should consider switching to this functionality or making it an option.

Many Facebook users who might have one day been convinced to join Twitter could find that Subscribe and Interest Lists are sufficient. Twitter may always be best at breaking news, but many people would probably rather not start on a new social network.

Story via TechCrunch.