Facebook announced a series of changes last week at the third F8 conference in an apparent attempt to make the web more social. The Facebook experience now exists beyond their platform on external websites that choose to implement their newly released Social Plugins. The key theme throughout the conference regarded the new “Open Graph,” which links objects (e.g., people, photos, events, and fan pages) and connections (e.g., friend relationships, shared content, and photo tags). Marketers need to assess whether there is value in implementing these changes on their website or if sticking with their Facebook page will suffice. Either way, this is a grand opportunity for corporate websites to serve as a hub for their brand’s social experience.
The following developments will change the way users interact with Facebook and how, subsequently, marketers should interact with users:
1. The Fan Naming Convention Has Changed
Trading “fan” Advocacy for a Wider, Less Active Base of “Likers”: Consumers are more prone to “Like” a page/message than “Become a Fan,” as “Liking” may be seen as less of a commitment and personal statement. An increase in followers is expected for pages, but it is possible users will “unlike” a page once they realize the “Like” action mirrors “Becoming a Fan.” As a result, unsubscribe rates may increase following the initial switch.
Engagement is More Important than Ever: To keep “Likers” active, brands will need to continuously disseminate relevant content and deliver on any promises made.
2. Any Website Can Become Part of Facebook
Deeper Insights to Make Digital Marketing Decisions: The introduction of a Universal “Like” Button for websites allows Facebook to keep track of users outside of their platform, gathering more data on user preferences. This data may be shared with marketers to develop more efficient marketing plans, such as optimizing display media ads.
3. Introducing Social Meta Data
Manage How Your Brand is Listed on Individual Profiles: When a user selects the “like” button on a website, not only is a post sent to that user’s news feed, but that website will also be listed under the user’s “interests and likes” in their personal profile. This level of control can be accomplished by placing seven different variables into the meta data on the page where the “like” button resides. These variables call out where and how that page should be represented on a profile. As outlined by Facebook, the data will resemble the following:
<html xmlns:og=”http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/”
xmlns:fb=”http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml”>
<head>
<title>The Rock (1996)</title>
<meta property=”og:title” content=”The Rock”/>
<meta property=”og:type” content=”movie”/>
<meta property=”og:url” content=”http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117500/”/>
<meta property=”og:image” content=”http://ia.media-imdb.com/rock.jpg”/>
…
</head>
…
</html>
The meta data should be implemented at the same time as the Like button. It is suggested to look at all of the attributes that can be incorporated in additional to the required ones above.
4. Mapping Connections through the “Open Graph”
Building Connections with Users On and Off Facebook: Facebook pages have allowed companies to build a network of connections with their brand advocates. The “Open Graph” aims to tie together the relationships between multiple pages, finding how, where, and through which people these pages connect. By adding Social Plugins, a website can take ownership of its segment in the graph.
Open API Makes for a Happier Developer: Among these changes, the most controversial regards the API functionality of Facebook’s “Open Graph.” Any user information that resides on the graph is accessible to the public. For example, to obtain information from a user’s “likes,” one may simply use the following URL structure to retrieve it: https://graph.facebook.com/ID/CONNECTION_TYP.
For a list of companies currently implementing these changes, please visit the following page: http://developers.facebook.com/showcase/. Social Media Marketing needs to become a more prominent component of every company’s marketing mix before more advancements such as these are realeased and companies are left dark within this “open graph.”
Additional information on this subject is available on Facebook:
- The Next Evolution of the Facebook Platform
- Overview of the Open Graph Protocol
- Introduction to “Open Graph” API
- Implementing the Social Plugins
Have questions or want to discuss? Shoot me an e-mail at fmcdade@zetainteractive.com or find me on Twitter @FrankMcDade.
No related posts.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Great post Frank!