Three key summary strategies for adapting a Facebook page to optimize engagement with 2011 Facebook changes:

1. Facebook decreases the value of a Page Like and of a Post Like.
2. For the social marketer: Comments four times more valuable in driving click-throughs than Likes.
3. Graphrank, a News Feed prioritization for Open Graph apps, comes to Facebook. 

Two key takeaways from 2011:

1. Facebook’s Champion in 2011? The developer,  the Hacker, and the Open Graph-speaking marketer.
2. Facebook applications will become the most valuable opportunity for brands to engage Facebook users.

Three key summary strategies for adapting a Facebook page to optimize engagement with 2011 Facebook changes:

1. Facebook decreases the value of a Page Like and of a Post Like.  Facebook knows that the true social value is in commentary between fans. Sharing about a TV program or mommy topic is the value that social brings that is not available in any other platform. Likes put too much of a focus on time-sensitive information and do not give enough weight to what users truly care about over time.  For this reason, Facebook is shifting value to “engagement,” which is driven by comments and viral shares, and they will continue to do so.
2. For the social marketer: Comments four times more valuable in driving click-throughs than Likes.   Subsequently, Facebook’s algorithm rewards actions that require more from the user. Likes remain the most prevalent form of engagement on Facebook, but comments have more pull — more than four times as much. From All Facebook, the average post on Facebook generates:
   1. 3.103 clicks per like,
   2. 14.678 clicks per comment, and
   3. 0.005 clicks per impression (meaning page view).
3. Graphrank, a News Feed prioritization for Open Graph apps, comes to Facebook. With the announcement of the latest improvements to Open Graph apps, applications that live within a user’s Timeline must now be prioritized amidst Facebook’s many other existing features in the NewsFeed. In order to do so, these Facebook applications are ranked against each other, in what is called “Graphrank.” Graphrank is then incorporated into the larger Edgerank algorithm, which determines overall News Feed prioritization. According to Facebook, Graphrank (or a user’s likelihood of seeing an app’s activity in their NewsFeed) is determined by a confidential ranking that is determined upon the following, and the infographic to the right helps to visually outline these factors:
   1.  Affinity (or the app user’s relationship with the user viewing the story, as determined by their shared interests, activities and other Facebook touch points)
   2. Weight (depends on its design and as compared to the performance of other applications as well)
   3. Interactions (a user’s quantity of times interacting with the app; it is critical that this factor be optimized when designing an application’s strategy)
   4. and, Time Decay (or the length of time since the story occurred).

Subsequently, here are two key takeaways from 2011:

1. Facebook’s Champion in 2011? The developer,  the Hacker, and the Open Graph-speaking marketer. Facebook Apps become available to all brands, and the most creative will begin taking advantage of their value immediately  Overall, Timeline apps may become even more important for brands than Pages themselves.  Creative and technologically-sound developments will continue to increase in importance more and more. For this, Facebook has created its own culture of hacking and conferences for the developer and gamer and will continue to invest in these areas and pools of individuals as resources.
2. Facebook applications will become the most valuable opportunity for brands to engage Facebook users. As Facebook continues to shift their focus on engagement, Facebook interactions from brand pages that only marginally succeed in engaging fans with status updates and media updates will begin to lose status and credibility in users’ News Feeds. Instead, those solutions that provide utility to users and are easily integrated with seamless sharing will begin to emerge as a more successful and popular platform. These applications allow for users to utilize their capabilities time and time again, gaining valuable real estate not only in users’ News Feeds, but also in users’ Timelines. The questions to ask for successful  applications development include:
   1. What content would a user want their friends to see? That is, content must be designed so that it meets those social projections users desire. Does the content shared shed a positive light on the user or his or her ability in a game, for example? Is he or she sharing activities that they would like their friends to see, which would incline their friends to have a more favorable perception of them, such as a run tracker or donation acknowlegement.
   2. Why would a user’s friend want to see the information shared on an application? This allows for the proliferation of the application. Considering what benefit a user’s network would gain from seeing the shared question essentially questions its overall social (or passalong) value.
   3. What would motivate a user to share their activity on a frequent, regular basis? Once applications become more widespread, this metric will increase in importance more and more. Designing the app to have a frictionless tie into users’ lives that motivates them to share (and share often) is critical to its success. For example, is the value of the application the overall balance it accrues from shares over time, so users are incentivized to share all of the time to tick their total sum higher and higher? Or, does it incorporate a gaming element that allows for competition among other friends posting, adding a time-sensitive element?

Sources and for more information
2011 In Review - Facebook Developer Blog
EdgeRank and Graph Rank Defined - Inside Facebook
The Facebook Apps Are Coming: 4 Reasons Your Business Should Care – Social Fresh
How Timeline Changes Marketing On Facebook - All Facebook

Insight #5: Search Is a Key Referral

The post itself received more than 2,000 impressions in search. Using straight forward wording is critical in driving referrals. After all, the homepage only drew 30% of traffic (reiterating the need for good keywords for search within individual blog posts).

Insight #4: Content First

Recently, I’ve loved seeing how brands take excellent blog content and juxtapose it onto other platforms (such as Modcloth’s Pinterest page). But the fundamentals are that they started with good content on a blog.

Insight #3: Unexpected Successes

People love Top 10 Lists. And Geeks. A Top 10 List of Geeky Wedding Cakes post (of 40) drove more than 25% of the blog’s total traffic and had twice as many views as any other post. Really, geeks? Here’s one of the places we geeked out recently.

Insight #2: Content Development Is a Continual Process 

Blogging a ready-to-publish post in one sitting is not what created my best posts. While writing a good post may only take an hour, I found I was most creative and able to best execute good ideas when I broke the content development process into small steps. I have a “blog drafts” google document that I manage even more often than my “Drafts” folder in my WordPress Dashboard. Here, I brainstorm ideas to see if they will turn into something worth writing about. Or, I might jot down a quick one-line idea if something comes to mind but I am busy with another task. I also use the Google Doc as a repository to copy and paste email strings about innovative ideas, which often turn into great blog post ideas. (Four Examples of Innovation in Loyalty Programs, Applications in Timeline: Critical Opportunity for Brands on Facebook, Psychographic Insights from Fans via Open Graph, and Google+: Innovation, Not Repetition each (to name a few) originated in email strings with colleagues at Engauge.)

In any one spurt, I might work on two or three posts at a time. But working in short bursts (usually only about fifteen to thirty minutes at a time) helps me to deliver significantly higher quality work. And, it helps to look at the same topic a few times with fresh eyes before publishing it.  The trick is to block off time to complete a blog. I know that my weakness while working on multiple posts at the same time would be to not finish them as timely as I should (the last 10% is the hardest), so I have to be very disciplined about balancing creating good content and getting that post complete (blocking off time on my calendar knowing I have to submit by the end of that time is my success tool).

Insight #1: Learning from Others Is Critical

I didn’t learn this specific to blogging, but overall, learning from knowledge-sharing colleagues (such as Kaitlyn Dennihy, Jeff Hilimire, Julia Cantor, Drew Hawkins, and Katie Melick) who “blog” (in one form or another – it may be anything from WordPress to Tumblr) is the most valuable investment throughout this year. Thanks guys!

I’m looking forward to see what’s in store for 2012!

• 77% of holiday shoppers will turn to their tablet device for online shopping, 54% will turn to their smartphones
• Shoppers increased their reliance on social networking for shopping by 40% year over year. 
• Consumers’ use mobile and tablet devices to accompany their shopping, even if they aren’t shopping directly from it (67% of purchases will still be made from a desktop). 82% of consumers turn to online research to determine the retailer where they will shop.
• And, 68% of consumers will turn to their mobile device for either online or in-store shopping, and an even high percentage (a whopping 77%) of those who have tablets will use it for online shopping. 

Access the full report and other goodies from Think Insights here.

Too lazy to watch the best viral videos from 2011 one at a time? Watch a 4-minute recap of the year’s best videos, which captures (an incredible) 79 videos: The Best Viral Videos of 2011.

(Apologies for not having video embedded – right are protected.)

Thank you to Farhad Manjoo for the original tweet to this video. 

Alzheimer’s Association (Georgia Chapter): This is a cause very close to my heart. I worked at the Alzheimer’s Association for a year and a half and grew their social media presences before switching to Engauge. Their mission is to eliminate Alzheimer’s disease through the advancement of research and promotion of brain health, and to enhance care and support for all individuals, their families and caregivers. More than 200,000 individuals in Georgia have Georgia, and it is often the family of those individuals that is most devastated - financially, emotionally, and mentally – by the  fatal disease. Donate here (after all, I did build this website back in my time there).

Institute for Leadership Advancement (Terry College of Business, UGA): A notification was sent to the professor on whose behalf I donated to UGA Institute for Leadership Advancement. Good follow through and donation program by UGA. Donate here.

Buckhead Church: I cannot even state the importance and magnitude of the role that this organization has played in my life. From being baptized there in 2009, connecting with amazing small groups, and taking part in some of their ministries in the church, Buckhead Church is one of the most transformative organizations to me personally over the past three years. And while I am personally passionate about (and give to) non-profit, it is important to me to give directly to the church. Here’s why. And, donate here.

Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta: As a part of the Radiothon that friends Jeanne Hastings and Kelly Hilimire were a part of orchestrating. Donate here.

Amigos for Christ: I donated on Tiffany Fickenscher’s behalf. She had a remarkably impacting experience there, and a friend of hers is still working there. Shortly after making my donation, I received a handwritten thank you letterfrom Sabrina Bland, a beneficiary of the program, with a picture of her on the front.I was very touched by the letter. Donate here.

In the Atlanta office of Engauge, there is excellent collaboration between groups, especially from my perspective on the Digital Innovation Group (DIG) and how we interact with other teams. Social does not work in silos, and we are cross-functionally figuring out how to collaborate.

Within this, there exists a great opportunity to apply how we’ve incorporated social into other disciplines to do the same with technology, further incorporating it as a leading creative differentiator across disciplines. The solution may not exist solely with the technology leaders themselves. As we give the mission to other disciplines to adopt social (and, for example, that all members of the company need to be participating in social, not just the social team), it is as critical for other teams to adopt, engage with and experiment in leading technology.

Technology is the “language” that links creativity and implementation. Everyone, not just developers, needs to be well-versed in the language of technology to be able to converse and be relevant.

An example of a natural activity that could be converted to allow for social currency in a sample digital loyalty rewards program is for photo sharing. For example, fans sometimes share pictures of the reward they won on the brand page, and it would be optimal to enable a cohesive experience to upload and view reward pictures. Interject that action and allow them to take a picture of their reward and text the photo to a central area where photos of rewards from fans are all housed. Include the text code within the package that shipped the reward.

Another great implementation comes from a graduate of Creative Circus, which is right down the street from Engauge. Skyler Dobin, former JWT intern and Creative Circus grad, created an ad campaign for the United States Postal Service to encourage people to write more hand-written letters. The campaign mocks up implementation across multiple platforms, including billboards and print, and it even includes a Facebook component that allows users to design and purchase stamps.

While the campaign is not live on the Facebook page (or elsewhere), AgencySpy reports that “Dobin and Fisher have talked to agency officials, who assure that they are getting the campaign into the right hands.” (Credit to Agency Spy.)

One tool that has helped me with responding on the page as well as managing other tasks is ClipMenu, a clipboard manager for Mac OS X. ClipMenu takes copy/paste to a greater level of efficiency by archiving the last 20 items copied and pasted for one-click insertion. From the desktop bar, users can “record 8 clipboard types, from plain text to image.” And, “to paste a recorded item, you just pop up menu by invoking the shortcut key, and select a menu item from the menu.” It also has a “Snippet” function I have not yet explored that allows users to ”register texts frequently use[d], like e-mail addresses, user IDs and so on.”

Download the app from their website.

It’s safe to say I’m obsessed with productivity apps (as are fellow Engaugers like Katie Melick, Drew Hawkins and Lee Newton). We are always looking for we can  do what we love to do even better. What other productivity tips, tricks, apps, or processes do you use to make community management or other roles more efficient and effective?