Facebook Newsfeed Split Into: Status, Questions, Pictures & Links

As Facebook has rolled out their new Facebook Questions product - they have altered the core "news feed" posting tool.

Perhaps it is an effort to drive traffic to Questions by placing it "in the river" ... Or perhaps it is the natural expansion of "content types": status, questions, photos, and links. But it is a marked changed in posting behavior: users have to explicitly define the content type:

The striking experience for me was when I posted a link within the status update and it behaved differently: the link is no longer recognized (automatically grabbing the link, imagery and snippet). To share a link with commentary, you now must explicitly click "post link":

4 Keys to Facebook Page Marketing: Authenticity, Consistency, Regularity and Engagement

I apologize for posting hurriedly and therefore without much context / commentary... nevertheless, the Altimeter group release this report, "The 8 Success Criteria for Facebook Page Marketing." As if often the case with guiding principles, they are generally intuitive, clear and achievable (of course practice proves to be more challenging!). Altimeter boiled it down to 8 guiding principles (see below) and I would go a step further and get it down to 4: - Authenticity: this extends from being on brand to revealing content (images, insights, etc) from the company and its people.

- Consistency: be consistent in voice and presence

- Regularity: find the right rhythm with which to interact and engage. Too little is a non-starter but too much is equally painful.

- Engagement: more often than not, posts should be interactive and actionable... therefore giving fans and users their own voice

The full report:

The 8 Success Criteria For Facebook Page Marketing

View more documents from Jeremiah Owyang.

Facebook Like Browser Extension Brings Likes, Social Graph to Every Webpage

As we await the long-rumored and supposedly forthcoming Facebook bar, Facebook developer Matt Kelly used Greasemonkey to bring Facebook Likes to any web page. The browser extension does two things... and each very well: "Facebook Like adds the ability to Like any page on the web. Also, if you click the plus (+), it will show you Recent Activity and Recommendations for the website you're currently on."

It is simple. But, as we saw last week with the Microsoft Outlook / Facebook plugin, the addition of basic Facebook functionality and its social graph is a powerful addition to traditional formats. And as we have seen with Flipboard, Facebook's social graph is a powerful navigation mechanism for content. The Facebook Like extension builds upon each... and I suppose is a taste for what's to come.

A close up of the activity panel when expanded:

Predators Uses Facebook Connect to "Blow Up Your Friends' Heads"

This is one of the more creative and fun Facebook Connect implementations. Predators - a surprisingly good movie, promise! - launched a Facebook viral campaign in conjunction with their national launch two weeks ago (opened at #2). In theme with the movie, you are able to "blow up the heads" of your Facebook friends... Which also makes this the bloodiest Connect implementation (at least that I've seen). It lacks some polish but I give credit for the creativity:

Using your Facebook friend list, choose which friends are privileged enough to partake:

Then you have the option of sharing the results via the newsfeed and your friends wall.

The key to driving clicks through the feed are: visuals, catchy content and personalization. This has all of those... Wouldn't curiosity drive you to click the following post?

YouTube's HTML5 Mobile Site Aims to Drive 'Home Screen' Adoption

Last week YouTube Mobile adopted HTML5... it wasn't long ago that Apple touted YouTube as the iPhone's original launch partner (via a native application). Their adoption of HTML5 is yet another indication that it is fast becoming a standard for web experience and portability. This alone is newsworthy... but I wanted to quickly showcase YouTube's example of their 'pop-up' unit: - it appears immediately on load of a YouTube page - it is big, bold and interferes with the video's viewability... and is therefore noticeable - it directs users to add an icon to their iPhone's homescreen... which is an effective way to convert a pageview to an iPhone icon - it is part of an emerging trend to point directly (both visually and through language) to actionable items

Microsoft's "Office Social Connector" (aka Facebook Connect for Outlook) is Great

But tying together the web's most visited site (Facebook) with arguably the most important communication platform (email) is both natural and a long time coming. And with this week's announcement of Microsoft's 'Outlook Social Connector' , your social graph can now be connected to Outlook's email, contact and calendaring systems. The plugin is essentially Facebook Connect within Microsoft Outlook and it is a natural, powerful and simple integration. The Social Connector pulls in Facebook profile information from those email correspondents: Facebook icon, profile link, metadata and the ability to add them either as a Facebook friend and/or Outlook contact. More importantly, you can synchronize contacts with Outlook and enrich your already existing contacts.

In addition to providing data / actions around each contact, the Connector aggregates communication history for correspondent's. Its navigation pane allows you to toggle between: - aggregated / commingled communication history - meeting history - attachments - Facebook activity feeds

Lastly, Microsoft has opened the platform with "a public SDK allows anyone to build a connection to business or consumer social networks"... which means that this can become more than just Facebook (ie LinkedIn, Yelp, Crunchbase, etc). And although developers are currently enamored with Apple and Google, email - and specifically Outlook - represent significant usage, relatively light application competition, and therefore a beacon of opportunity. And despite being (supposedly) difficult to develop against, this should attract significant developer attention.

Facebooks Friend Finder Also Promoted as Sponsored Ad

Earlier, I wrote about Facebook's homepage promotion of their friend importer tool ("Friend Finder"). Those screenshots were of a module placed prominently above the Facebook newsfeed. Now I am seeing a similar unit - with similar copy and friends' faces - in the premium ad slot. The messaging is slightly different: Above newsfeed: Ryan, Who's Missing? Hunter, Justin and Anette tried the automatic Friend Finder and found out.

In ad unit: Ryan, Try the Friend Finder: Hunter and Jed found friends using the Friend Finder. Give it a try!

Facebook Asks Users "Who's Missing?" to Drive Friend Importing

Below is a screenshot of a new homepage module showing on Facebook aimed at driving friend importation through Google / Gmail. The unit sits above the newsfeed and asks, Ryan, Who's Missing? It then shows Facebook icons from three friends who tried the "automatic Friend Finder" and encourages me to do the same (... the fact that I previously have done that is a different note!). Simple idea - but I love how Facebook continues to:

1. eat their own dogfood by promoting content via your social graph. Facebook promotional units look exactly as they should: simple messages with social context. 2. even with 500,000,000+ users - Facebook continues to focus on driving users and virality.

When clicked, Facebook authenticates through Google and then suggests friends tied to your Gmail account:

20% of McDonald's Facebook Ad is Hamburger Legalese

I have written much about the importance of copy in advertising... particularly Facebook ads. The below premium Facebook ad from McDonald's is the best yet. McDonald's dedicated ~20% of their allotted 135 characters to a disclaimer about the burger's pre-cooking weight... and that is after they compressed "weight before cooking": The Simple Joy of Burgers and Angus Third Pounder* downloads. Spend more time with the things you like. *wbc at least 5.33oz The fact that I knew what 'wbc' stood for reveals my unfortunate food preferences... but assume not everyone shares my tastes and the ad is even stranger:

To put this in context - take a look at the Angus Third Pounder landing page from the ad. Huge burger. Big copy. And buried at the very bottom is the same legalese: wbc before cooking 5.33oz. But in this case it doesn't interfere with the page / ad and is barely noticeable: