Facebook Launches Payment System For Messenger App Users

Facebook is making a very big push in the mobile payment space.

In the upcoming months, Facebook Messenger users will now be able to send money to friends within the app. "Easy, Secure, Free,” says the Facebook announcement.

• Facebook Messenger has over 500 Million monthly active users
• Of these users there are nearly 80 million payment cards already on file, thanks to Facebook being a trusted payments processor for gaming, advertising, and donations since 2007

Facebook Messenger is poised to disrupt the industry, taking market share from P2P payment leaders like Venmo, PayPal, and Google Wallet.

Beyond just payments, Facebook Messenger expects more updates next week during the F8 conference particularly around how it plans to compete with other messaging services. You can find more information here and here.

Key Moments in Social Media

After a great Social Media Week panel with the likes of Social Code, Livestream and BuzzFeed, we heard a lot of the same stuff: 

Social TV is not going away. Users are engaging with live TV events (like Super Bowl, award shows, sports, etc) while on social within their mobile devices.

• We should be selective for the events in which we engage on live events
• For Example:  Pepsi only held a live event war room for the Grammy’s and Super Bowl as they have a larger presence for these events. It gives them more of a reason, and more content to work with, when engaging on these programs.

Listen to, and think like, Customers:

• Become more “Data Driven” but with the right data points based on campaign KPIs
• Continue to join existing conversations, rather than creating your own so we can become a part of the community
• Evaluate if you would share your branded content as a user first - if the answer is no, don't publish it!

But, some information is nice to hear again as a reminder for brands: 

Think moneyball strategy for content strategy with 3 types of content:

• Evergreen strategy: maintain the “always on” organic posts that support the brand and marketing goals (long tail)
• Seasonal strategy: Layer in relevant content to join the existing conversations
• Real-time integrations: Plan around a tent-pole moment and react to real time moments (like Sponsorship opportunities)

Content has a shelf-life. Revisit it and repurpose it when we can:

• Think about the platform shelf-life:
• Twitter = 2-3 days
• Facebook = 5-7 days
• Instagram = 5-7 days
• Pinterest = 60-90 days
• Some evergreen content can be repurposed – evaluate how to optimize and bring back to the platforms especially if the content worked well the first time

Follow me at @CourtRache for some more live moments for the last day of SMW!

Happy Anniversary, Facebook.

Happy 10th Anniversary, Facebook.

Through the 10 years, Facebook went from small university network, to a worldwide movement.

I feel as though I've seen it all being on the platform for nearly 9.5 years.  Take a look at your history on Facebook with a look back. 

Also, thanks to Mashable for this great infographic:

Facebook Launches Trending

Similar to Twitter’s Trends list, Facebook, too, launched a Trending feed. Located to the right of the News Feed, users will now be able to see trending topics and conversations that are popular across their individual Facebook, at any given time.

Image from Facebook Newsroom.

Features include:

• Personalized, clickable, topics spanning your interests, and top trends across the Facebook platform
• Snackable, at-a-glance headlines providing more information on each trend
• Upon click-through, view of trend-related content by users' friends, pages they follow and public posts 

This aggregate of trending topics aims to enhance the platform’s stance as a source of news and encourages users to share more content publicly.

As this list is engineered to populate with content users are interested in, along with their friends, this may provide ad opportunities, similar to the evolution on Twitter. 

As Facebook rolls out this update, you can learn more about the feature and how it’ll look on your Facebook, here. 

Creating Custom Content for Each Social Platform

In order to have a high performance, multi-platform social media campaign, Brands must do their best to understand each social platform and how its audience consumes media in order to provide rich, engaging content.

While there is no fool proof formula, this infographic developed by My Clever Agency provides tips on how to make the most effective social posts.
A few highlights include:

• Facebook: Use simple imagery posts that can be easily seen on mobile devises as 70% of fans view posts on their phones 
• Twitter: Retweet relevant content for your audience and be sure to leave 20 characters so people can add content
• Pinterest: Images that do not have a human face are shared 23% more while images with red or orange get double the repins
• Google+: Use full sized images to make posts stand out on the page compared to thumbnails
• Although not mentioned, using “Auto-Awesome” (a tool from Google that enhances images) on photos also helps increase engagement
• Instagram: Reply to people who have liked/commented to drive two way conversations
• Vine: Use popular hashtags such as #loop and #howto to gain the most engagement
• Tumblr: Like and reblog posts to interact and ensure visibility throughout the site

Facebook Algorithm Updates Again: Focus on Media & News

According to Facebook, traffic to media and news sites increased over 170% in the last year.  So, Facebook is taking this insight to make another update to the News Feed Algorithm which recognizes that people want to see more news content. (As a reminder, these algorithm and overall Facebook functionality updates further move Facebook into becoming an even more open forum, globally).

The updated algorithm plans to show: 

• More relevant articles in the feed: The feed will now include more article links along with suggested articles for continued reading.
• More comment stories: Articles will resurface in the newsfeed if friends have also read and commented on it, leading to more conversations between people and their friends.

To further optimize your content strategy, you can use this as an opportunity to curate more content for fans in order to ensure we continue to appear in the News Feed. Also, if your brand has any additional resources, news articles or even a blog, it may be a great time to further test this content on the platform.

 

For the full release and other related articles, please see below:  

News Feed FYI: Helping You Find More News to Talk About
Facebook Tweaks News Feed for More 'High Quality' Content
Facebook: Here's How Your News Feed Works

Facebook Like & Share Gets Redesign

According to Facebook, the Like and Share buttons appear on over 7.5 million websites and are seen 22 billion times per day. They are also important drivers for Facebook referral traffic. For the first time since their inception, the Like and Share buttons have a new design.

The new design utilizes the Facebook “F” icon, instead of the thumb. They will automatically updated across the web, meaning no additional work will be needed for website owners. But, a Like and Share combo button is available for embedding on websites.

Further details can be found in the links below:

Introducing new Like and Share buttons

Facebook Like Button Gets a Redesign

I'm a Gator, But Jell-O, You're the Loser

Post by JELL-O.

Oh Jell-O.  We're all trying to master the art of real-time marketing (see anything Oreo has done).  But you, my friends, have failed.

As a Gator, and someone who wept away much of my weekend after a Miami Hurricane loss, I do not want to be mocked on a Monday.  And you did that.

Please pay attention to the games if you're trying to be a part of the conversation.

Sincerely,

A Gator Fan and disappointed digital marketer

Social Users are Mobile First: We Should Be, Too

Consumers and customers alike no longer see Twitter and Facebook as desktop websites.  They consider these social networks mobile apps.  Because of this user behavior and mind-set, we see Twitter and Facebook leveraging the mobile first strategy.  For reference:

• Over 70% of all Facebook & Twitter activity occurred on mobile
• More than 219M users were mobile only on Facebook
• It is predicted that $4billion will be spent on Facebook advertising with 50% of the spend to occur in streams
•  This means, brands are not only competing with our fans’ friends, but with many other advertisers as well

The content developed and amplified becomes even more important: 

• It must break through the clutter
• Be relatable
• Leverage a “mobile first” philosophy
• Should be succinct, engaging and visual – on both Twitter and Facebook.

Although this isn't "new news" the data is still staggering and changing as we move into Fall 2013.

For more information see the Social Media Today article below:
http://socialmediatoday.com/markozm/1718946/changing-way-you-think-reaching-consumers-social-streams

Facebook for Mobile Marketing

As mobile continues to be a primary source of content for customers we as marketers MUST begin thinking about a mobile first strategy - especially those that haven't adopted this mindset. Specifically when establishing Facebook content. 

To better understand why Mobile First should be adopted, read through the  eBook How to Use Facebook for Mobile Marketing. Hubspot explains the importance of the mobile platform and focuses on the use of Facebook for mobile marketing.  Some key takeaways include:

•          Facebook Mobile use is outgrowing desktop use by 2:1.
•          Of the companies on Facebook, 41% of them have gained new customers through Facebook.
•          Facebook is shifting its advertising features from desktop to mobile.
•          Sponsored Stories CTR is 7x greater compared to a post that is not liked by a friend.

In order to continue optimizing content for mobile, we can consider:

•          Maintaining direct and concise status updates versus paragraphs and long posts beyond 20 words.
•          Continue incorporating short links/bit.lys.
•          Incorporating easy-to-understand and simple visuals that are compelling.

For more info and to download to book visit: http://cdn1.hubspot.com/hub/53/How_to_Use_Facebook_for_Mobile_Marketing-2.pdf