1000s Of Journalists No...

4 months after it launched its Twitter-style asymmetrical Subscribe feature , Facebook and its Journalist Program Manager Vadim Lavrusik’s efforts to weaken Twitter’s stranglehold on breaking news are paying off. The company  just announced that thousands of journalists now use Subscribe, including 90 reporters from The New York Times and 50 from the Washington Post. If Facebook can get your favorite journalists publishing through Subscribe, you’ll have less need for Twitter. Next I hear it’s setting its sights on getting celebrities and  entertainment tastemakers onboard. Additionally, Facebook released some best practices for how journalists can maximize the engagement (Likes, comments, and shares) on their posts. Though very late to the game, Facebook has been deeply incentivizing use of its  asymmetrical Subscribe feature . Facebook makes it easy to accumulate Subscribers. It publishes a news feed story to your friends when you Subscribe to someone, and offers suggestions of “People to Subscribe to” in its sidebar (check out your personalized Subscription recommendations here ). There’s an embeddable Subscribe button for websites available, and Facebook’s Comments Box plugin shows links to Subscribe to commenters. An informal opt-in poll of 25 journalists using Subscribe found they grew their Subscriber count by 320% in November 2011. I concur. In the last month my Subscriber count has shot up from 2,500 to over 13,000. Subscribe poses a very real threat to Twitter . With time it could severely reduce the growth potential and unique value of Twitter by bringing its functionality to Facebook’s more popular network. Now the stats and best practices. While these are specifically about journalist, anyone can use these tips to make their Facebook posts more popular: 25% of posts contain a question , these receive 64% more engagement 62% contain a link , and they receive 20% referral clicks if journalists include analysis with the links 30% contain promotional language such as “Read my link”, these receive 37% more engagement than the average post 12% contain photos which receive 50% more Likes than posts without photos, and 13% contain videos Breaking news and current events coverage gets 3x as many Likes and 2x as many share, controversial stories see 2x the Likes and shares. Including a shout-out to one’s readers ups feedback 4x, while asking for recommendations ups comments by 3x Humor can increase Likes by 1.5x and shares by 5x So according to Facebook’s research, the optimal post would be: “Hey my awesome subscribers, click this link to read breaking news coverage of this controversial topic. What should I cover next? lolz. [photo thumbnail]“

Facebook, Twitter and B...

Aggregating data from the likes of Simply Zesty, Pingdom and Google, Search Engine Journal offered a neat visual overview of the social media landscape in an infographic titled "The Growth of Social Media." Among the many tidbits of information is a listing of the most popular social media sites utilized by...

Sign me up: in praise o...

The daily deals sector has garnered plenty of headlines in the marketing press recently, including in this publication. That's no surprise given its size (pegged at $1.25 billion by BIA/Kelsey) and judging by the players who've launched daily deals services — Google, Facebook, Amazon.com and AT&T — to compete with the likes of Groupon and LivingSocial.

Booshaka Now Ranks And ...

We’ve covered Booshaka, a startup that takes Facebook search and adding a few bells and whistles to allow users to segment search by topic and provide trending topics around what people on Facebook are talking about. Today, Booshaka is bringing an intelligent layer to your likes, by ranking and classifying all of your activity on Facebook Pages using social signals such as posts, comments and likes. Booshaka has indexed over a million pages on Facebook, and matches this against your activity on these pages. So when you login to Booshaka with Facebook connect, the site will categorize all of your likes of Facebook pages, as well as posts and comments on these pages, showing you a list of these pages. Booshaka also categorizes the types of pages you’ve liked by TV Shows, Musicians, Public Figures and more. You can then click on these pages to see where you and your friends rank on leaderboard that measures activity and quality of activity. You can also view a particular fan’s stats and activity by clicking on them in the leaderboard. Brands, individuals and companies can also register their Facebook page with Boshaka if it is not already indexed. And Booshaka is offering a brand-focused product that allows Facebook page owners to install an app that will create a leaderboard tab on their page, allowing fans to see who is commenting, and posting the most on a page. You can check out our top fans on our Facebook page here. CrunchBase Information Booshaka Information provided by CrunchBase

App Filters What Pages ...

The meaning of a Facebook Like has been getting more and more vague ever since Facebook changed the wording from “Become a fan” to “Like” on Facebook Fan Pages. What’s even more frustrating than this is that there’s no simple way, aside from visiting the “Activities,” “Interests” and “Other Pages” part of your Facebook profile, to figure out what Pages you have liked in the past. In essence: It’s complicated. As many Pages employ tactics in order to  “force” people to like stuff (in order to access content for example), it’s about time users had a simple way to view and manage what they’ve Liked, especially as the new Facebook “Sponsored Story” features cull information from your Likes in order to show ads to your friends. As rough and scrappy as it is, the  MyLikesBox Facebook app shows you the Pages you’ve Liked, lets you sort by them category and allows you easily remove Pages you’d like to un-Like (Note: webpages that use Open Graph tags also show up as Likes, because Facebook holds them equivalent to Pages). I have no idea why Facebook has yet to build something like this, especially as Like button use becomes a more and more predominant marker of brand engagement. And while I wish the MyLikesBox tracking was more comprehensive than just Facebook Pages, i.e. it showed me every article and status update and person I have ever liked, Pages is a good start, for now. Proof: Through the use of MyLikesBox , I have un-Liked at least two pages I hadn’t really meant to Like. Like. You can try out the app here. CrunchBase Information Facebook Information provided by CrunchBase