Monday 22 September 2014

Facebook's: "Invite People Who Like This Post to Like Your Page" currently not working





Oh no you're not!


If you click on the list of users who have liked a post on your Facebook Page,




you may see the following screen shot:
























This feature should in theory allow you to invite users who have liked your post to like your page. The problem is that it doesn't seem to be currently working. Many Page managers in Facebook's forums are reporting that this feature simply does not work.

No invite of any sort is sent. The problem is compounded by the fact, that once you click on the 'Invite' button, it will actually say 'Invited', leaving you to think that an invite has been sent. But alas it hasn't.






It's not clear whether Facebook will ever make this feature functional, possibly fearing users being flooded with too many invites and hence making them less likely to 'like' posts in the future. That's fair enough, it may not be a very good idea. But if it's not functional, it shouldn't really be in the user display.

Friday 19 September 2014

How long does it take to put a Facebook post?

Forget the tales of the 1 minute wonder post on Twitter or Facebook


Online marketers may tell you stories of how their most successful social media post for a client came from a quick snap on their mobile phone, with an off the cuff caption leading to the best ever engagement stats.



Perhaps the best recent example of this type of post is the "You can still dunk in the dark" tweet for Oreo cookies by the 360i agency, during the Super Bowl blackout. It was genius, and by definition very rare.  As with Archimedes, the Eureka idea comes along, if it ever does, after thousands of hours of hard work. It's just the way the creative mind works, it can't just create from a vacuum. It's also difficult to repeat a genius idea/creation, because the opportunity or setting for the creation does not come along regularly.


The typical Facebook post


So I just want to run you through the process of putting up a typical Facebook post for a client. This is not the most complicated post ever or the easiest, but is a good indicator of the work involved. Remember for each client you may be uploading anywhere between 4 to 30 posts per month, depending on requirements.


1. The Idea


First you need to come up with the raw ideas. Whether you prefer brainstorming with a group, or thinking in the shower, or letting the ideas "just come to you", or whatever works for you. But before you begin you need to have a set of ideas on the proverbial table. In our agency a few people chip in, some more than others :-)



















Now depending on the brief from the client, the raw idea can't be all that raw. Naturally, there are always parameters regarding what you can show or what you can write for the caption.

In addition nearly all brands will have guidelines relating to their core values. Their brand has to be portrayed within a particular framework, radiating certain characteristics. The picture of an obese woman just wouldn't be right for a soft drinks company, or a Bangladeshi factory for a sports shoe brand.

In addition, clients will have creative guidelines. At its simplest, some brands will be looking for professional looking photos, whereas some will want more realistic mobile phone type snaps. There are usually also colour code and product presentation considerations.

Now for one of our clients, Bavaria (a Dutch beer company), we came up with the idea of creating a Facebook post to highlight the various flavours of their non alcoholic beer. This was the raw idea. A secondary objective of the post was to give it a 'summer feel'. After all that's when people are drinking the most, and also when our Facebook post was due to go up.


2. How to capture the idea?


The best representation of an idea depends on your budget! But typically, even the loosest and biggest advertising accounts cannot afford to empty the bank for each single Facebook post. So the most common social media post is not usually a heavily edited one million dollar viral youtube video, but just a straightforward rendering of an idea. In fact, I would say the most effective social media post is a simple idea, simply captured. As it was the case with the Oreo post from 360i.


“the most effective social media post is a simple idea, simply captured”



3. Decide on the medium


Videos, sketches, animations, photos etc. are all possible and viable options for a Facebook post. I tend to prefer photos for most posts, as I think the audience finds it more 'real' and engages better with it. But photos for every post is not appropriate! I also love short animations.


Should I sketch a story board before the photo shoot?

This is a good idea if you wish to communicate the idea to the client; but in reality whereas this might be the accepted norm for advertising, when it comes to social media, you have very little time and have to figure out the best 'look' during the photo shoot itself.

You may not have a story book sketch in your hands, but at the very least you should go into the photo shoot with a couple of ideas for the 'look' you wish to achieve.


4. The photo shoot


Depending on the budget and the post, this can be you and your mobile, you in a photo studio or outside with a photographer or if you are a good photographer, you with your fancy camera!

This can be the tricky stage, if you don't have the patience or an overall vision of what you are looking for. Even, if you know exactly what you want, it can take many iterations before you see the result you were after.

So back to our post for Bavaria...We want to highlight the various flavours and give it a summer feel! Okay so straight off, we probably want to do this shoot when it's sunny! That may sound simple, but trust me when you are in London, that's not so simple.


The ideas for the shoot


With fingers crossed that the sun will show up, we can try a few ideas for the look of the photo:

Have 5 drinking glasses each coupled with a fruit reflecting a Bavaria flavour. Bavaria cans should casually be hanging around in front of a table, outdoors in a sunny setting.


Okay so buy a few nice looking fruit matching the flavours of the beer cans.


Let's get snapping


After 28 photo snaps...

The focus of the picture is the Bavaria glasses and fruit, but it just doesn't look right...we need to try another look
















Hmmm...it just doesn't look right visually, good idea on paper but doesn't look appealing!



This time we forget about the cans, let's just fill the glasses with each can and have the matching fruit next to it.

After 38 snaps...














This is certainly better, but it does not convey the association between the canned beer and flavours enough, and it also doesn't look that attractive to look at. Try another look, this time with the cans.



Let's get the cans back into it and get rid of the glasses to see what happens. Just put a fruit relating to the flavour on the can rather than next to it. Very simple...



After 65 snaps...


Okay looking more appealing...but the exposure and contrast doesn't look quite right...


This idea seems fine now. It's capturing the summer and it's showing off the flavours. The photo itself could be better. The contrast doesn't seem quite right. The white goal post to the top right of the picture in the background may also be taking away the attention from the cans. 



Stick to the same composition, but change backgrounds and play with contrasts


After 120 snaps we finally get a decent shot...
And here it is the final shot, and the photo chosen for the post.


Yes, this is a simple photo which looks attractive and conveys the message we want to get across: Bavaria has fruity flavours for the summer.

Would this photo make it more likely for someone to try a fruit flavoured Bavaria on a hot sunny day, probably yes. We have the sun, the fruit, and cans you can buy from the supermarket shelves. Job done! Well not quite...



5. Photoshop only if absolutely necessary


We only photoshop if strictly necessary. For this post we didn't. This way photos stay more real and more relevant. Remember it's not a glamour shoot, we just want to create an image which is attractive but real.



6. What about the copy?


Yes, of course we now have to think of the caption. Again, this is the stage when you need to do some creative thinking. The obvious caption may seem to be:



"Bavaria, fresh flavours for the summer!"

Hmmm it's good, but a bit advertorial. Also we can see it's Bavaria, and it's obviously showing off the flavours, so we are perhaps stating the obvious. And why would anyone engage with this post. Okay some may post comments such as, "cool" or "nice" but there won't be any social engagement.



How about we simply write:

"Which is your favourite flavour?"


It's a simple question begging an answer, and is very likely to engage the user. It's also indirectly asking people to take a closer look at the flavours, to choose their favourite. Users may also find out which flavour their friends like better and it makes the post truly social. You normally care about what your friends like. The caption adds to the photo, it doesn't just describe it.

“A good caption should always add to the photo, not describe it”



So after a round of raw ideas, buying a few fruit from a grocer, a sunny day and 120 camera snaps, the post is ready to go up.

Now that's how long it takes to do the average Facebook post for a client, in this case around 1 working day. But it's worth spending the time to get it right, the post was very successful with many likes and comments.



The final post



Which is your favourite flavour?


Bahram Pourghadiri is a marketing and economics enthusiast. He is the CEO of Persicom. He has a PhD in Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). You can follow Persicom on twitter @persicom

Thursday 18 September 2014

Forget about page likes, what should be Facebook's top metric?

With the numerous modifications to news feeds, I think it's high time Facebook

dropped the number of page likes as it's top metric for Facebook Business pages.

But what should it replace it with?



Just a quick gripe first: too many numbers not enough clarity

There are essentially 3 sources of data on the performance of your Facebook business page:
  1. The Insights interface - This is intended to give you an overview of the performance of your Facebook page. It has data on the fan base, the demographics, the individual posts etc.
    Recently this has been upgraded and is now clearer and more helpful than the previous version, but in my opinion it was a missed opportunity to provide a clear visual representation of your page's performance.
  2. The exportable data - These are the excel style data sheets which you can export. Essentially raw data which you can analyse on your own. There is currently an option for an 'old' or a 'new' version of the data. These two differ by the type of metrics which are provided. Facebook has phased out some of the analytical indicators and introduced new ones. This is what many Facebook page managers or social media analytic companies make use of in their client reports.
Insights current export interface
Insights current export interface
3. API data - The Application Program Interface dataset is the bank of information available to developers who may want to dynamically produce their own reports on a Facebook page. This is typically used by bigger social media analytic companies, as well as online services which in effect provide you with their own version of Insights. As with the export data, some of the indicators are being phased out and new ones being introduced.

Mark Twain apparently said, "Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable".

In Facebook's case they are particularly pliable.

The problem is that there is a lack of transparency and clarity from Facebook on its Insights metrics. The definitions are just not specific enough. 
I don't think this lack of clarity is intentional; I simply think Facebook has not grasped two important concepts when reporting performance. One, the user interface should be incredibly simple and user friendly, and the export data should be extremely nerdy and specific! Even if this means writing a paragraph on each measure! These raw datasets are going to be used by number crunchers, so it's important that they are very clear about what they are crunching!
To be fair, dozens of data columns are provided by Facebook at the page and post level, but their definitions and how they relate to each other are not specific enough.
Please read a great blog post by Ben Donkor on the difference between engagement vs consumption, which opens up a can of worms on a number of Facebook definitions. Or see my post on how the new prominent engagement rate stat from Facebook can be wildly skewed and manipulated.
On top of that, there are of course occasional bugs in Facebook's performance reporting, which while understandable, can push you from mild confusion to complete frustration.

The highlighted indicators are not always worthy

Clients naturally gravitate towards the measures which are more prominent on Facebook's interface, but often these are not the best indicators of how a page is performing. The reason for this is that:
Facebook has evolved, but its performance indicators have fallen behind
What are the indicators many clients are fixated on? I'll refer to them as 'the unsuccessful candidates'. Some may provide one piece of the performance jigsaw puzzle, but none on their own are that revealing and worthy of most of your client's attention.

Some of the unsuccessful candidates


Number of page likes

There was a time when the total number of fans a page had was the ultimate stat. These were the 'loyal' fans, the ones who had an 'affinity' with the brand.
For some pages this may still be true, but how many times have you liked a page not because you care about that page or brand, but simply because of a promotional offer, or because your friend liked the page, or you felt like being nice to a 'Like our Facebook page' request. There is of course the matter of the many who have liked Facebook pages they don't even know about, because of click jacking scripts.
At one time you couldn't even get to see a voucher on a Facebook page without going through a 'like' wall first.  Then there are the multitude of likes generated by advertising campaigns.
What is the point of having hundreds of thousands of fans, if only a few hundred are exposed to your post (exposed does not even mean they see it, they had the potential to see it) and a few dozen interact with it. Who cares how many people are on your party invite list, you should care about how many actually come to your party.
If it was up to me, I would now take this statistic off the homepage and relegate it to the insights panel!

Organic Reach

With the removal of the Edgerank algorithm, Facebook embarked upon a much more sophisticated method for selecting and displaying stories in news feeds. This meant many clients were now not so concerned with their fan base but with their reach instead. But the reach figure in itself can be misleading and should be used with caution.
Firstly, x number of users reached does not mean x number of people saw your post. It simply means it appeared in their news feeds. To be fair, this is the case for the 'reach' figure in all media.
It can be boosted with paid advertising. So many clients demand to know the 'organic reach'. But 'organic reach' may be under reported by Facebook as it does not include the organic reach of a link to your post from another Facebook business page.
Nevertheless, organic reach is a useful parameter for judging the success of your posts. Emeric Ernoult has a passionate post defending the 'reach' measure.
You could argue, that given that Facebook uses engagement as an important factor in determining whether posts are shown to fans, organic reach in itself is the most important Facebook parameter, as it gives you information on how many people have potentially been exposed to your message, and in theory this should comprise mostly of the fans who have shown active interest.
But for one thing, this figure may be vastly deflated as it currently doesn't seem to include the reach generated by someone linking to your post from another Facebook page. And of course it will also reach many people who have not engaged with your page and may not even look at your post.

Viral reach

This was a useful sub measure of the overall reach provided by Facebook, but which has now been phased out in the new datasets. You can still see it in the old dataset for export and API, but it seems Facebook wishes to get rid of it. It does seem a shame, as it is now lumped with organic reach.
Although a useful stat is showing the reach generated by stories from friends, in isolation it doesn't tell you that much. You need to compare it to the non-viral reach to get some idea of how your post performed. In short, I don't understand why Facebook is not reporting it anymore, but it could never be the all revealing figure.

People Talking About This (PTA)

This used to be one of the most revered measures for Facebook managers. Even Facebook used to show this on the business Facebook Page next to the number of fans, in order to give some sort of idea of engagement. But it was seriously flawed:
  1. It included new likes of the page, and for me this was the biggest flaw as clients interpreted PTA as the indicator of 'engagement'. New likes for the page or lack of them would completely skew the figures month to month.
     
  2. It didn't include post clicks or video plays etc., so it didn't capture much of the engagement with a page's content.
     
  3. It was being used by marketing companies as a base measure to report the % of engaged fans. But this is seriously flawed as PTA includes likes, comments and shares from non-fans. It is also a measure of the 'interactions' and not 'people', so dividing it by the number of fans is logically absurd. In theory you could end up with a PTA rate of over 100%!

IPM (Interactions per mille)

Many agencies use this measure. They simply add up the likes, shares comments per post (some may also include clicks) and divide this by the fan base and multiply it by 1000. Hence interactions per 1000 fans. Again it suffers from the same problems as the PTA. Interactions can come from your non-fan base. This figure tells you nothing about how engaged your fans are, or how engaging your posts are! Too many non-engaged fans can make your IPM look mediocre even if you have engaging posts. As clients insist on the IPM, many agencies produce this figure.

Engagement rate

This is the relatively new metric to feature in Facebook's insights. It reports likes, comments, shares, clicks and even negative interactions on a post as a % of the reach.
This is inline with what many social media marketers are now doing. i.e. not reporting engagement as a % of the fan base but of the actual reach. The exact engagement measure differs between companies. Many just use likes, comments and shares, whereas others use clicks, and with the introduction of the Facebook engagement rate, agencies may now just report this figure.
The problem with this figure is that it doesn't fairly represent likes as a percentage of the reach! It under estimates the reach, and also underestimates some of the interactions with the post, such as replies to comments. But there is no other reach figure available from Facebook, so any engagement rate as a % of the reach will have to based on this flawed measure.

So what should Facebook be reporting as the headline figure?


I think it should be the following:

The Buzz: A sum total of likes, comments, shares, clicks, opening photos, video plays etc. for each post for the past 30 days.

But hang on a sec, shouldn't we total the unique users rather than the interactions themselves. No, I think as long as we don't include impressions, and just include actual interactions with a post, the Buzz figure would be a very good indicator of the 'practical worth' of a Facebook page. Yes there will be plenty of duplicate users when we total this figure, especially as we are doing the sum for the past 30 days, but this measure is not about counting people, it's about giving you a sense of how engaging your page is with the people who see its content.
What is good about this measure is that it provides an instantaneous representation of a Facebook page's activity and influence.  It's taking into account the amount of content you are posting and also engagement (in its broadest definition) with those posts. Pages which are the most active, with the most engaging content, with the most users interacting, will deservedly have the greatest Buzz rating. And this is surely the quality we are after from the headline metric.
You can make up for your smaller fan base with increasing activity and engagement.
The Buzz will give a better sense of how sticky and influential your Facebook presence is. A client can look at this figure and immediately get a sense of how they did in relation to last month and how they compare to their competitors.
Don't get me wrong the number of fans, engagement based on reach and all those other measures have their place. But not as the number one headline figure which the public can see on the main page.
The Buzz doesn't take into account views of the page itself, or views of tabs within the page, or interaction with the page. But I think most social media marketers would agree that it's all about the posts. We need to somehow aggregate the data relating to the posts, and this would be a simple understandable way of doing it by Facebook. What do you think?

Bahram Pourghadiri is a marketing and economics enthusiast. He is the CEO of Persicom. He has a PhD in Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

Wednesday 17 September 2014

Facebook invited or not invited?

Facebook's: "Invite People Who Like This Post to Like Your Page" currently not working

Oh no you're not!

If you click on the list of users who have liked a post on your Facebook Page,
you may see the following screen shot:
I have gayed out the faces on the left of the invite buttons
I have gayed out the faces on the left of the invite buttons
This feature should in theory allow you to invite users who have liked your post to like your page. The problem is that it doesn't seem to be currently working. Many Page managers in Facebook's forums are reporting that this feature simply does not work.
No invite of any sort is sent. The problem is compounded by the fact, that once you click on the 'Invite' button, it will actually say 'Invited', leaving you to think that an invite has been sent. But alas it hasn't.


It's not clear whether Facebook will ever make this feature functional, possibly fearing users being flooded with too many invites and hence making them less likely to 'like' posts in the future. That's fair enough, it may not be a very good idea. But if it's not functional, it shouldn't really be in the user display.

Bahram Pourghadiri is a marketing and economics enthusiast. He is the CEO of Persicom. He has a PhD in Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).