Report: Tuesday Super For Facebook Brand Pages

Is every Tuesday Fat Tuesday for marketers on Facebook? According to new data from social media services provider ViTrue, that's the day of the week when click-through rates are highest on content posted on the walls of brand pages on Facebook, at 9.89%.

More broadly, the click-through rate on wall posts on marketers' Facebook pages was highest from Monday through Wednesday, averaging 9.72% before dropping sharply to 4.39% on Thursday, and dropping further to 2.67% and 2.7% on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday, the rate starts rebounding, at 7.63%.

The findings follow ViTrue's initial release last month of click-through data for brands' Facebook wall posts, which average 6.76% and stand in stark contrast to the anemic rates for display advertising generally on Facebook and other social networks. The company comes up with its estimate by assuming that about one-twelfth of the total Facebook audience is online at any given time, available to see a message.

The number of fans a brand has is also factored into the calculation, with the total number of clicks on a specific post divided by the number of fans who saw it, adjusted to reflect that not every fan is on Facebook all the time. So if a brand has 100 fans and a wall post gets five clicks, that's a 5% click-through rate. But if only 20% actually saw the post, it would be a 20% rate. It comes down to a mixture of math and educated guesswork.

The latest research goes a step further by suggesting that certain days of the week might be better for launching a promotion or other marketing effort on a Facebook brand page. "This highlights the importance for marketers of having a well thought-out communication strategy for updating their brand page and when to create wall posts to get the optimum response," said ViTrue CEO Reggie Bradford.

He surmises that response rates are generally higher early in the week when people are more active on Facebook fan pages, and drop off as users turn to other pursuits on the weekend. Rates start to ramp up again on Sunday as people begin planning the week ahead via Facebook.

"The point isn't to say only do wall posts on Tuesdays," said Bradford. "The point is that there are differences among days of the week and thinking has to happen behind the wall posts so you can maximize the impact."

Shiv Singh, vice president and global social media lead at Razorfish, agreed that the timing of new messages on Facebook pages is an important consideration for marketers. "So the question ViTrue is trying to answer is a very valuable one." But he added that interaction can vary among specific pages depending on a variety of factors including the type of content and audience demographics, making it hard to generalize about the timing of new posts.

He added that he'd have to dig deeper into ViTrue's research and methodology to gain more assurance of its validity.

In the coming months, ViTrue plans to refine its research further by releasing an analysis of click-throughs on wall posts by daypart. ViTrue's findings are derived from its Social Relationship Manager suite of planning and reporting tools, which it launched last month. The sample data is compiled from wall posts garnering nearly 200 million fan impressions from March through August 2009.

ViTrue does not disclose how many Facebook brand pages were included in the study, but says it encompasses several Fortune 500 brands across several categories.

"As tools and platforms become more sophisticated, we'll see more segmenting of messaging by daypart and all those other types of measurement," said Bradford.

To Facebook or Not to Facebook

Last May I asked the question, is social media madness? The culture of openness can be perplexing, but whether or not you think social media is madness, there's no denying its growth. And social media's potential for marketing is profound (which is why a 15 billion dollar valuation for Facebook is not entirely absurd). Missing from last May's newsletter was a review of Facebook. While MySpace still has a lead in terms of overall users, Facebook is catching up quickly. According to ComScore, from 2006 to 2007 Facebook's growth rate was 270% compared to MySpace at 72%.

Posts about Facebook's recent controversial announcements about a new advertising platform are all over the new media blogosphere. The advertising model for social media is tricky, and while it's way too early to declare a winner in this space, the last man standing may become even more powerful than Google.

Whether you're inclined to create a Facebook profile or not, understanding how Facebook works and how social media marketing is developing is important for agencies.

Why Facebook?

I sympathize with those who don't get Facebook and other social media sites like MySpace and LinkedIn. In fact, when I first set up my Facebook profile, it was more motivated by professional experimentation than a real desire to participate. But I have to admit it. Now that I've grown more comfortable with Facebook, I've genuinely enjoyed connecting with old friends and learning more about my business associates. I enjoy learning about the things my friends and acquaintances are doing, reading, and listening to. I've found it fascinating to get new perspectives on long time business acquaintances. I was also able to say hey to a few friends I hadn't heard from in a while and reconnect with a some folks I knew in school.

One of the main features of a Facebook profile is the "Friends" panel. It displays six of my Facebook friends with a link to view them all. So as not to create any awkward jockeying for friend ranking (remember Sienfeld's speed dial position episode?), the six friend images are randomly sampled from all my friends each time I view the page. This considerate little feature reminds me of people I might not normally think about--and if I'm so inclined, I can jot a quick "Hey--how are you?" on their wall. Another prominent feature of Facebook is its News Feed page. It tells you whenever a friend adds another friend, or joins a new group, or posts a link, or adds a new application, or updates their profile, or changes their status, or just about anything else they do on Facebook. In a silly way, because of features like this, I really do feel a little more connected to my friends on Facebook.

Just for fun...

Based on my initial positive experience on Facebook, I decided to jump in with both feet. I've been adding more and more details to my profile. I've even added Facebook applications that pull information from my blogs, del.icio.us links, and StumbleUpon pages. My Twitter feed is set up to automatically update my Facebook status. Of course, my profile wouldn't be complete without adding in the "New England Patriots Fans" app--Go Pats! There are a lot more things that can be done on Facebook like joining groups and networks, creating events, buying stuff, and looking at my friend's photos and videos.

If you'd like to get more detail on what Facebook looks like, I've taken screen grabs of my Facebook News Feed and Profile pages. But the best way to familiarize yourself is to just set up a profile and start using it.

Facebook Benefits Extroverts Most Introverts Log More Time on Social Networking Site, but Have Fewer Friends, Study Shows

June 25, 2008 -- People who are more socially isolated in real life tend to be more isolated in the virtual world of social networking web sites like Facebook, new research suggests.

Facebook users in the study who reported feeling anxiety and fear in their face-to-face relationships spent more time on Facebook than their more socially comfortable peers.

But they also had fewer Facebook friends, Louisiana State University doctoral student Pavica Sheldon reports.

The study included 172 Louisiana State students, most of whom were current Facebook users.

"Our results seem to justify the rich-get-richer hypothesis, which states that the Internet primarily benefits extroverted individuals, and that introverts communicate online less often," Sheldon writes in the latest issue of the Journal of Media Psychology.

Facebook Friends for Life

Louisiana State student Ana Elena Buleu, who took part in the survey, has about 100 Facebook "friends," all of whom she knows in real life.

The 22-year-old biochemistry major uses the web site to keep in touch with college friends, as well as high school friends still living in Romania, where she grew up.

"I use email mostly for work and I use Facebook for friendships," she tells WebMD. "It is a good way to check in without sending an email."

Scott Golder, who has studied Facebook usage patterns as a research scientist for Hewlett-Packard, found the web site to be an important means of communication among college students across the country.

Golder tells WebMD that for better or worse, web sites like Facebook have the potential to keep people in touch with just about everyone they have ever known.

He says Facebook users tend to add friends, but they rarely remove friends because it is considered rude.

"Maintaining a relationship in the conventional way requires effort," he says. "At different stages of life people tend to have different groups of friends. They lose touch or drift apart, which, in some cases, is a healthy thing."

Interesting facts about Facebook

• According to Chris Hughes spokesperson for Facebook, users spend an average of 19 minutes per day on Facebook
• It is estimated that 85% of all students have a Facebook profile (US)
• A 2006 study listed Facebook as the second most "hip" or "in" thing among undergraduate students tied with beer and sex. Facebook was second only to the iPod.
• It is estimated that Facebook's value is around $8 billion
• The largest network on the site is Toronto, Ontario with over 600,000 users alone.
• Facebook is the most viral software distribution platform ever.
• The domain facebook.com was originally purchased for a reported $ 200,000.
• Facebook has experienced no known major security breaches, despite opening the platform to anyone in the world.
• According to comScore, from May 2006 to May 2007, Facebook users in the 12-17 age frame increased by 149%, users in the 25-34 age frame increased by 181%.
• There are 98,979,539 installs across 3,343 apps on Facebook.

11 Business Benefits of Using Facebook Applications

1. Branding - Facebook can be a great resource for generating brand awareness. Facebook is becoming popular amongst various age demographics and can be a create interception point for building your relationship with you consumers and prospects.

2. Customer Engagement - Using Facebook applications can be a great way for communicating promotions, contest and events. Again it is another interception point that can be leveraged to entice consumer engagement with your brand, your products or your service.

3. Drive Web Traffic - Facebook can act as a portal point for driving traffic to your site and other online properties.

4. Reputation Management - can be a useful tool for seeing what users are saying about you and your brand. In addition your Facebook profile can now be indexed in the search results and as a result can provide another favorable listing in the organic search results of the engines.

5. New Customer Acquisition - Facebook provides an opportunity to find consumers you may have not otherwise discovered.

6. Lead Generation - Similar to the previous point is that Facebook can act as another potential lead gen tool that can be used to qualify leads. Reviewing potential prospects' profiles may help you build a relationship with your prospects and aid in the lead generation qualifying process.

7. Client Retention - provides another potential interception point to build the relationship with your consumer.

8. Access to the social world and it’s inherent value - aka the cool factor. You never know who is using Facebook. Consider the following scenario: a potential prospect could be doing research on your brand or organization and may use Facebook to see if you have a presence there. Then they see that you have a Facebook profile and see a number of positive posts about your brand. This in turn can shape their sphere of influence and could end up being one of many deciding factors as to why the prospect selects you over another vendor. The perception that Facebook is "IN" and the fact that you are using Facebook could help influence their perception of your brand. Having said that, there are still may who are anti-Facebook so it could also affect the perception about your brand. The fact remains is that Facebook continues to gain popularity and it is not going away anytime soon.

9. The Viral Effect - Take word Of mouth to a whole new level. Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd... Facebook is attracting quite a crowd.

10. Feedback Mechanism - Using Facebook and the various applications available can help you understand consumer behavior based on the sharing of content and commentary on the social networking site.

11. Build Business Use Cases - Facebook can provide you with an opportunity to build successful business cases as you target specific vertical markets with specific business objectives.

There have been other social networks and media sites that have had limited success in terms of promotion and creating brand awareness. With the amount of existing and new applications that are being created on Facebook, business owners have an opportunity to use Facebook to promote their brand even further. The above points illustrate that there is benefit for organizations who use Facebook. It may not be the tool or medium that many would first think of to promote their brand, but judging by the surging popularity, Facebook is not that bad of a place to create awareness of your brand.

Cool huh? There were 21,000 fans involved in this spectacle which is one of the biggest flash mob dances in the world.Now I wonder where they practice

Most Addictive Facebook Games/ so whats your game? any comment?

FarmVille – 33,439,207 monthly active users

It’s the farm game from Zynga! I’ve been telling people to switch from Farm Town to FarmVille and it’s finally showing. With a whopping 33 million monthly users, Farmville who did not even made the top 10 list last month is the number 1 game in Facebook.

Mafia Wars – 19,305,731 monthly active users

From number 1 last month, Mafia Wars is down 1 spot with Farm Town closing in. But I’m betting it will bounce back once Mafia Wars Moscow is introduced into the game.

So with Mafia Wars at number 2 and Texas Holdem at number 5, who’s occupying the number 1 game in Facebook right now?

Farm Town – 18,298,995 monthly active users

Farm Town just won’t budge from the 3rd spot. I guess a lot of players want to work for others in their farm. I still wish they would improve on their graphics and functionality. That pig with the huge eyes looks disturbingly scary.

Pet Society – 16,122,398 monthly active users

The reason why Pet Society is still running strong is that there’s no other game quite like it in Facebook unlike those farm and war games running around. Playfish did a good job with Pet Society and Restaurant City.

Texas HoldEm Poker – 15,749,037 monthly active users

Now this is surprising. From number two last month, the most popular game of poker in Facebook is now at number 5. Adults can’t get away from real life to play Facebook poker a couple of hours per night anymore?

YoVille – 14,191,031 monthly active users

YoVille is one of the top games for kids to play and it’s not leaving the top 10 list any time soon. It went down one spot but it’s safe at the middle of the pack.

Restaurant City – 11,527,478 monthly active users

Down one spot from last month but still a huge lead from the 8th place is Restaurant City. With the inclusion of new features such as the drink menu, people are still finding reasons to play the game. I wish they’d up the maximum level though.

FARKLE – 6,887,178 monthly active users

Close on the heels of Bejeweled Blitz and still in 8th place is the weird dice game Farkle. I tried it once and never tried it again. It says in its description that the game is supposed to be addictive but I don’t find it that way.

6,817,188 monthly active users

The popular match-3 game went down two spots from last month. I guess some people who already got the top spot in the scoring board doesn’t want to do it every week.

10 Most Addictive Facebook Games

Barn Buddy – 6,059,330 monthly active users

From number 9 last month, this simple farm game went down to the 10th spot. The stealing portion of the game may have forced non-competitive players to shy away from this one. Its monthly user base increased though.