FreshNetworks Blog

Just say no to evil (Photo credit: Jean-François Chénier)

Facebook yesterday launched a significant refresh of its News Feed – the main way most people interact with content on the social network. The changes give images a more central role in the user experience (which makes sense as almost 50% of the content shared on Facebook is now visual). And there are now more options to tailor your feed – including the option to get updates just from your friends. Herein lies the real challenge to brands – Facebook has just created a way for people to filter out all your content.

There are many benefits of the new Facebook News Feed for brands that are being discussed, notably:

1. Having a wider canvas to play with – by hiding the left hand navigation content behind a tab (like on the Facebook mobile app), they are offering everybody more space to play with. For brands this will create more space for them to be creative with the content they post and will increase the importance of imagery in their content plan.
2. Creating a similar experience across mobile and web – the new design unifies the experience across web and mobile – making it simpler for brands to design campaigns that work across platforms.

But, will these benefits be realised if people can just filter out your content in the first place?

Given the option to filter to just see updates from actual Friends, we must expect that many users would opt for this. Indeed research shows that the users unlike brands on Facebook because they ‘clutter up my News Feed’ – Facebook has just given people an easy way to remove this ‘clutter’.

This is serious for brands  who are using Facebook as an engagement mechanism – people consume brand information from the News Feed and not from individual brand pages. Now they might not consume your information at all. Unless, of course, you pay.

Advertising and sponsored posts will now also look more beautiful and be able to take advantage of the greater space available to them. For many brands these may now be the vehicle to make people aware of their page and of the content they share on Facebook.

Swing time (Photo credit: Dave-F)

Are you spending less time on Facebook than you once did? According to a recent report from Pew Research, over a quarter of all Facebook users in the USA (27%) plan to spend less time on the social network in 2013 than in 2012. And 61% of users report having taken a ‘Facebook vacation’ where they stopped using the site for several weeks.

Overall it appears that US users of Facebook are becoming more nuanced in their use of the social network – happily spending time away from the site and expecting to spend less time on it overall.

This is not necessarily a sign of them abandoning the site, or indeed that Facebook has ‘had its day’ as some may report. But it does suggest that the role Facebook plays in their life is changing. New tools, site and networks are fulfilling needs that were once served by Facebook. And users are becoming more mature in the way that they use social media tools and the ways they engage with people.

To understand more about this report it is worth exploring the motivations of people who take Facebook vacation, as well as of those who plan to spend less time on Facebook.

Why take a Facebook vacation?

61% of US Facebook users report having taken a break from the site that lasted ‘several weeks’. The most popular reason for the vacation was that they were ‘just to0 busy’ (21%) of users; with 10% saying they were just ‘not interested’ and another 10% that they thought it was a ‘waste of time’.

The reasons that we might expect for taking a break from Facebook (such as being on an actually vacation) were less frequently cited (only 8% of users in this case).

So for the majority of users taking a Facebook vacation, the site became irrelevant for them (for the period of the vacation). There was either nothing to tempt them onto it during a busy period in their life, or they felt somewhat disenchanted with the site and just wanted a break from it, possibly feeling they wouldn’t lose something.

This is significant for Facebook and shows the potentially precarious nature of social networks. People use it because it is relevant – either because of the content that is shared on it or because of the people they can communicate with through it. If people feel that the site is becoming less relevant they will drift away. Taking a Facebook vacation here and there, but ultimately using the site less and less unless it becomes more relevant to them again.

Why spend less time on the site?

When asked to think about the role they expect Facebook to play in their life in 2013, just 3% of US users of the social network expected to spend more time on it this year; 27% of users expected to spend less time on the social network. But perhaps the more interesting is to explore how this breaks down by age:

• 38% of those aged 18-29 expect to spend less time on Facebook in 2013 than in 2012
• 26% of those aged 30-49
• 17% of those aged 50+

So the younger Facebook users are the ones planning to spend less time using the social network. This is not necessarily a problem for Facebook, the younger audience is more likely to try out new sites and tools when they emerge and to develop a place for them in their life. They will be more promiscuous than some of the older (and it would appear more loyal) Facebook users and social networks may have to learn to live with this promiscuity.

Spade stuck in the sand (Photo credit: Simon Cocks)

We’ve written before about the privacy issues that big data will raise. As we all become more aware of how the data we leave in our wake on social networks can be used, we will start to take more control over what we share with whom online. The updated personal Facebook analytics tool launched today by Wolfram Alpha is a great tool to understand what the data you share can reveal.

The original Wolfram Alpha Facebook analytics launched in September 2012 created a set of statistical insights into what you shared – how many links or photos you posted, at what time of day and where you checked it. It also included a cluster analysis of your friends – showing who was connected to whom.

The new Facebook analytics report moves beyond simple mapping of friends to begin to map out how your social networks is composed. Who are the key connectors, and who are the potential gateways to others you might not yet know. In total, Wolfram Alpha has identified five different roles in a social network:

• Social Insiders and Social Outsiders – two opposing groups, a Social Insider has lots of friends in common with you (such as a friend from university) whereas a Social Outsider has few friends in common (maybe somebody you met once on a holiday)
• Social Gateways and Social Neighbours – two more opposing groups, a Social Gateway has lots of friends who are outside your network (such as the editor of an online news source) and a Social Neighbour has few friends outside your network
• Social Connectors – the final group connects different parts of your network (so a university friend who you now also work with)

This analysis moves beyond grouping friends by reported facts about them (who you went to university with, who you live in the same town as etc) and starts to analyse how your network is composed.

This is exactly the kind of analysis that anybody who you give access to your Facebook data can gain – and indeed that any of your friends give access to depending on your own privacy settings. This kind of data is fascinating for us to look at, and is useful for many brands to understand and use.

Explore your Wolfram Alpha Facebook report

Reflections in the City (Photo credit: masochismtango)

This comes as no surprise – levels of social media adoption inside brands can be much lower than among their consumers, or indeed among their newer employees. But when you do engage a senior team with the opportunities that can come from social you tend to find that they become some of the most vociferous enthusiasts.A recent study by IBM found that only 16% of global CEOs are taking part in social media, and only 1 of the more than 1,700 CEOs interviewed had their own blog. They recognise the potential power of engaging in social (with 57% expecting to be engaging within 3-5 years); but the levels of participation are currently low.

Richard Branson wrote about this survey to say he was surprised by the low levels of social media use and to encourage other CEOs to take part:

…like all other areas of business, CEOs have the opportunity to set the bar. By ignoring social networks, they are potentially missing a trick.

There are many reasons why CEOs and the senior team should be engaging with social media and not just because it sets the bar for how the rest of the organisation behaves. The people buying your products and the newer recruits into the organisation are all using social media, and its importance will continue to increase. To make sensible business decisions in this climate CEOs really need to understand what social media is, and what it isn’t.

This does not mean that all CEOs should be actively using Twitter to engage with customers – we’ve written before about the confusing way the @StarbucksUKMD account has been used. But it does mean experimenting and trying things out – maybe joining a running forum to discuss their training with other athletes, or setting up a Pinterest account to bring together items they are considering for their new home.

It is the act of experimenting with and learning from social that is important for C-level; understanding the tools their consumers and employees have and the different ways they are engaging with others. Only by experimenting and using the tools themselves will they be able to really understand how their business could benefit from social. And by encouraging a process of experimenting with new tools and services from the most senior levels, a culture of innovation can grow more successfully through an organisation.

For any brand exploring the transformative impact of social, C-level buy-in is critical. And to get this you need a clear process of education as well as to encourage these executives to experiment with social in their personal and professional lives.

Golden Ticket (Photo credit: Derek Lakin)

Ticketing company Eventbrite has released its social media data and shows that it make an additional $3.23 (or £2.01) in revenue every time an event is shared on social media. This is highest for Facebook (£2.56 revenue per share) followed by Twitter (£1.15) and lowest for LinkedIn (£0.57). These figures look great. But what does it say about social commerce and what can other brands learn?

First it is worth exploring these numbers a little bit more. Twitter drives the most clicks (almost twice as many as for every share on Facebook) but these are much less likely to lead to a sale. In fact for every click through from a share Twitter generates the least revenue (just 3p per click compared with 18p for Facebook and 6p for LinkedIn.

So we can surmise the following:

• When an event is shared on Facebook more revenue is ulitmately created per share than on any other social channel
• People are more likely to click through to an event on Twitter than on any other channel but they are less likely to purchase

Facebook not only generates more revenue per share, it is much more efficient at it.

The social nature of ‘events’ as a product

This allows us to explore a little more what is happening in social with Eventbrite, and whether the ‘success’ they have had with social shares could be repeated for other brands.

Eventbrite’s product is events, and these are inherently social; we typically go to an event with people – friends or colleagues. So should it be any surprise that when these events are shared on social channels other people go ahead and book. A simple look at how Eventbrite events are shared on Facebook shows a long list of people telling others where they are going and asking them to go with them. It should not, therefore, be surprising that some people do.

In fact the nature of the product means that the shares are different to most products that people share in social.

• If the product you share were a pair of shoes, for example, you are likely to be saying ‘I like these shoes’ or ‘I just bought these shoes’. These are personal reasons with no clear call to action for your friends (except a bit of jealous perhaps).
• When you share an event you are usually saying ‘I am going here, you should too’ or ‘Anybody want to come with me to this event’. You are giving your friends a clear call to action to click through, attend the event and spend money.

So on this basis it is no surprise that Eventbrite should be generating revenue like this from social shares. And it should be no surprise that Facebook is the most efficient way of getting this revenue; the connections you have with people there are typically stronger than on Twitter.

But could these revenue numbers be shared by other products? Unlikely, unless your product is also social in nature. This is a great example of where social does make sense – the product is social, you experience it with other people, and so making it easier for you to find others to attend the event with makes absolute sense to the consumer and the brand.

The key thing we can learn from Eventbrite? Use social in the ways it can have biggest impact on your business. And this depends on what you are selling and to whom; one solution is not right for all.