There’s A New Option For Like Button Layouts

One of the most significant changes is the introduction of a new “Box count” layout for like buttons. While it’s a minor design change, some sites prefer using a box layout in their design. While this may seem minor, a like button which is double the size makes it a much larger call to action.

Developers Can Let Users Like Canvas Pages

Like buttons just became the new distribution channel for developers. Applications can have users like pages within an application. Each new like also becomes a new distribution channel. As we’ve covered before, publishers can contact any liker who has ever liked anything on their site, and the same goes for application developers.

You Can Like Virtual Items

Even more significant is the ability to like objects which don’t necessarily exist within a physical page on a website. That means developers (and marketers) can have users like virtual objects and then develop targeted messages that work best for people who liked those objects. While I have yet to see this technique successfully implemented it present a massive opportunity for both developers and marketers in general.

Like Buttons Can Link To Pages

Another large upgrade was that generic like buttons can now link to pages. That means you can embed a like button that doesn’t necessarily say the name of your page, however when the user clicks it, that’s exactly what they’ll end up liking. My guess is that this is an attempt by Facebook to not only grand page administrators greater flexibility when promoting their page, but also a subtle way to increase page promotion.

Additionally, Facebook has made it less complicated to like a page by entering the URL of a page when the like button is created in their like button wizard, rather than searching for the page ID.

Less Easy To Determine What You’re Liking

One of the most interesting aspects of the new like button is that there is no disclaimer about what you are liking. While this was already the case, the ability to like pages means that websites can now mislead users into believing they are liking an article, when in reality, they are liking a website. It’s not a huge issue as Facebook likes aren’t likely to damage your reputation permanently, however it’s still a loophole in the Facebook liking system.

A new study, from York University, finds that Facebook users are basically a bunch of narcissists. What better way to talk about the thing you love the most—yourself—then to constantly preen your online profile and make sure your friend count is as high as possible?

The study has been published in the latest edition of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behaviour And Social Networking.

The study doesn’t single out Facebook “just because,” but it’s the biggest social networking site out there, so it tends to attract the people mentioned on the study.

And who are these people? Narcissists mainly, people with “a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and an exaggerated sense of self-importance.”

Yup, sounds about right.

The study, which looked at 100 students from the age of 18 to 25 at the university, also finds that people who constantly check their Facebook profile—you know who you are—often suffer from low self-esteem. A sort of, “I sure hope my ‘friends’ like me, I really really do!”

That’s basically a manifestation of the link between lack of self-esteem and narcissism, the constant need to tell people that you’re awesome.

Perhaps The Miz, of WWE fame, is nothing more than a fragile soul looking for the acceptance of total strangers.

Fun little study, this.

Did you notice this bug as well?

How Facebook Ads Work

Before jumping in to the difference between cost per click (CPC) ads and cost per thousand impressions (CPM) ads, we thought we’d provide a basic over view of how Facebook’s ad system works. Ultimately, Facebook’s ad network operates as a blind auction. Advertisers bid to have their ads displayed to various demographics. Facebook then displays those ads which perform the best (or generate the highest CPM for Facebook).

The Initial Test
While Facebook already knows how ads that have been running beyond the first few thousand impressions will perform, Facebook must test all new advertisements to determine their effectiveness. It’s during this period that the future of your ad will be determined. The goal for Facebook is to run those ads which will generate them the most revenue by run ads that maximize their CPM. Whether or not you bid on a CPC or CPM basis, Facebook must run your ads to determine their performance.

If your ad gets 10,000 impressions and no clicks, but you bid on a CPC basis, Facebook will eventually push your ad out of the rotation. This is because you aren’t generating any revenue for them. If however, you bid on a CPM basis, Facebook will be guaranteed that your impressions will at least generate some level of revenue.

Getting Flagged
If for some reason your advertisements start performing insanely well (for example, you are able to get your CPC down to $0.01), Facebook will eventually take note and check whether or not your ads violate any terms. If they don’t, they will be allowed to continue to run, but they won’t be optimized for as many impressions since they don’t maximize revenue for Facebook. It’s extremely rare that ads will attract exceptionally low CPCs, which is why Facebook will tend to investigate ads, or campaigns, that perform at this level.

There’s A Balance
The reality is that there’s a balance for all advertisements run on Facebook. While the company will run your ads, even if they are performing insanely well, they must come close to matching the “house CPM”. The best way to look at the “house CPM” is this: it’s the amount Facebook would have generated if they didn’t run your ad. As you begin running numerous ad campaigns, you can figure out what Facebook’s current house CPM is based on how your ad performs. This is for people who are running numerous campaigns however.

Ad Variations & Market Variations

The single largest determinants of the cost of your Facebook advertising campaigns are your ads and the target demographics you are going after. Some demographic groups have been targeted heavily and as such, have a much higher “house CPM”. As you adjust your ad title, body copy, and image, you will sometimes see dramatic variations in performance. This variation between ads and market prices (testing various demographic groups) is exactly what professional advertisers spend their time testing. Another word for these individuals is “optimizers”.

As defined in our Facebook marketing dictionary, optimization is the process through which an advertiser minimizes the cost of advertising while simultaneously maximizing performance to reach the ad campaign objectives. Optimization is a luxury for those that have money to test ads. If you don’t have the time to invest in optimization, you are going to end up spending more for your individual ads.

For some people this is fine as long as they know that they are getting some level of performance. However, for advertisers who are investing in the long-term performance of their campaigns, optimization is a process which is not only smart, it should be a requirement as it will maximize your performance and cut down your cost. Enough of this long winded response though, let’s get to the part you came here for: CPC vs CPM!

Why You Would Select CPC?

The most obvious reason for selecting a CPC bid is that you are only charged when people click on your ads. This means that in theory, you could get thousands of “free impressions”. The reality is that these “free impressions” aren’t really worth that much to you (yes, this is debatable). For advertisers, you want to pay for ads that generate results. However if you have a low budget ($5 a day or even $20) and you don’t have time for optimization, your best bet is to just go with CPC.

While an ad optimizer could also use CPC to test their campaigns, an expert optimizer will at some point use CPM for extremely high performance ads. The reason is that when bidding on a CPC basis, you will never pay less than your bid rate.

Why You Would Select CPM?

CPM, or cost per thousand impressions (aka. cost per thousand pageviews), is an advertising model that people running tens, hundreds, or even thousands of ad combinations will often use. The reason is that ads can perform better than Facebook’s recommended CPM and CPC bid rates. The only way to maximize your performance beyond a stated bid rate and figure out the lowest possible bid is to run on a CPM basis.

The reason is that your CPM bid has nothing to do with how well it will actually perform. In other words, I could bid $1.00 for 1,000 impressions, but if my click through rate is exceptionally high, my ads could end up obtaining a CPM of $0.10 despite the fact that I bid $1.00. In turn, my ads will outperform Facebook’s estimated bid rates. Keep in mind, if you are running CPM campaigns, you must monitor your ads closely for two reasons:

1. You could burn through your budget on low performing ads
2. Your ad performance will decrease over time, in turn pushing your effective campaign CPM up over time

Ultimately It Comes Down To CPA

While you can’t currently bid through Facebook on a cost per action (CPA) basis, advertisers need to measure how their ads perform on a conversion basis. Whether you want a user to become a fan of your page, download an ebook, install an application, pay for some digital good, or something else, the ultimate cost is how much you are paying for a user to perform an action. If for some reason you are just looking to drive traffic to your site, and you don’t care about performance (which makes little sense), you could try to minimize your CPC. However if you were just looking to buy traffic you could easily go to StumbleUpon and buy traffic at $0.05 per visitor.

Your Best Bet

Confused? Don’t worry! If you aren’t spending a lot of money on ads, and you are new to Facebook ads, your best bet is to bid on a CPC basis. This way, you are hedging against your exposure to low performing advertisements. Additionally, the real test that you want to figure out is how to maximize your click through rate (CTR) within your ads. Whichever have the highest click through rate will tend to be the best performing over time.

Over the coming weeks we will go into more details about how to measure the performance of your campaigns and go into more detail about the ads and the various terms. If you want to stay up to date on the latest Facebook marketing news and tips, click here to subscribe to our Facebook marketing weekly newsletter.

With 84 million monthly users, and a reported $500 million revenue a year, how did FarmVille capture the hearts of so many Facebook users? According to a former employee speaking to SFWeekly, they stole. Stole big. [SFWeekly via Kotaku] More »

The report is unconfirmed as of now, but if it proves to be true, then it looks like you’ll be able to talk to your OnStar like you would normally, but this time you’ll be able to let everyone on your Facebook know just where exactly you’re going, or what you’re thinking, while you’re driving. No, you won’t have to type anything in (thankfully), and you’ll be able to just say what you want to say and have it added to your Facebook, but we still think this is getting pretty ridiculous.

Not only that, but the system would be able to read out text messages, and let you send out text messages. And, just in case you want to know what your status update stream looks like in the middle of a long drive, your OnStar system will happily read them out to you, too. Apparently the big upgrade to OnStar is set to take place some time in this month. A new advertising campaign is set to kick off around the same time, which should make all those teenage drivers excited to have OnStar. Or, that’s what GM’s hoping, anyway.

[via CrunchGear]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

• New OnStar feature kills the engine when your car is reported stolen
• Nokia S40 Facebook app; new Facebook Connect for Mobile announced
• Nokia and Facebook in negotiations for mobile integration?
• Facebook for Windows Mobile app released
• 3 INQ1 Facebook phone: best social networking app yet, dull handset