A recent update to Pages Manager for iOS has returned detailed post insights to the product after a version earlier this month was released without them.

Facebook released version 2.0 of its Pages Manager app for iOS in early May to make the app faster and include new features like photo filters. However, it did not include the same level of per-post analytics as previous versions. Page owners could see how many people they reached but when they tapped the area that used to lead to more information, they were instead directed to a screen where they could buy Promoted Posts. Now, the additional metrics have been brought back.

Users can tap the “reach” metric to be taken to a new screen with an additional breakdown of how much of that reach was organic, paid or viral. They can swipe left to see details about engaged users, post clicks, link clicks and stories created. Another swipe will present People Talking About This, likes, comments and shares for the given post.

Page owners can still promote their posts from the app by tapping the “promote” button. Another feature that Facebook removed from Pages Manager a few weeks ago, but hasn’t brought back yet is the option to create an Offer post. Admins have to create those from Facebook.com.

Facebook also made some bug fixes and performance updates in the latest version of Pages Manager released this week.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Facebook is testing a new way for page owners to create “unpublished posts” — those that intentionally do not appear to all fans of their page – directly from the composer on their page.

Unpublished posts do not appear on a page’s Timeline or in fans’ News Feeds, but they can be promoted with ads. This allows page owners to make posts that are tailored to a specific audience and ensure that they are only seen by that audience, not distributed to anyone who Likes the page. It also creates a way for advertisers to test different creative options for their page post ads without overwhelming their fans with multiple posts.

Now page owners can make these kinds of posts directly from their page by clicking the clock icon used to schedule posts. After users select a year, a “hide from News Feed” option will appear. Checking that box will prevent the post from being distributed to fans’ feeds, though it will still appear on the page’s Timeline. Then a page could promote the post or use it as part of a page post ad in the mobile or desktop News Feed.

Although this feature is hard to discover and not particularly intuitive for most page owners, it is useful to have the “hide from News Feed” option in the composer. Previously, users could only create unpublished posts via the self-serve ad tool, Power Editor or API. The image below is from the ads tool, after selecting “Promote Page Posts” and “Create New Page Post.”

Facebook first added the option for pages to make unpublished posts through the Pages API in July 2012, but these posts were only eligible for promotion in the right hand sidebar of the site. In March of this year, however, Facebook opened up its News Feed inventory to ads created from unpublished posts.

Facebook offers some page post targeting by age, gender, location and other demographic information, there is no organic way to target posts by interests or factors like Custom Audiences. But with unpublished posts that run as page post ads in News Feed, businesses can show users more relevant content. For example, service could show longtime users one version of an ad, new users another, and leads yet another. Or an app page could make an unpublished post to promote to iPhone users and another aimed at Android users. Other brands are using unpublished posts simply to test different ad creative and optimize their campaigns.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

As part of the social network’s continuing efforts to build out its location database, Facebook now allows users to upload and suggest photos for unadministered place pages.

Facebook’s location platform relies heavily on user-generated content and community editing. Anyone can create a place or edit the details of an existing place, such as the category, business hours, website or other information. Some place pages are run by the people or organizations that own them, and in those cases, they can designate their own profile picture. This new feature applies to places that don’t have an admin.

Unadministered places are ones that are not managed by a person, business or organization, and are often cities, public parks or local businesses that haven’t claimed their page on Facebook. They do not appear in Timeline format like claimed places do. These rely on Facebook users and a community of power users called “Places Editors” to be filled out with complete information and photos.

Previously, users could suggest the place’s official website and then select one image from the site to serve as the profile picture of that place. Earlier this month, Facebook began rolling out a new way for users to add any photo to serve as the profile picture. Users can now upload a new photo or choose from one of their existing albums. Other users can vote on the submitted photos, and the most popular one becomes the profile picture. The other images become part of an album for the place.

However, with the option for user-generated photos comes an increase in spam, which Places Editors are working to remove. For example, in the image below, someone has uploaded a screenshot from a social game for an island in Florida. Other people are adding photos of themselves or memes. Business owners should be aware of how their locations might be presented on Facebook and take steps to claim their page and merge any duplicates.

Thanks to Emile Dingemans for the tip.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

As Facebook looks to convert more page owners into advertisers, it is trying even more new ways to highlight its Promoted Posts product.

Some users are now receiving notifications when one of their page posts performs better than average. The notification encourages page owners to advertise the post to get “even better results.” Whether or not they take the recommendation, page owners might appreciate the notice about how well their post is doing. This is similar to another recent test of a homepage module that identifies a well-performing post and links to a page where users could buy additional reach through Promoted Posts. This new test uses Facebook notifications instead.

Another test some users are seeing lately is an additional button to promote their posts. The button in the top right corner of an existing post next to the “highlight” and “edit” options features a megaphone icon, which Facebook uses to denote advertising. The story also includes a “boost post” button in the bottom right corner. Other page owners are seeing different language, including “promote” “get more reach” or “advertise post” instead of “boost post.”

Promoted Posts are page posts that get additional paid reach in News Feed among fans and friends of fans as a result of using a button on the page. Part of their appeal is that they don’t require page owners to create campaigns through the more complex ads create tool or Power Editor. However, as Facebook gets more aggressive in pushing these paid features, some page owners might be turned off.

First screenshot from Jay Baer via Social Marketers, a private industry group for social marketing professionals.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Facebook place pages now include an option for users to give star ratings to businesses and locations directly from their page on Facebook.com, even if they haven’t been to the location.

Previously, users could rate places from the Local Search section of the mobile app, and only if they had previously checked into the location or been tagged there. Facebook would also use the desktop sidebar to randomly prompt users to rate places they had been. We hadn’t seen a way for users to rate any place at any time they wanted until now. This enables users to go back and rate the places they might not have checked into on Facebook, but it also opens the door to rating manipulation. For instance, a business could ask friends or incentivize fans to give them five-star ratings.

This feature on desktop pages also gives users an easy way to change their rating. Before, the only way we could find to change a place rating was to do so through the activity log, but it could be difficult to find the rating among all of a user’s other actions. Changing a rating is not possible to do from the mobile app.

We also noticed that unadministrated pages now include a way for users to rate and recommend the place. Unadministrated places are often cities, public parks or local businesses that haven’t claimed their page on Facebook.

Although Facebook has had a “recommend this place” feature since 2011, it has only recently begun to emphasize ways for users to share more feedback about the locations and businesses they visit. The social network is also developing the same for content, with users now able to rate books, movies and TV shows as of this week. All of this is building Facebook’s potential as a local search and entertainment discovery platform, and has implications for the businesses and organizations that manage their presence there. More user generated reviews and ratings gives page owners a bit less control over what is displayed on their page and the sentiments revealed there. These ratings could also begin to influence Graph Search and News Feed distribution, introducing another factor for marketers to consider and optimize for.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Cisco Meraki, which offers cloud-managed networking solutions, announced a partnership with Facebook last week to include Facebook Wi-Fi in its new Presence platform for businesses to gather location analytics and promote engagement among visitors.

Facebook Wi-Fi is a service that allows businesses to offer customers free Wi-Fi after checking in on the social network. It began as a hackathon project a year ago and gradually rolled out as a local experiment with a few businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area. Now it’s a full-fledged commercial product thanks to the Meraki partnership.

The integration with Presence gives business owners access to Facebook page insights with aggregate demographic information about the customers who check in. The check-in also results in increased exposure for the business and leads users to a business’ Facebook page, which could lead to more Likes or interactions. It could be a useful feature for local businesses, retail locations, the hospitality industry or large events and conferences, which want to learn more about their visitors and generate word of mouth.

For now, Facebook Wi-Fi is only available to businesses through Meraki wireless products. The Presence platform, which includes other real-time location analytics and an API to connect with CRM systems, is included free with the Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN. Meraki says configuring Wi-Fi with Facebook login only requires two clicks in the Meraki dashboard.

Businesses also have the option to allow users to skip the check-in step if they don’t want to share their location on Facebook.

More information is available from Facebook’s Help Center and Meraki.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Facebook has begun to roll out its new mobile page layout to Android, a spokesperson from the company tells us.

Two weeks ago the social network debuted a redesign for business and fan pages on iOS, putting more actionable information about a business, brand or personality near the top of the screen. Now the design in reflected in the mobile web version of Facebook and eventually the Android app.

The redesign, with a top row of buttons and a prominent map and recommendations module, better optimizes pages for the mobile use case, for instance, looking up a store’s location or hours, viewing a restaurant’s photos or checking reviews. Options to Like, call, share or check into a place are easy to access. Instead of having to click to view a map, users can see the map, address and hours immediately. Place ratings are now visible on mobile location pages and a few recommendations can be read without having to click and load a new screen. A photos section allows users to quickly swipe through images, as they can in the mobile News Feed.

Page owners can now easily switch between the admin view and public view, which is a useful new feature. They can also pin one post to appear near the top of the screen, but they have to take this action from desktop. Facebook has eliminated the standalone sections for events, videos and photo albums. However, these will continue to show in the Timeline stream when they are posted, and one can be pinned to the top if desired.

Page owners should also keep in mind how the new design affects their cover photo since it will be darkened and the page name, description and profile photo will appear on top of it.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Facebook released version 2.0 of its Pages Manager app for iOS on Wednesday, making it faster and including features like photo filters and stickers from its other applications. However, it no longer includes detailed post insights such as clicks and People Talking About This, and it no longer allows page owners create offers.

Previously, page owners could get several metrics about each of their posts, but now the only per-post metric that’s available is overall reach. Tapping the number leads page owners to a screen where they can pay to promote their post. To see insights like Link clicks, engaged users or even shares, page owners now have to visit desktop.

Many page owners may see this as another way that Facebook is putting its revenue-generating Promoted Posts feature ahead of functionality for admins. For example, a recent change on desktop replaced page notifications in the admin panel with prompts to promote their posts. [Update: A Facebook spokesperson says these features will be integrated in the next version of the app.]

Another missing feature is offers. Pages Manager used to have an option to create an offer post, but that’s gone in Version 2.0. [Update: Again, Facebook says this is due back in a future release.]

A key improvement is that it’s now easier to scroll through a page’s Timeline and quickly view photos fullscreen. Facebook says it rebuilt the app for speed. It includes many of the elements from other apps, such as the photo uploading process and messaging feature. This means that page owners can now edit their photos and add filters to them, just as they can in the main Facebook app and Camera app. Page owners can also use stickers in their private messages with fans or customers, though that might not be appropriate for some businesses and organizations.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Facebook recently removed the “posts by friends” view of pages, which used to show all the posts a user’s friends had with or about a given page. This could signal a possible new feature that gives users more options to find posts and conversations about a topic.

Currently, users can filter posts on a brand or fan page by “highlights,” “posts by page” or “posts by others,” as seen below. “Posts by friends” used to be a fourth option to help users find what their friends had said about a page. This included posts made directly on the page’s wall, as well as friends’ status updates or other posts that mentioned the topic, either through @ tagging or basic text mentions.

Facebook did not say when exactly it eliminated this feature, but confirmed that it was removed intentionally.

“We continue to improve pages to make them a place for people to learn and interact with different businesses,” a company spokesperson told us. “News Feed is where people can engage we posts and content from their friends and connections. Given that, we removed ‘posts by friends’ on pages. Those posts can still be seen in ‘posts by others.’”

Although friends’ posts are included in “posts by others,” this view includes all wall posts and mentions by anyone on Facebook. There does not seem to be any additional prominence given to posts from friends, so it is not as useful for finding out whether a person’s friends have engaged with the page or said anything about the topic in the past. However, it’s likely that this was an infrequent use case, and that many users did not know this was possible and therefore didn’t use it much.

As Facebook expands Graph Search to incorporate users’ posts and status updates, it could offer an even better tool for this scenario. For example, in the future users might be able to search “posts by my friends about Barack Obama.” There have also been reports that Facebook is considering a way to incorporate hashtags into its service, which might also help users explore what their friends and others are saying about a person, company, issue or event.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Facebook today announced the winners of its Facebook Studio Awards for creative work done by agencies and brands on Facebook. Oreo won the blue award for its Daily Twist campaign by 360i and Draftfbc.

Other winners included Graubunden Tourism, TNT, Allstate, Nike, AT&T, Ford, Universal Studios, Grey Poupon and more.

Oreo and a number of other brands won for campaigns that focused on using page posts rather than applications. Brands and agencies seem to be recognizing that Facebook users spend their time in the News Feed, not in page tabs, and that consistent, high-quality page posts can be more effective than costly single-use apps. The introduction of Timeline and users’ shift to mobile, where page tab apps don’t work, seems to have pushed companies in this direction.

“Last year, brands tried to push the technical limits of Facebook, and digital platforms overall,” said Mark D’Arcy, Facebook’s Head of Global Creative Solutions, in a blog post. “Now, in just one year’s time, we were pleased with the renewed focus on the craft of great storytelling through publishing.” 

The Daily Twist campaign celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Oreo cookie with 100 ads in 100 days. Each day, Oreo’s agency teams would turn a current event into an ad featuring the cookies, for example, to commemorate Pride week, they created an image of a six-layer oreo with rainbow creme. Other topics were the Mars Rover landing, Talk Like a Pirate Day, the release of “The Dark Knight Rises” and the Olympics. The final Daily Twist, seen above, was crowdsourced by fans and produced live in Times Square, where images were projected on a large video billboard.

In the 100 days, Daily Twist gained over 1.3 million Facebook interactions — Likes, comments and shares — an 195 percent increase from the previous three-month period. Share rate increased by 280 percent, and each post was shared an average 1,472 times. This led to a 150 percent increase in total Facebook reach. The Daily Twist campaign was also featured in more than 2,600 articles from media outlets around the world.

A list of all the winners and details about the campaigns are available here.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook