Twitter-Facebook-Google+-LinkedIn-Image-sizes-cover

Google Plus Cover Photo,Facebook Time Line cover size,Twitter Header image background,Google plus cover photo size,Cover Photo Size for Facebook,Google+,Twitter,Facebook,Pinterest,Google+, Twitter image size dimensions Image sizes Timelines Cover Photo Size

Facebook
Timeline
Profile Picture	160 x 160 px	Must be uploaded at least 180 x 180 px
Cover Photo	851 x 315 px
About Us	255 Characters
App Preview Image	111 x 74 px
Total Length of Apps bar (including gaps)	350 px
Timeline Profile Picture	32 x 32 px
Shared Image	403 x 403 px	Photos can be viewed up to 960 x 720 px in the lightbox and expanded up to 2048 x 2048 px.
Shared Facebook Video	403 x 226
Status Update	63,206 characters
Shared Link Preview	156 x 116 px	Editable, can be set with the og:type meta property
Shared Link Title Tag	Up to 100 characters	Editable, can be set with og:title meta property
Shared Link Metadescription	Varies based on available room
Highlighted Post or Milestone	843 x 403 px
Highlighted Video Post or Milestone	843 x 475 px
News feed
News feed profile picture	50 x 50 px
News Feed Status update	Up to 5 lines of text before Facebook truncates & appends ‘See More’ at the first break after the fifth
Shared Image	Landscape	398 x 296 px
	Portrait	296 x 398 px
	Square	320 x 320 px
News Feed Sponsored Story Profile Picture	32 x 32 px
News Feed Sponsored Story Image	Landscape	358 x 268 px
	Portrait	268 x 358 px
	Square	300 x 300 px
Shared Facebook Video Preview	403 x 226 px
Shared Video Link Preview	130 x 73 px
Shared Link Thumbnail	90 x 90 px
Shared Link Title	Up to 100 Characters	Editable
Shared Link Description	Varies based on Thumbnail & Title Size	Editable
Ads
URL Ad Title	25 Characters
URL Ad Copy	90 Characters
Page Ad Profile Picture	50 x 50 px
Page Ad Title	Page Name
Page Ad Copy	90 Characters
Page Post Ad Profile Picture	32 x 32 px
Page Post Ad Title	Page Name
Page Post Ad Copy	First 90 characters of selected post	First 120 characters if post is text-only
Page Post Ad Image	90 x 118 px
Page Post Ad Video Preview	128 x 72 px
Page Post Ad Link Thumbnail	50 x 50 px
Sponsored Story Fan Picture	50 x 50 px
Sponsored Story Profile Picture	32 x 32 px
Premium Page Post Ad Profile Picture	50 x 50 px
Premium Page Post Ad Video Preview	185 x 104 px
Premium Page Post Ad Image	168 x 128 px
Twitter
Profile
Background Image	90% of visitors see first 78 px of the background
	67% see 204 px
	43% see 247 px
	21% see 284 px
Recent Image Preview	90 x 90
Profile Picture	81 x 81 px	4 px border
Tweet Length	140 Characters
In-stream
Profile Picture	48 x 48 px
Shared Media Tweet Length	140 characters, including link
Shared Link Preview	120 x 120 px	Must be at least 60 x 60 px
Shared Link Title	First 70 characters of twitter:title tag
Shared Link Description	First 200 characters of twitter:description tag
Shared Image	375 x 375 px
Shared Video Preview	435 x 244 px
Video Details	Video Title and first 160 characters of video description
Google+
Company Profile
Cover Photo	890 x 180 px
Profile Picture	250 x 250 px	5 px border
Horizontal Profile and cover photo gap	614 px
Status Update	100,000 Characters	Can include hash tags
Shared Link Thumbnail	150 x 150 px
Shared Video Preview	497 x 279 px
Shared Image	497 x 373 px	Can be uploaded and viewed up to 2048 x 2048 px
YouTube
Branded Channel
Content Container	970 px wide
Mappable Header	970 x 150 px	Can map links off of YouTube
Profile Picture	55 x 55 px
Featured Video	640 x 390 px
Video Thumbnail	288 x 162 px
YouTube Brand Channel Background Size	90% of users see 8 px on either side of the content container	Up to 1 mb in size
	67% see 136 px
	43% see 180 px
	21% see 216 px
Video
Title	Up to 100 characters
User Banner	Up to 170 x 25 px
Video Preview	640 x 390 px
Description	Up to 5000 characters
Tags	Up to 500 characters	Hidden, can be found in page source under “meta:keywords”
Recommended Playlist Details	Playlist Title
Recommended Playlist Large Thumbnail	120 x 67 px
Recommeded Playlist Small Thumbnail	40 x 25 px
Recommended Video Details	Video Title, Author, and Views
Recommended Video Thumbnail	120 x 67 px
LinkedIn
Overview
Horizontal Logo	100 x 60 px
Cover Photo	646 x 220 px
Company Square Logo	50 x 50 px
Company Comment Logo	30 x 30 px
Shared Link Thumbnail	180 x 110 px
Shared Link Details	Shared Link Title and up to 230 characters of description. The description is editable.
Careers
Careers Cover Photo	974 x 238 px
Products and Services
Products and Services Banner Image	646 x 220 px
Product Image	100 x 80 px
Product Details	100 character title and 2000 character description
Pinterest
Profile
Profile Picture	160 x 165 px
About Section	Up to 200 characters
Boards
Board	222 x 207 px
Big Thumbnail	222 x 150 px
Small Thumbnails	55 x 55 px
Pins
Profile Picture	32 x 32 px
Pin Image Preview	192 x scaled height
Pin on board	222 x scaled height
Pin
Profile Picture	49 x 49 px
Pin	600 x infinity

In Push for Lists Facebook Wants You to Star

Facebook is testing a new feature called Close Friends, which lets you know every action the people you add to the list take on the social network. Facebook told Mashable it began the push to some users Thursday.
When you sign into Facebook, you’ll be prompted to “Star Your Close Friends” to guarantee you don’t miss their important moments. In other words, you can now stay close to people you indicate as high-priority friends without ever interacting, visiting their profile or catching an update in your news feed.
Facebook’s explanation of the new features emphasizes organizing your friends into Smart Lists, based on where you work, live, went to school or family, to ensure you share with just the right people.


You can also view a news feed of your Close Friends update — much like a feed of a certain Google+ circle — by selecting the list from below the Friends tab on the left-hand side.
I decided to try out the new feature Friday morning, by adding about 20 friends to my Close Friends list. I added stars — Facebook conveniently suggests a pretty good idea of who you consider your close friends based on your interactions — and was ensured my friends wouldn’t know they’d been added to my list. Within an hour, I’d received a handful of notifications — only none of them had anything to do with me. My friends had joined events, shared stories and posted to their Timelines and I didn’t miss a beat.


I was eager to test out the feature because it seemed like an easier way to create lists — something I’ve been meaning to do on Facebook since Google+ rolled out its Circles feature. But the Close Friends feature became annoying as soon as my phone was flooded with status updates that looked like this one (taken from the phone of someone who put me on their Close Friends list):


If you receive mobile notifications from Facebook, it will send you an update every time someone you add to the list takes an action. If you’ve never restricted your push notifications on mobile before, this feature might be the one to drive you to cut some of them.
Do you organize your Facebook friends into lists? If so, do you only share certain posts with certain people?

Addicted to Facebook how to tell others tips

If your friends and family joke that you’re addicted to Facebook, they may be right. Researchers in Norway have identified six signs that you may be addicted. They’ve used those signs to develop a test to help you figure out of your suffer from a social media addiction.
The test, called the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale, is based on six basic criteria, where all items are scored on the following scale: (1) Very rarely (2) Rarely (3) Sometimes (4) Often and (5) Very often. The signs are:

• You spend a lot of time thinking about Facebook or plan use of Facebook.
• You feel an urge to use Facebook more and more.
• You use Facebook to forget about personal problems.
• You have tried to cut down on the use of Facebook without success.
• You become restless or troubled if you are prohibited from using Facebook.
• You use Facebook so much that it has had a negative impact on your job/studies.

If you are, indeed, addicted, you’re not alone, the researchers say.
“The use of Facebook has increased rapidly. We are dealing with a subdivision of Internet addiction connected to social media,” said Cecilie Schou Andreassen, who conducted the study.
Andreassen heads the research project “Facebook Addiction” at the University of Bergen (UiB) in Norway. The results of her research have just been published in the journal Psychological Reports.
Andreassen said she sees some clear patterns in Facebook addiction.
“It occurs more regularly among younger than older users. We have also found that people who are anxious and socially insecure use Facebook more than those with lower scores on those traits, probably because those who are anxious find it easier to communicate via social media than face-to-face,” she said.
People who are organized and more ambitious tend to be less at risk from Facebook addiction. They will often use social media as an integral part of work and networking.
“Women are more at risk of developing Facebook addiction, probably due to the social nature of Facebook,” Andreassen said.
Andreassen said the research also shows that Facebook addiction was related to extroversion. People with high scores on the new scale further tend to have a somewhat delayed sleep-wake rhythm.
The study was based on 423 students — 227 women and 196 men.
Despite Andreassen’s findings, others are not as convinced about Internet-based addictions.
“There are often underlying or co-occurring psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety, depression or a disturbance in interpersonal relationships, all of which may explain the person’s Internet problems,” Ronald W. Pies, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Tufts University told BusinessNewsDaily sister site LiveScience for a 2009 article. “The question is, do we need another ‘disorder’ in the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), if the manifestations of Internet addiction can already be accounted for by well-described and better-validated conditions?”
That, however, doesn’t mean that Pies is writing off the possibility of Internet-based addictions. Rather, he believes that better research is needed to quantify these behaviors.
“We may eventually come around to the view that Internet addiction is a discrete mental disorder, but that will require carefully designed research aimed at linking Internet addiction with family and genetic factors, biological concomitants and responses to specific treatments,” Pies said.

Facebook Profile [STUDY] Women Are More Likely Than Men to Have a Blog

When it comes to the demographic discrepancies of social media usage, we tend to think primarily about age. Young people, we assume, are Facebook addicts; older people, we assume, are Facebook-phobes. And while generational divisions have represented, and continue to represent, a primary division in the way Americans use social media, there’s another important factor, as well: gender.
In a report released Friday, Nielsen found that women, overall, are significantly more likely to engage with social media than men. Per Nielsen’s Internet-usage index, women are 8% more likely than the average online adult to build or update a personal blog — while men are 9% less likely to do so. Similarly, women are 18% more likely than the baseline American to follow a brand on Facebook or other social media sites … while men are 21% less likely. Have created at least one social networking profile? Women: 6% more likely to have done that. Men: 7% less likely. Used the Internet to purchase a product featured on TV? The ladies: 12% more likely. The dudes: 14% less likely.
These are striking discrepancies — particularly because they’re not just about purchasing trends. (It’s long been documented — and Nielsen reiterates it in this report — that women are the more active gender when it comes to digital brands and online purchasing. Just as they tend to dominate with traditional brands and analog purchasing.) The Nielsen findings suggest an intriguing generality, though, to women’s digital affinities: The ladies aren’t just more likely to buy stuff online; they’re more likely to be online in the first place. They’re more likely to blog. They’re more likely to be on Facebook or Twitter. They’re more likely, in general, to represent themselves as digital personas.
That’s fascinating, in particular, because it’s part of a clear trend. A June 2010 comScore study found that women, globally, spend more time online than men (24.8 hours a month for women, as compared to 22.9 hours for men.) A September 2011 report from Rebtel, the mobile VOIP provider, found that 68% of women who use the web to stay in touch with friends, family and acquaintances do so using social media, while only 54% of men do the same. And a February 2012 report from the firm Porter Novelli found a similar breakdown: In a survey of U.K. women, 65% said they used social media at least once a week, while only 51% of men said the same. (The same survey, however, found results that contradict one element of today’s Nielsen findings: Men, it concluded, were more likely than women to write their own blogs, read others’ blogs, and comment on others’ blogs.) And a February Pew survey determined that “women use Facebook more than men,” with women averaging 11 updates a week — compared to 6 updates for their male counterparts.
Those are striking findings, and worth many, many follow-up studies. They’re also a good reason for optimism when it comes to the web as an agent of social change.

Better Customer Service on Facebook tips

Customers know that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and web-savvy customers know that Facebook is the ultimate squeak amplifier. According to Forrester Research, 27% of U.S. online consumers sought customer service support on the web in 2011, and currently three out of four expect a reply to a negative comment posted on Facebook.
Unfortunately, many brands still don’t incorporate customer service into their social strategy, despite the fact that Facebook is one of the best venues in which to turn your customers’ negative comments into brand opportunities.
Here are eight tips to help you improve your Facebook customer support initiative and, in turn, raise your brand’s reputation, decrease your inbound service requests, acquire new customers and turn infrequent customers into brand loyalists. What are your tips? Let us know in the comments below.

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1. Outsource

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“Your Facebook wall is not an adequate customer service platform because it is not searchable, and it puts a negative twist on your main page,” says Jeff Nolan, VP of product at Get Satisfaction. Nolan suggests that brands build an online customer service channel and then funnel the data into their current CRM system. Companies such as Get Satisfaction, Lithium, Moxie Software and Parature enable brands to offer customers a way to connect in multiple online locations, including Facebook.
With these products, companies can streamline their customer service processes and track important customer data, no matter where the customer decides to engage. As these features become more commonplace, customers will begin to instinctively seek them out when they visit a brand’s page, so be prepared.

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2. Crowdsource

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“Identify and develop relationships with influencers who are knowledgeable about your products,” recommends Erin Korogodsky, social strategist at Lithium. “Those superfans are likely to lend a hand when a customer stops by with a question.” Products like Lithium’s LevelUp social suite allow for the peer-to-peer customer support Korogodsky suggests. Cultivation, encouragement and rewards for “superfans” who engage such solutions provide customer service request deflection, which Korogodsky says is one of the best ways you can save money for your business.

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3. Who’s the Boss?

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When it comes to social support, it is not always clear who’s in charge. Your customer service reps are not Facebook experts and vice-versa — that is why the two groups must team up to provide online customers with the best support experience. Have your social media team field Facebook comments and escalate issues to the appropriate customer service representative. Many social media marketing platforms, such as Buddy Media, Context Optional and Wildfire offer moderation features that allow for customer service reps to be pinged and prompted to respond upon assignment.

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4. Transparent Humans

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Users have faith in the transparency of social media and look to it as a place where they can directly contact their favorite companies — and be heard. Create a brand voice that is human and approachable. Do not delete posts, but instead take the opportunity to solve your customers’ issues or complaints on your public page. Each problem is most likely a problem for another customer and if the answer is easy to find, customers will be able to answer their own inquiries. At the very least, page visitors and friends of the disgruntled customer will see your brand as attentive and solution-oriented.

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5. This is Your Time

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Elisabeth Diana of Facebook’ communications team suggests brands take advantage of two new Timeline features: messages and pinned posts. First, users can now directly connect with a brand through brand page messages. This feature can serve as a free online customer service support system for your brand until your volume becomes unmanageable. Customers can also exchange private information with your brand, such as phone numbers and email addresses, which may help you solve their problem faster. The downside is that there will be no audience to watch you turn a negative situation into a positive one. Remember however, that this is an optional feature and can be turned off (which many large brands already have done).
In addition, “Pinned” posts allow brands to highlight certain hot topics by pinning them to the top of the wall. Diana uses TurboTax as an example of a brand that really takes advantage of this feature. As Tax Day approaches every year, TurboTax receives an influx of the same questions. So instead of posting the same answer multiple times, the company can now pin reply posts to the top of the wall, thus reducing the number of incoming inquiries.

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6. Know Your Issues

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As your brand continues to offer effective customer service on Facebook, you will see that the volume of requests will only increase. Take this opportunity to log some of your previously solved issues in order to be more efficient and consistent with future replies (without sounding automated, of course). You may also want to take these most common questions, requests and issues and build a FAQ Facebook tab. Again, if your customers are able to find answers easily, your workload will be lessened, as will negative sentiment on your wall.

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7. Set Up Alerts

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If you have very active Facebook fans and are able to use a social media marketing platform, it’s important to set up alerts for certain keywords to help filter out high priority initiatives. Single out certain terms such as “question,” “customer service” or “frustrated,” and you will receive notifications when related comments are posted. If you are a toy company currently experiencing an issue with a particular toy, set an alert for the product name. Whether the comments are positive or negative, you will be kept in the loop.

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8. Accept Compliments Graciously

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Your mother always taught you to say “thank you” — your brand should do the same. Don’t just respond to negative comments, reply to positive ones, too — you can encourage positivity with politeness and grace. Fans love to know that their favorite brands hear and appreciate their praise, and they will often come back to leave positive comments in the future. These positive comments help shift the overall sentiment of your wall, improve brand reputation and increase Facebook virality … so remember to say “thank you.”

Facebook Brand Pages Are Good for Businesses Reasons by SagarGanatra

 

Christian Taylor  developer of the number one Facebook e-commerce platform for brands, agencies and merchants, and the world’s only Facebook Shopping Mall.
Not everyone is cheering over the recent switch to Facebook Timeline for businesses. But the reality is, the new layout will present many great opportunities, particularly if companies properly use it to merchandise their products. So be afraid, if you must, but then check out the three reasons why Facebook’s new brand pages will benefit sellers and social commerce as a whole.

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1. It Encourages Fresh Content and Active Conversation

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With the new Timeline, business pages now look and behave like personal profile pages. This means a Facebook storefront can no longer be the landing page for new visitors using the old “default tab” setting. While this was useful to ensure more visibility for the storefront, it was also a crutch for not actively creating fresh content, which is the most effective way to drive new traffic to the store.
With the new Timeline layout, building exposure for the storefront and its products will rely on frequently posting promotions and deals. While a post can be “pinned” at the top of the Timeline for up to seven days, smart sellers will create a daily posting plan to develop continuous awareness with their fans. Better yet, they will look for ways to actively encourage comments on their posts by asking questions, creating polls, or publishing other content designed to provoke responses and make their stream an active discussion forum.

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2. It Provides a Richer Canvas for Seller Expression

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The new Facebook pages give sellers more real estate to showcase their brand and products, starting with the cover photo. While there are some content limitations for the cover photo, it is a really great way to attract new visitors and engage current fans with a core brand message. The ideal dimension for a cover photo is 850 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall, and it’s a good idea to create several for regular rotation.
Storefront applications will also be a more visible part of the page. The old tabs on the left of the page have been replaced by a large 111 pixel by 74 pixel icon that can be placed just under the cover photo. This icon is automatically filled by the storefront application, but the seller has the option to create a custom icon.
The new application canvas for the storefront will also play a larger part. All of the profile information that used to be on the left of the page will move to the top, allowing sellers to deliver an 810 pixel wide experience for shoppers instead of the previous 520 pixels wide. This means more products above the fold, or larger product photos, or both.

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3. It Offers Deeper Engagement Insights and Tools

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The older version of Facebook Insights did not deliver real-time data, so it could take up to two days to get analytics on a post. With the new Insights, sellers can now track how a post is doing within five to ten minutes after publishing, allowing them to immediately tweak their posts depending on how they are performing. Sellers can then immediately amplify the reach of well-performing posts by turning them into a premium ad or a sponsored story. Some other new or enhanced metrics include:

• People Talking About Engagement: This is the total number of people that have engaged in any way with your page, including users liking your page, commenting on or sharing a post from your page, or answering a question you’ve asked on your page. Sellers can use this to measure engagement with their brand across all Facebook activities and track the success of their programs beyond “likes” and clicks.
• Friends of Fans: This is the total number of friends all your fans have. Sellers can use this to track the growing (or declining) influence of their fan base. As the average goes up, so does the potential reach for a seller’s campaign or promotion.
• Reach: This is the total number of people who have seen content associated with your page. Understanding how far and wide messages are traveling will enable sellers to optimize their content to generate maximum reach.
• Virality: This is the percentage of people who saw a story from your Page and “talked about it.” Again, knowing what’s being shared can help sellers assess what is actually of interest to their fans and customers.

Tips $ Better Facebook Parenting by SagarGanatra

Recently, many people chimed in about the “Laptop Shooting Dad‘s” reaction to his 15-year-old daughter’s Facebook posts. Not only is the subject of social media parenting popular, but his stunt has surpassed 30 million views on YouTube.
While it’s evident that we live in a country of extremes — parents who use guns to make a point vs. parents that find this version of parenting horrific — the bottom line is that we all struggle to find the right balance when helping our kids through their tumultuous teen years.
During a recent #theonlinemom Twitter chat, nearly 400 parents weighed in with what they believed to be fitting alternatives to shooting nine bullets through a laptop. For instance:

• Donate the laptop to a needy school.
• Remove her privileges, like cellphone or allowance.
• Impose an extended grounding.
• Ask the 15-year-old to “clean the cleaning lady’s home.”

So what to do?
Fact #1: Parenting experts agree that a child who feels emotionally and intellectually connected to her parents is likely to make better decisions during puberty and adulthood.
Fact #2: 90% of teens with a social networking account have one on Facebook, and 7.5 million kids under 13 are using Facebook to connect and share experiences with friends and family.
Conclusion: Embrace the platform.
Here are a few useful tips to keep in mind, whether your child is just getting started or is already a Facebook power user.

1. Jump in. If your teen is an avid user and you are not familiar with Facebook, open an account yourself and become familiar with the environment. Ask your teen to help you, to teach you the basics and the settings and to explain why she likes to use Facebook. Remind your teen you’ll be showing her how to drive a car soon — there’s a great quid pro quo!
2. Understand the importance of the platform. Facebook is not just a teen fad; it has also become an essential business tool. Your kids will need to be extremely savvy using and navigating social networks to stay competitive in the new economy.
3. Do not post on her wall. If she decides she’s going to friend you, refrain from any comments, offline or online. Do not comment to her friends when they pop by the house. Be respectful of the online space she has created with her friends.
4. Learn to connect with friends and family. If your teen sees that you are genuinely using Facebook as a way to connect with others, she will be impressed and proud of your ability to embrace a new medium. And believe me, you might just enjoy it!
5. Keep up. Facebook makes constant changes to settings, formats and even basic design, so stay involved and be aware of the changes. Embrace new apps by discussing them with your child. She will be able to relate to you on this level too.
6. Talk about it. Talk about Facebook at dinner — it makes for a great conversation. For instance, discuss how Facebook is as big as the third largest country in the world; how different people use it; what constitutes a friend; the FarmVille and Mafia Wars mania; the company’s IPO; where it may be headed, etc.

As your child’s parent, only you can provide perspective that he or she will learn to trust over the years. Treat Facebook as a new environment you can both explore together.
Do you have other tips to share? Add to the conversation in the comments below.

Hide Friends on Facebook Chat Trick By SagarGanatra

1. Use the Lists Tool

The most efficient way to "hide" on Facebook Chat is to create a list of people you don't want to chat with.
From your homepage, click on the "More" link next to "Lists" on the left hand side of the screen.

2. Making a List

On the next screen, hit "Create List" at the top right, give your list a title and start typing the names of people you want to hide from.
When you've added everyone, save the list down.

3. Chat Options

Next, on the bottom right of your screen, click the cog for your Facebook Chat options.

4. Advanced Settings

Select "Advanced Settings."

5. Control Your Online Status

This gives you the option, before you sign into Chat, to manage your online status.

6. Hide From Certain People

You can choose to appear offline to certain people either by adding in your "offline" list, or typing individual names.

7. Appear Online to Certain People

Alternatively you can choose to appear online to selected people.

8. Go Online

Now, when you sign into Chat, you will only be visible to the select group.

9. Manage Settings Online

Finally, if you forgot to add someone to your list, you can change your online status while you are signed into Chat.To do this, simply click on the person's name, hit the cog menu and select "Go Offline to [Name]."

Brands Shutting Facebook Stores Reason By SagarGanatra

 

Eager to monetize the large followings they had built on Facebook, many large brands set up shop on the social network for the first time last year.
Now many of those Facebook stores are closing.
A Bloomberg report this weekend pointed out that Gap, J.C. Penney, Nordstrom and GameStop have all opened and closed shops on Facebook within the past year — undermining expectations that the social network will become a major revenue driver for retailers over the next decade.
“We just didn’t get the return on investment we needed from the Facebook market, so we shut it down pretty quickly,” Ashley Sheetz, VP of marketing and strategy at GameStop, told Bloomberg. “For us, it’s been a way we communicate with customers on deals, not a place to sell.”
GameStop opened a store on Facebook in April 2011, and closed it six months later.
“There was a lot of anticipation that Facebook would turn into a new destination, a store, a place where people would shop,” Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research, added. “But it was like trying to sell stuff to people while they’re hanging out with their friends at the bar.”

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The End of F-commerce?

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Still, none of this proves that social networks don’t have potential as sales channels. It may be that retailers simply haven’t harnessed the power of these platforms in the right way.
In most cases, retailers have entered the f-commerce market by importing their online catalogs and making them available for purchase in a Facebook app. The experience is nearly identical to shopping on their websites, with two major differences: 1) Shoppers can complete their entire browsing and checkout experience without leaving facebook.com; and 2) the Facebook apps tend to work more slowly.
In other words, consumers have little to no incentive to shop via these Facebook apps.
Others simply have not dealt in enough volume — offering, say, just one item for purchase each month, or discounting one or two items for a short period.
Although these efforts have generated a fair amount of PR buzz, most of these companies are losing money on these efforts because development costs are so high, says Maureen Mullen, director of research and advisory services at luxury research and consulting firm L2.
Or the problem may be Facebook’s competition. If spending time on Facebook is akin to spending time with your friends at a bar, Pinterest is more like heading to a craft fair, Forbes‘s Jeff Bercovici points out — you’re there to browse and to shop, and brands are finding the platform worth investing in.
Facebook, at present, isn’t built for that kind of shopping experience. But it could certainly build Pinterest-like tools to make it that way.
At the very least, Facebook has become an important traffic driver to retailers’ websites. For instance, 1.9% of traffic to Burberry’s website in September 2010 came from Facebook; a year later, 29.1% of site traffic was from the social network, Mullen wrote in an email to Mashable.
“[Burberry is] using the platform to drive traffic at a fraction of the cost of what it would have to pay on Google and other search engines. In addition a significant portion of that traffic and resulting sales is likely incremental,” she added.
Mullen also pointed out that half of shoppers are logged in to Facebook while they shop on third-party ecommerce sites, which lets retailers “capture the massive amount of user data Facebook has,” she says. Brands such as Smashbox and MAC are also incorporating friend recommendations within their ecommerce pages.
In other words, it’s too soon to lament the demise of F-commerce. What we do know is that replicating retailers’ ecommerce sites is not the way to go about generating revenue via Facebook, at least for now.

Facebook Will Verify Celebs By SagarGanatra

 

Facebook will today start offering some users the possibility to verify their accounts, TechCrunch reports.
The feature will start as invite-only, allowing public figures (in the beginning, only users with high subscriber counts will be invited) to change their account to verified status.
Once the account is verified, it will appear more frequently in the “people to subscribe to” list.
Twitter launched verified accounts back in 2009, and Google+ launched a similar feature shortly after launch.
However, unlike Twitter’s version of this feature, Facebook won’t display any sort of badge on verified accounts – a somewhat odd decision, since having a way to distinguish the real person from impostors is precisely why this feature is useful to most users.
Instead, verified users will have the option to display a nickname (Facebook normally requires all users to use their real name) instead of a real name, or have their real name places in parentheses.
To verify your account, you’ll have to send Facebook an image of a government-issued photo ID, or a combination of two alternate IDs (such as birth certificate and credit card). While this will certainly make some users uneasy, Facebook promises to delete this data after verification.

Facebook Timeline: Disliked by SagarGanatra [INFOGRAPHIC]

Facebook layout changes are rarely welcomed with open arms by the majority of users and Timeline has been no exception.
A whopping of 70% of people who responded to a SodaHead poll would ditch Timeline if they could. Some 20% like it and 10% of survey respondents do not have Facebook accounts.
The survey asked 1,327 people what they thought about the soon-to-be mandatory Facebook Timeline.
The countdown to full-adoption of Timeline started two weeks ago, when Facebook announced that users would see notifications on their home page and then have seven days to clean up their Timelines. Facebook hasn’t set a specific date for the universal adoption of Timeline, but it should happen “within a few weeks.”
Facebook Timeline has made some users worried about privacy since viewers can look through each year of a person’s Facebook life in a few clicks. Facebook gives you seven days to make the switch, so you have enough time to hide the content you would like to keep private.



The Sodahead survey looked at the respondents’ genders, ages and geographical locations. Men and women equally dislike Timeline, each at a 77% rate.
While few like Facebook Timeline, Millennials are more likely to accept Facebook’s new look — 30% of 18 to 24-year-olds like Timeline. The next closest age group to embrace Timeline is 13 to 17-year-olds (27%) followed by 25 to 35-year-olds (23%).
found that 79% of more than 1,500 respondents wished the new feature were optional.
Have you enabled your Facebook Timeline yet? Tells us what you think of it in the comments below.

The 35 Things That Could Kill Our Company By SagarGanatra

1. We could simply lose users, or fail to add new ones.
2. We could lose advertisers — and new technology may let users block ads.
3. Facebook’s mobile platform doesn’t show ads — so the more that grows, the worse for us.
4. The platform for Facebook apps might not be successful.
5. The competition from Google, Microsoft and Twitter could heat up — not to mention other social networks around the world.
6. More governments could restrict access to Facebook.
7. Users could turn their noses up at new products.
8. The Facebook culture is all about rapid innovation and getting users engaged — and that could come at the cost of profits.
9. Unspecified future events could tarnish our brand.
10. Bugs might give people access to users’ information that they’re not supposed to see.
11. The media could turn on us.
12. Our quarterly financial results could be difficult to predict.
13. Zynga accounts for 12% of our revenue. If we part ways, that could seriously hurt us.
14. Our revenue grew by 88% last year — and that’s simply not sustainable. Growth is bound to decline.
15. The U.S. laws and regulations we’re governed by could change or be reinterpreted.
16. If our patents and copyrights aren’t granted — or aren’t effective — it could seriously hurt us.
17. We have some patent lawsuits on our hands that could end badly.
18. We’re also involved in class-action lawsuits, and we could lose them too.
19. Mark Zuckerberg has a massive amount of shares, which concentrates power in the hands of one man.
20. There’s a complicated tax liability connected to a particular kind of stock unit we gave out — one that will be taxed at 45%.
21. If we need more rounds of investment, the terms might not be reasonable.
22. Costs might grow faster than revenue.
23. A lot of our servers are handled by third parties, and they might be disrupted.
24. We’ve started building a lot of our own data centers to handle traffic, and we’ve got limited experience doing this kind of thing.
25. Our software is incredibly complex and may have a lot of bugs.
26. We can’t say for sure that we’ll handle our growth effectively — we have more than 3,000 employees now, and that could spin out of control.
27. If we lose our leaders, like Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg, that would really harm us.
28. People might sue us over all sorts of stuff posted on Facebook — intellectual property, copyright, defamation, and so on.
29. Viruses, hacking, phishing and malware. Oh my.
30. Payment systems in Facebook apps could mean new government regulations.
31. We’re continually expanding abroad, and we may not understand all the risks in new countries.
32. We’re planning to acquire lots of other companies, which could disrupt everything at Facebook.
33. We might default on our leases or our debt.
34. Our tax liabilities, in general, are bigger than we thought.
35. U.S. tax code reform, if it happens, might hit us where it hurts.

Brands Management of Facebook Overload Comment

Comscore released data in December 2011 that showed Facebook is virtually synonymous with social media. Worldwide, people spend three out of every four minutes of their total social networking time on Facebook.
Check out the recent comment counts on nearly any major Facebook brand Page — the numbers get big very quickly. Disney’s image of Happy, the dwarf from Snow White earned over 1,600 comments at the time of publication. Coca-Cola asked fans whether they have ice-cold Cokes in their fridges – 2,170+ comments.
And these are just single posts. Add in all other posts, as well as wall comments, and brands quickly face a huge amount of fan commentary to respond to — for better and worse.

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Thousands of Comments Per Hour

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“We have seen many times examples from our customer base when the brand is receiving hundreds or thousands of comments per hour,” said Joe Ciarallo, VP of communications at Buddy Media.
After Facebook announced a new advertising system in 2007, Pages became significant customer conversation hubs for many big brands. Simultaneously, the logistics of managing such a volume of fan interaction had to evolve as well. A brand no longer scrolled through its Facebook Wall, responding and moderating only once or twice a day. Many brands today are forced to manage their Facebook Pages 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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Lessons Learned From Lowe’s

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In early December Lowe’s pulled its advertising from reality TV show American Muslim, due to customer complaints. Once the 24-hour news stations got wind of the move, other customers expressed their anger. Soon, the crossfire found its way to Lowe’s Facebook Page.
One post on Lowe’s Page received 28,000 comments in just a few hours. Many comments were hateful, racist or profane. Lowe’s would normally delete these types of comments, moderate its fans, and keep its fan voice intact, but the company simply could not handle the scale of comments in such a short amount of time.
Brad Walters, social media director for Lowe’s Home Improvement explained the situation. “[We] received thousands of comments from many sides of the issue. Lowe’s allowed the debate to continue on the company’s social media sites, removing only the most hateful and, in some cases violent, posts that clearly violate company policy.”
But Lowe’s did not have a solution to the scale of comments it received in such a short period of time. The company deleted the original post, and the 28,000+ comments along with it. “While we appreciate the desire to discuss previous advertising, the focus of our social channels are helping our customers with their home improvement needs,” said Walters.
The good news is there are services out there that have worked with Facebook to make these situations more manageable. And best practices are emerging. Director of community programming at LiveWorld, Mark Wiliams, says, “We actually see things like the Lowe’s event quite frequently. We work closely with our clients to establish a both a staffing plan and review/escalation process for peak events.”
Let’s review a few key steps that your company can take to prepare itself for these large-scale waves of Facebook commenting.

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1. Declare Your Rules.

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Establish clear commenting guidelines for your Facebook Page. When you do need to enforce these rules, publicly available guidelines will help subdue any arguments by fans and and minimize second-guessing by page admins.
“Almost all of our customers have set guidelines in place for moderation…It’s extremely important to have the basics in place,” said Ciarallo.

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2. Do Not Delete All Negative Comments.

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Make sure your rules reflect your brand values and culture, but avoid a broad-brushed removal of fans’ negative commentary. “It may be tempting to delete the negativity, but it’s much more important to be transparent and respond swiftly,” said Reggie Bradford, founder and CEO of Vitrue.

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3. Enforce Your Rules.

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If you do not moderate Wall comments that violate your policy, you create a double standard and a false expectation for your fans. When a future situation arises and you have to delete a comment, your public guidelines will not be as helpful.

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4. Practice Worst Case Scenarios.

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Training is important. If possible, employ a community manager or staff of social media professionals that can regularly respond to your Facebook community. When a PR crisis spreads to Facebook, your core team is going to need backup; train additional staff to help as needed.
Use the Lowe’s example as a model. What would it take for your organization to moderate 28,000 comments in a few hours? How many people would you need to manage it? What training would those people need? What if the crisis happens outside of normal working hours?

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5. Get Professional Help.

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You may find that your organization is more prepared because it has enlisted outside help that specializes in this type of Facebook comment management. Facebook software vendors like Buddy Media and Vitrue, as well as social moderation services like LiveWorld and ICUC use a combination of technology and manpower to manage these situations. A single moderator can handle 500-1,000 comments per hour, according to Williams.
These services can provide better 24-hour moderation support, and can train specific staff to reflect your company’s guidelines and brand voice. When you have five employees moderating the same thread of comments of Facebook, each individual reviewing the same content at the same time, workflow overlaps and productivity decreases. Software like LiveWorld’s allows a “separation of workflow” that prevents moderators from tackling the same post at the same time.
If your brand invests staff and budget into a Facebook presence and the associated community, your followers may choose to speak out periodically in ways that require response or moderation. Therefore, be prepared.
“Brands should never let volume of comments effect their ability to moderate their communities,” says Ciarallo. “One of the biggest reasons brands devote budget and resources for both people and technology is to make sure they are well prepared for any situation, like the one Lowe’s found themselves in.”

Facebook Timeline for Everyone: How Does it Affect You? [POLL]

We knew this day would come. Now the answer of “when” is somewhat clearer: Facebook Timeline is officially coming to all users within the next few weeks.
According to a Facebook blog post, Timeline will automatically be enabled for all Facebook users. Once users receive this notification, they’ll undergo a “preview period” during which Timeline will only be visible to them, allowing them to customize and hide content that they don’t want to be visible.
Many users have already enabled Timeline, either through the developer hack that was available in September or through the simple one-click activation that Facebook made available in December. For many, however, this will represent their first interaction with it. Even if users have friends that have enabled Timeline, they won’t see it unless they have Timeline enabled themselves.
This got us thinking about how Facebook is undergoing yet another wholesale change, something that we understand will rankle some users and that we’ve ruminated on in the past.
What do you think about Facebook Timeline becoming absolute? Take our poll below and let us know in the comments.

Facebook Shutdown Jan. 28

Anonymous is planning to target Facebook in an attack Jan. 28 — at least that’s what a video uploaded to YouTube Monday is claiming in the name of the hacker network.
And you thought a day without Wikipedia was bad.
“An online war has begun between Anonymous, the people and the government of the United States,” the video begins. “While SOPA and PIPA may be postponed from Congress, this doesn’t guarantee that our Internet rights will be upheld.”
Following the U.S. government shutdown of file-sharing site Megaupload Friday, Anonymous attacked the U.S. Department of Justice’s website, among others.
Monday’s YouTube video calls on the American people to participate in the hack by downloading Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC), the tool that was successfully used to target the Department of Justice. LOIC crashes websites by sending thousands of information packets to their servers.
The video gives instructions for downloading and running the program, as well as a time — 12 a.m. on Jan. 28 — to launch the attack. No time zone, however, is distinguished.
“Would you like to become part of the greatest Internet protests and first official cyber war?,” the video asks. “Operation Global Blackout is ongoing and everyone can be a part of it.”

Facebook, of course, is one of the world’s largest websites, operating through thousands of servers located across the world. In the video, Anonymous acknowledges the difficulties of attacking such a large site.
“While it is true that Facebook has at least 60,000 servers, it is still possible to bring it down,” says the Anonymous voice. “Anonymous needs the help of the people.”
YouTube commenters have raised an important question, Why would Anonymous want to crash Facebook, after the site came out against SOPA and PIPA?
The video essentially equates the privately-owned company with the U.S. government, with no explanation for the linkage. CNET postulates that Zuckerberg took too long to voice his opposition, landing his social network a spot on the potential targets list.
We’ve heard this threat before from the global network of hactivists, who promised to shut down the site Nov. 5, 2011, over user privacy concerns. Ultimately, no attack was executed and the loosely-connected hacker network called the threat the work of peripheral members.
Do you think the threat is serious this time around? Let us know in the comments if you think Facebook is a worthy target.

Ways to Generate Revenue From Facebook

 

Brian Carter is author of The Like Economy: How Businesses Make Money With Facebook and co-author of Facebook Marketing: Leveraging Facebook’s Features For Your Marketing Campaigns. He is a keynote speaker, trainer and consultant.
Facebook, with its 800+ million users, presents a huge opportunity for business. But the first question people ask is, “Can it really generate money?”
If you’ve read any of the Facebook marketing case studies over the last year, you’ve seen examples of small business profits and boosts in ecommerce sales via Facebook sharing.
If your business is ready to move toward Facebook profits, your next question should be: “What distinguishes profitable and unprofitable Facebook marketing campaigns?”
First, consider your revenue model. What steps will get your users to buy? How do you attract their attention in the first place? What does the conversion funnel look like? And how does Facebook fit with the marketing channels that already work for you, like email, text messages and affiliate revenue?
There are a number of strategies companies use to do Facebook business effectively. Let’s look at five of them.

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1. Advertising-Based Ecommerce

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Marketers can leverage the massive reach and highly customizable targeting of Facebook’s ad platform. They can create ads that take clickers straight to an ecommerce site, bypassing fan marketing entirely. The ads-direct-to-websites option is often overlooked, but can be immediately profitable. If you’re not 100% sure about committing to the time and creativity required for fan marketing, then test direct-to-site ad traffic first.
For example, Vamplets.com, which sells plush vampire baby dolls, achieved a 300% ROI on ecommerce sales in its first month of advertising directly to the ecommerce site, according to a company representative.

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2. Fan Marketing Ecommerce

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Fan marketing is selling to fans by posting from your page into their news feeds.
Fans appear to be more responsive when acquired through ads than through contests, content or legacy. Data analysis in 2011 from companies like PageLever revealed that many multimillion-fan brand pages were reaching 7% or fewer of their fans. Some pages have hundreds of thousands of fans who never liked or commented on a post, and have not seen the page’s posts for years.
Success with fan marketing requires that you be as visible as possible to your fans, and EdgeRank has a time decay factor. New fans may be required in some cases. Some businesses have taken the radical step to start entirely new pages and use Facebook ads to grow a new and more targeted fan base. With their more sophisticated and up-to-date understanding of how to engage fans, they achieve better results than they had with their old page.
Some profitable examples include Baseball Roses, Rosehall Kennel, WUSLU and SuperHeroStuff.
Baseball Roses sells artificial roses made from real baseballs. Founder of the company, Mark Ellingson, explained that they were unsuccessful with Google AdWords because no one was searching for their innovative product. They achieved a 473% ROI from their spend on fan acquisition via Facebook ads.
Rosehall Kennel breeds and sells German Shepherds, and has achieved more than 4,000% ROI on its fan acquisition spend, according to owner Eliot Roberts. What’s more, they have seen fewer requests for discounts and a shorter sales cycle.
WUSLU is a Woot-like site for home decor. While the company would not release exact profitability numbers, they are excited about their Facebook marketing results and have no plans to stop.
SuperHeroStuff.com’s founder Ronando Long told me that when the company began to use Facebook in 2011, it was the only new thing they were doing, and their revenues increased 150%.

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3. Facebook Ads and Email

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Many companies already have email dialed in. They know how much the average email subscriber is worth to their company, and they have an email marketing process that’s profitable.
For these companies, whether they initiate fan marketing or not, it makes sense to use Facebook ads to acquire even more subscribers, as long as those subscribers are qualified. Facebook advertising can be targeted according to 16 different criteria, including age, gender, interests, location, relationship status, connection to pages you admin, workplace, education level, majors in college and more. Add to that some ad copy that calls out the people you want to target, and you can ensure these new subscribers are qualified.
By sending contest-based email campaigns integrated with social networking, one Fortune 500 company achieved a 400% increase in email open rate, click rates of 14%, and one-fifth of their email subscribers also became fans, according to Steve Gaither, president of JB Chicago, the marketing agency that worked with the company.

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4. Facebook Ads and Text Messaging

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Businesses haven’t rushed to adopt SMS marketing, but 24% of mobile marketers have found their campaign ROI met or exceeded their expectations, and 4% of all mobile users have responded to a coupon for a product or service.
One local store (from a popular fast food franchise I’m not allowed to name) boosted revenue with this approach. It posted information about free text message coupons to its Facebook fans. Fans who opted in received an SMS coupon every day for 30 days. The result was $65,000 additional store revenue.

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5. Generating Traffic to Your Ad-Supported Site

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If you’re a publisher or blogger, content is your stock in trade, and advertising is usually your bread and butter. Why not create a Facebook page for your site, grow that fan base, then post a link to every new article? This boosts traffic to your website. Since your advertising revenue is tied to pageviews, more traffic from new readers and repeat traffic from fans mean more advertising revenues for your website.
Proud Single Moms, which created a Facebook page, grew about 98,000 fans via Facebook ads for less than $5,000, according to the site’s creator. Since the website uses AdSense ads, they chose to blog on topics that not only were interesting to moms, but which also had Google keywords generating high click fees. You can use a combination of the Facebook advertising platform and AdWords’ Keyword Tool to find interesting and profitable topics. Then they posted links to their blog posts on Facebook each day. Proud Single Moms was on track to break even on its initial ad investment within six months, and was privately sold to another party.

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Which Revenue Model Should You Choose?

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If one of these models isn’t an obvious match for your business, I’d recommend you first test direct Facebook ads to whatever is already working for your business. Do you have products or services that already sell well? Use Facebook ads to send more traffic to them.
Fans can also be affordably acquired through Facebook ads, but make sure you understand the amount of time and creativity required for fan marketing before you start. Companies that jump into fan marketing without that understanding and a good plan usually post in a way that doesn’t lead to much interaction. Then, EdgeRank reduces the reach and value of your Facebook page. Overall, the ROI of your efforts becomes low or negative. But when you get the right fans from Facebook ads and engage them with interesting content, profits often follow

My Life Without Facebook: A Social Human's Experiment by sagarganatra

In July, I deactivated my Facebook account as a sort of social experiment. With Facebook and real life becoming increasingly symbiotic, what would I miss? What wouldn’t I miss?

This didn’t begin as an impulsive decision with unexpected consequences, and I’m not a Facebook hater by any stretch. I love and use social media, and am fascinated by what its explosion has enabled in a variety of arenas. Facebook has obviously been a huge — and probably the single most comprehensive — part of that.
My experiment has continued longer than I expected. I haven’t quit, purposefully not deleting my account entirely. But through extended deactivation, I have learned some things: that I miss out on a lot of conversations now; that, somewhat ironically, I’m more focused now than before on my own life and needs; and that I’m not the only person who wonders, to-FB-or-not-to-FB?

A recent New York Times article titled “The Facebook Resisters” profiled young-adult Facebook abstainers who point to concerns about privacy, alienation and information overload. But I’m interested in a broader question: In a world where it now seems more generally accepted to be on Facebook than not be on, what’s it like to opt out?

Since July, I haven’t felt like I need Facebook socially, but there is plenty I’m missing out on. During the many times when funny Facebook photos from parties or nights out come up when hanging out with friends, I feel like the only kid on the schoolyard without a TV, lost at sea while other kids recite lines from The Simpsons. I also frequently find myself playing catch-up when someone brings up an article someone else shared on Facebook. And there’s a whole world of flirting and getting-to-know-you that no longer exists for me.
I miss the definite ease of communication with friends and acquaintances. I’ve used Facebook before to find sources for articles too, but no longer can. So, now my avenues of communication are more segmented: Twitter to keep in touch with some friends, mostly those I’ve met through work, and find cool articles people recommend; LinkedIn to organize my professional contacts; and old-fashioned phone and email to keep up and make plans with close friends.

But it’s what I’ve actually enjoyed about being off of Facebook that has surprised me most. I spend less time on my computer without Facebook’s source of infinite content. During real life experiences, what is or isn’t worth sharing on Facebook no longer lingers in the back of my mind, so I spend more time simply enjoying the present. And the false comparisons between others’ curated digital self-presentations and my own naturally widespread sources of pride, fulfillment, dissatisfaction and insecurity no longer exist.
In the final analysis, what my little experiment has shown me is that Facebook has become so ingrained in human life that it’s kind of like religion in a way. You can partake or not partake as much as you like, but the thing itself isn’t going anywhere. Your choice won’t change anything in the bigger picture, but I’ve found it fascinating to explore the differences in my own life.

After five months, I’m going to keep the experiment going. It’s been fun to be deactivated, but I’m not going to delete. I’ll be back one day. But, for now, I’m enjoying my life offline.

What do you think? Have you ever deactivated or deleted your Facebook account? Why, and what was it like? Just how ingrained is Facebook in your life? Let me know in the comments.