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Facebook rolled out features of its new open graph with 60 third-party apps that can interact directly with Facebook yesterday, making the social network more of a lifestyle operating system than a destination website. The new apps from Pinterest, Foodspotting, Foodily, Ticketmaster, Rotten Tomatoes, Pose, Kobo, Gogobot, TripAdvisor, and others help add more to your timeline allowing you to share more of what you are doing, buying, reading or experiencing to your timeline automatically.

The new partnerships mean you can go beyond the simple “Like” and venture out, expanding your social vocabulary to include “read,” “listen,” “cook,” and “watch.” Along with the new Facebook timeline feature, these new apps are part of changes announced at the f8 developer conference in the fall we have seen being trickled out over the last few months.

This is a great opportunity for the approved apps to extend their reach. As users make “branded” updates, the applications get more reach through that user’s social graph. The downside is too much sharing can take away that personal touch that drew us into Facebook and into information overload.

On the positive side, AllThingsD’s Liz Gannes had a chance to talk to many of the app partners and has a great rundown of the unique implementations, including Fab.com offering you payment for sharing your information. Definitely worth reading her post for a good overview of the possibilities these apps present.

Coupled with how the applications can creatively use this feature, finding that right balance on how much information that person wants to share with their social graph will be the essential to how successful the open graph will be in the long run. Just like other posts, Facebook allows you to delete any updates directly from the timeline and you can adjust your settings in the activity log on just how much information is shared.

Overall, this is an interesting move from Facebook and we should see some fun and creative applications come out and it’s just a matter of time before we see more applications introduced. Have you had a chance to play around with these new apps? What is your favorite? Have any applications on your wish list?

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Social media giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ continue to reinvent (or invent) themselves, rolling out changes more frequently than ever in an effort to outdo each other in a battle for people’s time and attention in the social universe. Many of these changes seem to have exciting implications for businesses and brands, but as a busy executive or business owner, it can be hard to keep up.

To save you some time, here is a closer look at some of these changes and what they could mean for your business:

Facebook Timeline

Timeline is here. Initially rolling out for personal pages, it’s safe to assume that branded pages will be right around the corner. As a business, the present Facebook brand page doesn’t provide many opportunities to differentiate your page from others, but that will not be the case with Timeline, the brand benefits of Timeline’s unique features will be huge.

With a large “cover” image spanning the top of your profile, brands will be able to tell a more visually impactful story. Of course conversations are still key, and with a few slick features Timeline will highlight your efforts more prominently than ever. It will be important for your business to know what stories you want to tell and to use this new real estate effectively to draw your audience in for more.

Facebook’s Acquisition of Location-Based Service Gowalla

Location-based services allow businesses to push information to a potential consumer when they are in or near their business. While Facebook abandoned their Facebook Places application this past year, the news about the company’s acquisition of Gowalla indicates a recommitment to the Facebook geo-location experience. Expect Facebook to take location-based services to a new level, not only hoping to rival Foursquare but integrate more features making Facebook even more mobile friendly. Also, with the continuing proliferation of smartphones mixed with retailers’ desire to drive traffic in a tough economy, geo-location will be even bigger in 2012 with Facebook poised to make an impact.

Twitter Brand Pages

Like Google+ and Facebook, Twitter has launched its own version of brand pages to help businesses create and present a stronger brand presence on their platform. The Twitter brand page will include a large customizable banner, which can include bio information, graphics and links. Business will also be able to freeze any tweet at the top of the timeline providing the opportunity to present strategic messaging on your page. At the moment, Twitter brand pages are only currently available to a few select partners. However, we anticipate a full rollout sometime in 2012. How will your businesses take advantage of this new look to enhance your brand presence?

Regardless of the changes, one thing remains constant — social media is never static. If your business is not taking advantage of the opportunities social media presents, you risk falling behind. We are in a competitive market, getting in front of a large targeted audience in a strategic way helps get your business positioned for success. Think ahead with your plan, then dedicate the time and resources upfront to keep yourself ahead of the competition.

Clay Nutting heads up 3fold’s Social Media Management services, www.3foldSocial.com. His team helps clients develop custom, strategic social media plans designed to work for their industries and their target audiences.

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Daily “deals” sites exploded on the scene with the popularity of Groupon and before you knew it, there were a flood of similar sites popping up including companies like Facebook and Yelp vying for a piece of the pie. Just as quickly as they appeared in the social deals marketplace, Facebook and Yelp both have announced major changes to its strategies. Facebook is exiting the social deals landscape altogether after just four months and Yelp is cutting staffing by 50% in the deals division after a just a year.

Some are citing deal fatigue with customers becoming weary of the plethora of emails plaguing their inbox and business tired of heavy-handed salespeople and negative experiences from deal redemption. In Facebook’s case — coupled with recent privacy improvements — the death of both its Facebook Deals and Facebook Places in the last week may just be the social network getting lean and mean for a heavyweight bout with Google+.

Bloomberg released a story that appeared on AdAge today citing the clutter of the market and thinning of margins as two of the main factors in the shift of strategy for Yelp and Facebook. It only makes sense as these two companies are taking into consideration the overall perception of its respective brands and not getting those tainted further by negative feedback or perception as consumer attitudes mature around this new market.

The numbers are pretty staggering with 52% of people feeling overwhelmed by the amount of emails they receive and 60% feel the deals market is just too crowded. With this much competition, the quality of the deals for the consumer can dwindle along with margins for both the companies brokering the deals and the businesses offering the deals — main reasons why many companies might be backing out of the market.

Despite this shift the deal market is still vibrant offering plenty of value for a business and a good option to showcase your business. A well-executed deals promotion will bring new and existing customers through the door and a tighter market can mean more benefits in the long term. Less noise also can be a gain in visibility for your business for the promotion, even if a customer decides not to partake in the deal.

Whatever company you chose to use, just make sure you feel comfortable with the scope and terms of deal or promotion before you sign the contract. Here are some things to consider when using a deal to gain exposure for your business:

• A coupon or deal won’t fix bad customer service — Take a look at your business and fix customer service issues in advance. Why bring in an influx of new customers that are only going to experience a subpar cusomer experience? Once they are there, give them a reason to come back.
• Remove as many limits as possible — Coupon not valid Thursday through Saturday? Only valid on full moons and when the tides are low? Remove the limitation of using the coupon or deal. Remember it’s about getting the customer in your business when they are ready.
• It’s not about making money right then and there — Sure you have people that will come in for the deal only with no plans on returning but for those that aren’t, this is the perfect time to build a new, loyal customer. That relationship is much more valuable over time.
• Prepare your staff — There is always likely going to be some confusion and issues behind the deal or coupon, prepare your staff on how to handle this and remember flexibility is key in conflict resolution.
• Work with the deal company to get the best deal for you — They usually have minimums in the guidelines but don’t be afraid to negotiate for the best deal for you. Also if you are a non-profit, the margin is greater so make sure to tell them that up front. Next, keep in consideration your products or services — if your average transaction is under $10, it makes no sense to offer $40 of services for $20.
• Don’t be afraid of being social — Social media and social networks are most likely the reason these people have heard about the deal. Don’t be afraid to share your deal with your existing network plus once the customer is in the door don’t be afraid to ask people to share their experiences on Facebook, Twitter or Yelp!

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Facebook is beginning to roll out some new privacy and sharing features to help give you more control over how you share things on the social network with friends. Many look at features Google has integrated into Google+ as the reason why these fixes have finally been integrated since many users and Facebook privacy advocates have been asking for these features for a long time.

The new features are starting to trickle out among Facebook users and one of the most important changes in this roll out is the ability to approve or deny images and posts you are tagged in. Taking this a step further, you can even request undesirable content to be removed from Facebook altogether. For those of you who have a picture happy friend that posts a less-than-desirable image you can ask for it to be removed whether or not you are tagged in the photo.

Besides this major feature, Facebook is also bringing those elusive privacy controls front-and-center for any content you share. Prior to this update, the privacy controls were tucked away under the obscure “Privacy Settings” page under the control menu. Now when you share a link, image, or status update you can select who the post gets shared with from a simple drop down menu right on the post menu.

While people have been screaming at Facebook to adopt more upfront and user-friendly privacy settings, maybe having Google breathing down your neck is going to make Facebook a more friendly and intuitive product. Google+ is beginning to look promising and will certainly attract a good chunk of Facebook’s audience but with changes like these, Facebook is providing more reason to stick with the social network.

[via Facebook]

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Lately, everyone is clamoring to be the bell of social media’s ball. Building online fan bases and creating virtual relationships and conversations is marketing’s newest campaign focus. But what are all these new fans and followers worth?

According to social media specialist Vitrue, which attempted to put a media value on such communities, for a million fans, each one is worth about $3.60.

Based on impressions generated in the Facebook news feed (the stream of recent updates from users’ networks), the firm got this number by determining that, on average, a fan base of 1 million translates into at least $3.6 million in equivalent media over a year.

Analyzing its own clients, who have a combined 41 million fan count, Vitrue found that most fans yielded an extra impression, meaning if a marketer posted twice a day, they could expect about 60 million impressions per month through the news feed. This averaged out to about $300,000 in media value each month for every 1 million fans.

Of course, not all brands see the same results. The more well-known companies with trendier reputations get far more play than the lesser known brands. However, as brands add value, engagement goes up, so running a strategic and thoughtful social media campaign can yield value for any brand who understands their fan base.

Still, as important as demonstrating value for social media efforts, these numbers don’t reflect the primary function social media creates for brands: customer relationship management. Brands should never forget that social media, Facebook and Twitter leading the pack at the moment, are invaluable tools for informing audience about new products and services, incentives and promotions, and news and events.

Source: Adweek

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