Facebook on Monday released data showing how many requests for data the company has received — at least, the range of these requests. From January through June 2013, Facebook received fewer than 1,000 requests for user content data from the NSA, regarding 5,000 to 5,999 accounts.

Here’s a table where Facebook shows the range of requests of National Security Letters (NSLs) and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requests. Facebook also disclosed the number of accounts in these requests. Facebook is limited to reporting data in the range of 1000s. A non-content request would be information such as a subscriber name.

Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch :

The data we are releasing today should be understood against the backdrop of the transparency reports we have issued over the past nine months. Last summer, in the immediate wake of sensationalist and inaccurate media accounts of purported government access to Facebook user data, we published data showing that, in the last six months of 2012, a small fraction of one percent of Facebook user accounts were the subject of any government data requests of any kind, national security-related or otherwise. We subsequently released a  for the first six months of 2013, which again showed that the total volume of user accounts that were the subject of any law enforcement requests was a small fraction of one percent. We continue to believe the information included in these reports was an important contribution to the public debate over government surveillance practices, but it was limited. We were not, for example, permitted to break down the data between conventional law enforcement requests and those related to national security, or indeed even to acknowledge that we had received certain types of national-security related requests at all.

Stretch noted that Facebook plans to update this data every 6 months.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

For the past few months, one of Facebook’s most popular people has been . In January, Diesel’s Facebook page crossed the 60 million fan mark and shows little signs of stopping.

According to PageData, 1.1 million people have clicked “like” for Diesel in the past week, making his page the 13th-most liked page on Facebook. Among living people, he is the fifth-most popular, behind Rihanna, Eminem, Shakira and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Wondering which Facebook pages ? Click below to find out.

# Name Total Likes  Daily Growth Weekly Growth 1    Facebook for Every Phone 382,566,163 +516,049 +4,026,134 2    Facebook 110,959,881 +71,894 +582,400 3    Rihanna 85,001,512 +42,895 +293,510 4    Eminem 81,413,248 +54,193 +388,528 5    Shakira 81,096,090 +135,197 +715,176 6    Coca-Cola 79,275,807 +55,597 +213,843 7    YouTube 78,205,353 +19,778 +145,453 8    Cristiano Ronaldo 72,775,745 +78,696 +529,284 9    The Simpsons 70,045,642 +22,623 +164,556 10    Texas HoldEm Poker 69,974,979 +3,575 +32,984 11    Michael Jackson 69,629,904 +47,483 +344,995 12    Harry Potter 68,334,612 +25,684 +181,664 13    Vin Diesel 64,643,747 +140,531 +1,106,224 14    Katy Perry 63,403,482 +56,489 +404,474 15    Justin Bieber 62,981,084 +25,885 +176,575 16    Lady Gaga 62,700,480 +28,042 +221,795 17    Candy Crush Saga 60,726,342 +86,398 +595,854 18    Linkin Park 59,564,508 +24,864 +184,415 19    Will Smith 59,059,040 +156,030 +701,323 20    Beyoncé 56,023,625 +49,943 +300,160 21    Family Guy 55,179,047 +11,403 +88,305 22    Selena Gomez 55,167,545 +31,649 +316,022 23    Bob Marley 54,858,848 +48,696 +340,060 24    Taylor Swift 54,163,017 +53,534 +376,187 25    FC Barcelona 53,939,251 +91,253 +657,482

Other changes from :

• Shakira jumped over Coca-Cola and YouTube to become the No. 5 most popular page.
• Cristiano Ronaldo went from No. 10 to No. 8, swapping spots with Texas HoldEm Poker.
• Lady Gaga fell two spots to No. 16.
• Linkin Park and Candy Crush Saga swapped positions.
• Beyoncé overtook Family Guy for the No. 20 spot.
• Selena Gomez was not on the January 2014 leaderboard, but is now the 22nd-most liked page on Facebook.
• Leo Messi and Akon fell off the list, but FC Barcelona is now on the leaderboard at No. 25.

Top image courtesy of .

It looks like we might not be too far off from a “Jetsons” future after all. According to AppData, Skype is gaining Facebook daily active users (DAUs), meaning video calling could become the norm as more people are working remotely. On Jan. 30, 2014, AppData reported 4.9 million DAUs and on the same date in 2013, it reported nearly 2.7 million DAUs. That equals a gain of 2.2 million DAUs in one year.

Will video begin to dominate calling communications even more this year? What do you think?

For more information, visit AppData or call us at .

 

While many people will watch Sunday’s Super Bowl for the football, others will be more interested in the commercials.

Ampush, a Facebook Strategic Preferred Marketing Developer, recently looked at the effectiveness of Facebook ads compared to television and Twitter, as all three will likely be in full force for the next few days.

found that Facebook ad campaigns drive more sales than TV and Twitter combined. The average Super Bowl ad is going for $4 million. Wonder what could happen if advertisers used that much money on Facebook or Twitter? Click below.

Top image courtesy of Shutterstock.

On Tuesday, Facebook will celebrate a decade of social networking. The company’s Co-Founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has recently opened up in candid interviews with NBC’s Today Show and Bloomberg Businessweek about the future of Facebook.

As Facebook matures into the double digits, it appears that Zuckerberg’s beliefs are changing. For instance, the new standalone apps () Facebook is developing may not require users to use their real name.

Zuckerberg spoke with NBC Today’s Savannah Guthrie about how Facebook has evolved over the past 10 years:

I remember really vividly, you know, having pizza with my friends a day or two after I opened up the first version of Facebook at my school.  And, you know, I was just really excited that we were doing it at one school.  And, you know, at the time I thought, “You know, someone needs to build a service like this for the world.”  I always thought that was this incredibly important thing to have happen.  But I just never thought that we’d be the ones to help do it.  And, you know, when I look back over the last ten years one of the questions that I ask myself is why were we the ones to help do this?  And I think a lot of what it comes down to is — we just cared more.

The full interview will run on NBC, Tuesday, Feb. 4.

Zuckerberg also offered an interview to Bloomberg Businessweek, who got a little more in-depth about the CEO’s plans for the future. Bloomberg Businessweek reports that Zuckerberg is starting to embrace anonymity:

One thing about some of the new apps that will come as a shock to anyone familiar with Facebook: Users will be able to log in anonymously. That’s a big change for Zuckerberg, who once told David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect, that “having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.”

At the time of Facebook’s founding, there was no such thing as real identity online. Facebook became the first place where people met one another as themselves, and the company was stubborn about asking users to sign in and share material with their own names. A Facebook account became a sort of passport to the rest of the Web, and with its success came new problems. No teenager wants to share insane party pics with a group of friends that may include his or her parents and teachers. And dissidents in parts of the world where speaking freely can be incriminating avoided the service in favor of alternatives such as Twitter, where real names are optional.

Former Facebook employees say identity and anonymity have always been topics of heated debate in the company. Now Zuckerberg seems eager to relax his old orthodoxies. “I don’t know if the balance has swung too far, but I definitely think we’re at the point where we don’t need to keep on only doing real identity things,” he says. “If you’re always under the pressure of real identity, I think that is somewhat of a burden.” Paper will still require a Facebook login, but Zuckerberg says the new apps might be like Instagram, which doesn’t require users to log in with Facebook credentials or share pictures with friends on the social network. “It’s definitely, I think, a little bit more balanced now 10 years later,” he says. “I think that’s good.”

Image courtesy of Today.

As the Seattle Seahawks prepare to do battle with the Denver Broncos in the , let’s take a look at how the teams are performing on Facebook.

According to PageData, both teams’ Facebook pages saw massive jumps in likes after earning the NFC and AFC title games, with the Broncos adding 42,585 fans the day after they defeated the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks gaining 32,770 fans after beating the San Francisco 49ers.

Between the two teams, have been the most talked about team in the weeks leading up to Super Bowl Sunday, but the Seahawks are closing the gap. One of the biggest drivers of discussion hasn’t been controversial Seahawks defensive back Richard Sherman or Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning, but rather the largest city of Nebraska.

Here’s a look at key Facebook stats for the official pages of both teams, courtesy of PageData:

The Broncos have more fans overall, but the Seahawks are quickly gaining new fans. The People Talking About This metric is fairly close, as roughly 3,000 more people are talking about the Broncos on Facebook than the Seahawks.

The Broncos have also been the most buzzed about team on Facebook, at least according to the team page’s PTAT metric.

While the Broncos were the most-talked about team (in comparison with the Seahawks) for most of the playoffs, Seattle’s fanbase shot back up in the days between the 2nd round of the playoffs and the NFC Championship game.

However, on Jan. 15, the where star quarterback Peyton Manning jokingly explained what he means when he shouts “Omaha” before several plays. The post has been shared more than 6,500 times, was liked by 33,301 people and generated more than 1,300 comments, giving the Broncos a nice boost in PTAT.

Most shared post of the playoffs

Broncos

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Seahawks

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While the Broncos have been more popular on Facebook, Instagram data from Facebook shows that the #Seahawks hashtag has been used nearly 700,000 times, the #Broncos hashtag roughly 153,000 times. The hashtag #SuperBowl has been used a little more than 305,000 times this week.

Here’s a list of prominent players and official pages on Instagram:

Denver Broncos

• Denver Broncos ()—247K followers
• Eric Decker ()—173K followers
  • Broncos WR; #87
• Von Miller ()—31K followers
  • Broncos Outside Linebacker; #58
• Wes Welker ()—22.9K followers
  • Broncos WR; #83

Seattle Seahawks

• Seattle Seahwaks ()—318K followers
• Russell Wilson ()— 432K followers
  • Seahawks QB; #3
• Richard Sherman ()— 281K followers
  • Seahawks Cornerback; #25
• Pete Carroll ()—54K followers
  • Seahawks head coach

Media/Brand Outlets

• NFL ()—770K followers
• Fox Sports ()—28K followers
  • Broadcasting the game
• Michael Strahan ()—148K followers
  • analyst on NFL on Fox, and co-host of Live with Kelly & Michael
• ESPN ()—628K followers
• SportsCenter ()— 386K followers
• MetLife Stadium ()—1.7K followers
  • Where the game will be played

Top image courtesy of the .

Social Moov, a Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer, announced that Damien Vincent joined their board to manage activities and development worldwide.

Vincent is formerly the Sales Manager and Director of Facebook France.

He expressed his excitement in a press release:

This is a great honor to join Social Moov’s team, an expert and dynamic company within Facebook’s ecosystem. I look forward to contributing to Social Moov strategy, to its international expansion and development of new products to better meet the agencies and advertisers’ needs.

For more than four years, Vincent acted as a Facebook ambassador, helping agencies develop their Facebook marketing strategies when the site was emerging to the general public. Previously, Vincent worked for an advertising start-up, was Business Development Manager of AOL, and Sales Manager of MySpace France.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a : someday a post from Target will be as timely and relevant as your best friend’s vacation photos. While this may seem crazy at first, Facebook’s advertising offerings are getting better, as evidenced by record ad revenue in Q4.

and usage stats Wednesday, showing an incredible $2.5 billion in revenue — $2.3 billion of which came directly from advertising. In Q3, Facebook pulled in $2 billion total and in Q4 2012, that figure was $1.5 billion.

However, Zuckerberg thinks Facebook ads can be so much more, and he’s not thinking in dollar figures.

He believes that someday, the ads within News Feed can be as timely and relevant as posts from friends and pages the user has liked. Zuckerberg discussed the company’s advertising mission in Wednesday’s earnings call:

Last quarter I talked about our efforts to grow our business through improving the quality of our ads rather than just increasing the quantity. Our goal is to reach a point where the ads are as relevant and timely as the content your friends share with you.

To do this, we’ve put a lot of effort into measuring people’s sentiment around our ads and seeing how people engage with them. We do some of the broadest surveys in the world. We survey more than 35,000 people every day to see how we’re doing, and we use the results to drive our product development.

Our approach is working. In the second half of 2013, we saw an improvement in sentiment about ads on mobile, even as volume grew during that period. We also saw sentiment on desktop remain stable. Interestingly, even as the volume of News Feed ads has grown, clickthrough rates have also remained stable.

Relevant has been one of Zuckerberg’s favorite words, but it’ll be difficult to see a News Feed in . When a user sees a post from a coworker, relative or friend — there’s no selling aspect. It’s just a friend sharing a funny photo or linking to an interesting story. The relevancy is in the real-life connection that may have happened before Facebook was even a thought.

When there’s a Facebook ad in News Feed, even if it’s not commercial in nature, there’s still an aspect of selling that usually turns a user off. While more users are clicking on Facebook ads (and revenue, revenue per click and clickthrough rates show this), it may not be possible for an ad to be nearly as relevant as an authentic post from a real connection. A News Feed ad is still seen by many as an intruder, like someone who butts into a conversation or posts an ad flyer on the community billboard.

That disconnect (and the fact that there are plug-ins such as Social Fixer and Adblock) is why ads will likely never reach the relevance of a post from a real life connection. Many users like brands and even love them, but Starbucks or Walmart doesn’t have the same kind of real-life cache of a friend. While Facebook ads may continue to improve, full relevancy seems to be an impossible goal.

Though full relevancy will be hard to achieve, the ad offerings from Facebook are rapidly improving. Many advertisers, marketers and Facebook Preferred Marketing Developers were excited by Wednesday’s news.

Joe McCormack, CEO of Facebook PMD Adquant, weighed in on Facebook’s Q4 ad performance in an email to Inside Facebook:

Over 2013, our customers averaged triple digit ad-spend growth on Facebook. The growth that we saw on our platform is in line with what Facebook announced today. We think this is attributable to the major improvements Facebook made to their ad platform on a monthly basis over the past year. Additionally, our customers are very excited about Facebook in 2014 and plan increasing their ad investment in this upcoming year. We think this is the clearest sign yet that Facebook has successfully made the transition since IPO, from being in an exploratory phase where they were not yet sure where their revenues would come from, to building a robust business with a quality set of products.

Molly McCarty, Social Account Manager for 3Q Digital, sees a bright future for Facebook ads:

Looking ahead, I think we can expect budgets to be strong across the board. With the recent changes to Facebook’s advertising platform – including a much-needed improvement to the ads interface and the introduction of powerful new ad types late in Q3 – and the continual improvement of the algorithm, I fully expect performance to continue to be strong. I think it is safe to say that 2014 will be a year of positive changes for Facebook that will continue to reinforce Facebook as a leading platform for online advertising.

Readers: What did you think of Zuckerberg’s statement that Facebook ads could be as relevant as a post from a friend?

Photo courtesy of .

Facebook’s , Paper, is coming to iPhones on Feb. 3, the company announced early Thursday morning. is somewhat comparable to Flipboard, in that it’s a way for Facebook users to discover news and share it with friends on the social network. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in Wednesday’s Q4 earnings call that more standalone apps from Facebook are in the pipeline, and then the company launched one less than 24 hours later.

In a highly visual manner, users can scroll through the top stories of the day and see what stories their friends are sharing and talking about. These will include news stories from sources such as CNN and Huffington Post, as well as news from friends, relatives and other connections.

Developed by a team of about 15 people, Facebook is launching Paper first for the iPhone, and then will see what kind of feedback the app gets before considering rolling it out to Android or other devices.

Facebook described Paper :

Your Paper is made of stories and themed sections, so you can follow your favorite interests. The first section in Paper is your Facebook News Feed, where you’ll enjoy inspiring new designs for photos, videos, and longer written posts. You can customize Paper with a choice of more than a dozen other sections about various themes and topics—from photography and sports to food, science and design. Each section includes a rich mix of content from emerging voices and well-known publications.

The app looks like a vastly improved version of Facebook Home, where readers can scroll through stories and posts from friends. Users can tilt the phone to see high-resolution panoramic photos, as well as zoom in to see details. Full-screen auto-play videos will also be a part of the app too. When a user wants to share a story through Paper, they will be able to preview before posting.

Much like Flipboard (or Pinterest), users can also curate “sections,” for categories of news they like and want to read. For instance, a user can have a special section for sports news, or news about a specific topic or country, and Paper will provide stories fit for that interest.

Facebook also released a video showing what Paper can do:

from on .

Readers: What do you think of Paper?

Image and video courtesy of Facebook.

Chances are you’ve been getting fewer FarmVille 2 requests from your Facebook friends than a year ago.

According to AppData, FarmVille 2 is experiencing the 2014 deep freeze just like the rest of the U.S. On Jan. 27, 2014, AppData reported 21.2 million Facebook MAUs and on the same date in 2013, it reported 45.7 million MAUs. That equals a loss of 24.5 million MAUs.

Will the farm thaw out in Spring 2014? What do you think?

For more information, visit  or call us at .

Facebook posted its most successful financial quarter yet, pulling in $2.585 billion in revenue — roughly $2.3 billion from advertising alone. In the previous quarter, Facebook hauled in $2.016 billion.

The social network also hit 1.2 billion monthly active users and now has more than 556 million mobile daily active users.

Here are some key slides :

As previous have shown, the past four months have been very successful for advertisers in terms of key metrics such as revenue per visit (RPV) or revenue per click (RPC). New figures by Facebook Strategic Preferred Marketing Developer Nanigans show that RPC was much more sustained in Q4 2013 compared to 2012. Among its clients, Nanigans saw grand increases in RPC — 72 percent quarter-over-quarter and 83 percent year-over-year.

But will Facebook advertisers continue to receive record RPC in Q1, or will it scale back down?

As the following graph shows, RPC spiked in December and January 2012, then crashed down just as quickly as it rose. However, RPC started climbing high in the beginning of Q4 and pretty much stayed at a high level, climbing as high as $1.80.

, Nanigans’ Senior Vice President of Marketing, discussed with Inside Facebook why Facebook advertisers finally had sustained success with RPC in Q4:

First on the consumer side, people are much more used to seeing ads this year across both desktop and mobile, on the right hand side and in the News Feed and finally static and video ads. The message consumers have sent to brands is clear in the sense that people will happily interact with offers (and drive revenue for advertisers) when executed with creativity, relevancy and value. Conversely, campaigns that are not well thought out and developed with a “consumer first” strategy and mindset will be ignored and in some cases complained about.

Second, on the brand side, advertisers are exponentially smarter now compared to twelve months ago. Mobile revenue tracking is up 3x, brands are understanding all of the different ad units from right hand to News Feed, mobile to desktop and static ad to video. Creative, targeting and optimization are at the forefront of campaigns and media dollars being invested into Facebook are being measured against true ROI.

However, as revenue went up in Q4, so did cost. Among its clients, Nanigans saw retail CPM increase by 19 percent quarter-over-quarter and 186 percent year-over-year. Retail cost per click rose 35 percent quarter-over-quarter and 35 percent year-over-year.

its Q4 and year-end financial report at 5 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. PT today.

Top image courtesy of dolphfyn / Shutterstock.com.

Though other social networks are gaining steam in the social login realm, that Facebook still holds 51 percent of all social logins, a slight majority over all other sites combined. While other social networks saw gains in consumer brands and travel, Facebook increased its stance as the leading social login in Europe.

Here’s a breakdown of Facebook’s rank:

• For mobile devices, Facebook holds a whopping 63 percent of mobile logins, though it dropped 3 percent from Q3 of 2013;
• Facebook still dominates eCommerce with 76 percent of social logins;
• In Media and Publishing, Facebook held steady from Q3 with 45 percent of logins;
• Facebook holds logins for Consumer Brands at 66 percent;
• In Travel and Hospitality, Facebook gained 9 percent from Q3, taking 59 percent of social logins; and
• Education became Facebook’s biggest vertical with 79 percent of social logins, a 7 percent increase from Q3.

In North America, Facebook still holds 47 percent of logins, holding from Q3. Around the world, Facebook continues become the preferred login:

• In Europe, Facebook gained 5 percent, bringing it to 57 percent of logins;
• In Central and South America, Facebook logins increased 4 percent to 79 percent;
• In Africa/Middle East, Facebook increased 5 percent to 75 percent; and
• In Asia/Pacific, Facebook gained 8 percent in the region bringing it to 82 percent.

The U.S. Olympic team recently announced its roster for the upcoming 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. Many of these athletes also love using Instagram, so Facebook compiled a list of all teams, venues and athletes that utilize the popular photo-sharing app.

Want an inside look at life as an Olympic or Paralympic athlete? Check out the list below to follow American athletes and teams as they go for the gold.

Team USA 

US Paralympic Team 

Alpine Skiing

• Stacey Cook 
• Julia Ford 
• Travis Ganong 
• Bode Miller 
• Mikaela Shriffrin 
• Leanne Smith 
• Nolan Kasper 
• Ted Ligety 
• Julia Mancuso 
• Steven Nyman 
• Laurenne Ross 
• Resi Stiegler 
• Marco Sullivan 
• Andrew Weibrecht 

 

Cross Country Skiing

• Simi Hamilton 
• Kikan Randall 
• Andy Newell 
• Jessie Diggins 
• Liz Stephen 
• Erik Bjornsen 
• Sophie Caldwell 

Curling

• Ann Swisshelm 

Freestyle Skiing

• Freestyle Skiing 
• Lyman Currier 
• Aaron Blunck 
• Maddie Bowman 
• Bobby Brown 
• Emily Cook 

Skeleton

• John Daly 
• Kyle Tress 
• Katie Uhlaender 

Ski Jumping

• Sarah Hendrickson 
• Jessica Jerome 

Snowboarding

• National Team 
• Chas Guldemond 
• Shaun White 
• Kelly Clark 
• Jamie Anderson 
• Greg Bretz 
• Danny Davis 
• Kaitlyn Farrington 
• Arielle Gold 
• Taylor Gold 
• Sage Kotsenburg 
• Hannah Teter 
• Ty Walker 
• Justin Reiter 
• Ryan Stassel 

Speed Skating (Long Track)

• Lauren Cholewinski 
• Shani Davis 
• Brian Hansen 
• Emery Lehman 
• Joey Mantia 
• Patrick Meek 
• Heather Richardson 
• Jilleanne Rookard 
• Sugar Todd 

Speed Skating (Short Track)

• Eddy Alvarez 
• Kyle Carr 
• JR Celski 
• Alyson Dudek  
• Jordan Malone 
• Jessica Smith 

Figure Skating

• Gracie Gold 
• Marissa Castelli 
• Evan Bates 
• Charlie White 
• Polina Edmunds 
• Ashley Wagner 
• Alex Shibutani 
• Maia Shibutani 
• Nathan Bartholomay 
• Felicia Zhang 
• Jeremy Abbott 
• Meryl Davis 
• Madison Chock 
• Jason Brown 

Ice Hockey (Women’s)

• Alex Carpenter 
• Brianna Decker 
• Meghan Duggan 
• Amanda Kessel 
• Hilary Knight 
• Jocelyne Lamoureux  
• Monique Lamoureux 
• Brianne McLaughlin 
• Anne Schleper 
• Kelli Stack 

Ice Hockey (Men’s)

• James Van Riemsdyk 
• Patrick Kane 
• Jonathan Quick 

Biathlon

• Lief Nordgren 

Bobsled

• Jazmine Fenlator 
• Lolo Jones 
• Jamie Gruebel 
• Aja Evans 
• Lauryn Williams 
• Cory Butner 
• Elena Myers 
• Nick Cunningham 
• Johnny Quinn 

Luge

• Preston Griffall 
• Erin Hamlin 
• Aidan Kelly 
• Chris Mazdzer 
• Jayson Terdiman 
• Tucker West 

Sled Hockey

• Taylor Chace 
• Declan Farmer  
• Nikko Landeros 

2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games Location Pages:

• Fisht Olympic Stadium: Opening and Closing Ceremonies
• Adler Arena: Speed skating
• Shayba Arena: Ice Hockey
• Bolshoy/Bolshoi Ice Dome: Ice Hockey
• Iceberg Skating Palace: Figure Skating, short track
• RusSki Gorki Jumping Centre: Ski Jumping
• Rosa Khutor Extreme Park: Snowboarding, Freestyle Skiing
• Rosa Khutor Alpine Centre: Alpine Skiing
• Laura Cross-Country Ski & Biathlon Centre: Biathlon
• Sanki Sliding Centre: Bobsled, Luge, Skeleton

Top image courtesy of .

, Facebook started testing an addition to Custom Audiences that would allow marketers to target people who had used a certain mobile app or visited a website. The company announced Tuesday that it is rolling out this capability for all.

Facebook explained this technology :

For instance, a travel website with the remarketing pixel could use Custom Audiences to reach a group of people — say, people that searched for flights but never made a reservation — with a targeted message in News Feed: Come back for 10% off your next flight reservation. Similarly, a retail mobile app could build retargeting campaigns by installing the Facebook or third-party SDK in their mobile app and target people on mobile or desktop, encouraging them to come back and purchase the items left in their shopping cart.

Additionally, as seen above, Facebook added more call-to-action buttons for News Feed page post ads: Shop Now, Learn More, Sign Up, Book Now or Download.

Facebook also pointed out some success cases of businesses using the beta test of these capabilities:

• Using Custom Audiences from its website, , a women’s activewear company, drove 3-6X return on ad spend (ROAS).
• , a leading financial news application, saw its average cost per install reduced by 28% when targeting mobile app install ads to people who had previously visited the Seeking Alpha website,
• By reaching people from their mobile app who added to their cart but did not purchase, , an online retailer for guys, saw over 8X ROAS. In another campaign, JackThreads achieved over 4X ROAS by targeting and re-engaging purchasers from the last 30 days, but not from the past day.

When a marketer utilizes Custom Audiences for their mobile app, they can target exact actions users have taken to make sure they’re getting the proper customers or potential customers. As an example, marketers can target those who have purchased in the last 30 days, or those who have purchased an item in a certain price range. Through Custom Audiences, an advertiser could even target someone who added an item to the cart, but didn’t complete the purchase. Marketers can choose to exclude actions, as well, such as those who purchased recently or who usually don’t spend above or below a certain amount through the app.

Facebook Software Engineer Greg Schechter described :

We will be rolling out the ability to create Custom Audiences from your mobile app over the course of this week, and Custom Audiences from your website over the next couple of months. We have made it our goal to invest in measurement, targeting, and optimization tools available to our developers and will continue to look for ways to do so.

Readers: Are you excited for these new capabilities within Custom Audiences?

We looked at 2,121 on Facebook, covering 114,634 posts.

Highlights:

• Scenery shots generate the most likes at 28.71 per 1,000 impressions — almost 5 times as much as link posts.
• People are more likely to comment or share on food photos (.99 comments per 1,000 impressions and 2.98 shares per 1,000 impressions).
• The destination, not the room amenities, drives interactions — less than 50% of engagement is on posts related to facilities.

Hotels post 32 times per month, broken out as:

• 1.9 links
• 27.8 photos
• 1 status update
• 1.6 videos

Top hotels and resorts such as the MGM Grand, Aria or Sierra-At-Tahoe average above 50 posts per month, almost twice per day. Correspondingly, they drive high interactions.

86% of all posts for these premium hotels are images, with few links and videos.  Links or videos typically are for special events such as performances or Facebook exclusive deals.

 

 

Another interesting point is that most hotels are wasting energy by posting too frequently. Some hotels are posting close to 30 times per day and have 1/6th the engagement of some of their competitors.  There is a sweet spot for how many often you post, which is between 3 and 7 times per day.

Instead of looking generically at post type, we categorized them into 7 different categories: promotions/contests, on-site activities, food/restaurant, local activities, scenery, internal property, and external links.

Likes Per 1,000 Impressions Comments Per 1,000 Impressions Shares Per 1,000 Impressions Promotions/Contests 5.54 0.31 0.19 On-site Activities 8.96 0.39 0.23 Food/Restaurant 27.75 0.99 2.98 Local Activities 8.68 0.14 0.25 Scenery 28.71 0.73 1.98 Internal property 11.93 0.62 0.66 External Links 6.29 0.11 0.29

For every 1,000 impressions, food and restaurant posts generated 27.75 likes, .99 comments, and 2.98 shares.  The only other category that came close was scenery, which had 28.71 likes, .73 comments, and 1.98 shares.

Scenic shots carry emotion and desire, while room amenities don’t.

What is the takeaway from this?

Don’t over do it with promotions or on-site activities.

If you must, run as to fans.

Readers: What’s the emotional appeal of the area you’re located or the food you serve?

Top image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Kenshoo, a Facebook Strategic Preferred Marketing Developer, announced Monday partnerships with digital ad agency Direct Agents and RIOT, a Brazilian social media agency.

Through RIOT, Kenshoo will be able to strengthen its overseas efforts and gain a better foothold in the emerging Brazilian market. Direct Agents has led social campaigns for Scholastic, Lending Tree, Samsung and Nutrisystem, among others, and will start integrating Kenshoo’s technology into their leading campaigns. Walter Motta Junior, Head of Partnerships at RIOT, commented on the deal:

As the market matures, it’s been increasingly hard to get good ROI rates for marketing actions on Facebook without the appropriate investments and a strategy with effective business goals. This partnership will help us gain scale and also quality, as Kenshoo works with exclusive features made available only through API, which will make us even stronger.

Gary Nafus, Managing Director of the Americas at Kenshoo, described why the company entered into a partnership with Direct Agents:

Direct Agents has an outstanding track record of client satisfaction and we’re excited to partner with them to take their business to the next level. The digital expertise of Direct Agents and Kenshoo’s innovative technology make for a powerful combination to drive results for advertisers.

One of the main ways a Facebook user can leave feedback for a restaurant (or any other business) is through the reviews. Much like on other sites such as Yelp, users can and leave a review.

Now, Facebook is rolling out the ability for page admins to respond to these reviews as the page. Previously, a page admin could only comment or like a review as their personal profile.

This will help place-based pages and businesses on Facebook quickly respond to negative reviews, as well as reward or thank users for positive reviews, giving patrons more incentive .

Don’t have this ability yet? Just wait.

A Facebook spokesperson told Inside Facebook that while this may not be available immediately, the site is rolling it out slowly with full functionality in the next couple weeks.

Readers: How often do you rate a place on Facebook and leave a review?

Photo courtesy of Or Fialkov, Fialkov Digital.

Facebook advertising performed , which includes the vital holiday shopping season, but Adobe believes that the continual growth may slow soon. Among its clients, Adobe found that clickthrough rates on Facebook ads are starting to max out and that CPM continued to grow. Additionally, Twitter and Pinterest continued to eat into Facebook’s market share, with Tumblr also growing by leaps and bounds.

However, there was lots of good news for Facebook advertisers in the previous quarter. Revenue-per-visit for Facebook ads rose 31 percent quarter-over-quarter and 72 percent year-over-year.

Facebook will release its official Q4 financial report .

Adobe Senior Analyst Joe Martin spoke with Inside Facebook about Q4:

This is a time where consumers are even more open to advertising, and we really see that in the data. In Q3, we were really bullish on Facebook and their ad platform. With the data in Q4, we see some caution flags. They’re still doing really well, but we can see clickthrough rates growth kind of leveled off a little bit. CPC saw a seasonal rebound, but will probably drop down again in Q1 and CPM continues to grow.

We also saw Facebook competitors gain strength again. They took some market share from Facebook in Q4. Really, social is growing as a whole. These places like Twitter, Pinterest — they’re just growing faster than Facebook.

Facebook is still the top dog in terms of revenue-per-visit, but other sites are growing quickly. Martin said that in the U.K., Pinterest passed Facebook in this metric and he predicts that the more conversion-focused Pinterest will continue to grow in RPV.

Here’s a look at how the major social platforms did in Q4 with regard to RPV:

Facebook ads also garnered more engagement, with higher quality too. While Facebook likes produce 42 percent of all social engagement, comments and shares are up 40 percent year-over-year.

Clickthrough rate continued to grow for Facebook. Adobe found that for its clients, CTR was up a whopping 365 percent year-over-year and 41 percent quarter-over-quarter. Ad click volume rose 125 percent year-over-year. However, CPM keeps climbing, as it saw a 51 percent quarter-over-quarter rise and a 437 percent rise compared to last year.

As Facebook noted in the most recent changes to the News Feed algorithm, users love visual content and tend to pass on plain-text status updates. Martin also noted that video also had a calm quarter, as many advertisers still aren’t sure how to do it properly. Midway through the quarter, Facebook started testing and . Martin noted that it probably won’t show too much in Q4 figures, but as more users are exposed to auto-play videos and video ads, we’ll see a better correlation to performance in Q1 2014.

Engagement for text posts, links and video were all down year-over-year, while posts with images produced 650 percent higher engagement than status updates.

Top image courtesy of dolphfyn / Shutterstock.com.

Facebook recently in an effort to get more pages to use its visual link-share format, claiming that it’s more effective. A new report by Shareaholic, measuring social referrals, shows that the social network is right. Since September, referrals from Facebook have grown 48.85 percent, and represented 17.41 percent of all website referrals in November.

Facebook was one the biggest gainers among social media sites, along with Stumbleupon and Pinterest.

This shows that more users are clicking on stories with Facebook’s improved sharing format, placing an emphasis on big, bold images.

The findings were based on 200,000 websites from around the world, accounting for more than 250 million unique visitors each month.

Shareaholic’s Danny Wong commented on Facebook’s performance in a blog post:

Facebook’s share grew 48.85% (up 5.07 percentage points), Pinterest’s share grew 30.06% (up 1.11 percentage points) and StumbleUpon’s share grew 54.36% (up 0.30 percentage points). Facebook holds the top spot in the social referrals rankings. Last month, this behemoth of a social network drove more than twice the referrals all 7 of the other social media platforms sent to sites, combined.

Readers: Are you seeing more traffic driven to your site by Facebook?