Lauren Indvik | Cheryl Waller

Facebook Insights Gets a Makeover

June 19, 2013 by Lauren Indvik Leave a Comment

Facebook Page owners, rejoice: Facebook Insights, the social network's analytics dashboard for public Pages, is getting a makeover. A small, random group of beta testers will get access to the new desktop design on Wednesday, with a broader rollout to follow at an unspecified date.

The new design is simpler, cleaner and more intelligible. Stats that were previously rolled in together (i.e., "People Talking About This") have been broken down into separate charts that allow Page owners to individually measure the reach and engagement (likes, comments, clicks and shares) of individual posts. Additional charts make it easier for users to see what kinds of posts — say, those with videos, or ones targeted to certain groups — have better reach or more positive engagement than others. Owners can also now break down demographic behavior ~~on individual posts~~ to see, for example, if Read more...

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You Can Now Send Amazon Group Gift Cards via Facebook

June 18, 2013 by Lauren Indvik Leave a Comment

Amazon's Friends and Family Gifting feature is getting a little more social with the Tuesday launch of a tool that allows you to create and send group gift cards to your Facebook friends on their birthdays.

By connecting your Facebook and Amazon accounts, you can keep tabs on your friends' birthdays and prepare group gift cards in advance. To get started, head over to Amazon.com/birthdaygift, select a friend with an upcoming birthday and privately invite friends (via Facebook) to contribute to a gift card. Participants can contribute as little as $1 and as much as $25, and can also invite other friends to join, a spokesperson for Amazon told Mashable. The card, personalized with your message, is delivered to the recipient's Facebook wall on his or her birthday. Read more...

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Frank Gehry to Design Facebook’s New NYC Office

June 4, 2013 by Lauren Indvik Leave a Comment

Facebook confirmed last week's reports that it has signed a 10-year lease for just under 100,000 square feet of office space at 770 Broadway in lower Manhattan. The company will be moving all of its teams from its current office near Grand Central to two floors at the new office, the interior of which architect Frank Gehry has agreed to design.

Gehry is already leading the expansion of Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. A source familiar with Facebook's plans said the company is "extraordinarily pleased with [Gehry's] ability to delivery an incredible quality of design at a remarkably efficient price" and asked him to do the interior of the New York office as well. The source added that the design for the New York office will be "very similar" to the one Gehry has signed for Facebook's headquarters, featuring open floor plans, natural lighting and spaces for collaboration. Read more...

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AOL, Yahoo Were Better Investments This Year Than Facebook Stock

May 18, 2013 by Lauren Indvik Leave a Comment

Ah, the benefit of hindsight.

Those who rushed to buy Facebook stock at its initial public offering price of $38 per share on May 18, 2012, are likely a little disappointed with their investment one year later. Though the stock has recovered from its $17.55 September 4 low, the price of the stock today, at a little more than $26 per share, is still closer to its all-time low than its opening price.

What if investors had put their money into other technology or Internet companies? Statistics database Statista looked at how a $1,000 investment made on the day of Facebook's IPO would have performed nearly one year later in the chart below. Read more...

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Cost Per Like: A Subjective Valuation of Your Facebook Fans

April 26, 2013 by Lauren Indvik Leave a Comment

"Cost per Like" often crops up in conversations about Facebook advertising, though it isn't a term officially sanctioned by Facebook. So what exactly does it mean?

Cost per Like refers to the cost of acquiring a new fan for a Facebook page, either through paid advertisements or, less directly, through earned media efforts.

There are three ways to "buy" Likes on Facebook. One is through "cost per thousand impressions" (CPM). Advertisers bid to target a group of desired users, and pay every time their ad is seen by a thousand of those users. A second option is "cost per click" (CPC) campaigns, wherein advertisers pay every time their ad for their Facebook Page is clicked on. Neither of these options guarantees these users will become fans, however, it simply guarantees that they'll either 1) be exposed to an ad for a Page or 2) see a Page. Read more...

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Users Stay Longer on Tumblr Than Facebook, Says David Karp

April 17, 2013 by Lauren Indvik Leave a Comment

Tumblr users spend an average of 14 minutes per visit, Tumblr founder and CEO David Karp revealed on stage at a paidContent conference in New York City Wednesday. That's about a minute-and-a-half longer than the average Facebook visit, and a few minutes longer than the average Twitter visit, he said.

"Does Mark [Zuckerberg] know that?" Karp's interviewer, GigaOM senior writer Mathew Ingram, asked.

"He does. I've made sure he does," said Karp.

The reason for the longer session time is not that Tumblr is "so much better," Karp explained. "It's very different behavior. People come here for same reason they turn their TV on when they come home at the end of the day ... It's something to do before checking your email, it's a chance to go and see stuff you enjoy, let's you escape from the real world. And that media experience is one that ends up consuming a fair bit more time than just the amount of time you spend checking your friends updates on Facebook or Twitter or Foursquare." Read more...

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Users Stay Longer on Tumblr Than Facebook, Says David Karp

April 17, 2013 by Lauren Indvik Leave a Comment

"Does Mark [Zuckerberg] know that?" Karp's interviewer, GigaOM senior writer Mathew Ingram, asked.

"He does. I've made sure he does," said Karp.

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One Year After Facebook Acquisition, Instagram Delivers on Its Promise

April 10, 2013 by Lauren Indvik Leave a Comment

A year ago this week, Facebook surprised the world by announcing an agreement to acquire Instagram for a whopping $1 billion one month shy of its initial offering on the stock market. At the time, Instagram was a comparatively small but beloved mobile app for editing and sharing photos with no discernible revenue model. Facebook investors were worried it wouldn't contribute to Facebook's bottom line; Instagram users were worried the service they'd come to know and love would be absorbed into Facebook.

In a note posted to Instagram's blog shortly after the deal was announced, Instagram co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom pledged that Instagram would remain essentially the same, and that under new owners, would continue to improve and evolve. He wrote: Read more...

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Facebook Managing Editor to Depart

March 21, 2013 by Lauren Indvik Leave a Comment

Dan Fletcher, Facebook's managing editor, has announced that he is planning to leave the company next month.

Speaking to a gathering of students at faculty at Washington State University Wednesday evening, Fletcher said he is departing to pursue his own startup, according to two journalism students in attendance.

"I'm leaving Facebook in the middle of April because I'm so excited about these other models," Fletcher said. "I think largely, Facebook is a really good force in our society, but there's other stories I want to tell, too."

Fletcher confirmed the news in a public post on his Facebook Page after the talk:

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4 Ways Publishers Can Optimize for Facebook’s New News Feed

March 7, 2013 by Lauren Indvik Leave a Comment

Facebook unveiled its "new" News Feed Thursday, and while we won't know the full range of effects it will have on the pages of brands and publishers for some time, Facebook has provided a few clues to help administrators optimize their pages ahead of its rollout.

First, let's take a look at the changes. The new News Feed is cleaner, more visual and has more filtering controls. The size of photos and videos have been enlarged, making the quality of visual media more important than ever before. That's great news for magazines and other publishers with deep photo resources; for publishers that rely largely on Creative Commons or stock imagery, the challenge is greater.