Being Social

What not to do in social media - Facebook Garage next Thursday

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:41:00 +0000

The Facebook Garage is back on Thursday 24th September (next Thursday!). There's lots we'll be catching up on, including the acquisition of friendfeed, the launch of Facebook lite, and all the latest changes to the application platform.

The theme for the night is 'what *not* to do in social media'; we'll be taking a light-hearted look at some of the biggest *epic* fails, and then get into the gritty details about the pitfalls to avoid when building a Facebook app, with speakers looking at both the technical no-nos and overall strategy mistakes.

We also have guest speaker Clara Shih, author of the Facebook Era, and previously orchestrator of the tie-up between Salesforce and Facebook, returning to discuss Audience Engagement and how the social web has changed the game for developers.

The event is at Sun Microsystems, 45 King William St, and doors open at 6pm, talks from 7pm-9pm. Pizza and beer as standard!

Sign up to the event here:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=135087535945

And early bird tickets available now:

http://facebookgaragesep.eventbrite.com/

See you there - and don't forget to invite your friends.

Facebook Application Growth Rates

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 08:55:00 +0000

I received a question this morning asking what the growth rate of applications on Facebook are. I ended up writing quite a long response, which could be interesting for other people asking a similar question.

Unfortunately, this is similar to asking 'what's the growth rate of a website?' - an application is essentially a standard web app, that happens to exist on a social platform, and which also has many features to make it easier to share and spread virally. This allows applications being used by many people to spread organically in a cost-effective way (and sometimes to grow very, very quickly), and gives great access to the social graph (e.g to make use of friend connections inside applications), but doesn't change any of the fundamentals - people will use it or not depending on a) their ability to find out about it in the first place (which will require seeding of some kind to kick things off) and b) how useful/enjoyable the application is.

Playfish have released games that have grown to the tens of millions of users in a matter of weeks, but they have a large seeding base (their other popular games) and put huge amounts of investment and time into every single application. There are well over 200 apps which maintain users bases in the millions.

On the other side of the coin, there are thousands of applications which have failed to make it past a few hundred users in total.

From our side of the coin, our philosophy is that for branded campaigns, you should first get a brand concept that people naturally want to be a fan of; then build the fan page and seed this to initial users; and then use applications to increase the fan base and see your ROI in terms of engagement and user data/lead generation.

So - it's as long as a piece of string. Social networks like Facebook have loads of great features which can make them more engaging, and allow them to spread faster and easier than normal websites. However, lowing the barrier to growth doesn't stimulate that growth in and of itself, and you always need to have a strategy to first seed your application effectively.

You should read this blog post

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:22:00 +0000

Dustin Curtis has written a great article on the use of split testing and how he used it to find out what text at the bottom of each of his posts generated the biggest click through to his twitter page - starting with basic statements such as 'I'm on Twitter' through to strong commands, like 'You should follow me on twitter' all the way up to explicit call-outs: 'You should follow me on twitter here'.

It's not that surprising that the stronger the command the higher the clickthrough rate (from 4.7% for the basic statement to 10.09% to the strong command). However, more interesting is that by adding the literal call-out ('here'), click-through rates increased by a further 27%, to 12.81%. This is a pretty big jump.

Many developers and designers view literal call-outs like this as ugly and unnecessary from a user experience point of view, and that it should be replaced by easy visual cues such as link colours, underlines etc. However, as Dustin's article clearly shows, these aren't enough by themselves to really drive action - telling people explicitly where to click, in words, will drive more engagement. It could be that for the vast majority of people, words are much more inherently understood that visual cues (unlike designers, who are more likely to think visually).

This is also a great example of how simple A/B split testing (read the original article for his methodology) can increase click-through rates by 173%. This is a huge number, especially if you're running a commercial website or application that can translate those clicks to users and revenue, and shows the huge importance of carrying out proper split tests on any major call to action (something that lots of people talk about, but that few really carry out).

So, it may not be pretty, but more important is what works. You should follow me on twitter here.

Facebook release 'connection' targeting for adverts

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:57:00 +0000

Facebook have released a new feature in their advertising platform allowing you to targets users connected to your fan pages, applications, groups or events. This potentially could be powerful as a way of promoting new content to users, maintaining interest, and cross selling. Although we always recommend seeding content, applications and features directly to your fan pages and groups, it’s never advisable to keep spamming your fans - this offers a low nuisance way of maintaining communication, on a performance (pay-per-click) basis.

For targeting new users, this will also allow you to purposefully not target current users, ensuring maximum user acquisition.

Retention rate on applications is extremely important for long term success - I wrote about this early last year in my post 'Jumping the Shark' - and this potentially offers a way to keep users coming back to an app and increasing that retention rate - and hence value. You can read my post here.

Check out Facebook’s note on the new features for more information.

Facebook Garage this Thursday, Social Gaming Dynamics

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:44:00 +0000

The June garage is soon upon us - this Thursday evening, at the usual venue of Sun Microsystems, 45 King William St.

This week we're focusing on social gaming dynamics - what makes great social games inside facebook, how do you make classic games that go on for years, and how do you apply gaming dynamics to non-gaming applications?

On top of our already announced speakers, Karl Bunyan from Social Cash and Alex Fleetwood from Hide & Seek, we'll be joined by:

Sam Mathews, founder of Fnatic, one of the world's leading professional video gaming teams, talking about the professional gaming industry and what it takes for a multiplayer game become a classic that will last for years; and

Sokratis Papafloratos, CEO and co-founder of TrustedPlaces.com, talking about how they've applied gaming mechanics to increase engagement and retention in a non-gaming community site.

See you there! Doors open 6-6.30 with pizza and beer, and talks starting at 7pm sharp.

Facebook are destroying all competition in the UK

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:13:00 +0000

Hitwise have released some stats today showing that Facebook took over 43% of all UK visits to social networking sites over the weekend - compared to just 5.97% and 3.18% for Bebo and MySpace respectively. They were the second busiest website in the whole of the UK, only beaten by Google.

What does this mean? By doggedly keeping to a pure platform play, keeping user experience at the fore, and aggressively pursuing innovations to the way people use and interact with their social graph online (live stream API, Facebook Connect, etc) Facebook have charted a course which is setting them up to be the primary social identity platform for the web as a whole. Combined with their upcoming payments platform, they could blow not only the majority of other social networks out of the water, but also payment providers such as Pay Pal and Google Checkout.

With this future in mind, what's likely to happen to the social web? I don't think it's going to be too long before other social networks, like Bebo and MySpace, accept that their strength isn't in being a social platform; it's in providing for social content. Once they realise this, they won't worry about needing to own the social data below the content, and will integrate Facebook Connect. YouTube have already done this; a big sign coming from Google.

As a platform for applications and fan page engagement, Facebook will remain an important player, but far more important will be their role as a distributed social platform for the web. Other social networks will focus on creating niche communities, but won't try and beat Facebook at the social data ownership game. Long live the king...

Update:

I should also add that the Hitwise stats include social video sites, like YouTube - which came a distant second at just over 17%. Out of just Facebook, Bebo and MySpace, Facebook took around 80% of the UK visits.

Doritos Dodgeball Hackathon Competition - win £1,000

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:28:00 +0000

Come along to AMV on the 25th and 26th April to take part in the Doritos Dodgeball Hackathon Competition, which is being organised by the Facebook Developer Garage London (which I host). For the Dodgeball Challenge, people are going to be able to take control of real ball firing machines, and fire balls at real dodgeball teams and celebrities over the whole of May. The aim of the hackathon is to build a fun Facebook application to run alongside the campaign, related in some way (but use your imagination).

Come along, either by yourself or in teams (and teams will form on the day!), for fun, hacking, pizza, and the chance to win £1,000 as the winning team - and a host of PR and kudos. Hosting for the winning app will be covered completely by AMV.

The competition will be starting at 10:00am on Saturday morning, with apps being judged and the winner announced on Sunday evening, with everything wrapped up by 6pm.

More info over at the event page:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=182607905610

We hope to see you there!

Discussing the Facebook TOS changes on Sky News a few weeks back

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:46:00 +0000

Facebook Public Profiles Now Have Viral Invite Mechanism

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:19:00 +0000

Facebook have been making a number of additions to their 'public profiles' recently (what used to be called fan pages); the latest of which is to add viral invites to pages, as All Facebook report. This means that a fan of a public profile can send direct invites to their friends, similar to applications. The effect of this won't be dramatic, as if people really wanted to share a page with their friends they could do it with the share feature, however this could be a stronger call to action for users; and it's certainly something which brand owners of pages have been calling for.

Facebook's re-design: the right way forward

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:11:00 +0000

There's been a lot of furore over the recent Facebook homepage changes, when they changed from a newsfeed showing an algorithmically chosen selection of feed stories being generated from your friends, many of which were passive (reporting on activity they'd done around the site, but not necessarily actively chosen to share); to a 'live stream' of actively shared content, along with a highlights section, using algorithms as before to create a small selection of content (events, photo albums, applications) which are interesting to you because of the interest they're getting from your friends. They've also made the live stream easier to personalise using friend lists - this was possible before, but not as clear.

As when Facebook first introduced the newsfeed, a small minority of their users very vocally resisted the changes. Some of these are/were valid complaints; e.g. some people found too much application activity in the new stream, or if a user uploaded a number of photos consecutively (rather than all at once), this would create a long list of posts from just that user.

However, Facebook have recognised that as people on the web become more used to sharing, what becomes interesting is what people are actually choosing to share - not just a passive feed of their activities. This is the point behind Twitter, and has been found in application design; if a user clicks the share button and posts a link to their profile along with their own comment, it is far more viral than a passive newsfeed story. Facebook know this is the case - because they have the data on all their user behaviour. Facebook's own research has shown before that when users are exposed to more active types of sharing on the newsfeed (e.g. seeing uploaded, tagged, or commented photos) they are subsequently more likely to engage in the same, active behaviour. The same is now very likely to be true of status updates, and anecdotally this seems to be the case.

The truth is, with their masses of data, Facebook know very quickly whether a design change is good or bad. They've listened to feedback and are refining some of the aspects of design to reflect this (namely, more control over application stories, better highlights etc). However, if they're sticking with the design, it's because they know that users like it. Not because of a small minority making loud noises about how they don't like it; but because Facebook can see how people are actually using it.

Personally, I'd much rather have a stream of status updates and actively shared content from the people I want to hear about than a feed of passive activity that Facebook are struggling to make relevant from the huge mass of stories that were being generated every day.

I'm off to SXSWi tomorrow, followed by some Silicon Valley action

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:39:00 +0000

Tomorrow morning I'm jumping on the plan to SXSW (due to arrive sometime on Friday morning US time) (I think). Should be an action packed long weekend with lots of fun, including an invite only Facebook party on Saturday night (will the great Zuck himself be there?), and of course all the UK party-mad favourites along with me for Digital Mission. As an experiment, I'm going along without any business cards, and only a Poken - although this may just be an excuse for being disorganised at the last minute.

Turns out the cheapest way for me to get to Austin was to fly via San Francisco - which gives me a convenient excuse to hang out there for a few days after SXSW before coming back to the UK. Whilst there, I'm going to be speaking at the Silicon Valley Facebook Garage on the 19th.

Give me a shout if you're in Austin or SF and want to meet-up - josh(AT)theiplatform.com.

Social networks beat email

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:52:00 +0000

According to a new Nielsen Online report, Facebook now has a 47% reach in the UK, the Guardian reports. Together, member communities (made up of blogs and social networks) are the fourth most popular web destination in the UK - ahead of personal email. They've grown over 10% in the last year.

However, UK penetration is dwarfed by Brazil - the Google owned social network Orkut has a 70% penetration there, the highest social network penetration of any of the countries in the Nielsen survey.

Brazil is also top in time spent on these sites - 23% of all time spent (1 in 4 minutes), followed closely by the UK with 17% of all time spent online (1 in 6 minutes).

This shows how far social networks have come in terms of personal use - however also points out that despite the seemingly world dominating growth of Facebook, it's not the total solution if you're aiming for a global audience.

I'm really glad Facebook have unmoderated comments on their blog

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:45:00 +0000

Check out the original blog post for more quality comments like these.

Help Red Nose Day '09 - Donate Your Facebook Status to Comic Relief!

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 12:16:00 +0000

This Friday it's Red Nose day 2009, in support of Comic Relief, a charity campaign which, in over 20 years, has raised over £500m to support projects across the globe, from helping disadvantaged young people in the UK, to supporting those in dire poverty or suffering from HIV and AIDs in third world countries.

They teamed up with iPlatform to allow Facebook users to donate their status's to help spread the word about Red Nose Day this week - the app has launched today. Click here to go to the app and donate your status!

Techfluff.tv - Michael Arrington is behind TechChuff.com

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 16:13:00 +0000

Habbo Hotel's Oisin Lunny speaking at Garage tomorrow on monetisation of virtual worlds

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 22:45:00 +0000

Today we confirmed Oisin Lunny, the UK's country manager for Habbo UK, to speak at the Facebook Developer Garage London tomorrow on the monetisation of virtual gifts and worlds.

We'll also be looking at the new Facebook APIs on status updates, posted links and video uploads, and what this means for application developers.

And buy tickets here!

More about Oisin Lunny and Habbo

As UK Country Manager of Habbo UK, Oisin combines 19 years of experience in the media, music and technology industries. In addition to the day-to-day running of Habbo Oisin oversees the deployment of integrated marketing and advertising campaigns to encourage site growth.

Habbo is the largest and fastest growing Virtual World and Social Networking site for teens globally, with over 124 Million registered characters. This presentation will share insights gained from Habbo’s nine years of experience in creating an immersive environment for teens, looking at integrated advertising campaigns, and the creation of an in-world economy through virtual currency and gifts.

Techfluff.tv - WAYN founders, Twestival, and 2 Plugg tickets up for grabs

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 23:41:00 +0000

Facebook Garage - Next Week! (11th Feb)

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:09:00 +0000

Tickets available now -

http://februarygarage.eventbrite.com/

At this month's Garage:

'From Concept to Launch' Mat Clayton from Wakari is back with his sucessful steps to make a viral app.

Comic Relief are here to tell us all the details of their Facebook Developer Garage Hackathon, which is happening during the day on the 21st February.

Devin Hunt, the co-founder of Fuzzwich.com, an animation advertising company, tells us about their ups - and downs - experimenting with marketing inside Facebook.

Karl Bunyan from Social Cash how to triple your users by allowing translation of apps.

Toby Beresford from Nudge London tells us 5 things we should know about Facebook Connect.

Plus the regulars - Iskandar's back with the Latest from the Platform and all the top advice, networking and free beer at Sun Microsystems.

This month thanks to Gold Sponsor Sun (http://uk.sun.com/startupessentials/) we're back at Sun Microsystems Customer Briefing Centre and they'll be laying on the free pizzas, wifi and beer

Our Event Sponsors: Nudge (www.nudgelondon.com/blog), Logicode (www.logicode.com) and AdKnowledge

Media partners: Newspepper.com

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Be sure to join the Facebook group to be kept up to date and get notified of the next event too

Check out the garage site at www.facebookgarage.co.uk where we keep you uptodate with speaker news, videos and guest articles.

Techfluff.tv episode 8 - ft a silent escalator pitch and Paul Birch, co-founder of Bebo

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:55:00 +0000

The value of engagement on social networks

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 08:39:00 +0000

Eric Ries has written a great post on the huge value a brand can get by engaging with customers on the social network platforms, especially concerning the real data available and the cheap CPI (Cost-per-Install).

Read it here.

His essential points are:

1. Huge social network advertising inventory means that the cost of driving users to applications is very cheap, and can be highly targeted

2. Once these users install your application, you have access to a wealth of data about them and can use the application to drive real engagement with one-to-one and permission based marketing.

3. Because of the cost-effectiveness of driving installs with media spend, you can afford to not even worry about virality, and instead focus on engaging directly with the user.

Imagine the kind of impact you could have with a potential customer if you didn't have to waste any energy at all on convincing them to invite their friends. You can actually communicate with them instead, learning more about them, getting better at serving their needs. If you have an e-commerce product, for example, you could try using the app to offer specialized product offers or to tune your recommendations. If you follow Seth Godin's original permission marketing concept, you could offer your customers entries in a contest in exchange for learning more about your products. You could find out what products your customer already uses, and find out when they run out, need to refill, are ready to switch, or it's time to upgrade.

Wise words.

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:19:00 +0000

We're looking for good people...

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:40:00 +0000

We're looking for developers at the iPlatform! Interested in any of the jobs below? Email teamATtheiplatform.com. If you recommend someone who we subsequently hire, we'll pay you £200 for being so nice.

Freelance application developers

Do you have experience building applications on Facebook and other social networks? Or have a solid web development background and an active interest in learning more about social apps? We're looking for freelance developers to work with us on a variety of client projects. We can make use of developers specialising in a number of languages; current projects are using PHP, Python, and .NET. Confidence with SOAP web services and HTML/CSS would be a plus.

Pay: day-rate basis, negotiable

Email your CV to teamATtheiplatform.com

Full-time developers

We're looking for full time developers to work with us both on core product development (social network integration technology) and on varied client projects helping them integrate with our technology.

Ideally, candidates would have experience in building and running a web service back-end or complex web site, and will be keen to work with a small team in a fun start-up environment. Python/Django a bonus. Social network application experience would be great.

Salary based on experience.

Email your CV to teamATtheiplatform.com

Techfluff.tv - episode 6, from Hawaii!

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:58:00 +0000

Techfluff.tv - episode 5. Featuring Hermione trying to do a push up, driving a Tesla, and interviewing Dragon Doug Richard

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:47:00 +0000

Huddle, Moshi and iPlatform at the Facebook Developer Garage on 21st January

josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk (Joshua March) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:02:00 +0000

After what feels like a long break, we're back for the first Facebook Developer Garage of the New Year on 21st Jan. We've got a jam-packed garage, with reports on the latest happenings on the Facebook and MySpace application platforms, Andy McLoughlin from Huddle talking about how they got selected to be a LinkedIn platform launch partner and their experience with LinkedIn compared to Facebook, Cat from Moshi Monsters talking about their experiences with Facebook, Santosh from Twitblogs sharing their experience of launching an Open Social container, and more - as well as free beer, pizza and networking sessions.

To let everyone get settled in to the New Year, our first garage is on Wednesday 21st - from next month they'll be back to the second Wednesday of the month, as usual. If you want to get involved with the garage, help out, or speak about what you've been upto on the the social network platforms email me on joshATtheiplatform.com.

And buy your tickets here