26 Tips for Using Images to Engage Fans and Followers

You’ve heard this: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” But can it actually help you engage with customers and prospects?

In this post, I’ll share ways you can ensure your images provide the best experience they can; ones that will help keep the conversation flowing.

Among the topics covered in this post are tools, tips and strategies that can be used to enhance the visual representation of your business.

As I’ve done in the other posts in the 26 Tips series, this post provides an easily digestible A-Z guide to which you can return time and again.

A-Z Guide

#1: Adverts

Location, location, location. Talk about good real estate. You can use the Facebook photo strip space for pictures that serve as adverts for your business. You can include descriptions, links and calls to action.

In the post How to Use the Facebook Photo Strip on Your Fan Page, you can learn more about optimal sizes for photo strip images.

The Facebook photo strip is prime real estate and a great place for free business advertisements.

Watch how Make It In Music created them in this helpful video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx1svhz8sE4

#2: Brand awareness

Ann Smarty suggests watermarking your images to protect your brand and increase brand awareness. She recommends a number of tools to get the job done; e.g., Fast Watermark and Photo Watermark.

Fast Watermark is a quick and simple tool that allows you to add a watermark to your photos.

#3: Creative commons

The service through Flickr makes it possible for users to offer their work under a creative commons license where people can search through images under each type of license: attribution, noncommercial, no derivative works and share alike. Before using a creative commons image, be sure to check out the license.

#4: Digital art

Greg Finn writes that digital art is a staple in social media news sites and suggests that design-related images should be “high resolution and content should be truly extraordinary.” He describes four examples of design images typically used in social media: design art, graffiti, web design and fonts. One outstanding example he references was created by Kevin Hulsey for Royal Caribbean, which can be viewed on his site, where you not only see a representation of the full ship but can go cabin by cabin through the ship. Pretty impressive!

#5: Effects

Create interesting effects with your images to help them stand out in the crowd. There are countless apps which can help to create all kinds of effects; e.g., collages, high dynamic range rendering, tiles, vintage, sketches and interesting textures. If you work on a Mac, you can check out the photography apps online.

#6: Facebook Photos Plus Comments

Photos and comments are the perfect duo for Facebook. While you may think you have the most fantastic photo to post on Facebook (and you might), sometimes it won’t be enough to stand on its own. As, Jim Lodico writes in his post, 6 Tips to Increase Your Facebook Edgerank and Exposure, ”Photos and videos show up in the Facebook new feeds as thumbnail images. Due to their size, they almost require interaction as users click on them to make them large enough to see. Be sure to add a comment that encourages users to open the photo and add comments of their own.”

Use photos that represent your business.

#7: Google index

Text isn’t the only thing that Google indexes. That’s right. Google indexes your images too. Images are a very powerful way to add more Google juice to your site’s search ranking. Panda’s post 9 Ways of Optimizing Your Site for Image Search says, “If you have optimized your images correctly, you can get yourself a very attractive top 10 position by tagging your images correctly.”

Fun Tip: You can check how many pictures Google has indexed from your site by going to http://images.google.com/images?q=site:yoursite.com, and replacing “yoursite.com” with your domain name.

Google found 2,750 images on Social Media Examiner in 0.8 seconds!

#8: Hipstamatic

If you’re on the go and want to take some interesting photos with your iPhone, Hipstamatic is a great app worth exploring. Photographer Stephanie Roberts lists it as one tool to fuel your creativity in her article in Digital Photo magazine. She says, “Hipstamatic mimics the unique style of vintage prints characterized by vignettes, blurring, textured edges and oversaturated colors created with the original analog plastic camera. Using a square-format viewfinder, the app lets you switch ‘lenses,’ ‘flash’ and ‘film’ with the swipe of a finger. I often shoot with Hipstamatic because I like composing images in the square-format viewfinder and I like the creative constraint of choosing the ‘film’ and ‘lens’ before I shoot.”

Rich Brooks from Flyte talks about Hipstamatic and other apps in this video from 207, the evening news magazine on southern Maine’s NBC affiliate, WCSH.

#9: iPhoneography

Stephanie Roberts, author of The Art of iPhoneography: A Guide to Mobile Creativity, gives a number of compelling reasons for seeing the iPhone camera as a powerful creative device for photographers. My personal favorite is: “You rarely go anywhere without it, which means you increase the odds of your ability to capture fleeting magic moments as you move through the day.”

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I think I should have brought my digital camera when I remember that my iPhone, the constant friend and companion, is ready and waiting and very up for the task at hand!

Stephanie suggests loosening up and following your instincts and crafting your toolkit with apps to fuel your creativity. She recommends Photo fx from Tiffen, Iris Photo Suite, Hipstamatic and Adobe Photoshop Express.

Think of iPhoneography as a mobile method for making art as you move through life.

#10: Join the community and be social with your photos

Stephanie Roberts also recommends creating an Instagram presence. “Instagram is a rapidly growing social network of iPhoneographers sharing images in real time. The Instagram app displays a chronological feed of photographs shared by users you choose to follow. You can use Instagram to shoot an image (or choose an image from your photo library), apply an image filter (or not) and quickly share the image with your followers. Instagram also can automate image sharing to your online journal, or your Twitter or Facebook accounts.”

Instagram is a fun and quirky way to share through pictures.

Steve Kovach’s post, HOW TO: Use Instagram for Your Business recognizes the ways businesses can use Instagram to make their photos searchable with hashtags. As he says, “This is fun for the average user, but a huge win for brands that want to get more attention with the Instagram crowd.” He offers four tips for leveraging hashtags for your brand on Instagram: host a contest, target people by interest, create an RSS feed and encourage participation.

News organizations are using Instagram, too. In this recent post, Anthony Quintano, the community manager for @NBC News, offers three tips: upload original photos that share a unique perspective, thank and follow other Instagram users and search for user content.

You can also search for hashtags that interest you. For example, see who has tagged their photos #socialmedia.

#11: Keywords

Where would we be without keywords? They’re everywhere we search today. But when it comes to searching for the perfect image, they become even more important to understand. Getty images put together a very comprehensive guide to help users search for images. Whether you’re looking on Getty Images or not, the concepts are important to consider. For example, they suggest using keywords related to concepts, topics, people, age, sayings, image and footage styles, editorial-specific terms and human emotions. They offer advice for refining your search; e.g., combine terms, be creative, editorial and footage.

#12: Link

This may be an obvious piece of advice, but nevertheless it’s worth mentioning. Users have become accustomed to rolling over images in hopes that they will be able to navigate to a destination. So why not link the screenshot and take users directly to the website. This is particularly useful on web roundup posts. In this roundup, “The Art of Facebook Page Design,” the images represent the artwork of 50 Facebook pages. When the user wants to see more about the Facebook page, he or she can easily navigate to the page by clicking on the image.

Link screenshots directly to the website.

#13: Movies

Images needn’t be stills. With a variety of tools, you can create short movies with a series of photos, add music, embed on your blog, link on Facebook and wow, think of the impressions you can make. One such tool is Animoto.

Here’s a good tutorial by mentorMichel.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=48194ShehLI

#14: Networking sites

Looking for a way to keep track of the images you’ve shared on different social networking sites? There are several options to help you. One such product is GRID, which “fetches all your photos from different social networks and lists them out by week. Currently GRID can rewind your memories from Facebook, dailybooth, Instagram, picplz, twitpic and yfrog.”

Pixable, another fun service, makes it possible to view your friends’ photos shared on Facebook. Young writes in the post, View Facebook Photos with Pixable, “For every photo you can see on the Pixable website, you can also like it, read its comments, comment it and see who is tagged in it. Very enjoyable, especially when your friends share many beautiful photos of themselves.”

See all of your images in one place.

#15: Optimize

In the post 9 Ways of Optimizing your Site for Image Search, we’re advised to: use descriptive file names, use the html alt tag, add descriptive text close to the picture, keep the most important images close to the top headline or title, put photos within articles and blog posts away from navigational elements, do not add code to break out of frames, use images that read well when thumbnailed, make the photos accessible, and use social photo sites like Flickr with links back to the relevant page on your site.

#16: Profiles

The placement of social icons on blogs is an important consideration. Cindy King points out in her post, 19 Ways to Use Images to Enhance Your Blog, “A blog is considered a social media platform and you want to make it easy for readers to connect with you on the social platforms they feel most comfortable with. This is why many blogs have easy-to-recognize social icons in a prominent position.”

#17: Quality of experience

While we’ve been talking largely about images and photos so far in this post, Greg Finn suggests six formats for informative images that work in social media: charts/graphs, flow charts, how-to’s, maps, screenshots, and guides. “The key for these images is to be easy to consume and to be comprehensive. The images should not only be helpful, but should also be designed well. Great design can make an ordinary informative image turn into an essential resource.”

#18: Resize images and use same sizes

Greg Finn offers great advice for using the same size for each image in your piece. Go a step further and make it part of your editorial standards and request that all images have the same dimensions. As Greg says, “This gives your article a more professional feel and gives the submissions a much more uniform look. Never use a jumble of different image sizes; your story will look much more amateur.”

#19: Screenshots

Sometimes nothing says it better than a screenshot, the “image taken by the computer to record the visible items displayed on the monitor, television, or another visual output device.” (Wikipedia) Screenshot images are often used to demonstrate a point and show users how to complete a task. Another powerful feature of screenshots is the ability to annotate them, and this is where you might want to explore software options. Recently I’ve started using SnagIt by TechSmith, which I’ve used in this post. The annotating features really help add pizzazz.

Annotate screenshots to demonstrate a point.

#20: Twitter

As discussed in the post, 26 Twitter Tips for Enhancing Your Tweets, images can be shared on Twitter via a number of Twitter image sharing services, SMS or email, Brightkite or FriendFeed, Skitch and Encoded Tweets. You can learn more about these options from Josh Catone in his post.

#21: User Photos

One of Facebook’s newest developments is the ability to tag pages in user’s photos. Right now it’s limited to pages categorized as “Brands & Products,” but it can be very effective for brands looking to expand their reach. As Josh Constine writes, “A tag of a brand or public figure represents a strong social recommendation of that Page, which will make a user’s friends curious to visit that Page and improve the chance that they’ll Like it themselves.

“Photos are Facebook’s most popular native application, receiving huge numbers of Page views. Tags of Pages in Photos could gain many impressions from a user’s friends over a long period of time, offering many opportunities for that Page to gain new fans.” Josh demonstrates this new feature in the Coke brand photo below:

Tagging products can expand a brand's reach.

# 22: Volume

While there aren’t any hard-and-fast rules about the number of images to include in a blog post, I think most bloggers would agree that effective blog posts should contain at least one or two. Keep in mind that Images will help engage readers by breaking up long blocks of text and enhancing the readability of the page. Posts on Social Media Examiner for example, always include a number of images and the pièce de résistance, captions!

#23: Widgets

Cindy King discusses widgets and how most social networking sites provide widgets for you to embed on your blog. Cindy says, “This is a great way to grow your communities on social media platforms. It gives your readers the choice of where they want to connect with you. And as the communication styles vary on different social media platforms, it also lets your readers choose how they want to connect with you.”

#24: Experience

In the post How to Improve the Appeal of Your Graphics, Connie Malamed discusses research that indicates the ease of processing information (otherwise known as processing fluency) which influences a person’s aesthetic pleasure and contributes to positive experiences. Four features attributed to facilitating fluent processing are: symmetry, high figure/ground contrast, visual clarity and less information rather than more.

Use images as a way to facilitate a good experience for your customers, fans and followers.

#25: Why images

Adam Singer describes images as being vital to modern blogs for six reasons: content moves through the social web lightning-fast and strong imagery can’t be ignored; images are a signal to visitors that a site’s material is premium and unconsciously we elevate the worth of a site that has images mixed in with stories; strategic imagery helps bloggers build their brand—the imagery can help build a stylish brand associated with their sites; images are mood setters and help writers tell their stories better; images are a precursor to the inspiration that happens from effective copy and can give a blog an advantage over their competition; images help bloggers create viral content.

#26: Zero impact

At this point we’ve explored 25 tips and good reasons for using images in your social media to engage customers, followers and fans. With that being said, there’s really no good reason to use images that have zero impact. I’ll end with these last pieces of advice: with all the great possibilities out there, use images with the most dynamic impact and ones that are representative of the points you are trying to make.

How to Track Tweets, Facebook Likes and More with Google Analytics

Don’t you wish you could track the traffic impact of Twitter, Facebook and Google+ using Google Analytics? Well now you can. Keep reading to learn how.

Google’s getting social in a big way.

Google has been quite busy lately, rolling out Google+ (Google’s social network) to a limited audience, the Google +1 button (a feature similar to Facebook’s Like button), a new Google Analytics interface and Google Analytics Social Interaction Tracking.

Google Analytics Social Interaction Tracking

This new Analytics feature allows you to track social interactions on your website, your blog or on your Facebook fan page. These actions include the Twitter button and the Facebook Like, Unlike and Send actions.

In this article, I will guide you step-by-step in adding this powerful new tracking feature to your Facebook tabs or web pages.

NOTE: Adding Google Analytics Social Tracking requires access to and modification of your web page files. It’s pretty basic, but you should be somewhat comfortable working with HTML files.

What is currently supported by Google’s Social Tracking

As of this writing, my testing shows that the following social buttons are supported:

• Facebook Like, Unlike, Send


• Twitter (only via the “official” Tweet button, not Tweetmeme or other third-party buttons)


• Google+

I’ve not yet found a way to track the LinkedIn Share button. If anyone has had success tracking this button with the new Google Analytics, let me know in the comments!

As for WordPress plugins, you’ll have to wait for plugin developers to integrate social tracking into their plugins. The one WordPress plugin for adding Google Analytics social tracking only supports the buttons listed above.

Google’s New Google Analytics Interface and Tracking Code

In order to implement Social Interaction Tracking, you will have to update your current Google Analytics code to the latest version, and then add a few snippets of code to your HTML file.

In order to view the Social Interaction Tracking metrics, you will need to use the new Google Analytics interface, which is available as an option at the top of the page when you’re logged in to your Analytics account:

How to Get Your Updated Analytics Code

To get your updated Google Analytics code:

1. Log in to your Google Analytics account.


2. View the new Google Analytics interface by clicking “New Version” at the top right of the screen (see above image).


3. Click on the domain account you wish to access.


4. Click the “gear” icon, in the orange bar at the top right of your screen:







5. Click on the “Tracking Code” tab: Under “Standard” tab and below “1. What are you tracking?” select either “A single domain” (if you’re tracking a website or blog) or “Multiple top-level domains” (if you’re tracking a Facebook fan page).







6. Copy the code under “2. Paste this code on your site”. It should look like this, but with your “UA-xxxxxx-x” account number:

<script type="text/javascript">

var _gaq = _gaq || [];

_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-xxxxxx-x']);

_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {

var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;

ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';

var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);

})();

</script>

You now have your updated Google Analytics code.

Putting the code in all the right places

The new version of your Google Analytics code should be placed before the closing </head> tag of your HTML file. (Yes, this is different. The old version was usually placed before the closing </body>, but that was then…)

Between your Analytics code and the closing </head> tag, insert this bit of code that calls the JavaScript that enables the social tracking:

<!-- Google Analytics Social Button Tracking -->

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://app.tabpress.com/js/ga_social_tracking.js"></script>

The end result will be:

<script type="text/javascript">

var _gaq = _gaq || [];

_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-xxxxxx-x']);

_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {

var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;

ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';

var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);

})();

</script>

<!-- Google Analytics Social Button Tracking -->

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://app.tabpress.com/js/ga_social_tracking.js"></script>

</head>

The “UA-xxxxxx-x” will be replaced with your unique Analytics ID for this domain.

Now let’s add the Like/Send button code

As I mentioned in my Social Media Examiner post on Social Plugins for fan pages, Facebook generates the Like/Send button code for you on its Social Plugins page. For the Like/Send button, you just need to enter the URL you want people to “like”, select whether you want to include a Send button and a couple of other options, then copy the code in the popup dialog, which will look like this:

<div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#appId=201748293206869&xfbml=1"></script><fb:like href="www.hyperarts.com" send="true" width="450" show_faces="false" font=""></fb:like>

The “#appId=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx” is a random app ID that Facebook generates that allows you to access Insights for the button, but it’s not necessary for the button to work. In my example, I omit the appId value from the code, which will work fine.

IMPORTANT: You must add the snippet of JavaScript (shown below) to the code that Facebook generates so that actions on that button trigger Google Analytics:

<script type="text/javascript">_ga.trackFacebook();</script>

Add the above code before the <fb:like /> tag:

<div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><script type="text/javascript">_ga.trackFacebook();</script><fb:like href="www.besthawaiianvacationrentals.com" send="true" width="450" show_faces="false" font=""></fb:like>

Paste your Like button code anywhere between the <body> </body> tags.

Viewing your Google Analytics Social Tracking reports

As mentioned above, the Social Tracking reports are only available in the new Google Analytics interface. (See above for how to choose the new version option.)

NOTE: It usually takes a few hours for Analytics to reflect activity on your web pages, but it can take up to 24 hours. See “Troubleshooting” below.

After logging in to your Analytics account, click into the domain for which you want to view reports, then in the left menu go to “Visitors > Social“:

You have three options for viewing the social interactions:

1. Engagement: You see two metrics: 1) Not Socially Engaged and 2) Socially Engaged. This shows you how effectively each page is in motivating users to Like or Tweet your content:







2. Action: This shows you the specific actions taken (Like, Unlike, Send), how many of each and percent of total actions:







3. Pages: Details on which page’s actions were taken and what those actions were.

Adding the Twitter button to the mix

Google’s Social Tracking will also track tweets made with Twitter’s Tweet button. Interestingly, Tweetmeme now recommends using the Twitter Tweet button.

After logging in to your Twitter account, go to the Twitter Tweet button page, where you can select one of the three available options:

Once you’ve made your selection, just copy the code that is generated for you and paste it somewhere between the <body> </body> tags of your web page. Your code should look like this:

<a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="horizontal" data-via="hyperarts">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>

Add a bit of JavaScript to activate Twitter Social Tracking

Before the closing </head> tag, place this bit of JavaScript to activate the Google Analytics tracking (the social tracking won’t work without this tag!):

<!-- Load Twitter JS-API asynchronously -->

<script>

(function(){

var twitterWidgets = document.createElement('script');

twitterWidgets.type = 'text/javascript';

twitterWidgets.async = true;

twitterWidgets.src = 'http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';

// Setup a callback to track once the script loads.

twitterWidgets.onload = _ga.trackTwitter;

document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(twitterWidgets);

})();

</script>

I don’t think it matters where you put the above Twitter-tracking code, as long as it’s inside the <head></head> tags. I put it right before the closing </head> tag, after the Google Analytics tracking code and the call to the “ga_social_tracking.js” JavaScript.

A word about Google +1 tracking

As Google states on its page about Social Interaction Tracking,

Out of the box, Google Analytics provides integrated tracking with the Google +1 button. This means if you have set up both Google +1 and the latest version of Google Analytics on the same page, all +1 social interactions will be tracked automatically.

As I mentioned above, the +1 button is Google’s version of the Facebook Like button. I’ve added it to the HyperArts website and blog, but I haven’t seen much traction with it yet. However, adding it can’t hurt, and as it grows in popularity it will help your content reach a larger audience.

Troubleshooting

If you implement the above instructions accurately, you should see tracking results within several hours of initiating tracking, although Google says it can take up to 24 hours to display results.

If, after 24 hours, you don’t see any social tracking results (and I’m assuming you will have done some testing of the buttons to ensure they work and to provide some data to Analytics):

• Double-check your code. Make sure you have placed the code as instructed above, and make sure your URL values are correct.


• Check the Google Analytics date range. By default, Google Analytics displays the past month of data up to the previous day. You can manually change that range to include the current day by clicking the arrow next to the date range and changing the end date to the current day:







• Adding Social Tracking to your WordPress self-hosted blog: There is already a plugin for this feature.

Although this may look a bit, um, complicated, it should be pretty easy for those who are comfortable working with web files.

Google+ Has Some Pluses, But Facebook Needn’t Worry

The threat to Facebook posed by the Google+ project became a reality Tuesday with its official rollout — or did it?

While reaction to the debut of Google+ was mixed, the consensus was that Mark Zuckerberg will still have a job when he wakes up Wednesday morning.

Here are some highlights of the online reaction to Google+ and how it stacks up against Facebook, starting with the official introduction of the project from the official Google blog:

Among the most basic of human needs is the need to connect with others. With a smile, a laugh, a whisper, or a cheer, we connect with others every single day.

Today, the connections between people increasingly happen online. Yet the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions are lost in the rigidness of our online tools.

In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it.

We’d like to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software. We want to make Google better by including you, your relationships, and your interests. And so begins the Google+ project.

Not all relationships are created equal. So in life, we share one thing with college buddies, another with parents, and almost nothing with our boss. The problem is that today’s online services turn friendship into fast food — wrapping everyone in “friend” paper — and sharing really suffers:

It’s sloppy. We only want to connect with certain people at certain times, but online we hear from everyone all the time.

It’s scary. Every online conversation (with over 100 “friends”) is a public performance, so we often share less because of stage fright.

It’s insensitive. We all define “friend” and “family” differently — in our own way, on our own terms — but we lose this nuance online.

In light of these shortcomings we asked ourselves, “What do people actually do?” And we didn’t have to search far for the answer. People in fact share selectively all the time — with their circles.

From close family to foodies, we found that people already use real-life circles to express themselves, and to share with precisely the right folks. So we did the only thing that made sense: We brought Circles to software. Just make a circle, add your people, and share what’s new — just like any other day.

From GigaOM:

I don’t think Facebook has anything to worry about. However, there is a whole slew of other companies that should be on notice.

One of the reasons why I think Facebook is safe is because it cannot be beaten with this unified strategy. Theoretically speaking, the only way to beat Facebook is through 1,000 cuts. Photo-sharing services such as Instagram can move attention away from Facebook, much like other tiny companies that can bootstrap themselves based on the Facebook social graph and then built alternative graphs to siphon away attention from Facebook. Google could in theory go one step further — team up with alternative social graphs such as Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr and use those graphs to create an uber graph.

From TechCrunch:

“We believe online sharing is broken, and even awkward,” Google senior vice president of social Vic Gundotra said. “We think connecting with other people is a basic human need. We do it all the time in real life, but our online tools are rigid. They force us into buckets — or into being completely public. Real-life sharing is nuanced and rich. It has been hard to get that into software.”

From the little that I’ve seen so far, Google+ is by far the best effort in social that Google has put out there yet. But traction will be contingent upon everyone convincing their contacts to regularly use it. Even for something with the scale of Google, that’s not the easiest thing in the world — as we’ve seen with Wave and Buzz. There will need to be compelling reasons to share on Google+ instead of Facebook and/or Twitter — or, at the very least, along with all of those other networks. The toolbar and interesting communication tools are the most compelling reasons right now, but there will need to be more of them. And fast.

From Silicon Alley Insider:

Yes, it has been hard to get sharing into software. That’s why Facebook was created seven years ago. That’s why Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been trotting around the world for the past five years telling everyone that the company’s mission is to facilitate “sharing.” That’s why Facebook is now used by nearly 700 million people worldwide. That’s why Facebook is basically subsuming the Internet.

From AdAge Digital:

The major difference between Facebook and Google+ is that instead of having a massive friend list, users collect each other into groups — called “Circles” — like family, work, and friends. This context has been missing from Facebook and has gotten some people in hot water — for example, those who post their wild weekend party photos that may be seen by family and colleagues. And on Google+, there are no friend requests. People do not need to agree to be friends with one another and can view updates without sharing their own.

From paidContent:

Circles: This seems a clear poke at Facebook’s groups and lists features, which are not the easiest thing in the world to use. Google has created a way to let Google+ users create groups of friends, colleagues, and family members that’s almost exactly like creating a new folder on your hard drive and adding pictures. Simply drag the name of a friend or connection into a newly created circle to assign them to that group, and when you create a new post, you can select which circle will receive that update, allowing you to share the latest off-color South Park clip with your close friends (but not your uptight boss) and your goofy family reunion pictures with those who won’t judge (and not that first date that you’re hoping will turn into a second).

From Mashable:

Circles is well-implemented. It’s far easier than creating a Twitter List or a Facebook Friend List. The drag-and-drop functionality is a welcome addition, and the cute animations that appear when you perform actions give the product personality. That doesn’t necessarily mean users will take the time to create friend groups.

From Wired Epicenter:

Parts of it certainly seem to appear similar to what we’ve seen before. One significant component is a continuous scroll called “the stream” that’s an alternative to Facebook’s news feed — a hub of personalized content. It has a companion called “Sparks,” related to one’s specified interests. Together they are designed to be a primary attention-suck of Google users. Google hopes that eventually people will gravitate to the stream in the same way that members of Facebook or Twitter constantly check those continuous scrolls of personalized information.

The Buzz disaster came just as Facebook began to look like it may make good on its goal of signing up every human on the planet — creating a treasure trove of information inaccessible to Google’s servers. People at Google began to worry that Facebook could even leverage the information its users shared to create a people-centric version of search that in some cases could deliver more useful results than Google’s crown jewel of a search engine.

From Silicon Alley Insider:

Apparently, Facebook got wind of the Google+ feature, now called Circles, that allows users to share information with only select groups of friends, rather than their entire Facebook network.

Mark Zuckerberg took a personal interest in meeting this threat from Google, and put a team on it last summer. The result: Facebook Groups, which launched in October.

It doesn’t seem to have taken off — at least not like hugely popular features like Facebook Photos — which suggests maybe this is a solution to a problem most people don’t worry about. That doesn’t bode well for Circles.

How to Use the Google +1 Button Callback Parameter to Unlock Exclusive Content

Since the release of the Google +1 button for websites in early June, many webmasters have been trying to figure out the best ways to implement it across their sites. In its most basic form, the +1 button is relatively easy to add to a webpage. You can grab two line of code, add them to your webpage, and be on your way. That said, Google has provided several parameters you can use with the +1 button that control how the button looks, what is displays, which URL should receive the +1, and which function you want to call when someone clicks the +1 button. Wait, did you catch that last part? Google added a mechanism for webmasters to trigger a JavaScript function when someone clicks a +1 button. The mechanism I’m referring to is the “callback” parameter of the +1 button, and it opens up a world of opportunity for webmasters. Let’s explore the parameter in greater detail, including what it is, how to use it, and how to avoid problems down the line.

What is the Callback Parameter?

As I mentioned earlier, you can implement the basic +1 button on your site with just a few lines of code. You need to include a JavaScript tag and then the +1 button tag. It’s essentially two lines of code and you’ll have a +1 button on a webpage. But, if you review the Google Code page for the +1 button, you’ll notice several other parameters. You have count, size, and href, which control the display of the +1 button, as well as identifying the URL that should receive the +1. Then you have the callback parameter, which takes the name of a JavaScript function as the value of the parameter. The JavaScript function you trigger can do anything you want (ok, not anything), and I’ll cover more about this soon.

Here is what the google +1 button code would look like when using the callback parameter:

<g:plusone callback="helloWorld"></g:plusone>

When you include the callback parameter in the +1 tag, you provide the name of a JavaScript function that will be triggered when someone clicks the +1 button. In this example, the function called “helloWorld” will be triggered. Note, helloWorld() needs to be part of the global namespace, meaning it needs to be included in the page or referenced in the html file via a script tag. The function will receive a JSON object, which includes both an “href” value and a “state” value. “href” will include the URL that received the +1 and “state” is either on or off (where on represents a +1 and off means someone removed a +1). That information is good to know and you can handle each situation separately. More about this soon.

Example: A Simple JavaScript Function

Below, I have included a very basic JavaScript function that’s called when someone clicks a +1 button. It simply throws an alert displaying the state of the button when clicked. Note, this function could either reside in the page itself or it could reside in an external JavaScript file that’s referenced in your html page (via a script tag).

 function helloWorld(plusone) {
 window.alert('+1 Triggered, State=' + plusone.state);
}

How the Callback Parameter Can Be Used

Based on adding the callback parameter to the +1 button, Google is enabling webmasters to creatively use the functionality to interact with users. For example, you could reward users that +1 a page on your site. There are some rules, though. Remember, +1’s impact rankings, so you don’t want to “buy” rankings. I attended a Google webinar last week that covered best ways to implement the +1 button and Google made it very clear that you should not pay for +1’s. That means you shouldn’t incentivize users with money, product, or services based on those users clicking a +1 button on your site. Here is the actual language from Google’s policy page:

“Publishers should not promote prizes, monies, or monetary equivalents in exchange for +1 Button clicks.”

The reason Google doesn’t want publishers incentivizing users with prizes or money is simple. +1’s impact rankings, rankings should not be manipulated in any way, and paying for +1’s is like paying for links. Don’t do it.

Unlocking Content is OK

Although you can’t provide products or services, Google explains that you can unlock exclusive content. Here is the language in Google’s policy regarding enabling content and functionality:

“Publishers can direct users to the +1 Button to enable content and functionality for users and their social connections.”

If someone +1’s your new blog post, you could unlock exclusive content for that user (and you can use this approach creatively, depending on your specific industry, business, etc.) For example, you could provide a study that goes deeper into a topic, you could provide additional tutorials on the subject matter, provide additional news about a topic, etc. Just make sure you wouldn’t ordinarily charge for that content. Yes, this seems like a slippery slope, since exclusive content might already have a price tag associated with it. As a webmaster (or marketer), you might need to build new content that could be part of your +1 program.

An Alternative Approach – Catching +1 Removals

Earlier in this post, I mentioned the “state” value that gets passed to your JavaScript function in the JSON object. That value will tell you whether someone +1’d a page or removed a +1. Knowing that someone just removed a +1 is important information, and you can act on it using the callback parameter of the +1 button. For example, maybe you can ask the person why they removed the +1, ask them to reconsider their +1 removal, or redirect them to a page that provides a more creative approach to catching +1 removals. Now, you don’t want to go overboard here. If someone just removed a +1, they obviously had a reason. You don’t want to add fuel to the fire and push the limits of getting that +1 back. That said, the right messaging could act as a legitimate confirmation that a user will be removing a +1, which could potentially save some of those votes. It would be interesting to test this out to see how many +1’s you can gain back by using the callback parameter.

Unlock Content, Get More +1’s?

As you can see, the callback parameter can be a helpful addition to the +1 button code. Depending on the “state”, you can either reward users with exclusive content, or you can address the removal of a +1. Remember, +1’s impact search rankings, so they can be extremely valuable to your organic search traffic. Just be careful about what you’re giving away to users that +1 content on your website. Make sure you aren’t giving away prizes, money, or services. The last thing you want is for a creative use of +1 to get you penalized. And if history has proven anything, you can bet that some webmasters are going to try and manipulate the system to gain more +1’s. As I said earlier, don’t go down this path. It’s not worth it. Play by the rules, be creative, and gain more +1’s the right way.

By the way, have you +1’d this post yet? :)

The Photo Strip: Facebook’s Most Underused Free Ad

Many brands trick out their Facebook pages with flashy apps while ignoring some of the most valuable (and free!) tools available. Case in point: the often-neglected photo strip that came as part of the new Facebook Pages format rolled out in March. When done wrong, the photo strip makes an otherwise impressive page fall flat. When done right, the photo strip creates a stunning page design. A little bit of creativity and upkeep can transform the photo strip into a powerful branding tool.

How it Works

By default, the most recent five photos uploaded to a page – either as wall photos or in a photo album – are displayed in the photo strip. Although only 5 images will show at one time, an unlimited number of photos can be set to appear in the photo strip. New images uploaded to the wall or photo albums can be hidden from appearing in the photo strip by clicking on the X in the top right corner of the image. Hiding all but a select 5 photos enables page administrators to control which photos appear in the photo strip.

Clicking the X in the corner of an image hides it from the photo strip.



Unlike with personal profiles, the images on a page’s photo strip appear in random order. Every time the page is refreshed, the photo order is shuffled. Presumably, Facebook did this to keep brands from using this as static advertising space. Many pages get around this challenge by embracing the randomness and using images that work regardless of order.

The Tropical Northern Queensland tourism board's photo strip has Nemo move each time the page is refreshed.

Here’s where it gets tricky: the image that appears in the photo strip is actually a thumbnail cropped from a section of the uploaded image. Even more tricky: the cropped area used in the thumbnail cannot be chosen (unlike with a profile picture). Instead, Facebook automatically crops an off-center part of the image as the thumbnail. Figuring out exactly which part of the photo is cropped is difficult, but properly formatting images is crucial since some photos appear unrecognizable when resized as thumbnails.

Dairy Queen's Photo Strip: When Bad Cropping Happens to Good Pages

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Alternatively, making making photos the same dimensions as the thumbnail (98 x 68 pixels) prevents them from being cropped. The downside to this method is the image appears very tiny in the photo viewer.

Kool-Aid uses images already sized as thumbnails to prevent cropping

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After much weeding through Facebook pages, I’ve found some brilliant ways brands are using the photo strip.

1. Incorporate the Profile Picture

It takes a great concept and well-designed photos to pull this off, but the results are awesome.

Secret’s creative use of inner tubes melds the profile picture into the photo strip in this celebration of reaching a million fans.

Lysol’s banner tying in the profile picture is on-point with their “Mission for Health” initiative that promotes weaving healthy habits into communities.

2. Product Placement

This one’s obvious: feature products in the photo strip! Another no-brainer: including a description and link to the product in the photo caption. However, making the product photos too promotional may turn off fans. Focus should be on adding aesthetic value to the page and clarifying what the brand is about.

A white background and consistently sized images make Nikon’s cameras pop across the top of their page.

Chevrolet uses the same color cars and labels each model in these attractive, brand-focused photos.

3. Show Gratitude

When reaching a milestone, such as X number of fans or overwhelming participation in a contest, the photo strip space can be used as a thank you.

Dove said thank you in different languages when they reached a million fans. This is also an example of selecting more than 5 photos to use in the strip, since this design can be used to spell out “thank you” in many languages.

Nutella also used the space as a thank you when they reached 10 million fans.

4. Highlight New Stuff

Placing upcoming products or services in the photo strip builds buzz and awareness around a new product launch.

Chicken McNuggets swimming in sauce isn’t the most appetizing visual, but these colorful, consistent images are still a nice plug for McDonald’s new dipping sauces.

In a more indirect approach, Panda Express advertised their new extended hours with a night sky.

5. Be Useful

Since this is the first thing fans notice on the wall, why not make it a quick reference tool?

Redbox’s photo strip allows fans to check the page each week for new releases.

Dole Bananas features photos of recipes made with bananas. The photos’ captions are links to the recipe on Dole’s site.

6. Say it with Words

Using words instead of pictures can effectively showcase brand messaging, services and products, or compel fans to take action.

Involver uses compelling words to promote their Social Markup Language.

These simple words entice to fans looking for discounts and coupons.

7. Play with Color

Creatively using colors can really make the photo strip pop.

UNICEF USA uses splashes of their signature cyan color to pull together these photos of children from around the world.

Crystal Light’s same photo in different colors has a powerful effect.

8. Sequential Randomness

In contrast to playing up randomness, using images that belong in sequential order is a playful way to get fans refreshing the page continuously to put the photos in the correct order.

Seattle’s Best Coffee is not only nicely using product placement, but their numbered levels of coffee make for a great out-of-order set of pictures. I may have spent a few minutes trying to put these in order (unsuccessfully).

9. Do It All

Why use the photo strip to promote one thing when you can promote everything?

Kraft Macaroni & Cheese uses the photo strip as a cross-promotional tool for their site’s recipes, new products, other social profiles, and a Facebook app. This manages to not feel overly promotional since it is so well-designed and subtle.

Facebook’s New Ads Power Editor Replaces the Bulk Uploader with a Streamlined GUI

This week, Facebook launched its new Ads Power Editor desktop software for buyers who work directly with a Facebook ads representatives. The new multi-pane graphical user interface presents a streamlined way to create and manage multiple Facebook ads simultaneously. It also integrates with Excel, and replaces the Facebook’s bulk uploader ads tool which will be deprecated on June 30th, 2011.

Alloffacebook has provided a functionality overview of the Facebook Ads Power Editor and present some questions regarding how the enhanced native tool impacts third-party tool provider working off of the Facebook Ads API.

Until now, Facebook provided four main ways of purchasing and managing ads. The public self-serve graphical user interface ads tool, the bulk uploader for managing ads through Excel, the Facebook Ads API for programmatically managing ads, and a direct relationship with Facebook ad sales representatives for the site’s biggest advertisers. Now, those working with ads reps have access to the Power Editor that combines and strengthens the features of the self-serve and bulk uploader tool.

While Facebook has continued to augment the self-serve ads purchasing tool and Ads Manager with more conversion and reach metrics, new ad units such as Sponsored Stories, and new targeting options such as broad category targeting, the design of the graphical user interface has for most part remained stable over the past few years. For those that needed to create and manage large scale optimized ad campaigns, the self-serve tool and bulk uploader were a bit too clumsy.

While the Power Editor doesn’t support Sponsored Stories, it makes generating and editing multiple ads at once much simpler.

New Features

Downloading the Power Editor

For now, the bookmark for the Power Editor only appears in the ads accounts of ad buyers who work with Facebook ad sales representatives and are running the Google Chrome internet browser. Those who qualify can download and run the software locally from their Windows, Mac, or Linux machine. Users then download their existing ad account and campaigns into the software from Facebook.

Multi-Pane Interface

Power Editor users are shown three panes shown in the image above:

• Left pane (A)- Select between ads accounts and their campaigns


• Main pane (C) – Use tabs (B) to view all the campaigns or ads from the account or campaign selected in the left pane


• Bottom pane (D) – View editable fields for the campaigns or ads selected in the main pane

This tiered interface makes it easy to navigate between and edit a huge number of ads from different accounts and campaigns. The old Ad Manager required many more clicks and page loads to access all of this information.

Performance Metrics Settings

Users can check boxes to select which metrics will appear in the main pane. These include standard metrics such as clicks, impressions, and bid, as well as new metrics such as Facebook content and errors, and basic targeting attributes such as age and sex. Users must set a date range with the stats drop-down to load the new metrics.

Creating New Campaigns

Users can create a new campaigns in three ways:

• ‘Create Campaign” flow – Fill out various fields inline


• Duplicate – Clone an existing campaign and then edit fields


• Copy from Excel – Copy a campaign from the Power Editor into Excel, edit it, and paste it back into the Power Editor

Creating New Ads

Users can create new ads in four different ways:

• ‘Create’ Ad flow – While in the ‘Ads’ tab in the main pane of the desired campaign, click ‘Create Ad”. Fill out fields inline using typeahead functionality, and select an image from the image library or upload a new one


• Duplicate – Select an ad in the ‘Ads’ tab of the main pane and click ’Duplicate’, then edit fields


• Copy from Excel – Copy an ad from the Power Editor into Excel, edit it, and paste it back into the Power Editor


• Import from Excel – Create multiple new ads or new campaigns in Excel, import the spreadsheet by copying it into the Power Editor or clicking the ‘Bulk Import’ button, and upload a zip file of images

The Power Editor is backwards compatible with the Bulk Uploader, so spreadsheets from the Bulk Uploader can be imported the same way as they are from Excel. Whenever edits are made in the Power Editor, the ‘Upload’ button must be clicked to sync the changes with a Facebook Ads account. Changes since the last Facebook account upload or download can be undone using the Revert Changes button.

Power Editor and the Facebook Ads API

The Power Editor provides some of the basic functionality offered by tools built by third-party developers on the Facebook Ads API. Specifically, the ability to create and manage multiple ad variants for A/B testing can now be accomplished through Facebook’s native tools. This to some degree commodifies a core selling point of third-party tools — namely that a significantly level of efficient A/B testing could not be achieved without an Ads API tool.

However, many Ads API tools provide better ad creation than the Power Editor, with visual trees and the ability to cross several creative and targeting variables to instantly produce permutations. Third-party tools also provide deeper analytics, cost per fan and conversion-based optimization models, auto-optimization algorithms, and support for Sponsored Stories. This means that for now there should plenty of value for Ads API tool developers to offer big ad buyers.

alloffacebook is following with Facebook about the direction of both the self-serve tools including the Power Editor, and the Ads API. We’ll return with insights into how advertisers should choose the solution that’s best for them, and how the tools of Ads API developers should look to differentiate themselves from Facebook’s native tools.

Site Speed For Dummies Part 1 – Why Bother?..

Since starting in SEO, I have followed countless numbers of blogs and read a huge amount of information (most of which I don’t understand). What I always found irritating was reading a blog post, knowing the actions you need to take but lacking the technical know-how to put those actions in place. Take site speed, for example.

Site speed is a funny old thing. Ever since Google first announced in April 2010 that they were using it as a ranking signal, everyone has known that they need to optimise it. The problem is that most people just don’t know how to do it (like me: personally, as soon as I see code, I run for the hills).

To that end, this blog post is for all those SEOs out there that know they should be improving site speed, but instructions like “combine images into CSS sprites” means nothing to them. Originally this was going to be one blog post, but after researching it’s turned into what will likely be three posts. Part one will cover the reasons behind wanting to improve site speed, part two will be getting down and dirty with all the techy code stuff and part 3 will be how you can actually get developers and customers to buy into it and how to influence change.

So let’s get started!

How Important Is It?

When looking at how important site speed is, I decided it was important to look at it from various points of view:

1. Is it better for the user?
2. Is it better financially for the business owner?
3. Does it result in higher natural search engine ranks?

Let’s take these one at a time…

1. Relationship Between Site Speed & User Satisfaction

I think it’s fair to say that common sense applies here; people don’t like browsing at slow speeds, that’s why we don’t use dial-up any more. (Plus the dial-up noise was really annoying.)

Image Source: Here

So we already know that people prefer to surf as fast as possible, but since we are geeks, we need proof, right?

For starters, Google, and in particular Larry Page, are obsessed with speed. Have a look at this article on the BBC (from 2009). The “Fast Flip” concept is mentioned, where we Twould be to be able to flip through online content as quickly and easily as we can with a physical magazine.

Additionally, Google themselves ran a test to see if slowing down the search process effected users’ behaviour. They essentially made Google slow down very marginally for a set period of time. They had two groups: a control group, who use Google as normal, and a test group. The test group’s searching habits were monitored over a period of 6 weeks while delays between 100 – 400 milliseconds were applied to their search environment. The test simply showed that the longer the delay was, the fewer searches people were likely to do.

The impact ranged from 0.2% to 0.59%, and what’s even more interesting was that in the longer delays, even after they returned to Google’s regular fast speed, they maintained their newly modified search habits.

Put simply, the effect of a slow user experience changed their search habits for an extended period of time. Bing also found that a 2-second slowdown changed queries per user by -1.8% and revenue per user by -4.3%. That’s pretty amazing. These numbers might not seem like a big difference, but think how quick Google is already: if we were dealing with a site with delays of 4 or 6 seconds, this could have a much bigger impact.

So I think that answers the first part. Yes, a fast site is definitely better for the user… duh.

Oh, yeah – Google also like to remind you just how quick they are every time you do a search:

2. Will a fast site make you more money?

So we now know that it’s better for the user, but do happier users actually make us more money? Is improved site speed worth implementing?

I dug around a little and found a great article, Velocity & The Bottom Line, which has some great case studies that are worth having a look at. I picked a couple that are great examples of how site speed can affect your bottom line.

AOL

AOL conducted experiments to see how their site speed effected the way people viewed their site. For each visitor, they monitored the average load time of the pages. They then broke this down into percentiles of the highest to lowest and examined the number of page views of each group from fastest to lowest. This showed some nice numbers across a range of industries.

Image Source: Here

As you can see from the image above, the faster the site is, the more pages the user navigates through. This is true across all the areas of the site shown. More site views on a site like AOL is very important as more page views = higher advertisement revenue.

Shopzilla

Another site which is used as a case study in that article is Shopzilla. If you are not familiar with Shopzilla (I wasn’t until writing this), they are a product comparison site which allows you to compare prices of products and help you get the best deal. They got some great results from speeding up their site and even in some aspects that you would never expect. Before the change, their site was averaging a load time of between 4 and 6 seconds per page.

After making the changes they were averaging less than 1 second consistently, and this had a dramatic overall effect.

This proves that if your site is fast, people are:

1. more likely to want to spend time there,
2. less likely to leave it, and
3. feel more secure. Since they don’t have to wait about as much, they don’t have time to panic when they hit the buy button.

Can you imagine the testing you would need to do to achieve a conversion increase of 7-12%? Then what about the infrastructure costs? 50% is huge, especially with a site this size. Most small businesses won’t have such high infrastructure costs, but it’s still interesting to know that money can be saved in areas you don’t expect. This is the ideal situation, as sales increase + operational costs decrease = WIN.

I think you would agree this shows that faster sites can definitely increase your bottom line.

3. Does it increase your search rankings?

The short answer to this is yes. Google have publicly said it’s a ranking factor, so improvement here will definitely increase your rankings.

What’s not to clear is how high up your to-do list it should be. According to Google, in April 2010 search speed affected only 1% of queries. That’s not a huge result, but I think we can assume that this number will increase over time.

But if there’s still doubt, I always refer to common sense. Browsing at speed is better for user experience, therefore Google should prefer fast speeds. Building on that, the following is based on my opinion and has not been tested, although I welcome anyone to test and let me know the results.

Personally, I think the increase in ranking may not be a direct effect of increasing site speed. I don’t think Google place enough weight on this single factor to make dramatic rises in the SERPS. Still, consider all the positive things that happen as a secondary effect of updating the sites:

• Users use the site more
• They view more pages
• Conversions increase
• Less down time
• Lower abandonment rates

These are all excellent things from a user point of view, which is obviously Google’s number one priority.

And a close second is making money. When you look at the size of Google’s Adsense network, for example, do you think they would be in favour of getting a 25% page view increase across the network as a whole by way of increasing speed? Of course they would. Results that big could mean millions of pounds every year.

It also makes sense that Google would track site user stats as well. If a site gains all the above stats, that site deserves to rank higher.

I think the secondary increase in relevancy and user experience would drive the increase in rankings, rather than the primary increase in site speed.

It’s all about the big picture in my opinion.