Facebook: A theory on why text posts are currently trumping photo posts

November 16th, 2012 § 0

Image posts trump text posts on Facebook brand pages. That’s a given. Or at least it was up until a few weeks ago.

Up until the end of September this year when Facebook made some well publicised changes to its algorithm, any image post a brand page made would have further reach and higher engagement than a standard text post.

Over the past few weeks I’ve noticed that a lot of text posts are receiving higher levels of engagement than I would have expected. PostRocket found that text posts are outperforming photo posts by studying Facebook insights data. Strange.

My hunch is that Facebook is grouping text only posts in bundles of other text only posts to display in your newsfeed. Where previously a text post would have got lost between two photo posts, Facebook is now displaying text posts as groups so they less likely to be missed as you scroll through your feed.

Here’s a screenshot of a bunch of text only posts displayed in my feed the other day:

Facebook Text Posts Algorithm Change

These posts were all made within three days of each other, but Facebook has chosen to display them to me in a bunch.

Here’s another one:

Facebook text posts algorithm change 2

Again, made at least three days apart yet displayed as a unit.

Facebook may be doing this to help out pages who don’t have the time/energy/skills to create engaging visual content. I’m not sure if they’ve got the balance right as a lot of extremely mediocre text posts seem to be getting a helpful push in reach due to the fact they’re text posts (not because they contain anything entertaining or valuable).

Regardless, it may be time to dust off the old text posts again and strike while the algorithm is in your favour.

Pinterest: top 5 loves and top 5 improvements to make

February 13th, 2012 § 0

Top five things I love about Pinterest

1. Infinite scrolling

There’s no ‘next page’ button on Pinterest. Once you scroll down towards the end of the page, the next section of the page loads underneath and you scroll to it seamlessly. Careful, this causes you to spiral into a Pinterest vortex that’s very hard to get out of. You can’t just say to yourself “one more page and that’s it”. It’s infinite, and I love it.

2. Quality content

Part of the reason the content on Pinterest is so damn good has got to do with the fact they haven’t opened it up so everyone and anyone can join, even after they reached 10 million users. When I receive an invite to a website (instead of joining on my own accord) I feel more intrigued and want to contribute more. The people that are on there love it and do produce (so should I say pin) seriously amazing content.

3. It’s so easy to use

I don’t think it could possibly be any simpler to like, re-pin or comment on a pin. You can even create new boards from the main feed page when you see an image you love, but don’t have a board to put it on. The ‘Pin It’ browser plug-in is super fast. You don’t even have to visit Pinterest to pin an image you find while browsing the internet; you can place it on a board and write a description for it from your browser.

4. Seamless transition from computer to iPhone

Sometimes when you love a website, the iPhone app lets it down… or vice versa. Not Pinterest. I love how the header strip and menu bar vanish when you are scrolling through pins, but when you stop on a pin you like, the menu reappears. This allows you to imerse yourself fully in the pins you’re scrolling through and to get a stronger visual experience.

5. Clever monetization strategy

Pinterest uses a third-party service who inserts tracking code onto some pins, and when someone clicks on a pin that links to a website and the user makes a purchase, Pinterest gets money. So clever!

Five improvements that could be made to Pinterest

1. Suggestions on who to follow

On joining Pinterest, you selected a few broad interest categories (like Art, Outdoors, Animals, Women’s Fashion etc) and Pinterest suggested some users for you to follow. From memory, I think it may have even auto-followed them. After I went through and followed my friends who were already on there, I wanted to follow more people as I wanted more pins to look at, without having to search or browse categories. It’d be useful if Pinterest could have a look at the kinds of things I pin, and suggest users who have similar interests for me or boards with similar pins to mine to follow (like Twitter does).

2. A dedicated iPad app

A dedicated iPad app that is similar to the iPhone app, but had a ‘following’ section more like the website is essential for Pinterest. Instead of seeing one pin in one column at a time on the iPhone app, it’d be great to be able to have at least three columns of pins so you can see more at once. This makes so much sense to me. It’s the kind of app that people want to use while watching TV or killing time on their iPad.

3. Metrics

This is a big one, that I’m sure they will build into the website soon enough. Metrics on how many times you’ve been repinned, who has repinned your pins the most and other simple metrics like that would be very helpful, especially for brands.

4. Better community engagement on other platforms

I like seeing other apps and websites like Instagram and Foursquare interact with their fans via different social media channels to the ones they created! Although Pinterest does have a Twitter account and a Facebook page it is updated irregularly and rarely. I’d like to see them share users who are creating interesting boards, popular pins and spread news about the app via these channels. I’d even like to hear what the Pinterest offices are like and learn more about the people who created it! I really love seeing the personality behind projects like this.

5. Use two (or more) accounts at once

I use Pinterest for myself and I’m starting to also use it for some clients at work. I’d love to be able to sign into both accounts at the same time and when I see a picture I’d like to repin have the option of pinning it to my own boards, or one of my clients boards. It’s annoying when you’re logged into your own account and you see something that’d be perfect for a client, but you need to sign out and sign back in to pin it to their board. To remedy this, at the moment I’m using Chrome for my Pinterest and Firefox for my clients Pinterest account. If I find a photo in one, that I want to pin in the other, I just copy the URL of the pin and paste it in the other browser.

Are forums dead? A (sort of) love letter to forums.

December 20th, 2011 § 0

Straight up, I’d definitely say ‘yes, forums are dead’. But, this post is a love letter to forums, so you can safely bet that I think they still have some life left in them.

This point about forums came up at a recent community management workshop I went to. The room was filled with Community Managers and Social Media Managers from all over Melbourne, and when asked whether they use forums in their social media approaches, pretty much everyone said ‘no’. Everyone used social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc, but not forums.

I don’t use forums to post in myself, and never really have. The times that I’ve been involved in posting in forums over the past ten or so years were not that engaging. The only times I can remember actually writing in a forum was once on the In The Mix forum, the Vogue forum and a few times on some random tech forums. All of these times I was trying to find out the answer to something, however I don’t know if anyone actually replied due to losing interest, or me forgetting my login details, finding the answer somewhere else etc.

That’s not to say that I haven’t wanted to be involved. I remember reading about certain bands in the Faster Louder forums and wanting to be part of the conversation, but the whole rating system put me off. If someone that has 9999 cred points is talking about the topic already, why bother joining with my ‘Newbie’ status? Everyone would just overlook me. It felt like a club that was too much effort to try and be a proper part of.

However (this is where the love letter starts), I actually do use forums a hell of a lot – not to post in, but to learn from. Most of the tech questions I have had in the past, whether it’s about how to remove a certain part of your Wordpress theme, why Facebook is fucking up in a certain way or how to change a setting in your phone, have all been answered via forums. This is because the questions I was looking for answers to are not big enough to dedicate a whole article or blog post to. They are just little snippets of information, that are super niche or kind of random. They are questions that can’t be answered with broad information, you just need a tid bit of help to let you know you’re on the right way. Personal help, from real people.

Often when I’ve ended up on forums, I’ve been looking for an answer that I didn’t think I’d find. Usually this happens when I copy and paste an error message I’m getting from Facebook or another website. I copy and paste the message to find out if anyone else is sharing the same problem as me or if I’m just doing something wrong. It’s so validating to read that someone on the other side of the world has had the same problem as you and is as equally frustrated about it as you. This happened the other day when I was trying to share a YouTube video on one of the Facebook pages I manage and the thumbnail image kept appearing as a captcha code. There were no articles written about this, but after trying a few different searches I found a forum where someone had suggested placing a semi-colon at the end of the URL. I tried it and it worked. EFFING LOVE YOU M8.

If forums die off, are these kinds of moments going to live on? When people talk about forums being dead, I guess they’re talking about Facebook, Twitter and the like replacing them – but I don’t think that’s their role. The information you post on Twitter is unsearchable after ten days and it’d be impossible to search for info like this on Facebook with all the privacy restrictions. We still need forum-like sites.

Maybe the days of forums where you login using a username and password, and have your own avatar and cred rating are dead… but I think the essence of them will live on through websites like Quora. Quora is the most forum-like (in the best possible way) website out at the moment. It’s basically a site based on question and answer, but powered by users. People ask questions how they want to ask questions (not how you have to ask search engines) and real people (who are usually experts in their field) answer. LinkedIn also have a forum-like aspect built in with their Group Discussions.

I guess I’m not too attached to forums (sorry, this was supposed to be a love letter). I’m attached to finding answers from real people who are experiencing the same things I am at that moment in time. Whether this is through an search that uncovers a thread on an old school forum or via sites like Quora, I don’t really mind. I guess I’m more in love with instant access to information and instant gratification. But ah fuck it, I’ve written too much to go back now. It’s still a sort-of love letter to you dear forum. A love letter to your essence, anyway.

Getting back in the swing

April 12th, 2011 § 0

I’ve been so busy in my new (not really new anymore) role at Lifelounge, this blog has been a little neglected. It’s strange to look back on the posts I made last year with the knowledge I have now. I’ve gained an incredible amount of knowledge about social media in the past few months! I almost feel a little embarrassed about my past blog posts. But I guess what that’s what blogs like this are all about. If you can’t see a progression in your learning, then really – what’s the point?

A few of the things I’ve been focussing on social media-wise recently are learning more about the possibilities and limits of Facebook’s Open Graph, creating a winning forumla for Facebook ads and making the transition from FBML Facebook tabs to iframe tabs. I’m definitely neck-deep in the Facebook world at the moment. I’ve been adjusting quickly to their super-quick platform updates and learning as much as I can from other social media blogs.

Image by Laura Burlton (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Will technology be the downfall of broadcast TV? Or will it be the saviour?

August 17th, 2010 § 0

As I tucked myself into bed at 8.30pm last night with my laptop, ready to catch up on the TV I missed last week… I felt I was missing something. No, not a life to make life worth staying up past 8.30pm… but being part of a social television watching experience.

I remember in uni in a subject called Media & Meaning we were asked to hypothesize the future of television for the whole semester. This was in 2006, before iView and before streaming Australian TV over the internet became the norm. Class discussions centered around watching TV as a social experience. We came to the conclusion that although the act of watching TV can be a solitary experience, it also has great power to bring people together. People talk about last nights episode around the water cooler at work the next day and some get great satisfaction knowing that millions of people around the country are experiencing the same thing as me in this exact moment while watching certain TV shows.

Interestingly, the few shows I religiously watch (Media Watch, Q&A, The Gruen Transfer, Masterchef & Neighbours) have quite a large group of people talking about the show as it goes to air on Twitter. Before I got into live tweeting (or at least reading live tweets) during TV shows, I didn’t really watch any TV. So for me, the integration of Twitter with TV has increased my consumption of TV. I definitely think this is because for me, TV is a social experience. I love watching TV with a group of friends or (sometimes) my family, but watching it by myself is just boring (even though obviously the content is the same no matter the company!). Twitter seems to fill the void.

So as I caught up on last weeks episode of Media Watch and Gruen Nation on iView last night, I knew that by doing this I was missing out on this weeks episode of Media Watch and Q&A. Normally I wouldn’t find that annoying because I can just catch up on those episodes any time I like – but it is annoying because I know I’m missing out on the live Twitter action.

So far from new technology (laptop, broadband & iView) making me less inclined to watch TV shows as they go to air on my television, other technology (like Twitter) makes me more inclined to watch TV shows as they are broadcast on TV.

In Media & Meaning we all thought that technology would be the downfall of broadcast television. I guess it’s anything but.

Image by obo-bobolina under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license on Flickr.

When shopping, maps and apps collide

July 11th, 2010 § 2

Image by Profound Whatever under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license on Flickr.

Social media services, websites and apps become a lot more useful when location based elements are involved. I was thinking about this as I was walking around Westfield Doncaster this afternoon. It’s a huge shopping centre and I was trying to find a store called Gorman but had no idea where it was. Lately my initial instinct when something isn’t going my way or presenting a challenge for me is “Is there an app for this?”… Remember, most things can be solved with an iPhone!

I thought about looking up Gorman on Foursquare to find out where it is. But even if Gorman was listed on Foursquare, it wouldn’t be an effective way of finding a single store in a shopping centre as the map it displays is taken from Google Maps (which is great for roads, but not so much the highways inside Westfield)…

Then I thought about looking it up on Google Maps, but I don’t think they’ve got around to specifying step by step directions in navigating shopping centres (although they definitely should!).

So with my iPhone unable to help me it was looking like I’d have to use one of those slow touch screen maps or (god forbid) ask at the customer service desk. While trying to locate one of the touch screens, of course I was thinking “THERE SHOULD BE AN APP FOR THIS”. There is definitely a market for shopping centres releasing apps.

The Westfield Doncaster app could have a complete listing of all stores with an integrated interactive mapping system. You search for the store you want to find, and then get directions to it. I guess the hard part would be getting the GPS within the iPhone to be very accurate, so it can tell whether you’re standing out the front of Peter Alexander or Oscar Oscar. Then the differences between levels would also prove a slight problem as from what I know, GPS coordinates are the same no matter whether you’re standing on level 1 or level 2.

Aside from the limitations above, the app would still be worthwhile even if it didn’t access GPS information. You could tell it that you’re currently standing out the front of Alannah Hill and you want to get to Gorman. Then (just like the big touch screens) it would give you a map with a flashing path showing you which direction to take and which level to go to.

Aside from the location services this shopping centre app could utilise, it could also list specials and promotions across all retailers. This would be really helpful to shoppers, but I guess it would require a united effort across all stores in the centre, which could be hard to organise. If the individual retailers could update the information about their store themselves and possibly receive incentives to keep their store specials updated, this could also be a great feature.

You’d think I’d be able to stop thinking about social media and apps while shopping on the weekend. But no. I just wanted to buy a skirt from Gorman damn it. I ended up finding the store by the way through asking a customer service staff member. But it would have been more fun if I went on an iPhone treasure hunt to find it myself…

Talking like Twitter

July 9th, 2010 § 0

Image by McBeth, used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license on Flickr.

It’s pretty obvious that Twitter is a great tool for connectivity. You can connect to people you already know, people you wish you knew, famous people, academics… there’s nothing stopping you starting a conversation with anyone else on Twitter. This is what I love about it. But I’ve noticed that the boundaries (or lack of) between people on Twitter and how we interact with people offline is freaking different (obviously)… but lately I’ve been reading so much and connecting so much on Twitter, that it’s spilled over to my offline world, and although it’s not confusing for me, it is for others.

Some of the most interesting things I see or learn about during the day happen on Twitter. So naturally I want to share these with people close to me in the offline world. But it’s so weird to talk about it with them. Imagine being on the receiving end of this tirade by me: “Oh it was so funny today, (random tweep you don’t know #1) said to (random tweep you don’t know #2) all this stuff about the internet filter, then (random tweep you don’t know #3) re-tweeted what (random tweep you don’t know #1) said and… (blah, blah, blah, goes on like this for five minutes)…” If you had to listen to that you’d confused, perplexed and possibly thinking that I’m inventing friends in my mind.

I’m talking about these people I follow on Twitter like I know them, when I actually have no idea what their real name even is. It doesn’t seem confusing for me, but I guess it is when you’re not in a Twitter mindset.

It’s hard to drag Twitter conversations from Twitter with all their quirks (jargon, character limits and abbreviations) to a spoken conversation in the physical world. But that’s probably not going to stop me trying.

Foursquare haters

June 29th, 2010 § 2

Image by d_vdm under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license on Flickr.

Yesterday I saw the following tweets from @jeffjarvis on Twitter: I just ousted the entire damned world from being the mayors of anywhere. As dictator, I now decree: Shut up.

As a Foursquare lover/obsesser, this hit hard. I think I actually felt a pinch in my heart. How can anyone hate Foursquare? It’s seriously the future. But this tweet got me thinking, does everyone else hate Foursquare and I’m just this n00b who is blindly in love with it above all other social networks? Surely not… right?

But when there is a hater, there is always a lover… Luckily I read Monetizing Foursquare by rewarding loyalty on the Thinktank Media blog and the stars realigned. Crack out the Moet and the oysters… it’s back on!

This post reaffirmed the reasons why I adore Foursquare.

I can relate to changing habits because of Foursquare. “I’m not going to lie, i’ve totally changed my buying habits since i’ve been using it. I’ll grab a coffee from somewhere even if I don’t like the coffee – if there’s a mayorship to battle for, I’m happy to drink crappier coffee and walk that little bit further” – I totally understand. I’ve taken different trams, nearly put my back out walking further than I needed to carrying three heavy bags and risked looking like a psycho all because of Foursquare. I think I’ve even changed my attitude. Before Foursquare I pretty much went out to the same places and bars when I went out. But now, I’m more inclined to want to go to new places that I’ve heard about through Foursquare or just want to go somewhere new to get the extra five points. It’s also kind of about entering a different eco system of Foursquare players every time you go somewhere new. You get to see new mayors, new tips and be a part of that.

It has so much potential. “I’m stunned that either foursquare themselves or developers using the API haven’t produced a better, feature rich retention program using the points system that foursquare already has as part of each check in.” I know! If I knew how to work with the Foursquare API I probably wouldn’t have time to eat or sleep. I can see so many great potential uses for it. The Fit N Fast gym Foursquare integration is a great idea. My gym membership just expired to another gym, and after checking the Fit N Fast website I see that they’re opening a new gym right near my house. I am definitely not a gym junkie or even really that interested in working out at a gym… but if my gym was integrated with Foursquare I’d probably earn that Gym Rat badge in the first week.

It’s new, exciting and still developing. Even though there are some serious Foursquare haters, they’ll come around. In my group of friends, the same people who hated Facebook when everyone was on MySpace hate Foursquare. Once more brands start doing interesting things with it and begin offering more rewards and incentives, everyone will be jumping on the bandwagon. And it will be a freaking amazing party.

The day my tweets made Ten News

June 17th, 2010 § 0

So I’ve never been on TV before (except randomly in the background for a split second when George Calombaris presented a cooking display at Chadstone hehe)… but my Twitter handle has!

On April 20th 2010, my tweet and the Facebook page I created the day earlier made Ten news. You can watch the news clip on the Ten News website.

I was pretty freaking excited when Masterchef Season 2 started earlier this year. I live tweeted it, got paid to talk about it through Masterchef_chat and created a Facebook fan page about one of the contestants. It was the Facebook page that made the news.

I made a Facebook fan page for Irmgard. She was the first contestant to go after the final group was selected. She was a legend. So she couldn’t tell the difference between lamb and pork… pfft… who can? She had a great Russian accent and seemed like a genuine, loveable person with a great personality. Look back on the #masterchef tweets for that night… Irmgard was a sensation. So naturally, I made a Facebook fan page about her.

It grew pretty rapidly within 24 hours. I promoted it on the Masterchef fan page and through the #masterchef hashtag. I think this is where Channel Ten found out about it? Although I actually have no idea how they got onto it (or why it was really that newsworthy…)!

This is my tweet that was shown on the News:

And this is the shot of the Irmgard page from the news:

The weirdest element of the whole thing was the fact that the REAL Irmgard and her family became fans of the page and became the people that interacted with it the most. This really changed by perspective of the fan page I created. When I first created the page, I posted from the page like I was Irmgard. I’d say things like “Pork… lamb… it’s all the same I say”. But then once I realised that the main people interacting with the page were Irmgard’s family, I felt strange interacting with the “fans” in this way. I didn’t want to pretend to be her in front of her and people who knew her. I thought they might think I was being rude or insensitive.

Since then I’ve been posting to the fans about Irmgard, not as her. I find less awkward doing things this way.

In the few hours since the fan page was aired on Ten News, it went ballistic. Wall comments, likes and new fans everywhere. I then decided to step the fan page up to the next level and create some custom Facebook tabs. I created a “Pork or Lamb” tab and a “Ch10 News” tab. I always wanted to experiment with FBML to create tabs, but had no real fan page where it was appropriate to. I think they add to the page and make it a little more dynamic.

I learnt a lot from the whole experience. The most interesting thing was the spark that old media can give new media to help it get started. It’s hard to tell, but I’m not sure if the page would have been as big as it was without Ten News.

Watch the Ten News story in full

Facebook beta tester

June 14th, 2010 § 0

I just applied to be a Facebook beta tester. I don’t know what aspect of Facebook I’ve applied to beta test, but I really want to do it.

I noticed a link under the “Get Connected” panel on my Facebook home page to the beta testing page. This is what Facebook have said about it:

We at Facebook are preparing to launch a brand new product to the world. We think it will be as exciting as Facebook Photos and Facebook Events, but we need your help to make it great.

As a beta tester, your job will be to ask great questions and provide great answers about your favorite topics. Economics? Skydiving? Relationships? Mexican Restaurants? It’s up to you. You’ll be the first person outside of Facebook to use this product. Your expert writing will be seen by tens of millions of people — including job recruiters. And we’ll bring our best beta testers out to California to tour Facebook headquarters and meet the team.

How amazing would it be to visit the Facebook headquarters!? THAT would make an awesome Facebook photo album.

I took a day to decide what three topics I would write about. Finally I decided on my social network lover, Foursquare; the basics of SEO copywriting and those freaking annoying trumpets that drive me insane when I watch the World Cup on TV with the sound not on mute.

Here is one of my questions and answers:

Why do people use Foursquare?

People use the location-based social network Foursquare to share a wide variety of location-based information with other users.

Foursquare allows users to check-in to places. The person that checks-in to a place the most in a week becomes the “mayor” of that venue. At some venues like Starbucks, there are real world rewards for the Foursquare mayor. You can read more about Foursquare rewards at Starbucks on Mashable: http://mashable.com/2010/03/11/foursquare-starbucks/

Users gain points when they add venues, visit venues and check-in to new places. The points tally is displayed in a ranked leader board. This aspect appeals to users’ competitive side.

You can also leave tips for others about venues you’ve been to. This lets other users learn more about a place before visiting it and can provide useful suggestions, like what to order on a menu for example.

Although there are many positive sides of Foursquare, it’s important to be aware of your security settings when sharing sensitive information like your location.

Apparently you get notified whether you’ve been successful in about 24 hours. Fingers crossed!

Image by tk-link under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license on Flickr.

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