Tag Archives: facebook

When Are Facebook Users Most Active?

We know that users are spending increasing amounts of time online on social networks like Facebook, but when exactly are users the most active? Social media management company Vitrue just released a study that identifies the days and hours users are most active on the Facebook channels maintained by companies and brands.

For the study, Vitrue analyzed Facebook post data from August 10, 2007 to October 10, 2010 from more than 1,500 brand streams — more than 1.64 million posts and 7.56 million comments in all. Shares and “likes” were not included in the study.

Here are some of the big takeaways:

  • The three biggest usage spikes tend to occur on weekdays at 11:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. ET.
  • The biggest spike occurs at 3:00 p.m. ET on weekdays.
  • Weekday usage is pretty steady, however Wednesday at 3:00 pm ET is consistently the busiest period.
  • Fans are less active on Sunday compared to all other days of the week.

Morning Posts Are More Effective

Although most posts and comments appear around 3:00 p.m. ET, posts published in the morning tend to perform better than those published in the afternoon.

Vitrue’s data indicates that morning brand posts are 39.7% more effective in terms of user engagement than those published in the afternoon.

Additionally, the top of the hour (:0 to :15 minutes) tend to see more interaction than other parts of the hour. The second half of the hour (:30 to :45 minutes) is the second most popular time for interaction.

This makes sense if you think about how meetings and breaks are scheduled. A quick check on Facebook before heading into another meeting or task might be more likely to happen at the top of an hour than in the middle or toward the end.

Why This Matters

Ultimately, the goal for brands on Facebook is to be able to engage with their customers or potential customers and to promote a message. Last month, we looked at a study that broke down how users interact with brands on Facebook.

In that post, Mashable’s Adam Ostrow noted, “… 65% of Facebook users only access the site when they’re not at work or school — typically early morning or evening. That means that if you’re making social media only a part of a 9 to 5 work day, you might be missing out on connecting with consumers during the times they’re likely to be online.”

Vitrue’s findings match that sentiment. Knowing when users are engaging and interacting with your page can be crucial to getting the most effective message across.

To be clear, this data is going to continue to shift as usage patterns shift. There is more to knowing when users are active to designating a publishing schedule. After all, if all publishers pushed out content at the same time, users would be overwhelmed and the net gain might disappear.

Still, following these type of usage patterns is an important part of maximizing the way brands and users can communicate.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Yaniv Golan

via mashable.com

Facebook Now Allows Orkut Profile Linking | Technolicious

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Earlier this year, we heard the news of Facebook beating Google’s Orkut in India. But Orkut still remains the most-widely used social network in Brazil, and apart from that Orkut still occupies a substantial market share in India.

So for those users, who are still using Orkut and probably Facebook as well, Facebook has decided to allow these users, to link & integrate their Facebook profiles with their Orkut profiles, so that they can stay connected with their Orkut friends, who have not joined Facebook yet.

Doing this, will allow users to keep their Orkut friends updated with their Facebook activities i.e. share status updates, links, photos, notes, events and groups with friends on Orkut, directly from Facebook!

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Users can choose the things they want to share both on Facebook as well as Orkut. Apart from all this, it will also help users find their Orkut friends on Facebook.

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Update: A lot of people also believe that the addition of this new option, might be the reason behind Facebook being down. Apart from this one, now it seems there are a few more remarkable changes Facebook has made in its user-interface.

via tech.nolicio.us

Facebook Encourages Ecommerce; App-Makers Respond | Practical eCommerce

Facebook designates Fan pages for businesses to engage users. And to help these businesses, Facebook now provides a series of resource guides for Fan page development and Facebook Ads development. It has also greatly improved the Fan page analytics component (called Insights), and it has created a series of plugins for businesses to use on their own websites.

Milyoni (pronounced “million eye”), based in Calif., takes this integration of social media and ecommerce very seriously. It has built an all-inclusive, six-part Facebook platform called Conversational Commerce. The platform allows consumers to complete a purchase without leaving Facebook. And for ecommerce merchants, the platform merchandises their products, markets them to Facebook users, completes sale transactions and otherwise manages the entire process in a manner similar to a freestanding ecommerce site. It’s all done within Conversational Commerce’s six components: iFanStore, Social Engagement, Flexible Fulfillment, Opportunity Mapping, Merchant Dashboard, and Instant Showcase.

Conversational Commerce by Milyoni.

Conversational Commerce by Milyoni.

iFanStore

iFanStore is the core component of a larger, six-part platform from Milyoni called Conversational Commerce. Rather than pass users off to another website, it is a shopping cart that operates completely within Facebook. Transactions are processed through PayPal, Authorize.Net, or most any other payment gateway, according to the company.

Aside from the fact it resides inside a Facebook fan page, iFanStore functions just like any other shopping cart. It manages catalog uploads, offers detailed product management, order management, shipping and tax calculations, payment processing and reporting. It also supports digital downloads such as music or video.

Social Engagement

The company clearly understands how social media and ecommerce should be intertwined. “It is not about shopping. People don’t go to Facebook to shop. A conversation begins by engaging your fan base and offering up opportunities to purchase contextually relevant items,” said Dean Alms, Milyoni’s vice president of strategy and marketing. “When your favorite NBA basketball team advances in the finals; it’s great to share your jubilation online with other fans and it might be the right time to buy a new hat or t-shirt to celebrate the win.”

That is where Milyoni’s Social Engagement component comes into play. It allows merchants to engage their Fan base and promote products via Wall posts, which fans can then comment on, Like and share.

Here are two examples of ways these posts appear.

Example 1 of Milyoni's Social Engagement wall post.

Example 1 of Milyoni’s Social Engagement wall post.

Example 2 of Milyoni's Social Engagement wall post.

Example 2 of Milyoni’s Social Engagement wall post.

Flexible Fulfillment

Another Milyoni component, Flexible Fulfillment, is a defined set of interfaces that allow merchants to integrate the iFanStore with their existing backend systems. This ranges from the ability for merchants to manually upload their catalogs and receive email notifications for orders, to complete integration via custom APIs.

Opportunity Mapping

Available in the fourth quarter of 2010, Milyoni’s Opportunity Mapping™ will be a social network application that leverages the power of Facebook’s Open Graph to tap into fan profile data and create relevant, custom offers.

Merchant Dashboard

Merchant Dashboard is Milyoni’s administrative console that provides a comprehensive set of analytics to help merchants acquire Fans, promote products and monitor engagement levels.

Screen capture of Milyoni's iFanStore Manager.

Screen capture of Milyoni’s iFanStore Manager.

Instant Showcase

Another soon to-be-released component, called Instant Showcase, adds a new twist to the Facebook commerce buying experience in that it will allow users to purchase select products directly from the fan page Wall. Merchants will be able to select up to five products from their store catalog and post them to their Walls. Users can flip through the products, select one and submit payment without ever leaving their wall. Milyoni expects to deploy Instant Showcase in September 2010.

Cost

At about $1,000 per year, Milyoni’s platform is affordable for smaller online retailers, and the company has a number of such merchants in its portfolio. The price includes activation, monthly hosting and transaction fees. It will also help with setup and training for new merchant customers.

Better to Upload an Entire Catalog or Just Special Offers?

Not everyone agrees that uploading an entire catalog into Facebook is the wisest course of action. Alex Bernstein, managing partner with NorthSocial, a west-coast company that makes Facebook Fan page apps, is one such person. “Social media presents a great opportunity to sell products, but, as any merchant knows, there is a lot that goes into getting someone to make a purchase,” he says. “Simply moving an ecommerce cart into Facebook is not enough to spike sales.”

Bernstein suggests that making the product shareable is a key factor, as well as is having an entertaining, heart-warming, and engaging fan page where the brand interacts with fans. He also says that not all products are as well suited to a social network environment as others. “Big ticket items like cars, for example, or commodity products. Those don’t fare as well,” he adds.

Bernstein encourages merchants to think about using Facebook as a place to highlight certain products and showcase new ones. That is exactly how one smaller merchant utilizes the Milyoni platform. Cowgirl Creamery, an organic cheese business located north of San Francisco, offers weekly cheese deals to its customers via its iFanStore rather than using it to upload the entire product catalog. They post the offer to the Wall along with a question or comment to get the conversation started.

Cowgirl Creamery's Facebook store.

Cowgirl Creamery’s Facebook store.

“Word of Mouth endorsements have always been our most effective marketing tool. Milyoni brought this advantage to Facebook to open new markets and sell our premium cheeses to new customers,” said Sue Conley, CEO of Cowgirl Creamery.

“Since the Conversational Commerce platform was deployed, Cowgirl Creamery has nearly doubled their fan base and increased their word of mouth marketing impact accordingly,” says Dean Alms. “In a very short period of time, dozens of new customers have bought through their Facebook store and they are reaching customers that they would have never been able to reach otherwise.”

Summary

Facebook members may not be rushing to interact with businesses. But ecommerce merchants should still have a presence there. The sheer immensity of the network mandates it. And as social commerce continues to mature and gain mainstream acceptance, merchants will benefit from it.

via practicalecommerce.com

Like Facebook, Twitter Starts Using Algorithms To Bulk Up Social Graph

Last month, we noted that Twitter was testing a “You both follow” feature, showing users you and another user both follow. That’s interesting, but not particularly useful. Today, they’ve begun to roll out a new “Suggestions for You” feature which looks at who you follow, and who the people you follow follow, and suggests new people for you to follow. Yes, just like Facebook does. This is very useful.

In fact, this is arguably the most useful social graph feature that Twitter has rolled out yet. A few weeks ago, Twitter rolled out a new name results area for search — which was incredibly helpful for finding celebrities or brands on Twitter. But this is better. This is all about finding people you may actually be interested in, but for whatever reason, haven’t connected with yet.

via techcrunch.com