The Changing FacebookWhat Marketers Need to Knowfor 2012 Social Media Planning

“We’re going to make it so you can connect to anything you want in any way you want”.- Mark Zuckerberg

IntroductionIn the last five years, not only has facebook become the world’s most popular online social networking destination, but it also has shaped how we engage with culture through our friend networks and the content we share and consume.

At facebook’s recent F8 conference, we heard the company’s intentions to develop the social platform as it seeks to balance the commercial desires of its brand partners while innovating user experience.

As we look towards 2012, and a radically redesigned facebook platform, here are four perspectives to take in to account as your social media planning evolves.

1. Life Happens in Real Time, So Does Facebook

2. Timeline: Brand Pages Get Visual

3. ‘Gestures’ Are the New ‘Like’

4. Measuring the Real Value of Social Media

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Life Happens in RealTime, So Does FacebookOur day-to-day life is a series of parallel streams -- what we’re doing at the moment, and what we’re simultaneously thinking or feeling.

Up until now we’ve shared and this information through our status updates.

Introducing the Ticker FeatureNow, with the ticker feature you can browse your newsfeed, but also see what your friends are doing right then and there, like “Listening to Led Zeppelin on Spotify” or “Watching Alice In Wonderland onNetflix.” Better yet, you can click on their activity and join in the experience with them via facebook chat.

This means that as more and more of the digitally connected behaviors in our lives enter our Facebook ticker, we will be influencing one other through the choices we make.

What This Means for BrandsRelevant content is more important than ever. By creating content that can be streamed or shared, that has topical relevance, or that encourages the participation of others, brands can can ensure they get their proper share of attention in the ticker, and use the ticker as an effective engagement driving tool.

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2Timeline: Brand PagesGet Visual The introduction of facebook’s Timeline user experience is yet to open up to Brand Pages.

When it does, it will allow brands to curate a more visual feed of content into their channel, which can increase consumer engagement, but also will demand that content is relevant, creative, attractive, and provides better continuity.

What This Means for BrandsThe challenge for many brands is to maintain a consistent toneof voice while producing a variety of content, and now with theTimeline, this will become more transparent to consumers --meaning the need for greater editorial control of their brand’s tone and content.

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3‘Gestures’ are the New ‘Like’

Introducing Facebook ‘Gestures’“Gestures” is the next step in integrating facebook with the rest of the Web. “Gestures” are actions defined by developers to describe what people are actually doing on facebook. So instead of just liking a song or movie, you can tell your friends you’re “Listening” to a song or “Watching” a movie. Simply put, facebook is integrating verbs into their language outside of “Like” ... and “Poke,” which seems to be on its way out.

In the words of Mark Zuckerberg, “We’re going to make it so you can connect to anything you want in any way you want ... you don’t have to ‘Like’ a movie, you can just ‘Watch’ a movie, which is pretty good because you’ve probably watched about 10 times as many movies as you’d want to like on Facebook.”

What This Means for Brands“Gestures” will have major implications on how fans interact with your brand and how you understand their behavior. Brands that can successfully move beyond building connections (“Likes”) and instead start cultivating conversations, will have the best opportunity for growth and engagement.

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Measuring the RealValue of Social Media

Facebook “People Talking About”The newly introduced Talking About feature allows a brand to establish a metric for how many people are engaging and sharing generated content.

The feature is the inception of Facebook Insights, the company’s internal analytics engine, which provides brands the much needed ability to measure the value of facebook activity in a way that already exists for Twitter through mentions and retweets.

The new feature allows brands to see “Weekly Total Reach” and ”Friends of fans” to gain data on how brand pages and content are being shared.

What This Means for BrandsThis provides brands and agencies the ability to measure, react and optimize the social channel content to ensure maximum engagement and increase content sharing potential.

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United Future is an independent integrated communications agency with offices in LA and Seattle.

From more information on our Social Media Marketing services, or to book a presentation, please contact:

Anthony BrownDirector of Client Engagement

anthony.brown@wdcw.com

206.624.5325

http://twitter.com/awbrown

http://www.linkedin.com/in/awbrown

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