Tinker with timeline and you can’t help noticing that your privacy defaults seem as if they’ve changed even if you haven’t touched them — the cumulative effect of many changes to the site all coming together.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcomed by more positive reviews than the typical site upgrade gets, Facebook’s new timeline profile makes it feel as though Christmas came early to its over 800 million active users.

Read the rest of this entry »

Before timeline went live, it was actually possible to undo an upgrade to this advanced profile: Uninstalling the Developer application from your Facebook account would remove the timeline. But now all of this has changed.

A spokesperson for Facebook explained in an email to us:

Once you click “Get Timeline,” you will have seven days to review everything that appears on your timeline before anyone else can see it.

If you choose, you can publish your timeline right away. If you decide to wait, your timeline will go live automatically after seven days. Your timeline will replace your profile.

Eventually everyone on Facebook will be rolled over to timeline.

Less technologically inclined users of Facebook have said they find timeline overwhelming. Complaints have followed nearly every upgrade the social network has ever made, and eventually people have simmered down after getting used to the changes.

But the timeline’s changes present a bigger learning curve than anything the site has ever done before, so let’s see what Facebook does to educate people about the advanced profile.

Readers, what are your friends saying about the timeline?

Have you checked out the music section on the timeline yet?

Read the rest of this entry »

The winter holiday season is the best time to boost engagement, as Facebook fans get excited about fun, holiday-themed promotions, and look for creative inspiration from brands’ pages.

Read the rest of this entry »

Facebook page developer FaceItPages offers us seven suggestions on how to get better results from marketing via social media.

Read the rest of this entry »

Many small businesses are now starting out with a Facebook page first instead of a website.

Read the rest of this entry »

Even if you’re using the best marketing practices on Facebook, you can still take engagement and virality to the next level. Read the rest of this entry »

If you are searching for a job, whether you already have one or not, and you’ve got a profile on Facebook,you should make sure that all unprofessional photos and language are removed or blocked from the public. If you don’t,  potential employers may choose not to interview you because of inappropriate content.

Read the rest of this entry »

Facebook launched new page insights two months ago, and will start phasing out the old metrics on December 15.

You’re not alone if you feel any confusion about the new metrics. This post clears up how to read the new data compared to how you read the old data, and if you do the exercise below before Facebook closes old insights, you can find out how often your unique post-viewers are seeing your posts.

The New Metrics

In the old insights, we saw the impressions and feedback rate for each of our last ten posts. What was missing was reach, the unique number of individuals we were reaching (that differs from impressions, which are essentially hits or views).

In the new metrics, we get reach, engaged, talking about this, and virality. What’s missing is the frequency with which we reach each of these unique users.

If you want to get frequency, right now you can compare the same posts in the old and new insights and figure that out. Just divide the impressions by the reach. For the three posts above, I get 2.81, 2.77, 2.57.

That frequency is pretty consistent, and that makes sense if it’s related to EdgeRank.

I expect frequency has a lot to do with the number of engaged users; what we know about EdgeRank is that the higher the feedback rate, or the more likes and comments we get, the more impressions we get. That can mean bigger reach (more unique viewers) and more frequency (staying visible longer and being seen more times).

You can still calculate the old feedback rate by dividing reach by engaged users. Or you can get it directly if you have PageLever (they call it engagement rate, or ER).

If Your Numbers Disappoint You

The first thing you need to understand, and communicate to your organization, is that we never knew the true reach of our posts before. We only knew impressions. We already knew that the ratio of impressions to fans for many pages was lower than we’d like, but many assumed that impressions weren’t much different from reach.

Now we can see exactly how many of our fans we’re really reaching. It might be a stunningly low percentage. A lot of data has come out in the last 6 months reporting that only 2% – 16% of most pages fans see their posts. The new reach metric makes that reality hit home even harder.

There’s a good chance you and any executives involved won’t be happy with the real numbers. So it’s time to follow some of the best practices below:

• Always ask for a like or comment in your post. This is called a “call to action”. It increases engagement which increases visibility (reach and frequency). Even adding “tell us in the comments below” to a question can make a difference.
• Realistically appraise your fan base. If it’s old and unengaged, you might need to acquire new fans with ads, or at least run sponsored stories or a page post ad to try to reactivate fans who can’t see you (but is that more expensive than getting new fans?). You might even consider starting over with a new page. It doesn’t matter how many fans you have. It matters how many you reach. Even if you take this drastic step, don’t trash the old page. You can use the friends of fans in creative ways via Facebook ads.
• Make sure your posts are stimulating. It takes a deep understanding of your audience, creativity, and discipline to post daily in a way that consistently gets responses. If you haven’t really tapped into your audience’s passions, cares, worries, and loves – in other words, their emotions – then you might be having trouble in this area.

Brian Carter is author of the new book The Like Economy: How Businesses Make Money With Facebook, and co-author of Facebook Marketing: Leveraging Facebook’s Features For Your Marketing Campaigns.

AllFacebook.com edited an image from Shutterstock.