Facebook Widgets: Full On-Facebook Promotion & Fan Page Widgets

Last week, Facebook unveiled their new Facebook Widgets suite with badges and boxes for profiles, fan pages, and photos. It is yet another indicator of Facebook focus on pages and off-Facebook.com activity. The widgets include light customizations (I assume more will come) and can be installed directly to Blogger and Typepad or via javascript. For brands and bloggers who are promoting their Facebook presence (and trying to grow a Facebook community) - these widgets are powerful additions to blog sidebars or footers. You can tell that widgets are strategically important to Facebook because they are using their most valuable real estate to promote the new tools: the header of the logged-in user homepage:

Below are examples of a few of the new Facebook widget formats. You can also find a few in my blog's sidebar:

Facebook Photo Badge Widget

Ryan Spoon | Create Your Badge

Facebook Fan Box Widget

Dogpatch Labs on Facebook

Facebook Fan Page Badge

Dogpatch Labs

Promote Your Page Too

How to Go Viral - Step #1: Have a Great Product

In the days of social media, marketers and brands are continually focused on 'going viral' - gaining enough momentum on the web that it begins to spread organically and quickly. There are several ways to virally market (Facebook, Twitter, widgets, SEO, etc)... but the most important method is also the most obvious: have a really good product! In July, Polaris hosted a "customer development" workshop at Dogpatch Labs and one of the focuses was reaching product / market fit (coined by Sean Ellis). It is a great, straightforward exercise that drives brands to ensure that their product or service effectively solves a need AND resonates with its users.

... And if you do both of those, you will go viral regardless whether you have integrated all of the social hooks. Of course you can accelerate virality - but a good product speaks for itself. Two good examples: 1. I purchased an Incipio Feather Back iPhone case for myself and also got one for my sister. Over the weekend, we were both asked about the case countless times (what is it? where do you buy it? how much does it cost?). In a 72 hour period, I am confident that we virally sold 10 Incipio cases simply by 'wearing' the product.

2. FlightTrack iPhone App: it is common for iPhone users to ask for application recommendations. That's how I came across FlightTrack Pro - a terrific paid app that monitors flights, arrivals, gates, etc. It is great and when asked what new apps I use (which happens multiple times a day), I now mention FlightTrack. People then go to the app store and spend the $4.99 to download it. It is viral because the app is tremendously useful and the recommendation comes from a social, trusted conversation:

Facebook Launches Direct Response Facebook Ads

Facebook is testing several new Facebook Ad formats - recently rolling out surveys and 'become a friend' buttons inside the ad units. These are additional ways to brands and marketers to engage with their audience on Facebook - either directly (ie by collecting polling data) or in an ongoing basis (by converting them into Facebook Fans). Remember, not long ago, almost all of the ads on Facebook took users offsite... but Facebook's marked growth and the increased usage of Facebook Pages has made on-Facebook marketing more effective and attractive.

Facebook is now testing another advertising format: direct response units. InsideFacebook has screenshots of an integration with Chick-Fil-A where users can "get a free chicken biscuit" by signing up for a coupon via Facebook. That action is then viral as users are encouraged to share the event with their friends (like the Starbucks Free Ice Cream giveaway) and it shows up in their feed. Over time, it makes sense that Facebook will allow bundling of actions: sign up for a free sample and 'become a fan'.

These ad units are win-wins for consumers and brands. When Starbucks broke the 3,000,000 fan mark - they asked their fans what they wanted to see from Starbucks on Facebook; the resounding answer was coupons, offers and new product news.

Images from InsideFacebook's Facebook Testing New Direct Response Home Page Ad Unit

Using Multiple Images in the Facebook Feed (Zynga's Farmville as an Example)

Facebook's newsfeed is a powerful lever to message users / fans, reach larger audiences and drive traffic. Like any marketing efforts, positioning and timing are important elements (a good reason to use services like Bit.ly and to carefully monitor referral traffic).

Publishers and application developers are well aware of this are getting more creative - and aggressive - with how they utilize the Facebook Feed. One of the most important changes is the inclusion of more imagery in the feed and through Facebook Connect - instead of publishing a single photo, developers like Zynga include multiple images to create a much-larger, more attractive one. Zynga, who is always at the leading edge of understanding and capturing virality, does this very well with their new hit (and fastest growing game yet): Farmville. The images are bold, great-looking and represent achievements related to the players' most recent activity.

Similar techniques are being applied by other application developers and to blogs (posts often have multiple photos). Considering that the feed updates in real-time and your network might post hundreds of times each day, standing out is as important as it is difficult.

Also of note, Rails Rumble competitor FastFeud.com employed similar techniques: when a user posts a matchup to Facebook, the feed contains an image for each item and a "vs." sign.

Meebo's Share Functionality on TechCrunch: Drag & Drop onto Facebook & Twitter

If you have visited TechCrunch today, you likely noticed the Meebo chat integration in the page footer. The Meebo bar allows users to connect via Facebook, AIM, and other popular clients. It also acts as a carriage for rich ad-units (similar to VideoEgg's roll-over ads). I accidentally happened upon a different, equally interesting component of the Meebo integration: you can share images and content directly onto Twitter, Facebook, email and instant messaging. Simply hover over an image and then drag it into the header's drop down icons. Very slick and an obvious value-add for the publisher: one click viral promotion.

Facebook uses the "Facebook Share" functionality to post to the feed (I imagine Facebook Connect would be the next version). When posting to Twitter, it populates your Twitter.com speech box with a "short" URL (go.meebo.com/techcrunch.com/uid) and the article's title (I imagine the next version will have a bitly-encoded URL):

http://go.meebo.com/techcrunch.com/8n Right Before Facebook Bought It, FriendFeed’s Real-Time Stream Saw A Flood Of Usage

Adding Facebook Page Fans: TAG as a Case Study

Facebook now allows Page owners to create Facebook Ads that allow users to "Become a Fan" directly in the unit. It is a natural move since adding fans is a priority for social media marketers - and it is a more difficult task that adding Twitter followers (though arguably more valuable). If you are logged in as a page administrator, you will now see a button on your page(s) to "promote your page with an ad" ... which now includes a "Become a Fan" button. Yesterday TAG Body Spray ran a campaign to promote their new product and Facebook presence. As of yesterday morning, they had 18,000 Facebook fans:

Twenty-four hours later, Tag has over 85,000 Facebook fans. You will also notice that those fans are engaging with TAG's content. Before the promotion, each Facebook post would have 2-5 'likes' and no comments (meaning the posts would not appear virally in people's feeds). TAG's posts from today have 100s of 'likes' and 50-100 comments. Not bad considering the posts are not as social or interactive as they could be (Starbucks is a great example here).

FastFeud.com Launches out of Dog Patch Labs & Rails Rumble 2009

Rails Rumble 2009 concluded yesterday at 5:00pm pst. About 250 teams submitted their 48-hour projects and the early results look great (here's an excellent write / thread on Hacker News). Judging for the event begins tonight.

Dog Patch Labs hosted a team of four (see roster below) that created FastFeud.com: a social way to create viral match-ups. FastFeud is integrated into Facebook (via Facebook Connect) and Twitter - allowing users to share content through their social graphs.

Member and designer Rob Abbott gives a tour of FastFeud and its Facebook integration:

About FastFeud.com: This or That: it is an age old question that pertains to people, ideas, sports teams, and so on. FastFeud.com allows users to quickly create match ups that can then be shared virally through Facebook (using Facebook Connect) and Twitter. The experience is visual, exciting and fast-paced - allowing users to rapidly interact with numerous feuds.

Each match up includes a question, two contestants and images. Users are then encouraged to vote on the match up - on FastFeud.com, Facebook and Twitter. Votes are collected and winners are presented.

When shared via Facebook, users are able to post the match up and images of the two contestants directly into their Facebook feeds. When shared via Twitter, users are able to promote their match up and voting preference to their Twitter following.

Developed for the Rails Rumble 2009 contest in 48 hours by the Browseology Team and friends from Lijit and Egg Haus with the support of Dog Patch Labs.

The Team

Joe Pestro (@joepestro) - Developer for Yardbarker.com and Co-Founder of Browseology, LLC Art Chang (@kineticac) - Developer for Yardbarker.com and Co-Founder of Browseology, LLC Kevin Olsen (@kevinrolsen) - Developer for Lijit.com (flew in from Colorado to the SF Bay Area to work on this) Rob Abbott (@abbott) - Founder and CEO of Egg Haus

Blue Bottle Cafe & Restaurants using Twitter & Facebook

If you live in San Francisco and love coffee, you likely know about Blue Bottle Cafe - it is arguably the best coffee in the city, has a rabid fanbase and was made famous by the New York Times piece, "At last, a $20,000 cup of coffee". Blue Bottle has started dipping its toes in social media - and why not? On any given morning, half of the shop is seen huddling over a mobile device or laptop.

It is an interesting example because social media is a natural, ideal fit for restaurants (great imagery, food is often social, and people talk about their experiences). It is also interesting because:

- Blue Bottle has a newly started presence on both Twitter and Facebook

- Facebook is about 3x as popular as Twitter: 600 fans vs. 200 followers

- Blue Bottle routinely posts to Twitter, including great photos and interesting updates... but they have not yet posted to the Facebook stream (despite having 3x the fans and Facebook being better suited for visual posts / sharing)

- Blue Bottle Cafe is actively being talked about on both Twitter and Facebook (on Twitter, there are dozens of mentions each day)

Blue Bottle is clearly experimenting with social media and, as an onlooker and a fan of their coffee / food, I find it both interesting and helpful. If I were a restaurateur, I would be watching closely and experimenting on my own. Both Twitter and Facebook are effective ways to showcase new menu items, specials / sales and interact with customers.

Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and other large chains have found success through social media (and are among the best social marketers)... local shops are starting to figure it out as well. And as mobile continues to play a growing, important role both in restaurant discovery and communication, there will be a stronger opportunity to engage with customers.

Facebook Pages Updates Now Push to Twitter

Though it seems like a relatively minor change - this is a significant change / win for marketers who actively use Twitter and Facebook Pages. Users have been able to send their Twitter posts into their Facebook streams (and a staggering percentage of my social graph's updates come from Twitter)... but it has always been a one-way street. As of today, Facebook Page owners are able to syndicate their updates from Facebook to Twitter... with a variety of controls (updates, images, notes, etc).

These controls currently only exist for Facebook Pages, but it is logical to assume that this is the first step before Facebook Status updates also both directions (collecting data, understanding usage and determining whether or not pushing all status updates into Twitter is wise and scalable). Marketers are an ideal audience to test the integration: they are motivated to share in both directions and the population is active, well-incented and much smaller.

Great landing page: big, clean logos and a simple message: "Now share anything with fans and followers, all from one place."

You will be asked to authenticate your Twitter account and give Facebook access to speak to Twitter (and visa versa)

Select what content you want to share. The default is all content, but you can share status updates, photos, links, notes and events