In a new whitepaper from Covario, a search marketing firm and SaaS SEO provider, Facebook brands were analyzed and monitored in a quest to find the top brand.  Additional stats were provided including brand goals, and key success factors and Facebook search for brands.. Social Media Goals One of the most interesting tidbits in the report was the overall goals that brands set out to accomplish using social media.  The most common answer was that brands were using social media to help drive sales.  Coming in second was driving engagement, and increasing brand awareness was third. One [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook

Speaking at Web 2.0 Summit today, Facebook's chief technical officer Bret Taylor said that people do change their default privacy settings on Facebook -- most of them, in fact. "The majority of people on Facebook have modified their privacy settings," Taylor said. "If you talk to a college student, they know exactly what their parents can see and can't see," he added, as one of several examples. Taylor's response came as interviewer John Battelle had asked about why Facebook doesn't share its data with rival Google Plus. Taylor responded that there are issues with exactly what i [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook

We’re doing a brief survey on how the Search Engine Land audience markets on Facebook. This survey will take less than 30 seconds to complete. Please take the survey here and we’ll share the results when you’re done. Thanks! [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Social Media Marketing

Google announced that Google+ has 40 million users today. Woo-hoo! That's nearly half what Twitter claims, right? And while it's below Facebook's 800 million, Google's getting there, right? Wrong. The number simply can't be compared to Facebook and Twitter. Active Users Vs. Sign-Ups Let's start with Facebook. At various points, Facebook has given out a count of how many users it has. Currently, on its stats page, Facebook claims 800 million active users. Active users are key here. By active, Facebook means people who have logged into Facebook at least once per month. Facebook has many mor [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Google: Google+ | Stats: Popularity | Top News | Twitter

As part of Google's earnings announced today, CEO Larry Page announced that Google's social network, Google+, now has 40 million members. That puts it still well behind Facebook's 800 million, closer to Twitter's 100 million, but doesn't seem to count "active" users. Page said in the earnings release: "We had a great quarter," said Larry Page, CEO of Google.  "Revenue was up 33% year on year and our quarterly revenue was just short of $10 billion. Google+ is now open to everyone and we just passed the 40 million user mark. People are flocking into Google+ at an incredible rate and we are [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Google: Google+ | Stats: Relevancy | Twitter

Earlier this week Facebook announced features and functionality that were mainly geared toward pages and ads. One of the newest metrics released is the "people are talking about this" for pages. The goal of this number is to track conversations happening around specific pages. However, we have seen more users becoming confused as to what the number is than being helped by it. "### Are Talking About This" Here's where Facebook users will see the new metric showing up on Facebook pages, such as our own SMX  page: In reaching out to Facebook, we received answers about how both users and p [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Top News

Facebook is launching a new "People Talking About This" metric for fan pages this week, designed to show conversations happening about a brand or page owner across the web. It's part of an upgraded Page Insights tool. Also released is a new Page Insights API tool. Facebook emailed us the information about the launches tonight, which coincide with the start of Advertising Week in New York tomorrow. Given it's a Sunday evening, I'm just going to post what was sent, and we may do a deeper follow up tomorrow. Page Insights Tool Facebook emailed the following about the updated tool: With the [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Features: General | Top News

Mark Zuckerberg at F8, the Facebook developer conference held last week, exhorted people to "tell their life story" on Facebook via its new Timeline feature. Facebook also promoted new Open Graph apps integration and so-called "frictionless sharing." But frictionless sharing is already creating a great deal of friction for Facebook in privacy circles and with regulators. In practice frictionless sharing means that once you authorize an app, your subsequent actions through that app are shared on your news feed or the new Ticker. This includes songs you listen to, news stories you read, movi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Legal: Privacy | Legal: Regulation

There have been many stories in the past of criminals (of one sort or another) using Google, Foursquare and Facebook to target people who many not be home or, in the case of Google Earth and Street View, which homes to target. A recent survey of 50 convicted burglars by UK security firm Friedland Response and reported by the UK's Sky News argues that Google and social media tools are being used extensively to target people. Nearly 80 percent of the 50 ex-burglars surveyed strongly believed that Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare were being used by current criminals, and nearly 75 percent s [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Features: Analysis | Foursquare | Google: Earth | Google: Street View | Top News | Twitter

Today's F8 had it all. A cameo from SNL's Andy Samberg, glitzy new designs, cutting edge new features and compelling product videos. But what was actually announced? Here are the major takeaways from today's conference: Timeline For all of those complaining about the new Facebook layout, don't worry- its days are numbered. Today "Timeline" was announced that takes a very different direction that previous Facebook profiles. Timeline was explained as an evolution from the original profile page being "The first 5 minutes of the conversation" to timelines being the "rest of the conversation." [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Features: General | Top News

I'm sitting in the large hall in the SF Concourse awaiting the F8 keynote from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, now a wealthier man (on paper) than Google co-founders Brin and Page. We expect a series of announcements around music and movies but there will be a ton of stats about Facebook usage and growth. If you want to see the live stream you can watch it here. SNL's comedian Andy Samberg is now on stage doing his impersonation of Mark Zuckerberg. Funny. He's doing a stand-up routine lampooning Zuckerberg's discussion of sharing and engagement. Now he's making masturbation jokes ("sometim [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Features: General | Live Blogging

Scoreboard: Facebook guy - 1, Google guys - 0. Or, more accurately: Facebook guy - $17.5 billion, Google guys - $16.7 billion (each). Those are the estimated net worths of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, as reported in the latest edition of the Forbes 400 Rich List -- a ranking of the wealthiest 400 people in America. Forbes counts Zuckerberg as the biggest gainer on this year's list, with his net worth jumping from $6.9 billion last year to $17.5 billion now. It's also the first time that Zuckerberg has been listed ahead of Brin and [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Google: Employees

In a move that shouldn't surprise anyone, Facebook is re-organizing users' homepages. The new look homepage will allow users to "see the things they're most interested in." The main elements that will power the new layout are, the revamped Friend Lists, the new Subscribe button, and a real-time ticker. One notable change is that the verbiage "post" seems to be completely removed from the Facebook vocabulary. All mentions of content-formerly-known-as-posts are now labeled as "stories." A "Personal Newspaper" The rationale behind the new layout ironically takes after newspapers, the very fo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Top News

It has been reported by the BBC, that Facebook will soon be allowing users to sync Twitter accounts with their Facebook updates. Previously only Facebook pages or the use of third party applications had this type of linking ability. Of course, the odd man out in this revelation is Google+. Facebook and Google+ haven't been cordial, and this Twitter integration announcement is another step in that direction. The only current way for any type of Facebook & Google+ integration are sub-optimal hacks. No specific date was given for the implementation of this update, rather Facebook o [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook

On the heels of its announcement about Smart Lists, Facebook is giving users more options for sharing and managing their content, including letting individuals share public content with people who "subscribe" to their feeds rather than "friend" them. The most important change is probably the introduction of a "Subscribe" button to each user's profile. (This affects only real people, not Pages, and brands and companies should continue to use Pages, Facebook says.) If a user chooses to "Subscribe," they will begin to see all of that person's public updates in their news feed, without that [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Top News

Today Facebook announced enhancements to lists, including the release of "smart lists."  This new functionality helps to auto-generate lists for users, a task that was somewhat arduous in the past. Smart Lists The new smart list feature gives users assistance in list creation. Facebook will actually be auto-generating lists based on user attributes. for example: For instance, if you list Boston College as a school you've attended and your friends John and Sarah do too, then you would instantly have a smart list called "Boston College" with John and Sarah on it. The categories that wil [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook

Following the elimination of daily deals (though not check-in deals) from Facebook's lineup of products, Yelp followed suit this week by scaling back its daily deals program. Many people incorrectly interpreted the news, presented in a Bloomberg article, as Yelp's total exit from the space. Some have also seen it as an indication that the segment as a whole is beginning to collapse. One person remarked to me today, "The bottom is starting to fall out isn't it?" Neither interpretation is correct. Deals are alive and (mostly) well and Yelp is still in the game. Here's what Yelp CEO Jeremy [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Yelp

Facebook is backing off from the local/small business space -- or at least parts of it. A few days after dropping its check-in service for Facebook Places, the company is now getting out of the deals business. In a statement reported by Reuters, Facebook says its Deals product will go away "in the coming weeks." "After testing Deals for four months, we've decided to end our Deals product in the coming weeks," the company said in a statement emailed to Reuters. "We think there is a lot of power in a social approach to driving people into local businesses," Facebook added in the stateme [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook

New Facebook features have been released rampantly as of late, the newest taking aim at Instagram. The New York Times reported that Facebook will be introducing a dozen photo filters, similar to Instagram's vintage & washed out effects: [caption id="attachment_90574" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Screenshots from Instagram"][/caption] Instagram is a free app for the iPhone allows users to modify and enhance photos by applying these filters to photos (as well as modify images easily.) The service has over 5 million users mainly due to the ability to enhance images with cu [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook

There will be extensive discussion and debate today about whether the broad and welcome array of new privacy, tagging and sharing controls on Facebook are or aren't a response to Google+. I directly asked Facebook that question and was told that the new features have nothing to do with Google+ and have been in the works for months, as a response to user feedback. Indeed, if there's a consistent issue on which Facebook is repeatedly criticized it's privacy and user control over content sharing. And this has been one of the two main advantages of Google+: explicit inline privacy and sharin [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Google: Google+ | Top News