Engauge Selected for Facebook’s Preferred Marketing Developer Program

It was announced yesterday by Facebook that Engauge was selected for one of Facebook’s most exclusive programs, the Preferred Marketing Developer program (formerly the Preferred Developer Consultant [PDC] program) for our application development. Before this admission round, there were only 90 other PDCs worldwide, with only 23 headquarter offices located within the United States. The last admission round extended the members qualified to 232. From Facebook:

The goal of the PMD program is to bring developers to the right clients and make it possible for any brand or company to find consultants who can work with them to build comprehensive Facebook campaigns and presences.

Video Consumption in Social Channels

For Valentine’s Day, My Coke Rewards created a series of three posts that had pass along value that fans wanted to share with their own networks. The results were phenomenal, and insights on the post series showcased opportunities for leveraging multimedia (video and photo) posts in social media.

App #Geekout Trend: Real-time People Discovery Using Facebook Interests

I love following the startup scene in technology (specifically in social [especially using Facebook's Open Graph API], mobile and healthcare in particular). Drew Hawkins and I geeked out with a presentation on some of our favorite startups to emerge from TechCrunch Disrupt last fall internally at Engauge. My all-time, hands down favorite to emerge from the bunch was Wondershake, a location-based mobile app that connects individuals with like-minded people using their Facebook interests. This startup was included in all of the “remarkable” categories; however, it didn’t place because it was not available in the U.S.

Since then, I’ve seen no comparable players that align an app user’s interests to allow for real-time discovery of individuals around them. Until now.

Marketer-Speak in 2012 for Facebook Changes in 2011

2012 kicks off the year of the verb. Hot debates stemmed following the change in Edgerank, as part of comprehensive changes from F8, Facebook’s annual developer conference, in September of last year. Since then, subsequent changes affected Facebook applications, third party publishers, and Facebook analytics, to name a few. For those not as interested in keeping up with the day-to-day changes, below are three key summary strategies for adapting a Facebook page to optimize engagement with the changes and two key takeaways from the changes in 2011 moving forward.

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.

Top Five: Lessons Learned in First Year of Blogging

I never dreamed I’d learn so much from blogging in one year, and the investment is well worth it. (More stunning to me than anyone is that my blog received more than 4,000 non-spam views over the course of a year, which is approximately 3,999 more than I expected.) Here is a top five countdown of lessons learned in my “freshman year” in a new terrain:

Insight #5: Search Is a Key Referral

My most organically-searched post consisted of less than one hundred words. The driver was search, in which users were looking for a data type that is no longer easily accessible in Facebook. Keeping text succinct and creating a how-to post allowed for the post to show above other more highly trafficked websites, like eHow, and was only outranked by pages from Facebook itself.

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.

Report: Importance of Mobile in Consumer Shopping Intentions

Think Insights with Google is one of my favorite new free reports on consumer behavior. I receive their newsletter every quarter, and the latest featured a report on gauge of consumer interest measured at the beginning of Q4 last year to predict shopping behavior this past holiday season. The overall takeaway is that it’s critical to be available to shoppers (on both smartphones and tablets) as they are making decisions. Below are four highlights:

Lazy Man’s Four-Minute 2011 Viral Video Recap

My boyfriend and I had a bit too much fun this morning watching way too many viral videos from 2011, including “Motivational Bike Kid” and “Dancing With Swords” (really?).

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.