1. M80 on F8 Introduction
September 26, 2011
Exciting changes came out of last week's F8 conference which will greatly
affect how brands and consumers build relationships on Facebook. As
GroupM's social media specialist agency, M80 has created this brief
document cataloging the changes to the platform and what these changes
mean to brands in social media.
Should you wish to discuss these or other any other social media topics,
please feel free to reach out to us via email (tim.fogarty@m80.com) or on
Twitter (@m80im).
Overview
Surveying the new features to the platform, it's clear that Facebook
targeted the most compelling features of up-and-coming social networks,
using its own scale and technological prowess to replicate and improve
many applications that have lived as standalone presences. Each change
seeks to inspire more activity within the Facebook social graph by creating
more nuanced, accessible data for application developers and users alike.
New Facebook Functionality
Verb and Changes to the Open Graph
Because F8 is for the development community, the biggest changes
Facebook is rolling out are geared toward the functional.
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2. Verb/Gestures
M80 on F8 Through Facebook Gestures, the semantic and functional limitations of
September 26, 2011
the Like button (and news-oriented Recommend button) are mitigated.
Nearly any action can be created through Gestures - you can [verb] many
[nouns] - triggering deeper interactions and assigning more meaning than
the "Like" button could.
The possibilities for application developers are very compelling and will
drive toward greater social engagements, though early stage developer
misuse and brand-side strategic re-alignments around interaction instead
of fan count will cause growing pains.
Changes to Open Graph and Permissions
An early feature of Facebook's Open Graph was Beacon, launched in
2007 to automatically share users' actions like purchases to their Walls.
The world wasn't ready for Beacon, and the unpopular feature was shut
down in 2009.
Fast forward four years, and now that consumers are much more
comfortable in sharing in social media, automatic sharing has been
reintroduced. Every action in an application may now feed into a user's
timeline, creating with Gestures a larger understanding of what we do,
what we want, and - in keeping with the previous paradigm - what we like.
With obvious benefits for automated and human-powered recommendations,
the data already generated by this change is flooding users' tickers and feeds.
Facebook Music, one of the first
implementations of the new features
afforded by the changes to Open
Graph is powered by constant
streams of activity from entertainment
partners like Spotify.
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3. Timeline
M80 on F8 One of the initial draws to Facebook was its cleanly designed profiles -
September 26, 2011 especially relative to the leader in social media at the time, MySpace. That
visual cleanliness has come and gone in waves over the years, and with the
roll out of Timeline it once again moves toward the "very busy" visual design
the network once eschewed. The trade-off, though, is completely worth it.
Facebook user profiles are changing from a "one-sheet" on who each of us is
to the full story - displaying arcs of interests, relationships, and major life
events. Just as users have curated interesting bits of content on networks like
Tumblr, we'll now be able to curate the story of our lives through the many
options of Timeline.
The new design of Facebook profiles allows for much greater visual
control of the page, once again gives a home to applications on the profie,
and crucially allows for the easy browsing of the user's entire social media
story over the years.
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4. Analytics
M80 on F8 Perhaps most relevant to brand advertisers, new analytics tools for
September 26, 2011
applications will finally allow developers to better track the downstream
effects of published actions. Source attribution for various measures of
conversion has long been missing in Facebook insights, and this new
functionality brings these numbers to the fore in a helpful (and even good-
looking) way. This is hugely important, as new Verbs must be tested and
optimized.
What This Means About Facebook's Near Future
Facebook is a rapidly maturing company, pivoting from building the
complete social graph to driving ever more sharing and content
consumption through its platform by using the hyperactive tech start-up
space as a research and development laboratory.
We can expect that Facebook and its application development partners will
work hard to continue to bring new and different experiences to their users.
Facebook Continuing to Innovate
Once a social media behavior achieves early mass scale and mindshare
among thought leaders, Facebook does one of three things: co-opt the
technology, partner with the company, or buy them outright. The start-up
ecosystem will continue to yield new new social interactions, and
Facebook will be there to bring them to the masses.
Technology and Analytic Provider Shake-Ups
Many providers of technology and analytic tools hinge their entire business
on Facebook's platform - as that platform changes, tools that had been very
valuable for brands in social media may be immediately irrelevant, while
others may quickly adapt to the new ways of working. Brands must evaluate
its technology partners to make sure that the tools they use are actually
worth continued investments.
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5. M80 on F8 Developers Finding The Unexpected
September 26, 2011
Everyone's excited by these changes - whether in the positive or
negative sense of the word - so there will be a flurry of users trying
to get the most out of the new experience. Developers will provide a
myriad of tools, toys and fixes to bring the best out of the platform
for users, providing brands spaces in paid and owned media.
What This Means For Brands
When brands engage consumers on Facebook, they must play by the
social network's rules - it's Facebook's world, not ours. When changes
debut, brands must evaluate how they plan to acquire and retain the
consumers they wish to engage, how they plan to continue to engage with
them, and which tools will do the best job to fulfill social media and business
goals.
New tools are going to give marketers different options to engage with
consumers, from any connected device or website, at any time. Social
media strategies and content plans should never be so calcified to not allow
for a quick re-evaluation of a brand's approach in social media, and brands
and agencies alike must be careful to select tools and production partners
that reflect and understand the new ways of working.
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