News on Facebook Marketing, according to Facebook : today, developers will be allowed to publish more important News Feed stories on behalf of their users who want to share actions like taking photos, providing commentary or checking into locations through an “explicit sharing” parameter for Open Graph apps, which was recently introduced by Facebook.
To help users consistently share their app activity after a one-time authorization, Open Graph apps was introduced by Facebook last year. Ticker would then distribute this activity to friends once it is added to a box on a user’s Timeline. The appearance of the story in a friend’s News Feed would be depending on the weight of the action and a user’s relationship to the friend and affinity for a certain category of app. To be relevant, these algorithms need more signals as they are still being developed.
Now, actions like location sharing or a user-generated photo or message, can be shared by developers in the feed with explicit sharing. Natural activity through apps like reading, watching or listening, will continue to be distributed and aggregated. As well as lightweight actions such as favoriting, following, or saving.
Explicit sharing will most likely benefit developers as this will improve the user’s experience and drive more traffic to their apps. More developers are seen to create apps that take advantage of this unique format and will soon be thinking beyond auto-sharing. Developers need to resubmit to Facebook, for review, their existing Open Graph actions if they want it to meet the requirements to explicitly share.
Read more at Facebook gives developers new setting to publish more prominent stories from Open Graph apps
News on Google Marketing, according to Google Official Blog : to assist millions of riders find out which subway, train, bus, or tram can lead them to their next destination; Google has been working together with hundreds of transit authorities around the world to create a complete data on public transportation schedules since 2005. These schedules for more than one million transit stops worldwide, in nearly 500 cities that include New York, Sydney, Tokyo and London are now available with Google Maps.
To make transit information even more helpful, an update to the Google Maps for Android app (version 6.10) has been released. You can now select a specific mode of public transportation to display on the mobile map, may it be a bus, tram, subway or train with the update to the Transit Lines layer. Other modes not selected will be hidden.
By tapping the name of the station on your mobile map, updated station pages, which show the distance to nearby stations, departure times and lines serving the station, will be opened.
Other features like region highlighting, My Places and Location History displays in Google Maps for Android have also been updated. Now, borders of a certain region are highlighted when searching for a city or postal code. New tabs under My Places have also been added where you can access all your information from one place. By enabling Location History, an updated Location History dashboard allows you to browse the places you’ve been on a daily basis.
Read more at Google Maps now has schedules for more than one million public transit stops worldwide
News on Social Marketing, according to PRN Newswire : during the webinar, marketers’ insights and best practices for understanding social, mobile and other trends have been offered.
With a barrage of marketing messages being received by consumers, Mintel Comperemedia announced that around 18 customer communications is received by an average consumer, through direct mail and email, each month. Affinion Loyalty Group vice president, Charles Christianson, said that “approaching your customers through the lens of their experience is critical in having your message resonate through the noise.” And it is ever growing with the significant rise of social media.
A survey performed during the webinar reveals that more than 51% of attendees chose Facebook as the most important social network for their organization’s social media strategy. Mintel Oxygen Social Networking likewise reported that Facebook has twice as many users compared to its competitors with around12 brands on Facebook Liked by consumers on an average.
Even with the growth of social media, traditional channel still outranked it with more than 25% of respondents saying that email is the most important channel. Less than 9% designated social media as the most important channel for enabling and extending the customer experience. Fourteen percent of survey respondents classified direct mail and in-person interaction as most important channel.
As Mintel Comperemedia’s Senior Vice President, Andrew Davidson, said, “Any social media call to action through email or direct mail needs to offer a compelling incentive.” The survey show that more than 44% of respondents said that the most important incentive to their organization’s focus on the customer experience is cash back or discounts.
Read more at Survey Results: Communications Aimed at Creating Experiences are on the Rise
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