People have been gradually turning against “click-bait” for a while now and using the questionable tactic to attract attention may finally be accompanied by some real consequences according to an announcement from Facebook today.
According to the announcement, the social platform is rolling out an update to the News Feed algorithm that will help reduce the number of misleading or purposely vague headlines by incorporating the amount of time users spend reading a page as a signal.
“‘Click-baiting’ is when a publisher posts a link with a headline that encourages people to click to see more, without telling them much information about what they will see,” Facebook research scientist Khalid El-Arini and product specialist Joyce Tang wrote in a blog post. ”
“Posts like these tend to get a lot of clicks, which means that these posts get shown to more people, and get shown higher up in News Feed.”
Click-bait certainly is effective, but this strategy has become so prominent that even casual internet users are becoming familiar with the phrase. More importantly, the majority appear to agree they don’t like it. 80% of Facebook users say they prefer headlines that give them a fuller picture about what’s behind the link instead.
Here’s Facebook’s explanation of how they are aiming to take down click-bait:
One way is to look at how long people spend reading an article away from Facebook. If people click on an article and spend time reading it, it suggests they clicked through to something valuable. If they click through to a link and then come straight back to Facebook, it suggests that they didn’t find something that they wanted. With this update we will start taking into account whether people tend to spend time away from Facebook after clicking a link, or whether they tend to come straight back to News Feed when we rank stories with links in them.
Another factor we will use to try and show fewer of these types of stories is to look at the ratio of people clicking on the content compared to people discussing and sharing it with their friends. If a lot of people click on the link, but relatively few people click Like, or comment on the story when they return to Facebook, this also suggests that people didn’t click through to something that was valuable to them.
With its ever decreasing organic reach, Facebook is putting a lot of attention into their paid ad platform, especially the ads shown on mobile devices. Now, the reporting side of Facebook’s paid ad is getting improved to reflect the huge increases in mobile ads in recent times.
One of these improvements is the launch of cross-device reporting for Facebook ads. Now Facebook advertisers are able to see how users move throughout their sales process, even if they move across devices. The announcement described just how advertisers may benefit:
Imagine seeing an ad for a product on your mobile phone while in line at the bank. Do you immediately make a purchase on your phone? Probably not. But perhaps you go back to your office later that day and buy on your desktop computer. Such cross-device conversions are becoming increasingly common as people move between their phones, tablets and desktop computers to interact with businesses.
Cross-device reporting allows advertisers to be able to see which devices ads were viewed on, and on which devices conversions subsequently occurred. That means you can see how many people clicked an ad on iPhone but then later finished their conversion on desktop, and vice-versa.
In a recent analysis of US Facebook campaigns, it was found that of the people who show interest in a mobile Facebook ad before converting, over 32% converted on desktop within 28 days.
You can view the cross-device conversions for campaigns by going to your Facebook Ad Reports, where you will click Edit Columns, and select Cross-Device on the left-hand menu.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2014-08-14 14:06:322014-08-14 14:06:32Facebook’s New Cross-Device Reporting Makes It Easier To Track Conversions
Countless businesses have 90 days to make significant changes to their Facebook strategies and pages. With an update to its Platform Policy, Facebook killed the so-called “like gate” which required users to Like a Page before they could be gain access to content, apps, rewards, or be eligible for contests.
The new policy is set to take effect on Nov. 5 and any page that doesn’t comply will have the gates disabled. New apps made after the announcement will also be unable to create new like gates.
You must not incentivize people to use social plugins or to like a Page. This includes offering rewards, or gating apps or app content based on whether or not a person has liked a Page. It remains acceptable to incentivize people to login to your app, checkin at a place or enter a promotion on your app’s Page. To ensure quality connections and help businesses reach the people who matter to them, we want people to like Pages because they want to connect and hear from the business, not because of artificial incentives. We believe this update will benefit people and advertisers alike.
Like gating isn’t as popular as it used to be, but it is still a relatively common Facebook fan-building strategy.
It is important to note that it is still acceptable to use incentives. You simply can’t use incentives that require a user to Like a page to gain access to content.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2014-08-11 14:55:222014-08-11 14:55:22Facebook Has Given You 90 Days To Shut Down Your “Like Gate”
The majority of reports about Facebook this year would suggest the largest social media platform is about to crumble under its own weight. But, all the latest data from their Second Quarter 2014 Financial Summary indicates otherwise.
The report includes a ton of positive statistics for the social media leader, but the biggest findings are about how we use Facebook. Specifically, there has been a 19% increase in daily active users, suggesting that most people are including Facebook as a part of their daily lifestyle. Most likely, the ability to access Facebook on the go is responsible for a significant amount of the growth.
The total number of daily active users now sits around 829 million users.
Facebook also saw a significant jump in revenue, growing 61% compared to last year. Unsurprisingly, mobile also played a huge role in the jump, as it is responsible for 62% of overall ad revenue for the second quarter.
The report also included some other statistics which highlight the important role of mobile for Facebook.
Mobile daily active users were up 39% year-over-year, reaching an average of 654 million on for June 2014.
Monthly active users were up 14% over last year, reaching 1.32 billion as of June 30, 2014, an increase of 14% year-over-year.
Monthly active mobile users went up by 31% compared to last year, reaching 1.07 billion as of June 30, 2014.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2014-07-28 13:43:522014-07-28 13:43:52Facebook Sees More Daily Users and Revenue Thanks To Mobile Users
Yesterday, Facebook announced an update to ad targeting options that will help refine your efforts to reach people on specific devices by letting you target users based on their device.
In order to get high quality installs or engagement within an app, it is very important to reach the right people with the most relevant message. As a result, we are enhancing our mobile targeting for developers.
The update should be rolling out over the next few days. Once it has become fully available, you will be able to deliver ads to people using a specific device and set minimum operating system version. Previously, you could target iOS or Android, minimum OS, and Wi-Fi only users.
With device specific targeting you will have access to App Insights, which you can use to identify which devices are working best for your app and target those devices. This means that if you see a large amount of mobile revenue is coming from the latest iPhone, you can set ads to target only those who have purchased that device. It will also allow you to eliminate users with incompatible devices easily.
With their announcement, Facebook also gave some tips for using mobile device targeting for mobile app ads:
Don’t go too narrow with your audience: Facebook recommends having an estimated audience size of at least 500,000 users for each ad.
Customize your ad to resonate with your audience: Facebook recommends using images of the device you’re targeting in your ad.
Optimize your bid for each campaign: Create different ads with optimized bids for each device or groups of devices as competition may vary by device.
Layer on complimentary targeting features: Use Custom Audiences and lookalikes to reach a large and relevant set of people.
Brands have been complaining for quite some time that their Facebook engagement has been plummeting, especially for smaller brands who rely on organic reach to connect with their audience. Of course, plenty of analysts and SEO “gurus” have offered their fair share of strategies for increasing engagement, but most of these can be very expensive. Some would even cost more than giving in and using Facebook’s paid ad platform.
Don’t let that get you down though. Organic reach and engagement may be nosediving, but there are still free ways you can boost your page’s engagement. Just ask a few members of the Young Entrepreneur Council. Or don’t, because 10 founders from YEC already shared their suggestions on Search Engine Journal.
We may eventually reach a point where organic reach is effectively dead on Facebook, but there are always tactics available to negate some of the drop in engagement and get the most possible out of the free side of the largest social media platform available.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2014-07-14 13:51:002014-07-14 13:51:00How Can You Boost Your Facebook Engagement for Free?
As I discussed yesterday, reports are coming out that earlier this year mobile traffic overtook internet traffic coming from desktop computers. Today, a new study has been released which adds to the evidence that 2014 will be remembered for being the tipping point between desktop and mobile or universal internet usage.
The study from social data and sharing tool provider ShareThis found that sharing via smartphones and tablets has surged more than 30% during the second quarter of the year. Using data pulled from its network of more than 2 million U.S. publishers, ShareThis found sharing had gone up 27.8% for smartphones and 3.5% for tablets when compared to the first quarter. In the meantime, desktop sharing has dipped 5.5% in the same time.
Pinterest and Twitter are the big winners of this jump in mobile sharing, as ShareThis found 75% of pins and 71% of tweets come from smartphone and tablets. That means mobile users pin and tweet three and two times more than their respective desktop users.
Of course, Facebook still dominates overall social media sharing, with 64% of total content shared. However, that percentage is 3.9 percent less than what they showed during the year’s first quarter.
It has become a truism that “Facebook is losing organic reach,” almost like it is widely accepted that teens are leaving Facebook in droves. While the matter of teens leaving Facebook is up for some debate, the social media platform has even acknowledged that organic reach across the site is dropping and they explained why.
However there is more to the story. It is widely agreed upon that Facebook’s dropping organic reach is inherently bad, because the majority of businesses and marketers are getting the bad end of the deal. Those succeeding with the new algorithms are probably quite happy though.
A new study from Socialbakers shows that page engagement for successful Facebook Pages has risen 30% since January. That means that although many of us are losing reach, those who have mastered the are of Facebook marketing are seeing more success than ever.
The conversation that seems to be dominating the Facebook marketing community is all about how algorithmic changes to Facebook’s News Feed are hurting organic reach. Our numbers say the opposite; brands have never had a better opportunity to have their best content placed in front of so many people.
To be clear, Socialbakers’ numbers aren’t refuting the common knowledge that Facebook’s organic reach is losing ground quite fast. This study focused specifically on the 3 million largest Pages, but there are over 30 million active small business pages that weren’t included.
Still the numbers show the other side of Facebook’s marketing results and helps explain why they continue down this path. With such a huge amount of content being shared every day, Facebook wants to focus on quality rather than quantity. Those with great content and quality marketing are still seeing strong results, but it is undeniably getting harder for the small guy to find some ground to expand with.
Every week we try to keep you updated with all the SEM news from around the web, but the Google I/O event this week was packed full of so much information there was bound to be some stuff we didn’t get to cover. Today, we’re going to cover all the latest news from I/O and everywhere else. We’ll start with Google, but there is also some interesting Facebook news to discuss near further down.
Android Reaches 1 Billion Active Users Per Month
To open the annual I/O developers conference, Google rattled off an impressive list of statistics, as large tech companies tend to do. Of these statistics, there is one that was noteworthy and shows just how prominent smartphones have become throughout the world.
At last year’s conference, Sundar Pichai told the audience that Android had around 530 million active users per month. Over the past year, that number has almost doubled, surpassing one billion active users every month.
Other interesting stats include:
Android users send 20 billion texts per day.
They take 93 million selfies per day.
Android users take 1.5 trillion steps each day.
They check their phones 100 billion times per day.
Android tablets represent over 60 percent of all tablets shipped.
If you’re wondering what everyone is doing on their phones, you can be assured that it involves apps. comScore released a report this week showing that over half of all digital media time is now spent using apps, though its unclear whether more time is spent on Angry Birds or The Wall Street Journal’s news app.
Google Will Remove Author Images From Search Results
Google is continuing to push an emphasis on authorship authority, but don’t expect to continue seeing author images in your search results for much longer. In the next few days, Google will be stripping the author images and Google+ circle counts from desktop and mobile search results in an attempt to streamline search result appearances. In the announcement on Google+, John Mueller said:
“We’ve been doing lots of work to clean up the visual design of our search results, in particular creating a better mobile experience and a more consistent design across devices,” he wrote. “As a part of this, we’re simplifying the way authorship is shown in mobile and desktop search results, removing the profile photo and circle count.”
Danny Goodwin from Search Engine Watch shared an example showing what the results looked like before (shown above) and what they will look like in the very near future (below).
Google is Testing Their Domain Registry Service
Google has expanded into seemingly every facet of online activity, but up until now they have left domain registration to other service providers. That won’t stay the case for much longer as Google recently announced they will be inviting a limited number of people to test their new service called … wait for it… Google Domains.
As the shockingly creative name suggests, Google Domains will let users search, find, purchase, and transfer the domain or domains best representing their business. The service is still being built, which is part of why you shouldn’t expect for it to come out of testing in the close future. But, the service could potentially make the act of creating a website and establishing a company presence online much more easily understandable for the 55% of businesses that still don’t have websites.
Google My Business Comes To iOS and Android
Google announced Google My Business earlier this month, and on Wednesday the official apps for the service came out on both Android and Apple smartphones. The apps offer a unified interface that will make it easier to manage your brand’s online presence on the go. App features include:
Edit the business listing by changing hours, description, etc.
View managers of the page but not manage them
Post to Google+
Add photos and update cover and profile photos
View local insights and analytics
Change business pages and accounts
Watch Now Now Influences Facebook News Feed Video Rankings
Facebook is constantly working on its News Feed algorithm and the latest update is intended to improve the quality of videos being served to users. The new video ranking takes note of how long users watch a video for and uses this information to influence content ranking. This metric will be combined with other long-standing metrics such as likes, comments, and shares.
In the announcement, Facebook said, “In our early tests, this improvement resulted in more people watching more videos that are relevant to them.” The announcement also noted that twice as many people watch videos on Facebook compared to the numbers from six months ago.
Wait, So Facebook is Still Popular With Teens?
You’ve undoubtedly heard the rumors, studies, and proclamations that Facebook is losing traction with teens like a car driving off a cliff. From what everyone wants to believe, all the young kids are moving to the burgeoning messaging apps to escape the prying eyes of their parents and lame extended family. Even President Obama has commented that kids “don’t use Facebook anymore.”
The problem with all this is, the numbers don’t entirely support that conclusion and two reports from the past week confirm that Facebook is still the most popular social site for the demographic by far.
First, Forrester Research released a report showing that more than 75% of US online youth use Facebook at least once a month. Their survey polled 4,517 internet users between the ages of 12 and 17, and that Facebook has twice as many users as Pinterest, Tumblr, Snapchat, and more than Instagram and WhatsApp combined.
The second study, from college and K-12 education review site, Niche, found similar results from a survey of 7,000 teenage users. Specifically, 87% still use Facebook “occasionally” and 61% use it daily (including the 47% who use it “a few times a day.)
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2014-06-27 12:23:202014-06-27 12:23:20Quick SEM News of the Week – June 27, 2014
All week we try to keep you up to date with the most important SEM news across the web, but inevitably there are smaller stories that fall through the cracks. That’s why we compile all the most important news we missed this week all in one convenient place every Friday. Despite the distractions of the world cup, there have been some pretty big announcements throughout the week. So, let’s get to it.
Google Preps Online Retailers With Best Practices
With the clock ticking before Shopping Campaigns becomes the default campaign type for running Product Listing Ads at the end of August, Google is trying to help prepare retailers and marketers by issuing best practice guidelines to help everyone make the transition smoothly.
For the most part, the guidelines listed aren’t far off from the original PLA recommendations. Yes, the paper covers product feed optimization and newer updates, but most of it is a refresher for those who have been working with retailers for a while now, including classic rules like “use relevant titles and high quality images.”
However, marketers and retailers may be interested in the new recommendations about how to structure new shopping campaigns, especially as we enter the transition period.
You can download the whitepaper of the guidelines from Google here.
Sneak a Peak at Google’s New Reconsideration Rejection Forms
Last week, Matt Cutts made headlines throughout the SEO community by announcing that Google will be revising their reconsideration requests rejection notices with more detailed information in some cases. Of course, there were plenty of skeptics, but an example of the rejection notices has been shared on Twitter by @johnwarddoyle.
Surprisingly, it seems Google made good on their promise.
Don’t get too excited. The individualized response is short and easily missed, but rejection notices at least offer some useful information for repairing a site now. Largely the note is the same as before, but down at the bottom you will see a new section titled “A note from your reviewer.” Here, you will find specific advice relevant to your site that could be potentially highly useful.
Facebook Shows Off Their Snapchat Competitor
After having a $3 billion offer refused by Snapchat – the popular self-destructing photo messenger app – Facebook is trying to fight back. This week Facebook announced Slingshot, an app obviously influenced by Snapchat’s concept, but with a new twist.
Slingshot does allow users to send photos or short video messages that will delete automatically after a short period of time, but there is more to it:
To get started on Slingshot, shoot a photo or video… add some text and color, then sling it to a bunch of friends. Here’s the deal: friends won’t be able to see your shot until they sling something back to you. They can then reply with a reaction – or simply swipe your shot away.
The concept encourages reciprocal communication more and could potentially catch on, but it could just as easily fall apart in the shadow of it’s better-established rival. With the faltering youth activity on Facebook, it is hard to know how much traction this type of app can get.
Major Brand’s Seeing Engagement Plummet on Facebook
Speaking of Facebook’s problem of bleeding activity and user engagement, recent reports show that it isn’t just the teen demographic evaporating from the site. Facebook analytics provider Simply Measured says consumer engagement with Facebook posts from almost all top Interbrand companies are down significantly from last year.
According to the firm, monthly engagement is down over 40 percent since May 2013.
Only two brands on the list (MTV and Harley Davidson) say increases in engagement, while the others saw huge decreases. Overall engagement was down at least 50 percent.
Most troublesome for Facebook, the report outright cites the decreasing organic reach available on Facebook as a primary blame for the decline in engagement.
Facebook’s Graph Search Makes Its First Appearance on Mobile
While Facebook’s Graph Search hasn’t been officially released on mobile yet, but it is most likely getting very close to being rolled out. Over the past week, many people reported encountering a test showcasing in-depth integration for the Graph Search for mobile users with all the same features you’ve come to recognize.
The most anyone has gotten out of Facebook is the response “we’re testing improvements to Facebook mobile search.” But, I would wager the release will be sooner than later. The current testing version for mobile seems to be able to handle all the complex searches capable on desktop and appears to be largely ready for release.
Twitter Finally Adds Animated GIF Support
Twitter’s announcement this week may seem super minor, but it has received nearly as much coverage this week as any other bit of information relevant to online marketing. The reason is simple: internet users love GIFs and this week Twitter announced you can now post and view animated GIFs on Twitter’s website and mobile apps.
Of course, the announcement came in the form of a Tweet featuring an animated GIF from Twitter Support.
Previously, users could share links to GIFs via third-party services like Imgur, but starting this week you can now share and view the moving images directly on Twitter.
Importantly, GIF’s won’t start playing automatically in your feed like they do on Tumblr. Instead, when a GIF is shown, a white play button will be overlayed, allowing you to choose when a GIF starts playing.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2014-06-20 13:27:452014-06-20 13:27:45Quick SEM News of the Week – June 20, 2014
Countless businesses have 90 days to make significant changes to their Facebook strategies and pages. With an update to its 
The majority of reports about Facebook this year would suggest the largest social media platform is about to crumble under its own weight. But, all the latest data from their 
