Webtrends Tool

Last week, Webtrends announced the release of an analytics packages that helps users track activity on their Facebook Page. The tool, found here, enables developers to track interactions on their custom tabs. Unfortunately, Facebook does not enabled third-party services to track any interactions on the main Facebook Page. Today, Webtrends also announced the expansion of their Facebook product in order to monitor Flash applications within Pages or as stand alone applications.

Facebook Insights

As I previously stated, Facebook limits what information third-party developers can monitor. That’s why the company’s Insights product continues to serve as an important tool for all Page administrators. We previously wrote about the most important things to monitor within your Facebook page insights. Ultimately, you can track demographic data, interactions by media type, and more, all of which are only accessible through the Facebook Insights product.

Core Metrics

Core Metrics, one of the larger enterprise analytics services, recently announced the launch of new services integrated into many of their existing products that enable marketers to measure their ROI from Facebook. The aim of the Facebook integration is to determine “the role Facebook plays in influencing subsequent website visits, behaviors, and conversions.”

Essentially, Facebook clicks are tracked and then can be connected to actual on-site business objectives, such as new subscriptions and sales conversions. This appears to be a more robust solution than many of the other products, but it may be data overload for the average Facebook Page administrator.
Core Metrics -

Google Analytics

While Google analytics is targeted at website owners, the analytics service can be used by Facebook Page administrators as well. Unfortunately Facebook has not enabled their FBML tag within Facebook Pages, so a London-based web development company decided to create their own solution. By using images, there is a workaround which enables Page administrators to track everything within the custom tabs.

A spokesman from Facebook, while talking to WSJ, stated that, “This suit is without merit and we will fight it vigorously.” Google however, declined to comment on the grounds, that they haven’t reviewed the lawsuit as yet.

The lawsuit has reminded me of a similar battle between Judy’s Book a local business review site and Yahoo. Judy’s book claimed to invent the term “Social Search” and went ahead and got it patented. However, Yahoo started to use the same term of services on its own site. Judy’s Book lamented about this infringement by Yahoo on its patent, but decided not to file a suit against Yahoo as they thought that the final battle is won or lost in the consumer space and not in the court.

Judy’s Book was right, both Judy’s Book and Yahoo’s Search offerings – let alone its Social touch to Search is irrelevant now, and most of the reader of this blog might have never heard about either. Wireless Ink’s Patent can be viewed here.

I also would imagine that many Facebook users turn to their mobile devices to monitor content while on the go during the weekend. Then again, the same users who are blocked from accessing Facebook at work may be visiting their friends’ activity while in transit to and from work each day. Unfortunately this basic glimpse in to Facebook user behavior is nothing more than that: a basic glimpse.

I’d be interested to see other statistics on Facebook sharing. Do notice that your friends share more information on the weekends or is there more activity during the weekdays?

In other words you will need to do some extensive customization if you want to track the user’s navigation patterns prior to them converting. For any advertiser spending more than a couple hundred dollars on Facebook advertising, being able to track conversions is critical. Ultimately Google Analytics can still be used to track a lot of the conversions thanks to custom variables and the product’s funnels and goals services (learn more here).

While we don’t know Facebook’s official timeframe for rolling out conversion tracking for all users, it’s clear that they want to make this service widely available as soon as possible. The more tools they can provide to advertisers, the more likely advertisers will spend money on their platform. Below is a sample ad conversion tracking report and Facebook’s implementation guide for the product.

With more than 100 million mobile users, Facebook is making a hard push in the mobile space and is being forced to quickly eliminate the threat of competitors, who are beginning to gain significant traction. With Facebook having a world class design team, I can only begin to imagine some of the opportunities available to Facebook.

Will their be a gaming aspect to the application (i.e. badges, icons, etc)? In order to avoid the comparisons to big brother (and minority-report like services), Facebook is reportedly making the service opt-in. Aside from knowing that people can share their location and that developers will be able to build on top of the location-based services, there are few other details.

With location-based services expected to be the center of attention at SXSW, which begins this week, it looks as though this year could be the year that location services really take off.

March Madness was the center of controversy on Facebook in 2008 as CBSSports was granted access to premium promotion spots in addition to being granted 100 invites per user per day, far more than any other application. Last year there was far less drama surrounding the applications, although they were extremely popular as usual.

In late February, users began flocking to March Madness applications, at which point Watercooler had already attracted over 111,000 users to their application. This year is comparable to last year. Right now Citizen Sports has almost 400,000 users, while Watercooler has around 100,000 users via their application, and CBS Sports has around 50,000 users. Of all the applications, Citizen Sports has no shame when it comes to promotional partners.

Both Miller Lite and Sports Illustrated have partnered with the company for this year’s brackets. Miller Lite also has a promotional fan button to drive new fans. This is similar to last week’s Bing promotion on FarmVille which drove over 400,000 fans in a day. While this promotion hasn’t driven as many fans in a single day, Miller Lite could definitely see a huge fan conversion as March Madness proceeds.

If you want to get in on this year’s madness, you can join the Citizen Sports bracket challenge, Watercooler bracket challenge, or the CBSSports.com brackets.

While Eventbrite previously implemented Facebook Connect in order to let attendees publish events they have RSVPed to on the site, this is a much more significant integration. The details of the new integration have not been published, but the screenshot below, initially published on Techcrunch, makes the partnership pretty obvious.

My guess is that the partnership announcement will coincide with the launch of f8 ticket sales. Regardless of what the two companies announce, it’s clear that this will be a big announcement given the size of Facebook Events.

SNL’s executive producer Lorne Michaels denied the initial reports that Betty White would be party of “Women In Comedy” SNL special. Regardless of the episode Betty White appears on, it’s definitely a first for a Facebook Page: getting an existing celebrity on a television show. I wonder what the next Page will be that results in action.

As Lauren Dugan suggested in our last update, this Facebook Page could give rise to an “infinite number of spin-off causes geared towards letting the audience determine the entertainment they want to see.”

Want your friends, family, and potential lovers to be more attracted to you? Facebook is an amazing tool for making you shine. Perfecting your Facebook profile can be considered art form, and is often referred to as “online persona creation”. The art involves a masterful combination of images, writing and information. Here are five simple tips for creating a more attractive and interesting online persona through Facebook:

Tip 1: Know who you are and have a clear message

A profile is a collection of characteristics that people look at to gauge our personalities. Often times, people will get to know us better based on our status updates, photos and other media. Even though we’re all complex beings, people categorize us to make sense of the world.

Are you the party animal doing keg stands, an investment banker closing a deal or jetsetter back from his latest trip? You can’t be all of them and if you try people will be confused about your personality and who you are. And for those of you who don’t want to be defined by society or think you’re a free spirit, get over yourself; you are not the unique snowflake you were in first grade.

When posting media or status updates ask yourself: “Is this consistent with the image that I am trying to portray?”

For example: When my friend Frank was fundraising for startups, he removed several hundred photos of him at parties. Ultimately they sent an inconsistent image. Would you give $500,000 to someone who had 20 albums of him being drunk?

My friend Kirk removed hundreds of photos of him with women when he started dating his girlfriend so that people wouldn’t think he was a womanizer. It allowed his girlfriend’s friends and family to take him seriously.

Tip 2: Pick An Appropriate Profile Photo

Your best bet is to use a head shot; something clean. According to Jo Blackwell of one of the top hair salons in New York, Dopdop Salon, it is important to “use contrast in the photo … if you have light skin, you should use a dark shirt. If you have dark skin, you should use a light shirt.”

Most importantly, use your image as a way to express who you are. Throw some personality into it. Use photos of you playing a sport, painting or performing on a stage. Also feel free to be silly if that is the personality you are trying to portray.

Biggest Pet Peeves

People who have a couple’s photo
Yah I get it, you love each other, and need to spend every moment of the day together. Thank you, we all just threw up little. Unless you just got engaged/married and are making the announcement, keep it to yourself. This is your profile.

People Only
I don’t need a photo of your pet. All this photo tells me is that you are incapable of relating to people in a healthy way. Instead, you’re making up for it with your strange relationship with an animal.

No Group Shots
Group photos tell me you are too insecure to stand on your own. No one will know who you are in a group photo. To make matters worse, if you aren’t the best looking, people will spend more time trying to figure out who the hot/interesting/cool looking person is instead of learning about you.

Special note to guys who are balding:
Stop trying to pretend it isn’t happening. We know, you know… it is no secret. So get over it. It also isn’t a big deal. If you can embrace it, no one else will care. In Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner reference a paper on online dating done by researchers at the University of Chicago and Duke University. The study found that balding men who shave their head and men with a full head of hair are contacted the same amount. While men who are trying to hide their balding are messaged significantly less. Translation: buy a fresh pack of razors and let’s see that pretty scalp of yours.

Tip 3: Don’t Say Something, Show It

If you choose to fill out the “About Me” section, here is the most important rule: You don’t need to tell us characteristics about who you are. If you’re funny, you’ll write funny posts and have funny photos. You won’t say “I’m really funny.”

Biggest Pet Peeves

People who say they live life to the fullest
No you don’t. I have met a lot of amazing people, I have traveled with them, interviewed them and I have learned something very important: it is exhausting to live life to the fullest. Most people really aren’t built for it. It is more important for most people to curl up on their couch after a long day then to go on some zany adventure. So be honest with yourself. Chances are, you probably sit in a cubical wondering how you ended up spending 8+ hours a day pretending that you are working.

Someone who lives life to the fullest has photos, status updates, and videos showing how wild their life is. If your profile is covered with updates of how you just got a cow on Farmville or you just found out that you are like Samantha in the “Sex In The City” quiz, you’re not living life to the fullest.

You are what you do. Things to consider when wanting to be one of the following:

• Funny - Post funny things (You tube videos, amusing photos, a comedy routine you did).
• Deep & Spiritual - Photos from your yoga retreats, quotes from obscure spiritual leader, and weird statements of living life with purpose. (Spoiler alert: What is the sound of one hand clapping? A: The sound of one hand clapping. Things are always what they are and never what they are not. Now I sound deep and spiritual. LOL)
• Athletic - Photos from your triathlon, your latest race scores, updates about going to the gym.
• Lame - Tell people you have a bunch of great characteristics and then have a boring profile.

Tip 4: Set The Right Privacy Settings

If you never post anything to your profile, don’t worry about this. If you have multiple social circles and like to limit what people know, adjust your privacy settings. Make lists with custom privacy settings for people who are in high risk categories (Work, family, ex-girlfriends and their friends, current girlfriends, etc…) and keep the lists up to date. If that is too much effort, put everyone on the highest privacy setting and create exceptions.

Tip 5: Block Applications And Delete Wall Posts

There is a lot of spam that will appear on your wall. People will post the dumbest media, updates and gifts from applications. Don’t be afraid to delete these posts or block those stupid applications. When someone comes to your page, do you really want them to see that the latest item on your wall was “Heather has bought you a shot”? Or maybe you’re tagged in a video from college that you never realized was recorded. You probably don’t want that kind of media associated to you. If it is on your page, it should provide value.

Conclusion

All in all, when it comes to sculpting your profile, make sure that you send a clear message of how you want people to see you. As social media becomes more woven into our daily interactions, people will relate to us more on an online level. It’s important to make sure you always ask yourself: “Is what I’m posting consistent with the image I’m trying to create?”