Google Makes Facebook Pages a Higher Priority for Businesses
Filed under: Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing
Google announced via Twitter this week, that public status updates from Facebook are now included in the search engine’s real-time search feature. That means the largest social network in the world is getting play in Google’s real-time search alongside Twitter, MySpace, and others, and these real-time results are often featured prominently on the first page of search results for the hottest queries.
Apparently only updates from Facebook PAGES are indexed, and according to Danny Sullivan, that includes links, status updates, photos, videos shared by page owners (not comments made by the fans). Any Facebook update (from regular user profiles) can be shared publicly, so I wonder why these aren’t being pulled. Results from Twitter and other places aren’t only from branded sources.
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This seems to indicate that brands should be getting a good amount of play for Facebook appearances in Google’s real-time search results, and possibly in the real-time search results in general (due to Facebook’s huge user-base). Right now, Facebook isn’t dominating the results, but that is bound to change with it being the largest (by far) social network on the web.
A lot of brands who don’t have Facebook pages in place are likely going to consider this a new reason to create one. Here are some tips for making a good one and promoting it.
This should also lead to Facebook Pages getting more fans, due to the increased exposure. Beware, however, that running a promotion on your Facebook Page may cost you ten thousand dollars, because Facebook’s policy guidelines indicate that you must get written approval from a Facebook account rep. In order to get one of those, you must spend that much in advertising, according to Eric Eldon of Inside Facebook.
Now Google’s real-time search results include (as listed by Sullivan) Facebook, MySpace, Twiter, Google Buzz, FriendFeed, Jaiku, Identi.ca, TwitArmy, Google News links, Google Blog Search links, new web pages, and freshly updated pages. At this point, Google generally only shows the real-time results for newsy/trending topics.
Note: At the Online Marketing Summit out in San Diego, WebProNews talked about a different kind of real-time search that involves local businesses, with RateItAll president Lawrence Coburn. It’s not local search as you would traditionally think of it, but it involves location, which one might consider a new kind of query.
What if Facebook Added a "Blog" Tab?
Facebook wants to keep users on Facebook. So far, they are doing a pretty good job of that. More and more people are spending more of their online time on Facebook, not to mention, spending more time connected to the web in general (at least partially due to rising use of smartphones).
How much time do you spend on Facebook in a month? A week? Let us know.
Facebook recently made it a point to show users how to use the social network to keep up with the news. Users can simply become fans of their favorite news organizations’ pages (feel free to include ours in your mix), and group them in a “news” list just as they would create a group for friends or co-workers. The bottom line is; spending more time on Facebook getting news headlines is spending more time on Facebook period. There is also talk of Facebook working on its own web email service. Again, more time spent on Facebook.
One way Facebook could capture even more of its users’ time, is if it introduced a “blog” tab. Facebook currently has a “notes” tab, and quite a few people do use this. It’s a similar concept, but what if it was given more prominence and renamed “blog?” A blog tab might keep Facebook users even longer. First of all, the users blogging with it would obviously be sticking around to write their posts. In addition, their friends and fans would be sticking around longer to read those posts, which would generally be much longer and require more time than the average status update.
Would more people become bloggers?
I suspect that the word “notes” doesn’t quite resonate the same as the word blog in the minds of many Facebook users, although for all intents and purposes, the feature operates like a blog. You can post longer-form content for your friends and fans to see, and they can comment on it, while it all remains in tact in one spot for future reference. Not only could the addition of a “blog” tab keep Facebook users around longer, but it could have a significant impact on the Blogosphere. Simply calling it a blog and having it available right from any user’s profile page might just inspire.
Is social media killing blogs?
No, but it’s hard to say that use of sites like Facebook and Twitter (and now Google Buzz) don’t lend to less blog posts being created. If nothing else, it’s simply a time issue. It is easy to push out a quick status update if you have something to say. It’s easier than blogging. For longer-form content, blogs are generally the better option, which is one reason they are still alive and well. But if Facebook had a blog tab, the social network could cut into the Blogosphere even more, given its huge userbase, while establishing itself as a go-to place for blogging (another area in which Facebook could compete with Google, I might add. Don’t forget that Google owns Blogger).
If Facebook did this, it is very unlikely that all current bloggers would immediately go running there to do their blogging, but Facebook users who may not already be blogging may find the urge to do so when that tab is right in front of their faces. And frankly, I’m confident many current bloggers would go running there. Facebook is a powerful tool for building an audience or expanding upon one.
It works on MySpace. Look at director Eli Roth’s blog, for example. He gets a lot of engagement there (although he hasn’t updated in several months). Facebook is another animal altogether, and its growth is unprecedented. Just look at Facebook’s latest round of stats.
Facebook is frequently adding and changing features, as any user can certainly attest (for better or for worse). It is not hard to imagine them doing something like this. For the record, the company has made no mention of going such a route, to my knowledge. There are currently ways to blog within and around Facebook if you look hard enough, but if Facebook made blogging a focal point, I think it could take off, and perhaps lend to the concept of Facebook as a news source, and even add greatly to the Blogosphere by encouraging more blogging.
Should Facebook Have a blog tab? Would you use it? Share your thoughts.
Facebook Users Set Up Fan Group(s) for Suicide Pilot
Update: Ok, make that multiple Facebook groups…(via Business Insider)
Original Article: By now, you’ve probably heard the news that Joseph Andrew Stack intentionally flew a plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas. He appeared to have left a rant at EmbeddedArt.com before he did it, but the site has since been taken offline, and replaced with the following message:
This website has been taken offline due to the sensitive nature of the events that transpired in Texas this morning and in compliance with a request from the FBI. To see an archived version of the original letter, please go here: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0218102stack1.html. Please visit our forum if you wish to discuss anything related to this incident: Texas crash pilot left suicide note on Web site – embeddedart.com.
Regards,
T35 Hosting – www.T35.com
Stack has already had a Facebook Fan Group set up in his “honor” by people admiring what he has done. At the time of this writing, it already has over 160 fans. Some on the page are praising what he did, while others are calling him and his fans names. Social media at its finest.
On an interesting side note, Google doesn’t appear to be displaying its real-time search results for “Austin” or “Texas”. I just find this slightly odd, being how it is one of the day’s biggest news stories. To be fair, the results do show up for queries like “IRS”, “plane”, and “crash”. This shows another example of where the feature still has some room for improvement.
Some Ways to Enjoy the 2010 Winter Olympics Online
As the Olympics get underway, fans have a lot of options to engage online. Many popular sites on the web are involved in a variety of ways.
Google
Google allows you to take a virtual tour of the Olympics in 3D. They recently released updates in Google Earth’s 3D Buildings layer, which showcase Olympic venues (54 buildings). Models range from downtown event centers to ski lifts and spectator bleachers. The Official site for the Olympics uses the models itself.
Vectoral Elevation has “an interactive artwork” that allows users to direct light beams and transform Vancouver’s skyline until the end of the month using a custom interface built on Google Earth and Map APIs. It lets users design big light sculptures by directing 20 robotic searchlights located around English Bay.
Google has also taken Street View to Olympics country:
Bing
Microsoft launched a new Bing Maps application that pulls photos from Flickr, associates them with Bing Maps Streetside photos, and overlays them stretching the photo to form fit where in the world it belongs. The app is currently available in Vancouver (among several other places).
Bing actually has a Winter Olympics-specific Maps app as well. “In coordination with NBCOlympics.com, get up to the minute information about the 2010 Winter Olympics in everything from venues to news,” says Bing’s Chris Pendleton. “Click the Venues bar on the left to see the different venues where the events are taking place. Click the Medal Count bar to see every country mapped out with the number of bronze, silver and gold medals awarded to the respective country. Click the Winter Games News and Blogs to get the latest information about the Winter Olympic Games from news sources and bloggers on site. Finally, check out the Winter Games Tweets which filters information from our Twitter Maps application specific to the Olympics.” Bing talks about more Vancouver apps that feature Bing Maps here.
Bing is also giving its home page some Olympics love. It will be updating it with various photos from the events. “And while we’ll show some winners, this won’t be the standard parade of medalists,” says Bing’s Stephanie Horstmanshof. “We’re out to show the great moments from the games: the alpine skier from Ghana, the debut of Ski Cross as an Olympic event, anything to do with curling—all with the stunning imagery that you’ve come to expect on the Bing homepage.”
More ways that Bing and MSN are involved in the Olympics are discussed here.
Yahoo/Flickr
Yahoo has a games-dedicated site, as well as a new Olympic mobile site at m.yahoo.com/olympics. This will provide coverage with live results, upcoming events, medal counts, photos, news, commentary, etc.
Yahoo also has a Yahoo Sports Olympics Coverage app for My Yahoo, that gives you more such information.
On Yahoo’s Flickr, the IOC, the official governing body of the Olympics, has set up their official Olympic photo group for people to share their photos of the events and of Vancouver.
The IOC also has an official Olympic Games Page on Facebook. “Through the page, you can stay updated on activities and events at the Games, while sharing your own stories about what the Olympics mean to you,” says Alex Huot, head of social media for the IOC. “You’ll even be able to stay updated on future games even after this year’s Winter Olympics end.”
Alex also encourages people to use Facebook to become a fan of athletes and Olympics teams, play the Vancouver 2010 Official Minigame, and share photos.
Twitter has a list of verified athletes from the Olympics who will be tweeting. Fans will of course be tweeting non-stop about things that happen at the Olympics throughout the events.
These are just a few of many ways fans of the Olympics can engage with the events on the web. How are you planning on staying connected?
Facebook Apps and Games Dashboards On the Way
Facebook will be launching the Games Dashboard and the Applications Dashboard in the coming weeks. The company says these will make it easier for users to interact with their apps, and will provide new communication channels from the home page.
“Once launched to users, the dashboards will serve as a personalized destination on Facebook for users to interact with their favorite applications, discover news ones and receive application updates related to recent activity,” a spokesperson for Facebook tells WebProNews. “For developers, the Applications and Games dashboards will provide new opportunities for communication with users, as well as discoverability of their applications.”
On the Facebook Developer Blog, Jordan M. Alperin outlines the following features:
- Recently used applications and games: The top section of the dashboards will prominently display applications that a user has recently interacted with, making it easy to reengage with the applications they use most often. This section will also include a link to a page where users can see all of the applications they have interacted with, whether or not they have been bookmarked.
- News items: Applications will have the ability to display news stories, giving you the ability to communicate with your users and alert them to news related to your application, such as, “It’s your turn in a game against Jared” or “The leaderboard was reset 6 hours ago, come play!” You’ll have the option to set global news items, which will be visible to all users, or personal news items, which target a specific user. The news component will appear as a text field next to each application in the dashboard.
- Mentioning Users: Using simple syntax, you can render users’ names and links to their profiles in news and activities.
- Your Friends’ Recent Activity: The dashboards will display some of the applications that a user’s friends are using along with information about relevant activities within the application. You’ll set these activity stories via the Dashboard API.
- Your Friends Play: Another way we’ll help users discover new applications is by showing them a number of their friends who frequently use applications, and the applications those friends use.
- Directory: The Directory section of the dashboard will show the applications that currently appear in the “Applications You May Like” section of the Application Directory. We will also link to the Application Directory in this section.
- Suggestions: On the right hand side we’ll have a Suggestions area where Facebook will highlight applications we think users might like, based on the applications they and their friends are using.
- Counters and home page placement: “Games” and “Applications” links will appear on users’ home pages and will link to the dashboards, once the new home page launches to users in the coming weeks. Bookmarked applications will also have prominence on the home page, and can be accompanied by Counters that you can set to let users know there are actions for them to take within your applications.
Here is what the Games Dashboard looks like:
Earlier this week, Facebook announced that users can receive notifications from apps in their email. Also, they will phase out updates from apps in the notifications channel on Facebook.
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