Facebook unveils sharper ad-targeting tool

Facebook’s FB +1.78% “partner categories” feature, which was unveiled Wednesday, lets advertisers target ads to “more categories of people,” the company said in a blog post. “For example, a local car dealership can now show ads to people who are likely in the market for a new car who live near their dealership,” the post said. Currently, advertisers can show ads to users based on their “expressed interests” on Facebook.

With the new feature, advertisers can also show ads to users “based on the products and brands they buy across both desktop and mobile.”

 Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter said the feature is similar to how Google’s GOOG -0.26% business works. “It’s a good move, and will give advertisers greater confidence that they are reaching a relevant audience,” he told MarketWatch.

 The feature “adds a self-serve feature that will enable local ad purchases. It makes Facebook more robust for the average advertiser.” The new feature will initially include 500 unique groups. Facebook stressed that “no personal information is shared between Facebook, third parties or advertisers.” Click to Play Mossberg reviews Facebook Home Facebook's Home app is the boldest attempt by a non-software company to re-imagine a phone's interface, Walt Mossberg says on digits.

 “The advertiser only knows the size of the audience and can’t access any information about individuals included in a category,” the post said. Facebook has gotten in trouble in the past for they way it handled user information, particularly their purchases.

The company was sued a few years ago over a feature called Beacon, in which users’ transactions were posted on their public profiles. Facebook later shut down the program after it settled a class-action suit. Paul Levy, an attorney with Public Citizen, a legal-advocacy organization based in Washington, said the new Facebook offering can still raise privacy issues. “I have mixed feelings,” he told MarketWatch. “There are some privacy concerns, even if the data is not individualized. You sort of worry about the data accumulation.”

 He added that “once the database exists, it can be subpoenaed, and some people don’t like the fact the system marks them down because it’s creepy.” Facebook shares closed trading on Wednesday up 3.7% at $27.57.

Facebook Presence Is an Important Clue to a Social Venture's Future!

Fledgling social entrepreneurs may have a lot of passion, but they usually don't have much of a track record, a circumstance that leaves would-be backers to wonder: Which have the potential to become genuine world-changers? Which are likely to achieve significant social impact within an attractive business model? Potential customers are also left wondering: Which of these ventures are worthy of my attention and support? It turns out one of the best clues may be on Facebook. Last summer, Social Enterprise @ Goizueta set out with Village Capital, a peer-based accelerator program, to learn (among other things) whether social entrepreneurs with larger social-media followings are showing greater commercial promise.

In an analysis of data from roughly a hundred social entrepreneurs, we found a clear connection between a venture's Facebook presence and its commercial performance. The average annual revenue for ventures that had set up dedicated Facebook accounts was roughly $142,000, considerably greater than the $77,000 for ventures that hadn't set up such accounts. For those with Facebook accounts, the correlation between number of likes and revenue earned was a robust 0.38 (correlations range from zero to one). Social ventures with bigger Facebook networks also were more successful in raising capital: The correlation between number of Facebook likes and capital raised was 0.34. Ventures with active Twitter accounts earned more revenue, on average (roughly $149,000, compared with $69,000), and raised more capital ($147,000 versus $67,000).

However, the number of followers showed practically zero correlation with revenue earned or capital raised. What does this mean for would-be investors and for the supporters (both individuals and organizations) of social entrepreneurs? A larger Facebook network suggests that a social-venture idea has legs. It seems to signal that an enterprise's theory of how to effect change resonates with a lot of people and that the organization is developing a "voice" for effectively communicating its ideas to customers — a crucial success factor. In other words, show me a fledgling enterprise with a big Facebook following, and I'll show you a venture that's poised to bring in revenue and capital over the short term.

 So what does it take to create these larger online networks?

 Here, we gleaned some additional insights from a separate analysis of 281 social ventures that applied to participate in the 2010 or 2011 Summer Institutes run by the Unreasonable Institute, the Colorado-based social-enterprise accelerator.

 We found that social media is a young person's — specifically, a young woman's — game. Ventures with founders over the age of 40 tend to be less adept at developing their social-media networks, and female entrepreneurs are building stronger social-media presences. Ventures dedicated to peace or human rights do significantly better when it comes to developing larger Facebook presences. On the other hand, Twitter-network advantages are observed among social ventures that are working in the Americas and among entrepreneurs who were invited to participate in the Summer Institute programs. The former effect might reflect the supply or demand of social-media networking — American social entrepreneurs might have better savvy, or typical stakeholders in the Americas might be more faithful users of Facebook and Twitter. The latter effect points to a possible specific benefit flowing to social entrepreneurs who participate in accelerator programs.

 A multipronged approach to social media seems to pay off. Facebook likes increase when a venture has an active Twitter and LinkedIn presence. Similarly, Twitter followers are more numerous when the venture is active on Facebook and LinkedIn. This makes sense to Milaap.org, a social enterprise in Bangalore that crowdsources low-cost capital for microfinance institutions through its online platform. Milaap.org is highly successful with its social-media efforts and emphasizes that it works hard to link Facebook and Twitter as closely as possible. One of the most encouraging findings to emerge from our research is that when it comes to generating social-media followings, social ventures in internet or marketing sectors don't do any better than their peers in other fields. Nor do we see advantages for entrepreneurs with deep experience or advanced degrees.

 What this last point implies is that you don't need to be a high-tech whiz, a marketing expert, an experienced entrepreneur, or an academic star to generate social-media excitement about a world-changing venture. Instead, all social entrepreneurs should simply "keep an eye on what's trending, what people are talking about, what memes are popular — and then tap into that," says Shubhashree Sangameswaran of Milaap.org. Sangameswaran advises would-be entrepreneurs to "spend time figuring out what kind of an audience you'd like to attract. Then, create good content that's relevant to your field, and engaging. Basically, be visible." Good advice, because the data seem to show that it is just this kind of visibility that translates into greater revenue and investment, two critical inputs for any entrepreneur who genuinely wants to change the world.

Facebook working to incorporate hashtag: WSJ

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Facebook Inc. FB +0.30% is planning to incorporate the hashtag, the symbol of rival Twitter, into the social networking site's service, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. 
The report cited unnamed sources. The move would enable Facebook to index conversations, making it easier for users to follow and take part in conversations on specific topics. The hashtag helped turn Twitter into a major social networking destination. Shares of Facebook FB +0.30% traded mostly flat in after-hours trading.

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Facebook works to claw back gains as it tightens ad deals.

Facebook shares picked up some modest gains on Wednesday morning, following a report that it is tweaking one of its marketing programs in such a way to give preference to companies who buy ads on the social network.

The news was reported by Business Insider, which cited an email that Facebook allegedly sent to clients of Facebook’s Preferred Marketing Developers badge system. The email said the new badge criteria “will include a focus on paid media” as part of an effort to make the PMD program “even stronger by raising the bar.”

A Facebook representative could not be immediately reached for comment.

The stock picked up about 1.5% to trade at $27.80 on Wednesday morning. Facebook shares have been on a  mostly downward slope since the company’s fourth-quarter report on Jan. 30. The modest beat — coupled with stated plans to ramp up spending — spooked investors and triggered a rash of downgrades.  The shares are still more than 10% below their level prior to the report.

– Dan Gallagher

Bing Adds 5x More Facebook Content to its Search Results

Just a couple days after Facebook's hyped up "secret" announcement was revealed to be Graph Search -- which, powered by Bing, uses social signals to try to create a truly social search experience within Facebook -- Bing has announced that its search results will now feature 5x more content from users' Facebook friends, including status updates, links, and comments. Big surprise, right? You know ... a little of the 'ol "you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours" action? Okay, okay, so in the marketing world, we call this 'co-marketing.'

In any event, let's take a closer look at the social changes Bing has made to its search engine results, and why, at least as a marketer, you should give a hoot.

What Has Changed About Bing's Search Results

I know what you're thinking, you well-informed marketer, you: "But Bing was already incorporating social data from Facebook into its search results." Yes, this is true. Back in June, 2012, Bing started including Facebook Likes, photos, and profile information into search results. But now, there's even more. Five times more, to be exact. In addition to the Facebook results Bing was already showing, now you'll also see status updates, shared links, and comments -- all served up to you in the far-right sidebar of Bing's new three-column design when you connect your Facebook account, as pictured below

So if you were to do a search for, say, "Boston restaurants" as I did above, you'd get organic results on the left, PPC results in the middle, and primarily Facebook results on the right, which could include anything from shared links, photos, comments, status updates, or Likes from your friends about restaurants in Boston. Pretty helpful if you're a user trying to decide where to go out to eat on a Friday night, right?

While social results aren't limited just to Facebook content -- they also include other social networks like Twitter, Quora, Foursquare, etc. -- Bing seems to be featuring Facebook results most prominently.

Why Marketers Should Care

Whether or not you choose to use Bing for your own personal search engine needs, there are people out there who do. In fact, according to comScore, Bing is at an all-time high. Its 16% market share is second to Google's 66.9% as of October 2012. And after Bing's Bing It On Challenge -- which pitted Bing's search results against Google's in a blind comparison test and showed that people preferred Bing results to Google’s nearly 2:1 -- of people who identified Google as their primary search engine, 33% said they would use Bing more often after taking the challenge.

So yes, believe it or not, there is a good chunk of users -- many of which are probably your prospects -- who are using Bing to power their searches. And with the increased emphasis on content from Facebook in its search results, you can't really afford to miss out on a piece of that pie. So the lesson is probably one you've heard from us time and time again, but that's only because the changes search engines are making to take more and more social cues into consideration just keep on coming. And it's not just about creating a Facebook page so you can share your content and engage with fans on your own terms, either. It's also about consistently creating content that people will naturally want to share on Facebook and in other social networks -- which can then also show up in their friends' search results.

So hop to it, marketers! Social in search is here to stay, and you can't afford to miss out.

What do you think of Bing's partnership with Facebook?

As a Marketing professional and consultant to Microsoft I was fortunate to play a part in some of these efforts. For me the key underlying importance of this announcement is the platform nature of Bing’s efforts. Microsoft has made clear that it values and is pursuing a partnership based approach to search.  
While vertical integration efforts in OEM/partnership channels may lead people to think that Microsoft’s partnership commitments are in question, efforts like these should make clear that the company has not abandoned its partnership roots that made Windows the franchise it is today. Microsoft appears rather to making an effort to set minimal customer experience standards for its brand, and deliver a platform for innovation where it will work with partners to deliver more value to their shared customers.
The benefit is great for consumers. Partner/Microsoft Bing efforts will increasingly incorporate data that makes search results more relevant. Bing’s partnership framework allows people who make investments in more segmented and specialized networks to best leverage those past investments by using Bing. Greater search relevancy with Bing drives great conversion which benefits marketers that also opt to use Bing. I for one would love to see true quant analyses case study of the impact of these efforts on ad conversion and customer satisfaction.

While some companies seek to vertically integrate and subsume virtually all the value in an ecosystem, Microsoft’s looks to be working intimately with partners to deliver a richer and better online experience. It’s easy to question the motivations, but in the end it’s really all about the value delivered to customers. For Facebook users, of which there are a few, I suspect that Bing now delvers much more value than Google.

Facebook Marketing | Facebook and Bing Partnership | FaceBing

Trailer for aPerfectidea.com - Hope you like it!

 What do you desire? What makes you itch? What sort of a situation would you like? Let’s suppose – I do this often in vocational guidance of students. They come to me and say, “Well, uh, we’re getting out of college, and we haven’t the faintest idea of what we want to do.” So I always ask the question, “What would you like to do if money were no object? How would you really enjoy spending your life?” Well, it’s so amazing. As a result of our kind of educational system, crowds of students say, “Well, we’d like to be painters, we’d like to be poets, we’d like to be writers. But as everybody knows you can’t earn any money that way.” Or another person says, “I’d like to live an out-of-doors life and ride horses.” I said, “Do you want to teach at a riding school? Let’s go through with it.

What do you want to do?” When we finally got down to something which the individual says he really wants to do. I will say to him, “you do that, and forget the money. Because if you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You will be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing. Which is STUPID! Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way. And after all, if you do really like what your’e doing, it doesn’t matter what it is, you can eventually become a master of it. It’s the only way to become a master of something, to be really with it. And then you’ll be able to get a good fee for whatever it is. So don’t worry too much.

Somebody’s interested in everything. And anything you can be interested in, you’ll find others who are. But it’s absolutely stupid to spend your time doing things you don’t like in order to go on doing things you don’t like and to teach your children to follow in the same track. See, what we’re doing is we’re bringing up children, and educating them to live the same sort of lives we’re living in order that they may justify themselves and find satisfaction in life by bringing up their children to bring up their children to do the same thing. It’s all wretch and no vomit. It never gets there! And so therefore it’s so important to consider this question.

 “What do I desire?”

Daniel Sciascia
aPerfectidea.com