Twitter wants to make “Promoted Tweets” more valuable and attractive to advertisers. Sponsored or promoted tweets will now appear in a user’s timeline if they already follow the account that has paid for the tweet.

The advertiser or account sending out the Promoted Tweet will be charged on a pay-per-click payment model, not a cost-per-impression model.

The Tweet will appear at the top, or near the top of the user’s timeline when they first login on any given day, ensuring followers get eyes on any special deal, or exclusive content that account has to offer. After the user logs in, the promoted tweet will assimilate with the rest of the user timeline, gradually being pushed down the stream as new tweets are received.

Users will apparently be given the option to remove promoted tweets from their steam one-by-one, with the option to remove being found alongside the options to Reply and Retweet within the individual Tweet.

This means social engagement with the company will occur even if it is to remove it from their feed.

Many of Twitter’s blue chip accounts will be the first to have access to this new form of promoted tweet, companies such as Dell, Gatorade, JetBlue, Microsoft Xbox, Red Bull and Starbucks are expected to begin utilising the feature over the next few weeks.

Twitter will also display promoted Tweets from non-profit organizations that Twitter users follow as a public service to the community.

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3. Twitter ads | How the hell we pay for it?

Feel free to download and use it with attribution
Cheers
Lucio

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The more the best!

However there is a limit.

A study at Oxford University compared the size of the human brain, specifically the Neocortex, the area responsible for conscious thought, with other primates. Researchers crossed this information with data about the social organisation of each species over time, and have come to the conclusion that 150 is the maximum of friends a person can have.

For you to maintain a friendship with someone, you need to memorise information about that person (e.g.name and details of her character), which are triggered when you interact. For some reason, the brain does not contain data on more than 150 people. The relationships that go beyond this number will inevitably be more casual rather than friendship.
Other researchers went further and found that, within this group of 150, there are a series of concentric circles of friendship: 5, 15, 50 and 150 people, each with different characteristics.

Finite Circle
The brain contains no more than 150 friends, divided into groups.

Intimate group
5 friends – is the intimate, with whom you speak more – and would not hesitate to call at dawn or call to borrow money. For Aristotle, 5 was the maximum number of true friends.

Group of empathy
15 friends – people are very important to you – if any of them died tomorrow, you’d be very upset. This group may include people from work or friends of friends.

Typical number
50 friends – is the number of friendships maintained by most people, and also the average size of early human groups .

Limit
150 friends – Maximum that the brain can handle at once. These are the people whose names, faces and features you can memorise and trigger if necessary. The curious thing is that these circles had been mentioned by philosophers such as Confucius, Plato and Aristotle – and are also present in various forms of human organisation. In classical philosophy, 5 were already considered the maximum number of close friends that anyone could have.

Apart from football and footy (here in Australia) , 12 to 15 people is the amount of players in most sports. Fifty was the average number of people hunting in primitive communities (as the Aborigines here).

But even with so many practical examples, no one can explain why our friendships limit is 150 people.

So, next time you find someone with more than 150 “friends” on Facebook or Google+, think again.

Cheers

Lucio

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John Kay, Financial Times

Get Social Media now?

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Their lack of understanding of how Facebook for business really works.

It’s not a matter of collecting numbers of fans, but it is about building your piece of Owned Media and making sure your company’s  social media friendship actually means something.

As noted by Adage few months ago,

Companies have spent millions gathering fans on their Facebook pages and being “liked” all across the web. But what started as a volume play — call it Facebook marketing 1.0 — is shifting.

Increasingly, it’s not so much how many people are liking your brand, but who those people are and how many are engaging with you once you’ve got them.

Stop, think and tell me, what you really thinks is best the best out of the 2 scenarios?

1) 100,000 fans and only 1,000 are engaging with you over the week

or

2) 10,000 fans and having 1,000 engage with you

If you picked number 1 option, stop reading now.

If you picked number 2, let’s move on.

How do I increase my exposure and engagement on Facebook?

Most of conversation for Facebook Business pages happens on the News Feed rather than the page itself.

To get a optimum number of exposure to your current fan base you want to make sure you show on their NewsFeed.

If you want to appear on the the Facebook NewsFeed of your fan base you need to work on the Edge Rank of you Facebook Fan Page.

What is Facebook EdgeRank and how can I get it better?

from Social Media Examiner:

Facebook looks at everything published as “objects.”

These can be status updates, links, photos, video or anything else that can be shared on Facebook.

Every object receives a ranking (EdgeRank), which determines if it will show in your personal newsfeed. Objects with a high EdgeRank appear in your “Top News” feed. Objects with a low EdgeRank will not.

Overall, EdgeRank is based on three factors:

Affinity, weight and relevancy.

When multiplied together, they have the ability to push your content to the New Feed’s ‘Top News,’ where fans will be able to see what your brand has to say.

An image with dozens of Comments will have a higher affinity score than a status update with a few ‘Likes.’

In addition, and object’s relevancy will help determine how high it will appear within the ‘Top News.’ Any item that appears within the News Feed — such as a status update or video — is called an object, and any action taken on the object — such as a ‘Like’ or Comment — is called an edge.”

If you want to boost your Facebook EdgeRank and get audiences engaged, there are some tips from WebProNews and www.socialmediaexaminer.com:

1. Ask questions – Publish Objects That Encourage Interaction
2. Post games and trivia
3. Create a Forum for discussion (use Polls)
4. Interact with fan engagement
5. Incorporate wall sapplets (polls, coupons, etc.)
6. Incorporate relevant photos
7. Relate to current events
8. Incorporate videos
9. Post content for time-sensitive campaigns
10. Include links within posts
11. Be explicit in your posts

One last tip, I’ve been noticing that Facebook prefers images rather than videos and videos rather than simple updates, can’t confirm…

Cheers

Lucio Ribeiro

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During my researches I stumbled upon a great concept in promoting Fairtrade and some smarts in Social Media by Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream.

Introducing the Fair Tweet

Ben & Jerry’s is asking users to donate their spare Twitter characters in honor of World Fair Trade Day on May 14.

Earlier this week, Ben & Jerry’s launched a Twitter application that squeezes a message and link about World Fair Trade Day in the leftover characters of one’s tweets — i.e., if your tweet is 30 characters, the remaining 110 will contain a message about World Fair Trade Day and a link to more information.

Smart Social Media pick up

Cheers

Lucio Ribeiro

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This will impact over 5.4 billion fans of multiple pages.

The new look for business pages is currently available for voluntary upgrade. However, it will be rolled out to all business pages on March 10.

In summary the revamp brings Fan Pages functionality and design much closer to normal (non business) Facebook user profiles:

• With the March 10 changes Facebook is giving Pages much of the same functionality available to normal users — you can browse Facebook as if you were the Page.
• Pages can also ‘Like’ other pages.
• The algorithm used for News Feed management has changed. From March 10, if you are friends with someone leaving a comment on a page, that comment will now show on your NewsFeed higher than more generic posts. Previously, they’d just be shown in reverse chronological order
• The main implication of this for businesses is that healthy relationships between you, your fans, and their friends will be the best way to ensure broad dissemination if relevant posts.
• Status updates from pages appears in the page News Feed (Pages now have a News Feed as well)
• Addition of multiple images at the top of the page.
• The application tabs have been moved from the top of the profile down to a sidebar just beneath the profile image.
• A widget that shows what ‘Likes’ you have in common with the Page.

The bad news is there are no longer the facilities of FBML and every tab is potentially an application.

The good news is that greatly increases the ability to build better applications using iFrames (more flexible and better performance).

Below is a map of the new features created by Involver (a Facebook app maker)

1. Photo strip above the Wall (with most recent photos you posted or tagged)
2. Tabs move to the left panel, in the form of a list (maximum of 6 above the fold). Instead of the horizontal tabs on the top of the page that used to accommodate the “Wall” and “Info” tabs and all outside applications, users will now navigate between views using a vertical panel of links to the left of the wall.
3. Profile picture reduced from 200 x 600 pixels to 180 x 540
4. Blurb box that was below the Page picture moved to info tab
5. Pages can Like other Pages
6. Featured Pages and Admins (Admin block is visible to admins only).
7. Page category
8. Choice for Wall posts between “Everyone” and Page posts only
9. Mutual Friends and Interests section

Facebook Changes from March 2011

Note, very important: You can preview the new layout but once you upgrade, there is no way to revert back to the old design.

Pages can also display Featured Page Owners on the left hand column, just below the Liked Pages.

The most important change that Facebook made to pages was to give them similar posting privileges as profiles. This is a game changer.

Every Facebook marketing strategy in existence SHOULD be re-written to include this major change.

Why? Because the walls that were holding you back have now been torn down. You can be your page.

To understand where we are, we have to understand where we were.

Your brand message was restricted to the follies of the Facebook algorithm before. Your message appeared on News Feeds of those who liked you, their friends if they were engaging with you, and your own wall itself. That’s it.

Now, you can spread the wings of your brand just about anywhere you want. While you still can’t post to profile walls, you can post as your page to any walls of pages that you like (as long as they don’t block you). We’ve tried this week for a promotion for one of The Online Circle’s client and worked well, if you want to know more call Lucio +61 3 9813 2141.

Properly used, the applications and implications are tremendous.

But with great power comes great responsibility. There is a drawback. Spam.

You know it will happen. With pages given this new power, you will need to constantly monitor your own walls to make sure that spam isn’t proliferated across them.

Facebook will (if they haven’t already) put in countermeasures to this and start banning pages that are reported or blocked often, just as they do with profiles.

However, the ease of creating pages will open doors to spammers like never before on Facebook.

This is enough if you want to know about overall changes, but for those willing to get more details, there you go:

• Photo Strip Instead of Tabs Above the Wall

The replacement of tabs with the photo strip at the top adds a dynamic, colourful element that will significantly improve the look of the average Facebook Page. The photos are drawn from the most recent ones you posted to your Wall and those you tagged, but does not include photos posted by fans. Users can hide undesirable photos. The new left nav placement of tabs also allows for longer tab names.

• Expanded Functionality For Fan Page Admins

Interact as a Page: A completely new feature, Facebook has added the ability to interact with items around the social network as the brand page. In this way, you can “Like” other brand pages, interact on their Walls, and have those interactions be from your brand page, instead of your personal profile. We think this will be a great way to increase your brand awareness, by tactfully interacting with other pages and people who are influencers.

Enhanced 2-way communications: To enhance responsiveness or just to keep admins more in the loop, you will be able to set up notifications of page activity that go to your email, such as any new Wall posts made by fans. There are also enhanced moderation/spam settings so that you can specify lists of words or terms you want blocked from showing up from your Facebook Page wall if written in a comment by a misbehaved fan. In addition, the admin’s News Feed will contain streaming content of activity going on from the brand page.

The Online Circle Clients

Overall, the changes announced represent a huge advance in the ability for brands to create rich, individualized experiences for their audiences.

We are reviewing the new policies. While many applications like Flash will now function better on your Page, Facebook’s restrictions require you to limit their functionality until a user interacts with it. As always, should you have any concerns about these changes, please do not hesitate to contact your Account Manager at The Online Circle.

More details and information available here and here

Facebook ads

Inspired by Smart Company website

1) Sponsored Stories

You can target two groups of people by using this feature:

Friends of those who are connected to your page by clicking the Like story box. This means your potential reach is far smaller but it also means it will be more powerful. When people see their friend already Likes the page they are more likely to.

People who are connected to the page through clicking the page post story box. This can be used to promote the posts you put on the page wall to people who like your page but may not have seen the posts. This could be good because a recent article said that only 5% of page posts appear in likers newsfeeds – scary!  Particularly relevant if you are posting a hot topic you want people to see.

2) Destination Tab

If you are advertising your Facebook page through the ads you can now specify where you want people to land on the page when they click on the ad. This is great if you have a special offer or want to create a landing tab that is a sales page. This means your ad can be very specific and the landing position can match that.

3) Ad layout

If you have switched your page over to the new look, ads will be appearing horizontally rather than vertically as previously.

It is now more important than ever that your image fills up the space on the left. You need to use the space to make your ad really eye-catching in order to grab your readers’ attention.

Facebook ads are also now seen in more places apart from the right hand side of the page.

If your page photo’s tab has been upgraded to the new light box version (if you click on a photo in an album you can tell if the photo pops up on a black background) there is now an ad that appears at bottom right.

Post written by Lucio Ribeiro, Liam Marco (Social Media CManager The Online Circle ) and Fernando Tinoco (Lead Developer The Online Circle)

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