Facebook Blog, Applications and Developers Directory

Friendster, which has risen to become the largest social network in Asia after its precipitous fall in North America years ago, is today announcing support for OpenSocial 0.7 as part of the Friendster Developer Program.

The Friendster app platform actually launched in late 2007 - it was the second social network to launch a platform after Facebook. Since then, thousands of developers have joined the Friendster Developer Program and about 500 apps have been released on the Friendster platform. Friendster told us today that 10 million unique users have installed at least 1 application so far, and half a million apps are installed every day. Of those who have installed applications, the average is between 2-3 apps installed per person.

Friendster’s Jeff Roberto says that the company will continue to support existing APIs as it adds OpenSocial support. “We plan to support both. This is really an extension of the Friendster Developer Program to developers of OpenSocial applications, who should now be able to run their apps on Friendster out of the box. We’re the only place that app developers can reach 55 million unique users in Asia on a single social network. And we have very low overlap with other social networks.”

Friendster’s platform as an open revenue model, meaning developers are free to monetize their apps however they like. One unique aspect to monetizing on the Friendster platform is that ads on the profile page are permitted - unlike other social networks.

“Friendster’s launch is another major milestone in the adoption and deployment of OpenSocial throughout the social web and around the world. We’re particularly excited that OpenSocial is helping Friendster bring new social applications to users in Asia, and we look forward to seeing users embrace these apps,” said David Glazer, director of engineering at Google.

Roberto says that while the company is not ready to announce specific dates yet, Friendster does plan on supporting the OpenSocial 0.8 spec. OpenSocial 0.8 adds REST API support - like the Facebook Platform does

Facebook announced today that is has enabled two new Facebook Platform features that enable developers to restrict access to certain application content - or the entire application itself - from users fitting certain demographic profiles.

Demographic restrictions have been requested by two camps of developers:

1. Those who have licensed content or games only in certain geographic regions - like the US and Canada but not the rest of the world.
2. Those who want to limit access to certain application content or experiences to users of a certain age group - like under 18 or over 21.

Facebook’s new “Demographic Restrictions” APIs will enable developers to limit access to users according to any combination of age and location restrictions.

* The admin.setRestrictionInfo method allows developers to restrict access to the entire application.
* The fb:restricted-to FBML tag allows developers to restrict access to the included content.

So, how exactly is Facebook going about implementing these restrictions? Facebook says it will be using “a combination of what information a user has entered and verified on Facebook as well as IP targeting” for location. Furthermore, Facebook says that developers should not rely on Facebook to implement any restrictions developers are legally obligated to.

[Developers] must use this technology whenever Facebook policies require it… but you can and should consider implementing additional consent or confirmation in your application as appropriate. For example, if for legal reasons your application requires the user to affirm that they are of a certain age or are in a certain location, you should continue to solicit that explicit affirmation, and not regard the fact that the user passed through the Demographic Restrictions as equivalent.

Since the launch of the Facebook Platform, Facebook’s Platform Application Guidelines have expressly prohibited applications that promote the sale of alcohol:

I. Applications may not promote, or contain content (including any advertising content) referencing, facilitating, promoting or using, the following:

4. Sale of liquor, beer, wine, tobacco products, ammunition and/or firearms;

Today, Facebook announced that, with the launch of its Demographic Restrictions capability for application developers, that policy is changing.

Now, Facebook says it plans to allow application content that promotes the sale of alcohol, provided that developers “specifically use the Demographic Restrictions feature to restrict your application or content to users of appropriate legal age.”

Facebook is currently beta-testing the new Demographic Restrictions feature with a “very limited” set of companies, and the new policy should go into effect in September, barring any big hiccups in the beta test.

This is good news for applications like Booze Mail and Happy Hour, that allow users to send each other virtual drink gifts, as well as other application developers hoping to sell to beer, wine, and liquor brands.

Developers interested in talking with Facebook on any sensitive questions regarding alcohol policy can email developers-help@facebook.com.

Facebook launched a new kind of ad unit today that has the potential to drive much more engagement than any ad product on the site ever before has: embedded multimedia with comments visible to users’ entire friend list.

Facebook has created new home page advertising inventory with its upcoming redesign. However, this is the first time we’ve seen Facebook fill the sponsored home page slot with this kind of unit. The behavior:

1. Clicking on the ad image opens a video player in-line
2. Comments on the video are visible to your entire friend list.

The comments around the ad dramatically increase engagement with the unit, as the highly visible comments provide an opportunity for users to simultaneously draw attention to the ad by drawing attention to themselves. While this could backfire if comments degrading the advertiser are abundant (I saw a few “LAME!” comments about Tropic Thunder today), the ad comments powerfully take advantage of Facebook’s social dynamics to draw attention to an ad in a way that is impossible without the social graph. When is the last time you heard 9 friends talk about an online ad in the same day?

Ad comments are an interesting step forward in the evolution of “Social Ads.” While this kind of ad may not work as well outside of a few advertiser verticals, I expect that early advertisers will be pleased with its performance.

While 10% of Facebook employees may have come from Google, the tide is now flowing in the opposite direction too. Ben Ling, who decided to leave Facebook this week, is headed back to Google to lead YouTube’s monetization efforts, Kara Swisher reports.

The move back to GOOG comes only 10 months after Ling left Google Checkout’s e-commerce platform group to run Platform product marketing for Facebook. YouTube’s former head of monetization, Saschi Shef, recently left Google to become chief revenue officer at KP-backed startup Cooliris.

With the upcoming release of Facebook’s redesign, a couple new communication channels have been opened allowing application developers to communicate with users in new ways. Facebook has expanded the notifications API to include a new type of “announcement” notification, now being referred to as “application-to-user” notifications. These new notifications can effectively be used as general announcements and updates to users. Previously, the best solution for publishing this type of notification has been through the use of automated CRON scripts set to run daily.

There are no set “best practices” for application-to-user notifications yet, as Facebook is still making tweaks to their allocation limits for these new notifications. However, the current limit (7 notifications per user, per week is the maximum and default) seems to discourage any type of “real-time” application notifications and places more of an emphasis on general daily updates. For example, sending a notification to a user to alert them of new application features. They are not limited to application updates, though, and can be utilized in more creative manners, so long as you stay within allocation limits.

Application-to-user notifications can only be sent to current application users. Also note that they may be sent to any application user whether or not that user has an active application session-key.

Finally, when a user receives an application-to-user notification, it does not have any text pre-pended to the front of it. It simply displays your application icon next to the notification text. This is in contrast to user-to-user notifications which pre-pend the name of the user who performed the action to the notification. You can see an example of an application-to-user notification at the top of this post.

Technical details for the new application-to-user notifications have been slow forthcoming. Even the most recent PHP Client doesn’t include support for the new type yet. However, you can easily add support into the latest PHP Client by adding a small code snippet to your facebookapi_php5_restlib.php file (click here for code).

For more information on application-to-user notifications, see the Developers Forum and the Developers Wiki.

New statistics are out for comScore this month which reveal Facebook’s ongoing expansion has yet to slow. The company attracted over 132 million users over the year ending in June versus MySpace which attracted 117 million. The real story here is that the company continues to surge past the competitors internationally. In Latin America Facebook has grown over 1,000 percent over the past year, helping to catapult it’s worldwide growth to 153 percent in comparison to MySpace’s paltry 3 percent growth.

Facebook has launched a sponsored video ad offering as displayed in the image below.   The videos display on the right hand side of the homepage in the area that Facebook announced would have sponsors when the site was redesigned.  The only thing that the company failed to mention was that those sponsorships would be videos.  The videos also enable comments.  You can then view the comments that your friends have posted pertaining to that video.

Jason Beckerman was able to get me a screenshot and I checked out the site and it displayed as pictured below.  The ad no longer displays for me but I’m guessing it will reappear shortly.  This could be Facebook testing it out as Jason states in the comment, but it’s clear that Facebook would like to enter the video advertising space.  This positions Facebook directly against VideoEgg who is currently one of the leading video advertising solutions providers on the market.

Facebook should also be able to charge a premium for video ad placements.  It’s exciting to see Facebook expand their advertising offerings.  We will update you with any news pertaining to this new advertising offering shortly.

Last night Facebook rolled out a new feature to the newsfeed which enables users to filter the stories that are displayed. You can select to display only stories from specific applications or specific friend lists. This is an interesting feature but I’m not sure that it does all that is expected. Ultimately users want to be able to see more or less stories from specific applications and friend lists. This feature simply displays specific stories that you would like to see from one source.

Also, you are currently limited to the applications that you can filter from. For instance, I am only able to filter activities from within Events, Pages, Groups, FriendFeed and Google Reader. It would be awesome if users could select from any application or their bookmarked applications. Caroline McCarthy suggests that this is possibly a result of the applications that your friends have installed. Apparently my friends on Facebook are all geeks based on the applications showing in my feed!

Filtering feeds is going to become increasingly important as we begin seeing more news items. The model has yet to be perfected but Facebook is definitely taking the lead when it comes to trying various filtering models. Do you find these new filters to be useful?

If you’ve been living under a rock for the past week, you may not have noticed that Michael Phelps has risen to become possibly the most popular athlete in American history over the weekend. On Facebook, Michael Phelps attracted almost 1 million fans over the past week and has grown to have the second most popular fan page on Facebook. The only person that Phelps has to contend with on Facebook is Barack Obama who currently has over 1.34 million fans.

Michael Phelps is catching up rapidly and with the help of Facebook, who has decided to promote the page at the top of the newsfeed today, there’s a good chance that Michael Phelps will soon be the most popular person on the site. The page is currently growing at around 20 fans a second so within a few hours, Phelps could theoretically be the most popular person on the site. We’ll have to see if the growth remains constant.

If you’d like to be part of making Michael Phelps the most popular person on Facebook, go check out the Michael Phelps fan page.

The newly revised, largely expanded, and hot-off-the-press Facebook Marketing Bible: 35+ Ways to Market Your Brand, Company, Product, or Service Inside Facebook - August 2008 Edition is now available!

The Facebook Marketing Bible contains three detailed sections: Tools for Guerilla Marketers, Tools for Advertisers, and Tools for Application Developers. Each part outlines the best available channels and strategies for reaching your audience inside Facebook. Please see the full table of contents below.

The August 2008 edition includes updates on the following topics:

* New data on Facebook’s international growth. Facebook has been exploding internationally throughout 2008. Get the latest data on where Facebook users are coming from in Europe, Latin America, and Asia, and where opportunity may lie for marketers, advertisers, and developers.
* Details on new ad units and opportunities for Facebook advertisers. With the Facebook redesign, the ad units available to advertisers have shifted. Find out the latest on what’s possible in the new design.
* Implications of Facebook’s latest updates to its Platform policies. Facebook has implemented several new policies in recent weeks, and enforcing significant disciplinary action - one of the top applications was suspended from the Platform for over a week. Learn more about Facebook’s evolving philosophy toward Platform governance and what that means for the future of applications.The latest details on Facebook’s upcoming redesign. Updates on the new Wall, the new Publisher, the tabbed profile design, new application tabs, the Boxes tab, and apps on the Info tab. Plus, new settings for application profile integration.
* Details on Facebook Connect. Facebook Connect, Facebook’s new program which extends Facebook connectivity to third party websites, launched in beta a few weeks ago and will go live this fall. Learn more about what this means for Facebook users and new opportunities for marketing application development across the web.
* Information on Facebook’s new “Great Apps” and “Application Verification” programs. Facebook will be offering additional integration to apps that align with its core values starting this fall.
* Plus, updates on Facebook Platform analytics providers, Facebook for iPhone and Facebook Connect for iPhone, and more.

Facebook Marketing BibleFor those interested in learning more, click the purchase link above. The price is $39, or $49 with three months of free updates emailed directly to your inbox. As always, please make suggestions if you’d like to see more attention paid to any topic!

Table of Contents

Introduction

I. Tools for Guerilla Marketers

1. Profile Page
2. Groups
• Strategy: What about spamming existing groups?
3. Pages
• Strategy: Groups and Pages are very similar. Which makes more sense?
• Strategy: I’ve just created a Page. How do I promote it?
• Group to Page Migration
• Guidelines for Promoting Pages Outside Facebook
• Official vs Unofficial Pages
• More Features Coming Soon
4. Events
5. Notes and Photos
6. Messages
7. Marketplace
8. Share / Posted Items
9. Mini Feed and News Feed
10. Feed Importing

> Data: Tracking Facebook’s International Growth by Country

> Recommended Strategies for Guerilla Marketers

II. Tools for Advertisers

11. Social Ads
• Summary of ad units available to Facebook advertisers
12. Localization Opportunities
13. Integrated Opportunities
14. Beacon
• Strategy: Should I try Beacon?
15. Polls
16. Facebook Platform Ad Networks
• List of Leading Facebook Platform Ad Networks
• What eCPMs do apps charge? Data from Facebook application developers
17. Facebook Platform Application Sponsorships
• List of Leading Facebook Platform Sponsorship Resellers/Rep Firms
• Strategy: Why sponsor applications when I can sponsor Facebook itself?
18. Sponsored Facebook Groups

> Recommended Strategies for Advertisers

III. Tools for Application Developers

19. Profile Box
• Strategy: Where do most new application users come from?
• 5 Things Developers May Not Know About the Upcoming Facebook Redesign
• Profile Integration: Tour of New Facebook App Settings
20. Application Tabs
21. Application Info Sections
22. Designing Feed Stories
• Strategy: Designing High Performance Feed Items
• News Feed Optimization: Strategies and Techniques
23. Feeds 2.0
24. Feed Publisher
• Publishing in the Feed with Feed Comments
25. Requests / Invitations
• Policy Updates: Requiring Invites to Access Hidden Features, Offering Incentives for Invites, Ads on Profile Page Prohibited
• Strategy: Facebook’s Evolving Approach to Platform Governance
26. Facebook Notifications
• Chat Integration: Facebook Wants More Synchronous Notifications
• Policy Update: Bulk Pre-Selection Prohibited
27. Email Notifications
• Updates: Email’s Status as Core Application Marketing Channel in Doubt
28. Application Directory
29. Verification and Certification
• Great Apps Program
• Application Verification
30. Translations
• Data: Stats on Facebook Apps Built for International Markets
• Tutorial: Translating Your Applications Using Facebook’s Crowd-sourced Translation Service
31. Facebook Connect
• Overview: Integrating Facebook Connect with Your Website
• Related: Google Friend Connect

32. Analytics Tools
• List of Leading Third-Party Facebook Platform Analytics Providers
• New Metrics for Developers with Facebook Profile Redesign
33. Search Engine Optimization
34. Mobile
• Facebook for iPhone and Connect for iPhone
35. Customer Service

> Poll: Which viral channels do Facebook users hate most about apps?

> Recommended Strategies for Application Developers

The newly revised, largely expanded, and hot-off-the-press Facebook Marketing Bible: 35+ Ways to Market Your Brand, Company, Product, or Service Inside Facebook - August 2008 Edition is now available!

The Facebook Marketing Bible contains three detailed sections: Tools for Guerilla Marketers, Tools for Advertisers, and Tools for Application Developers. Each part outlines the best available channels and strategies for reaching your audience inside Facebook. Please see the full table of contents below.

The August 2008 edition includes updates on the following topics:

• New data on Facebook’s international growth. Facebook has been exploding internationally throughout 2008. Get the latest data on where Facebook users are coming from in Europe, Latin America, and Asia, and where opportunity may lie for marketers, advertisers, and developers.
• Details on new ad units and opportunities for Facebook advertisers. With the Facebook redesign, the ad units available to advertisers have shifted. Find out the latest on what’s possible in the new design.
• Implications of Facebook’s latest updates to its Platform policies. Facebook has implemented several new policies in recent weeks, and enforcing significant disciplinary action - one of the top applications was suspended from the Platform for over a week. Learn more about Facebook’s evolving philosophy toward Platform governance and what that means for the future of applications.The latest details on Facebook’s upcoming redesign. Updates on the new Wall, the new Publisher, the tabbed profile design, new application tabs, the Boxes tab, and apps on the Info tab. Plus, new settings for application profile integration.
• Details on Facebook Connect. Facebook Connect, Facebook’s new program which extends Facebook connectivity to third party websites, launched in beta a few weeks ago and will go live this fall. Learn more about what this means for Facebook users and new opportunities for marketing application development across the web.
• Information on Facebook’s new “Great Apps” and “Application Verification” programs. Facebook will be offering additional integration to apps that align with its core values starting this fall.
• Plus, updates on Facebook Platform analytics providers, Facebook for iPhone and Facebook Connect for iPhone, and more.

For those interested in learning more, click the purchase link above. The price is $39, or $49 with three months of free updates emailed directly to your inbox. As always, please make suggestions if you’d like to see more attention paid to any topic!

Table of Contents

Introduction

I. Tools for Guerilla Marketers

1. Profile Page
2. Groups
• Strategy: What about spamming existing groups?
3. Pages
• Strategy: Groups and Pages are very similar. Which makes more sense?
• Strategy: I’ve just created a Page. How do I promote it?
• Group to Page Migration
• Guidelines for Promoting Pages Outside Facebook
• Official vs Unofficial Pages
• More Features Coming Soon
4. Events
5. Notes and Photos
6. Messages
7. Marketplace
8. Share / Posted Items
9. Mini Feed and News Feed
10. Feed Importing

> Data: Tracking Facebook’s International Growth by Country

> Recommended Strategies for Guerilla Marketers

II. Tools for Advertisers

11. Social Ads
• Summary of ad units available to Facebook advertisers
12. Localization Opportunities
13. Integrated Opportunities
14. Beacon
• Strategy: Should I try Beacon?
15. Polls
16. Facebook Platform Ad Networks
• List of Leading Facebook Platform Ad Networks
• What eCPMs do apps charge? Data from Facebook application developers
17. Facebook Platform Application Sponsorships
• List of Leading Facebook Platform Sponsorship Resellers/Rep Firms
• Strategy: Why sponsor applications when I can sponsor Facebook itself?
18. Sponsored Facebook Groups

> Recommended Strategies for Advertisers

III. Tools for Application Developers

19. Profile Box
• Strategy: Where do most new application users come from?
• 5 Things Developers May Not Know About the Upcoming Facebook Redesign
• Profile Integration: Tour of New Facebook App Settings
20. Application Tabs
21. Application Info Sections
22. Designing Feed Stories
• Strategy: Designing High Performance Feed Items
• News Feed Optimization: Strategies and Techniques
23. Feeds 2.0
24. Feed Publisher
• Publishing in the Feed with Feed Comments
25. Requests / Invitations
• Policy Updates: Requiring Invites to Access Hidden Features, Offering Incentives for Invites, Ads on Profile Page Prohibited
• Strategy: Facebook’s Evolving Approach to Platform Governance
26. Facebook Notifications
• Chat Integration: Facebook Wants More Synchronous Notifications
• Policy Update: Bulk Pre-Selection Prohibited
27. Email Notifications
• Updates: Email’s Status as Core Application Marketing Channel in Doubt
28. Application Directory
29. Verification and Certification
• Great Apps Program
• Application Verification
30. Translations
• Data: Stats on Facebook Apps Built for International Markets
• Tutorial: Translating Your Applications Using Facebook’s Crowd-sourced Translation Service
31. Facebook Connect
• Overview: Integrating Facebook Connect with Your Website
• Related: Google Friend Connect

Purchase this report The Facebook Marketing Bible - August 2008 Edition Buy PDF: $39 USD OR Buy PDF + 3 Months of Free Updates: $49 USD

32. Analytics Tools
• Lost of Leading Third-Party Facebook Platform Analytics Providers
• New Metrics for Developers with Facebook Profile Redesign
33. Search Engine Optimization
34. Mobile
• Facebook for iPhone and Connect for iPhone
35. Customer Service

> Poll: Which viral channels do Facebook users hate most about apps?

> Recommended Strategies for Application Developers

Conclusion

Google OpenSocial Interview with Platform Developer Advocate Patrick Chanezon. Google rarely does video interviews so I was very excited to have the opportunity to capture this interview with Patrick.
Too bad I didn’t keep the camera running for the next 1.5 hours while we continued to chat about all the opportunities for businesses, brands and

The Google Social Graph API lets you make interesting connections. Bringing those connections to the surface is quickly becoming increasingly important for business and social applications.
This is going to be a trend for the foreseeable future. Users want to see their social graph; it makes the applications more useful and engaging.
With the Google Social

I was at the Google campfire event tonight for the launch of Google Friend Connect. At first pass there is a LOT to like about this. Social media is going even more mainstream and will start to live outside of “traditional” social networking sites.
Now connections can be effectively “portable” to any site that

This is great news for Google’s Open Social. The Open Social movement continues to increase. AOL purchased social media site BEBO for $850 Million in March. This was a big move into social media by AOL and many developers were wondering if the site would join the growing party on Google’s Open Social standard.
Bebo

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch first broke news about Facebook turning into an open source platform, and the possibility that this could be happening within the next few days. Facebook confirmed this soon after.

The modified Facebook platform is called ‘Facebook Connect’. Once the platform is launched, all social networks will become compatible with Facebook; that is to say, it will be possible to run Facebook applications on other social networks with Facebook acting as the central hub.

AOL-owned Bebo already has a tie-up with Facebook for accessing the site. If the open source project comes through as expected, other social networks will be able to run Facebook applications, without having to ink individual deals. They will be able to map the APIs from Facebook, using FBML (FaceBook Mark-up Language), FQL (the query language), FJS (their JavaScript Library), and the Facebook API.

Putting it simply, users of Facebook Connect will be able to interlink with any partnering website, at any stage. Users will be able to carry their real identity - name, profile picture and other basic information - to all websites. Users will also be able to take their friends from Facebook to any site they wish.

Facebook promises that user information will be protected and be kept up-to-date at all times. In their own words:

“As a user moves around the open Web, their privacy settings will follow, ensuring that users’ information and privacy rules are always up-to-date. For example, if a user changes their profile picture, or removes a friend connection, this will be automatically updated in the external website.“

Reporters on ZDNet as well as TechCrunch see the move by Facebook as direct competition to and an improvement on Google’s OpenSocial. If Facebook follows the same route as OpenSocial, it will be possible for other networks to modify Facebook applications and use them on their own platforms. However, getting these applications on the official Facebook platform, would require prior sanction by Facebook.

Google, MySpace and Yahoo! have all supported OpenSocial, thus cutting off Facebook to a large extent. This did not matter to Facebook while its user volumes were sky-rcoketing. However, now that their user numbers have already started declining in the USA, they will need to take some bold steps to maintain their position among other social networks.

Want to blog but not sure where to start? The following tips on how to write for a blog will help get your blog juices flowing. These tips are not all inclusive or set in stone. If you have other suggestions, let me know!

1. Always use a clear headline stating the subject of your post. No one is going to take the time to figure out what’s in it for them. Make sure it’s obvious.
2. Blog posts don’t have to be long and all encompassing. As a matter of fact, some of the most popular blogs have posts that are as simple as a single small paragraph or a few sentences. Also, big content can be broken into separate posts.
3. Don’t be afraid to link to other sites and send your visitors away. They’ll thank you for sharing and come back again if the links are useful.
4. Let your visitors do some of the writing for you. Encourage them to leave comments.
5. On occasion, post a top-five or top-ten list about how to do something, solve a problem, etc. People like lists if they’re informative and helpful.
6. Keep your blog fresh. Post something new once a day, or at least once a week. No one will come back to read the same old posts again.
7. Don’t just post to be posting. Think about what you would like to say that benefits your audience.
8. Stay on topic. It’s nice that you may be excited about something that’s a personal interest unrelated to your blog. However, it may not be of any interest to your audience, so don’t waste their time.

The above tips will help you become a better blogger, or help you become a blogger if you’re not sure where to start. Now get out there and write something. Your audience is waiting!

While driving new traffic to your website will always be important for growing online sales, driving return traffic (and increased sales from existing customers) is equally important. When used effectively, Web 2.0 marketing strategies are a great catalyst for repeat visits.

Your prospects and existing customers are not online purely to shop. They’re visiting Web 2.0 sites such as Facebook, YouTube, customer review sites, and blogs as part of their quests for more information. Online retailers that are tactfully marketing in these environments are finding that the brand exposure brings in much new business, and keeps existing customers coming back for more.

Some online retailers are still skeptical about the power of Web 2.0 marketing when building their brand and increasing sales. However, these skeptics are dwindling rapidly as more retailers see the positive benefits of marketing in a user-generated content environment.

A recent Pew survey found that 48% of Internet users watch web videos, 39% regularly read blogs, 30% post online reviews, and 16% participate in social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. While all of these new Web 2.0 marketing tools and sites can have a significant impact on an online retailer’s business long-term, it has been clearly proven that the most successful tools for boosting online sales are product ratings and customer’s reviews. 82% of consumers surveyed last year by the consulting firm Deloitte & Touche said that consumer written product reviews directly influenced their buying decisions, and 69% of them passed these reviews on to others.

On average, an item with a high consumer rating, such as four-star (out of five-stars) will convert at 18 times the rate of a non-rated item. If your ecommerce site isn’t currently using customer reviews as part of your Internet marketing strategy, this is a clear must-have on your immediate to-do list.

Online video is also fertile ground for increasing online sales, if done correctly. Even high-end retailers such as Saks Direct, the online arm of the department store Saks Fifth Avenue, have seen increases in sales due to Internet marketing efforts on YouTube. If online video is well done and genuinely informative and interesting, visitors will talk about you, will want to know more, and will ultimately visit your website.

Blogging has also become a very effective tool for building your brand online and attracting new customers. Blogs that are strongly built around a brand or topic related to your website or your product can become a popular resource for expert knowledge and industry opinions. Effective blogging can also help your business and your products to be perceived as more than a commodity, due to the added value of the information.

Sites like MySpace and Facebook are often undervalued by online retailers, since they are perceived as youth “hangouts”. Overlooking these high traffic social networks is clearly a mistake.

JupiterResearch found that only 3% of online shoppers use social networks to research purchases. However, according to a study this year by Forrester Research, online sales that result from a social network site average a whopping $50.11 per sale, more than double the $19.33 average for sales resulting from paid search. When you compare the cost of participating in paid search (Pay Per Click) with the cost of social networking (FREE), it’s clear that the additional effort can be a very worthwhile part of your Web 2.0 marketing mix.

Attracting new customers and increasing existing customer loyalty isn’t as simple as it used to be, even just a few years ago. Particularly now that consumers are creating the messages and recommending which products or services should be purchased by others. However, with the advance in popularity of Web 2.0 social networking, online video, and blogging, more opportunities exist to increase your Internet marketing base - if you’re willing to put in the effort to make it happen.

What are you doing to make it happen?

OK, so someone did a search on Google, and they’ve landed on your web site. Now what? Will they read what they’ve found, click to another page of your site, or simply hit the back button on their browser and say bye-bye?

Regardless of how fantastic your site is, you will always have a percentage of folks that leave immediately. There are numerous reasons for this exit rate, and you can’t resolve them all. However, there are proven steps you can take to improve the overall stickiness of your site.

Tip #1: Reduce Clutter
You may really like all of that stuff you’ve put on your web site, but too much stuff will do more to distract and confuse your visitors than to help them. Bells and whistles are great on a train, but not on your web site.

Tip #2: Make Your Navigation Intuitive
A lot of designers like coming up with creative site navigation structures. It’s tempting to offer a cute flash navigation, with dancing arrows or Christmas tree ornaments. Don’t.
As creative as you are, no one wants to spend time figuring out how to navigate your web site. As a rule, the more you make them think about navigation, the quicker they’ll navigate to someone else’s site.

Tip #3: Make Sure Your Site Content is Relevant
If you sell leather sofas, make sure your content is strictly related to “leather sofas”. A visitor who comes to your site and finds pages upon pages of pictures of your dog will think your dog is adorable, but they probably won’t buy a leather sofa from you. Therefore, don’t distract your visitors with content that isn’t directly related to what they’re looking for.

Tip #4: Make Sure Your Content is Up-to-Date
Content that isn’t up-to-date is a serious waste of your visitor’s time and your selling opportunities. Therefore, if product information or store hours change, make sure you update them immediately. No one likes outdated or incorrect information.

Tip #5: Make the First Move
Every time someone visits your web site, you have a chance to interact with them. Don’t waste this opportunity. If they’re not ready to buy, make sure you’re offering value such as a free trial, product samples or something they can download such as a white paper. As a rule, the more they interact with you, the more likely they will buy from you.

Tip #6: Be Supportive
Don’t be shy. Make sure you’re there for support when your visitors want help. Always have your toll free number prominently displayed on every page of your site, and an easy contact link for your email address, physical address, etc. It’s a fact that clearly displayed and readily available contact information builds trust among potential customers.

Tip #7: Make it Easy to Share
Make sure you’re actively taking advantage of social marketing opportunities wherever possible. Add Web 2.0 widgets or links to your web site that encourage visitors to share your content with others via social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Reddit and Stumble Upon. People are more likely to visit a web site based upon a suggestion from another reader than from a paid ad.

Your web site will only be as effective as you make it. Therefore, you must work at making positive improvements all the time. Otherwise your site will never reach its full potential.

So fire up the printer and place this post front and center on your desk (or make it your start page) so you can start putting these sticky site tips into action. Once you’ve gone through and applied these tips to every page of your site, you’ll find that your site will perform better, enjoy increased conversions, and attract more word of mouth (or word of web) business.

It’s a known fact that search engines (read: Google) place a weighty importance on one-way inbound links when determining your placement in search results. Unfortunately, successfully link building takes a lot of time and energy, so it’s often put on the back burner. This isn’t only costly - it’s plain foolish.

Inbound links are one of the ways the search engine determines the quality and relevancy of your site. Every link that points to your website is a vote for your relevance. The more votes your site has, the higher it will rank in the search engines.

The web is ultimately nothing but links, pathways for navigation for both humans and search engine spiders (also known as robots, crawlers, and bots). Search engines crawl through links they find on one website to visit other websites, adding them to their index of sites and reviewing them for search relevance. Even within your site, spiders follow links from one page to another.

Some links have more value than others. To be successful at link building, you must learn to recognize each of these links. In the world of link building, there are four general types of links:

* URL Link - This is simply a website’s URL, written in such a way that clicking on it will take you to the site.
* Text Links (or static links) - This is the most common type of link, where you click on a word to follow the link.
* Image Links - Click on the image to follow the link.
* Dynamic Links - These links are in JavaScript. They work like any other link, except they have extra code behind the scenes. The code performs special functions, such as affiliate commission tracking or automatic feeds. Search engines cannot follow dynamic links.

You must also consider the nofollow attribute.

The nofollow attribute (or just ‘nofollow’) is HTML code used to instruct search engines to not count a link as a vote for relevance. This is very common on websites that allow comments, especially blogs, and is intended to reduce the effectiveness of search engine spam.

It’s important to keep in mind that search engines do not follow links that have the nofollow attribute applied. (Hence the name…)

To determine whether or not a page uses nofollow links, look at the site’s code. Right click on the web site and choose ‘View Source’ (From Internet Explorer, choose Page > View Source. From Firefox choose View > Page Source). If the nofollow attribute is applied it will be clearly visible within the page code as ‘nofollow’. You will find it either in the Meta tag section or within the code surrounding the actual link.

Some hardball SEO folks avoid nofollow links like the plague. The mentality behind this is that a link is useless if a search engine spider can’t follow it. Remember, human visitors can still use the links to find you. Don’t shun a web page using the nofollow attribute if the audience is a good fit with your site.

When you are ready to build links to your site, your links can go two ways:

1. One way links - A link from another website to yours with no returning link to theirs.
2. Reciprocal links - Another website links to your site, and you link back to theirs.

One way links have always been more valuable in the eyes of the search engines, much like a politician who gets a vote without giving a favor. However, each link has its own value based upon how relevant it is to your site, the text in and around the link, and how much authority the linking website has with the search engines.

In order for your inbound links to have any significant value, you need to focus on getting high quality links. As a rule, the more websites that link to your site the better. However, there is no question that 20 quality links can be much more valuable from an SEO perspective than thousands of low quality links.

So what makes up a high quality link? Imagine if Google had a link to your website on their home page. That would obviously be a quality link - A highly relevant, highly trafficked, highly linked page with tons of authority with the search engines.

Of course this analogy is a bit extreme, but the point is that value is usually pretty easy to spot. For a more realistic example, let’s say you’re a photographer specializing in wedding photos. If this were the case, links from informational sites or blogs related to weddings and photography would be quality links.

Now that you understand the basics of quality link building, the next step is keyword research, finding the key words and phrases to build into the text in and around your link. Next week, we’ll talk about keyword research that gets your link juice flowing.

We’re here at the SWAT Summit in San Francisco, a conference on advertising and marketing inside social networks. This morning’s session is on Social Advertising Case Studies. Presenting are:

* Helen Har, VP of Advertising Sales, imeem
* Warren Ackerman, Principal and VP, Affinitive
* Mike La Rotonda, CEO & CPO, Votigo
* Will Price, CEO, Widgetbox

Each case study involves Facebook in different ways. Here are notes from their case study presentations:

Helen Har, VP of Advertising Sales, imeem

Intro

* We built a highly creative branded profile area for the Diet Coke Plus launch. It contains a lot of branded content. Like other brands Coke is almost a music label themselves, going directly to the entertainment audience.
* We’re promoting live webcasts of music festivals like Coachella.
* For Tag body spray, they’ve actually created a record label with Jermaine Dupre, and they’re using imeem to drive traffic to Tag artists.

Case Study: Acura TSX

* Target audience: 25-29 year old males
* Objectives: awareness, engage a qualified and receptive audience through their passion points, offer unique experiences
* They syndicated content created on to our Facebook and MySpace pages.
* Give users a community experience and invite them to events.
* Gave editorial featuring on imeem pages.
* Video, photos, playlists created on imeem page - show engagement.

Warren Ackerman, Principal and VP, Affinitive

Case Study: Hey! Nielsen

* Branded social network, buzz tracker, opinion tracking - trying to figure out what’s happening in entertainment and why
* Nielsen doesn’t have a lot of B2C experience and there were multiple divisions involved, which made the decision making process more complicated
* User experience: discover new entertainment products, express your opinion - people get very passionate about entertainment, share - can put your opinions on your blog or Facebook, learn - see data derived from Hey! Nielsen users
* Users can react to entertainment properties or opinions themselves
* Objectives: Brand Nielsen to the 18-34 demographic as listening and inviting conversation. Create a platform for engaged users. Study the participants. Crystallize the “One Nielsen” approach. Recruit participants into other panels - higher conversion rate.
* Process/Approach: Sourced feedback from each division. Stressed content of users running the show. Iterative development process. Clearly defined reasons for being. Stay focused, don’t try too many things. Don’t compete, be unique.
* Launch Strategy: Employee alpha. Viral initiatives - blogger outreach.
* Numbers: 120,000 registered users in first 10 months. 60/40 female/male. Average age 35. 13,000 books/movies/shows. 125,000 opinions, 500k comments, 4.4M reactions. 32 minutes/visit - highly engaged entertainment audience.

Mike La Rotonda, CEO & CPO, Votigo

Case study: Ethanol Promotions and Information Council

* Objectives: educate consumers on the benefits of ethanol. Get quality content to use in future marketing campaigns. Test the social media waters.
* Solution: “Fuel the Change” video contest with integrated sweepstakes. If creating a video was a high barrier, you could vote and be entered in the sweepstakes.
* Engagement features: customizable profiles, entries and comments, friend connections, people browsing.
* Results: 33,000 votes, 2,700 comments, 9 PV/user. These are great for an ad campaign.
* Viral tools and distribution: voting widget, address book import, custom email alerts and notifications, RSS feeds.
* Admin and analytics tools: pre-screen entry tool, moderation tools, web analytics and reporting.

Will Price, CEO, Widgetbox

Case study: Music Video Widget

* Allows you to search by genre and play music videos
* Promoted it on Widgetbox.com, via a dropdown in other relevant widgets, and on Facebook/Bebo - converted into social applications. We make 15% of the Facebook/Bebo apps out there.
* We were able to increase hits and uniques by many times
* Since the campaign: still viral and growing
* People pay us on a CPI basis
* The first Google customer was a Maine lobster fisherman, it wasn’t brands. They don’t feel comfortable giving up their branding in a little Google ad. I’m hoping that smart brands won’t make the same mistake again. The price that you can get for impressions, reach, and distribution through a widget campaign are attractive.