Oxford Communications is an agency deeply committed to understanding the way consumers live, eat, sleep, socialize, make decisions and (ultimately) buy. So, believe me, we definitely like tracking changes. This report is less about how consumers change, and more about the nitty gritty details of the recent changes to Facebook - the platform that fuels the social lives of half of the people living in the United States.
On Feb. 10, 2011, Facebook released its first major update to Facebook Pages, its product offering for businesses, in over six months. The changes, billed by Facebook as ‘upgrades’, move Pages closer to the newly re-designed Facebook Profile Pages, which users have been enjoying (or complaining about) since Dec. 2010.
2. 2 | Like Change? | Feb. 2011 oxfordcommunications.com
LIKE CHANGE?
Oxford Communications is an agency deeply committed to
understanding the way consumers live, eat, sleep, socialize, make
decisions and (ultimately) buy. So, believe me, we de nitely like
tracking changes. This report is less about how consumers change,
and more about the nitty gritty details of the recent changes to
Facebook - the platform that fuels the social lives of half of the
people living in the United States.
On Feb. 10, 2011, Facebook released its rst major update to
Facebook Pages, its product offering for businesses, in over six
months. The changes, billed by Facebook as ‘upgrades’, move Pages The subsequent pages of this report cover the full range of
closer to the newly re-designed Facebook Pro le Pages, which users changes that Facebook has announced in 2011, including:
have been enjoying (or complaining about) since December 2010. • Tabs have moved and now allow use of iFrames
• Targeted postings based on location and language
Some of the upgrades premiering today had actually already been • Profanity block is now available to administrators
previewed (accidentally) by Facebook on Dec. 16, 2010, when an • New ability to post questions to users
error in its system prematurely pushed the changes public. The • Exciting new Facebook Advertising announcements
kerfuf e was widely covered by Facebook enthusiast publications
and prompted a bigger conversation about Facebook’s level of Many of these updates create interesting opportunities for brands
communication with its business Users. At the time, a Facebook to continue growing closer to their consumers. We look forward
spokeswoman who was interviewed by Mashable had this to say: to ongoing work with our clients to explore innovative strategies
for energizing those consumers most passionate about the
Organizations invest a lot of time on their Facebook Pages brands they ‘like.’
because millions of people nd them useful everyday. We remain
committed to providing ways for Page owners to customize and Yours Truly,
control the experience on their Page. If we do make changes, we
will provide partners with advance notice.
Facebook is offering Page administrators the option of activating the Ben Grossman
upgrades manually between the date of launch and Mar. 10, 2011, Communications Strategist
creating a one month period of ‘advance notice.’ As is true of many Oxford Communications
of the Facebook updates, these changes will surely improve the e: bgrossman@oxfordcommunications.com
product offering in the long run, but will be met with hesitation in the c: 602.741.0314
short term.
3. 3 | Like Change? | Feb. 2011 oxfordcommunications.com
PAGE
UPGRADES
Released February 10, 2011
4. 4 | Like Change? | Feb. 2011 oxfordcommunications.com
TABS: LOCATION & iFRAMES
One of the most customizable areas of
Pages, Tabs, will experience two major
changes. First, Tabs will now be located
on the left hand side of Pages, rather
than along the top of the Page.
Second, Tabs — previously only the
result of savvy FBML coding — will now
be able to support iFrame-based
applications.
Tabs, which are still limited to a quantity
of six will also accommodate longer Tab
names. Icons appearing beside the Tab
names will identify what type of
application is supporting that Tab,
creating some less-than-perfect results
for the majority of Pages out there that
use Static FBML-based Tabs.
Facebook had initially announced that
the iFrame compatibility would be
released in Q4 2010, but it was
postponed until Q1 2011. ‘Inline
Frames’ will now be an option for
Pages, expanding the number of
options for developers and creating
less dependency on the Facebook
Platform for running applications. This
feature will affect the way we utilize
Tabs and their capabilities going
forward, but will not require any
immediate changes on Tabs
programmed in the past.
5. 5 | Like Change? | Feb. 2011 oxfordcommunications.com
PHOTOSTRIP
The ve latest images posted by Pages will be prominently
displayed across the top of Pages, much as they appear on user
pro les (since Dec. 2010).
We see amazing potential for this new feature. Initial ideas range
from using this space to promote new product callouts to featuring
the season’s latest fashions. Administrators will have the ability to
curate the photos in this space and to exclude speci c photos from
the Photostrip.
6. 6 | Like Change? | Feb. 2011 oxfordcommunications.com
LIKES: A BIT MORE LIKABLE
Previously, Facebook’s design has put an emphasis on the
photographs of users who like a given Page, rather than the sheer
quantity of ‘likers.’ In the new layout, however, much more
emphasis is put on the number of people who like the Page.
While we still maintain that brands should seek quality users to like
the page, rather than quantity, we do see it as increasingly
important that Pages have a number of ‘likers’ that validates the
brand and is competitive with other like-sized businesses.
PROFILE IMAGE DIMENSIONS
Previously, Facebook accepted pro le images at sizes
up to 200 x 600 pixels. Going forward, the maximum
size of these images will change to 185 x 540 pixels.
Though the real estate devoted to pro le images may
be shrinking slightly, we still think making full use of
this space — with optimizations for the new size
restrictions — is a key part of a quality branded
Facebook Page.
7. 7 | Like Change? | Feb. 2011 oxfordcommunications.com
TARGETED POSTS
Previously, when administrators of Pages sent out a post, they were required to
send it out to all users who had liked the Page. This dynamic often created major
quandaries for brands with multiple extensions in geographically and culturally
diverse locations. With this update to Pages, that dynamic changes.
Administrators will now be able to geo-target posts to countries, states and cities.
While Facebook refers to this feature as ‘geo-targeting,’ posts can also be targeted
to speakers of speci c languages. This new feature opens up possibilities for
franchises with managers running local specials, regional announcements based on
weather conditions, and relevant, multilingual posts for multi-national brands.
The new functionality may also resolve some of the con icts faced by brands in the
past when considering whether individual locations or branches of businesses
should have their own Facebook Pages, as opposed to one, uni ed corporate
Page.
E-MAIL NOTIFICATIONS
Administrators will now be empowered with the option
to have individual emails sent to them every time users
post on the Page. At this time, email noti cation will
not be customizable, but we would love to opt-in to
emails sent on an hourly basis or at longer time
intervals. We expect this feature to be frequently
requested by users.
This new feature may empower the administrators of
smaller Pages, but the frequency of emails is likely not
very useful to administrators of larger Pages. In the
long term, the advancement of this feature may make
third party services, like NutshellMail, less necessary.
However, we believe there will still be a place for
vendors to provide more user-friendly services.
8. 8 | Like Change? | Feb. 2011 oxfordcommunications.com
THE WALL
The main portion of Pages that features conversations and posts from brands will now offer two settings: Everyone and Page Posts.
While administrators will be able to choose the default setting for users arriving to the Page, those who like the Page will also be able to
toggle back and forth between the two settings.
The Page Posts setting will only show posts by administrators of the Page, creating a stream of content fully controlled by the brand(this
functionality has always been available). The Everyone setting will show posts by users as well as administrators, but will use an
algorithm to determine the most relevant posts to the viewer of the page. Facebook’s algorithm, likely similar to that which controls the
News Feed, will prioritize posts with more comments, likes and interactions, as well as those authored by friends, by featuring them in
more prominent positions than less relevant posts.
9. 9 | Like Change? | Feb. 2011 oxfordcommunications.com
PROFANITY BLOCK
Administrators will now be able to select and automatically block
‘keywords’ and ‘profanity’ from users’ postings on Pages. Facebook
will provide administrators with three choices in terms of settings:
Strong, Medium and None. Facebook has not indicated which
words will be blocked automatically for each setting, but
administrators can also build their own customized list of words to
be monitored, based on brand sensitivity.
Posts that are caught by the moderation block will be held for
administrators to review before they go live. Administrators will be
able to view posts that include ‘keywords’ and choose to keep or
remove them from the Wall.
10. 10 | Like Change? | Feb. 2011 oxfordcommunications.com
POSTING QUESTIONS
Also released in Facebook’s Page upgrades documentation is a glimpse at what the roll-out of the long awaited
Questions feature might look like. While Facebook hasn’t speci cally covered it, we’re expecting that
administrators will be able to post questions directly to their Pages.
The section of Facebook’s website dedicated to the new feature (http://www.facebook.com/questions) is
promising the new feature’s release within the next few weeks.
LIKING OTHER PAGES
The Page feature previously known as “Favorite Pages” will now be known as “Likes” of the Page. Historically,
we’ve seen parent brands use this section for its subsidiaries; national chains use it for their local stores; and
brands use it to recognize their partners. While the feature remains generally the same, it will be given slightly
more primacy in the upgraded Page layout.
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ADMINISTRATOR SETTINGS
Administrators will now be able to identify themselves on the Page as the curators and link to their personal Pro le Pages. While we think
this approach is extraordinarily useful to small businesses, whose owners and employees are an integral part of the brand, we advise
against it for bigger brands that don’t already use a human as the central focus of their social media presences. Adding an administrator’s
personal pro le to the Page is an invitation to engage with that individual personally, instead of as a representative of a brand.
Administrators will also be able to choose a setting identi ed as ‘Use Facebook as Page,’ instead of using Facebook through the lens of a
user’s personal Pro le Page. We expect this newly clari ed setting to allow administrators to differentiate more effectively between work
and play. The other exciting side effect of this change is that brands (using their Page identity) can now post on other Pages. For
instance, if a company is sending a team to its local 5K charity run, it can announce that on the charity’s Page in the brand’s voice.
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ADVERTISING
OFFERINGS
Released January 26, 2011 to February 8, 2011
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SPONSORED STORIES
Advertisers can now purchase dynamic premium ad units that leverage user-generated ‘stories,’ or
content (including check-ins, posts or application use) within their advertisements. Essentially, this
new ad unit allows brands, about which users are already talking, to amplify those conversations by
increasing the visibility of users’ activities on Facebook.
A 2010 study conducted by Nielsen and Facebook established that pre-existing ad units featuring
social context perform better than those that don’t. We expect this new offering to take that concept
to the next level. We know that opinions of friends, family and online strangers are the most trusted
form of advertising. These ad units will — in a paid context — amplify that most effective form of
advertising: earned media.
14. 14 | Like Change? | Feb. 2011 oxfordcommunications.com
ADS FOR TABS
In the past, social ad units have
been available on a limited basis:
they had to link to a general Page,
an Event, a Group or an Application.
Previously, only traditional display
ads (without social context) were
available for Tabs.
Facebook has now added the
capability to advertise speci c Tabs
with social ad units. Being able to
drive traf c to more targeted
locations, while maintaining social
context, will bene t advertisers’
ability to create a uid journey for
audiences.
15. 15 | Like Change? | Feb. 2011 oxfordcommunications.com
PHOTO ALBUMS WITH ADS
Facebook is rolling out an update to the way users view photos. Soon, when users view photo albums across the board, they experience
the album in a lightbox context that puts more focus on the photographs, comments and, of course, advertising. With the new update,
advertisers purchasing ads through Facebook will see their ads in one more place — the lower right-hand corner of these photo albums.
16. 16 | 2011 CES SOCIAL REPORT oxfordcommunications.com
OXFORD COMMUNICATIONS
We are the full-service marketing, creative and
communications agency that issues one call to
our clients and employees alike: Be Brilliant.
That call echoes through our agency’s work that ranges the full gamut of integrated services, including account planning, social
media, interactive, public relations and media. Ultimately, our services are built to leverage a combination of online and of ine
initiatives that generate in uence when, where and how it matters to consumers most.
Oxford has a track record of bringing category re-de ning work to brands in a diverse set of industries, ranging from fashion retail, to
consumer electronics, to quick service restaurants, to healthcare organizations. As a result, we are proud to have worked with some
of the biggest names in the industries we work in, like Audiovox Corporation, Bombardier, Prime Retail and Brother International, as
well as many other dominant regional and niche players.
GET SOCIAL WITH US, BEN GROSSMAN
Communications Strategist
WON’T YOU? o: 609.397.4242 x174
For more information, e: bgrossman@oxfordcommunications.com
please contact a member of
the Communications team: CHRISTOPHER STEMBOROWSKI
Associate Communications Strategist
o: 609.397.4242 x172
e: cstemborowski@oxfordcommunications.com
JORDYN HAAS
Associate Communications Strategist
o: 609.397.4242 x154
e: jhaas@oxfordcommunications.com