Forbes magazine recently reported that India is now Facebook Nation No.2, for country with the most active Facebook users after the US.  In a years time, India went from ranking No. 6 to moving infront of the previous No. 2 Facebook Nation, Indonesia.

Real-time rankings for countries with the most active Facebook users according to checkfacebook.com.

1. United States: 155,699,640
2. India: 43,497,980
3. Indonesia: 43,060,360
4. Brazil: 37,907,400
5. Mexico: 32,031,340
6. Turkey: 31,247,120
7. United Kingdom: 30,249,340
8. Philippines: 27,593,300
9. France: 23,599,740
10. Germany: 22,600,660

At this rate, Facebook is projected to reach 1 billion active users by August.   “There are about 6.9 billion people currently living in the world, and Facebook is projected to capture close to 14% of that number by the end of this summer.” – Jeff Hughes, Digital Trends.  Just another impressive statistic to add to the list for Facebook Founder, Mark Zuckerberg.

]]> http://www.inqbation.com/international-facebook-statistics-which-countries-have-the-most-users/feed/ 0 http://www.inqbation.com/facebook-timeline-of-events-a-history-introductions/ http://www.inqbation.com/facebook-timeline-of-events-a-history-introductions/#comments Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:12:06 +0000 Amanda http://www.inqbation.com/?p=6695 Read more »]]> Typically, the introduction of new Facebook functionality is never warmly welcomed.  I am guilty of showing resistance to new Facebook features, maybe because I am a control freak and I hate when my interface changes without being able to have any control over it…  but I have to admit, I was able to clean up my act with Timeline‘s face-lift to my Facebook profile.

Here’s a chart from BBC News displaying the history of introductions leading up to Facebook’s most recent introduction, Timeline.

Facebook Timeline of Events:
The History of Facebook Introductions & Growth of Active Users

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news

• September 2004 - The Wall, the original space where users and their friends can post and share content, is added to users’ profiles. Status updates which were of the form “user is…” are now “What’s on your mind?”.
• September 2006 - News Feed and Mini-Feed are introduced – now users can see what their friends are doing on the network.
• May 2007 - Facebook Platform launches, enabling third party developers to build applications and integrate with Facebook. It’s the platform on which hit games like Farmville are built.
• May 2008 – Facebook Connect starts. Users are able to “connect” their Facebook identity to any site. It marks the beginning of the “log in with Facebook” world.
• February 2009 - The “Like” social plug-in is added, allowing users to give positive feedback about online content they enjoy.
• August 2010 - Location-based service Facebook Places begins allowing users to share information about where they are. This feature is later
• January 2012 - Facebook announces “Timeline” will be mandatory for all users.  Timeline was launched in September 2011, allowing users the option to replace their existing profile with an audio visual timeline of their life.integrated with status updates.

In conclusion…

People tend to forget or ignore that there is a unwritten understanding / binding contract when you’re involved with technology & the Internet.   By using any application, tool, browser, website, etc… you agree to adapt to any advancements, enhancements, upgrades, make-overs, face-lifts, implants that are defined by the developers/creators/owners as necessary requirements to keep technology moving forward.

Now, if you disagree with their definition of “moving forward” then I suggest you make your own app, tool, browser, website, etc.. because if you didn’t make it or pay to develop it, you can’t really complain!  A lesson I’m still trying to teach myself

Related Blogs: Facebook Timeline – Helped Me Clean Up My Act!

As more and more customers turn to the Internet for their browsing and purchasing options, it behooves businesses who are not already doing so to implement a more aggressive social media approach over the next 12 months. Without it, they stand to lose their ability to stay one step up on the competition.

In the event your company has been lagging behind in the SM world, there are some steps you can implement to catch up to and even find yourself surpassing the competition. Among them are:

• Integrating social media into your customer service approach – The goal here is to give your customers and potential customers an outlet to speak to you. Yes, you sometimes may not like the message, but communication is important. Assuming you have a Facebook page and/or Twitter profile, make sure that you update it on a regular basis. Most importantly, listen to what your customers are saying, both positively and negatively;
• Engage your customer base – When you have social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter, use them to run things like contests and promotions. This is a great way to increase your customer base, bringing more eyes to your company Web site. Be sure that you are spreading the word regarding promotions that you are running so that the customer keeps returning to your site to see what you have to offer;
• Provide relevant and fresh content – You can utilize social media to promote things like your blog, white papers, podcasts, videos and more. By providing links of such material on sites like Facebook and Twitter, you give customers a reason to keep returning to your site. On the other hand, stale content and stuff that everyone else is doing will lead many individuals to visit your site once, then go in search of more interesting views;
• Do e-mail blasts – One way to promote your social media endeavors is by sending e-mail blasts to clients to show them your latest projects. You can then request that they spread the word to others. Keep the e-mail blasts to the point and don’t make them overwhelming to the point where you are constantly bombarding people with them;
• Promote, promote, promote – It is important going forward that you ramp up your social media promotion efforts. You can do this very easily by using the company site to promote new social media efforts, adding links on your homepage, and networking with others who are not rivals. If you have a small real estate business, work with others like the local chamber of commerce, other local businesses, etc. to promote their efforts. In return, they should be more willing to promote your site and social media endeavors, making it a win-win situation for all involved. You should also promote your social media pages on your business cards, any promotional flyers you send out and on things like bumper sticks etc. While a phone number is still real important for your business, promoting your social media links is just as and will grow even more important in the years to come;
• Know when to share, tweet and more – While the Internet is a 24/7 machine, there are some times that are better than others when it comes to promoting your product/s and engaging in conversation with customers. Define those times when you review your social media efforts in order to best determine when you will get the most bounce for your buck (social media really doesn’t cost a lot of money to employ, it is more time and effort). For instance, posting a blog on a Friday afternoon and promoting the heck out of it on Facebook, Twitter and other sites will not be the greatest benefit to you. Many people are already in the weekend mode by this time, so try on more plausible days like Tuesdays and Wednesdays;
• Be interesting – Lastly and most importantly, be interesting when it comes to your social media endeavors. It seems just about everyone has a Facebook or Twitter page these days, so how will yours stand out from the crowd? As noted earlier, social media does not have to cost your company an arm and a leg. In fact, it is essentially a time element that will prove the most necessary. If you find yourself not having the time in-house to do it, then check around for the necessary resources to have some outside assistance provided. Either way, make your social media efforts paint you as a leader in your respective field, not a follower.

While some ‘experts’ insist that social media is a fad, others point to what they see as a tool that will have significant staying power for years to come.

Those businesses who embrace social media are likely the ones who will find their companies were not a fad to begin with.

Indeed, many now view the snail mail as an inconvenience, delivering nothing more than junk mail. In a recent NPR interview, Steve Shiver, founder of Doxo (a company that helps consumers manage bills and documents online), stated “I had an epiphany one day when I went to my mail box and it was shoved full of junk mail and there’s only two or three important things I needed in all of this three of four pounds of paper. I generally want my government services focused on things that are really both efficient and valuable to me as a citizen. And what’s unfortunately happened incrementally over the years is a greater and greater proportion of physical mail is junk.”

What does this mean for businesses?

Considering that most of the “junk mail” delivered by the USPS is advertising for businesses, sales fliers, etc., many of which is time-sensitive, businesses will simply have to adapt to the changes that the Internet has wrought, or face the consequences. It isn’t practical to send these materials out through FedEx or UPS, yet these are obviously an integral part of building and promoting your business.

Already, many are predicting that the proposed changes to the USPS, which will be implemented as early as next April, will have a negative impact on small businesses and mail-oriented businesses such as Netflix. “It’s less of a disaster than it would have been ten years ago, but it’ll be a cash flow crunch for some companies,” Todd McCracken, president and chief executive of the National Small Business Association, told The Associated Press.  “It’ll be longer to get your invoice, and longer to get a check back.”

What can businesses do to stay competitive?

Simply put, businesses must learn everything they can about the Internet, and how to use it to their advantage. Here are five things that every business must do in order to adapt to these changes:

1. Learn everything you can about white hat SEO tactics. Many mistakenly believe that Search Engine Optimization is unethical, and should be avoided altogether. However, when done in an ethical manner, SEO can be incredibly effective.  Learn about keywords, relevant content, and so forth, and your website will flourish as a result.
2. Google has released many algorithmic updates, in order to weed out spammy sites and ensure better search results. The Panda Update, for example, gives Google the ability to read online content at a 10^th grade level, and was responsible for the demotion of several well-known websites in search rankings. Rather than being intimidated by these algorithm updates, learn as much as you can in order to use them to your benefit. Keep your content relevant and current at all times, and Google will reward you accordingly.
3. Experiment with online advertising, marketing and sales methods. Email marketing is the easiest way to target a specific demographic, without wasting money on paper and postage. Alternately, sites such as Facebook and Google offer different advertising options that can be used in lieu of mass mailings. Finally, there are several sites out there that offer coupons and deals to customers, making sales fliers a thing of the past.
4. Use social media to your advantage! As with all other Internet-related topics, sites like Facebook and Twitter were once thought to be only appropriate for keeping in touch with family friends, but now they can be used to promote your business. Retweet business-related items, or start a Facebook page for your business and encourage your customers to check-in in order to spread the word to their friends. With a little extra effort, you can increase your online presence exponentially, and your business will thrive as a result.
5. Start a blog, and write about all aspects of your company. You will not only gain customers as people discover your site, but you will also meet other business owners and learn what they are doing to remain competitive in the ever-changing market. Networking will always be beneficial, whether it is done online or in person, so why not take every possible opportunity to do just that?

Many view the changes with the USPS as a bad thing, but they are proof of what happens to a business that is unwilling or unable to change and adapt to technological advances. Rather than taking the risk of fading away into oblivion, stay up to date with everything and be a step ahead whenever possible. In doing this, you will be assured that your business will continue to grow.

Viral is Personal

Long before the internet was invented, every salesperson knew a universal truth about closing: Converting a lead who’s been referred is much easier than selling a cold prospect. It is this basic premise that is behind viral marketing. The trick, if you wish to call it that, is to create an image, message or video for your brand that attracts real attention of both a likely user and someone with Social Networking Potential. What one study suggests is that when one influential social media user adopts a brand, he or she not only shares that selection, but becomes invested in the success of the product or brand and are much more likely than not to remain very loyal to that brand. If you doubt this, strike up an online debate about iPhones and Droids and you’ll soon see this phenomenon in practice.

Why College Students?

Several behaviors associated with college students tell us a lot about viral marketing.

• College students spend a significant amount of time using social media
• College students tend to reveal more details than other groupings
• College students strongly factor in social media to buying decisions

College students today include more than the 18-22 demographic of past generations. Millennials in the 23-33 year range enrolled in an online university, many working part or full time, also share these behaviors. Even within the redefined limits of traditional students, these college-goers have spheres of influence still larger and more diverse than those not long out of high school.

Tomorrow’s prime market

Marketers looking at today’s college students realize that they’re also looking at the next prime demographic group, reason enough to study their media habits. Studying today’s students will offer a prologue to what will likely work on a much bigger scale when these students enter the workforce full time, bringing with them their networking habits.

Platforms are already getting it

Though only an anecdote, Facebook’s recent addition to its Page Insights dashboard, plainly labeled People Talking About This, is directly tapping into the contagion factor that can sprout from a creatively useful brand promotion. It is no coincidence that Facebook also added a premium ad pack that allows brands to appear on the profile pages of users who interact with that brand’s page as well as their network’s profile pages. At present, that service is limited to only those firms that can pay the hefty fee for that level of marketing, but it’s clear that someone at FB has been paying attention to the behaviors represented by college students.

Facebook, the world’s premier social cloud, is ushering in new ways of interaction with the web. The ascension of tablet, smartphones and other mobile web devices, has necessitated a shift towards cloud computing and online file storage, a shift we will likely remain in for the forseeable future.

Open Graph allows for a “frictionless experience”, deeply integrating users’ web activity with their Timelines, creating a more holistic representation of one’s digital self. The system is set up such that users opt-in for a service – Spotify is a popular example, as is Hulu – and once that user opts in, that service then has access to all the information stored on Facebook. These social signals will revolutionize the world of search ranking. The folks at SEOmoz explain:

The data you get from Facebook is available at load time and as such you can use it to tailor the experience directly to the user. You can get quite granular with this approach once you’ve successfully identified key characteristics of your personas. Keep in mind that you’re not limited to just their demographic information but their likes, interests, status updates, etc. And while this is outside of my programming ability there are some very smart people putting together algorithms to that allow you to map this type of data to your user to determine how closely they fit your persona. Google has some machine learning APIs that can aid in these determinations.

Will open graph allow iPhone mobile apps to be built into profile?
Recent updates to Facebook’s mobile application indicate that the changes are unified, tying your mobile activity into the fold. This changes the iPhone application development game, allowing for a window into the consumer’s habits and more accurate record of activity executed on mobile devices.

While the Open Graph protocol is set up to make Facebook the desktop hub of the Internet, it’s hard to say whether the mobile infrastructure will be possible. Changes in mobile web that the new iPhone may usher in, will possibly open new doors to technology that better analyzes web activity in order for marketers to target users within a few standard deviations. In order for Open Graph the have the same role as mobile Internet hub, this thype of application development will have to advance beyond the point it is now, although changes have already been implemented to current versions of Facebook Mobile.

Right now 95% of mobile search goes through Google. How might this change?
Google has overwhelming control over mobile search, something to the tune of 97-percent. If Open Graph integrates web activity into the cohesive framework of Facebook, it may be possible for Facebook to deliver information users search for on the Internet. It’s a long shot, to be sure. Google is number one for a reason. Other companies specializing in  Search have had a hard time bucking Google from the Ivory Tower of Search Deities. However, that’s not what Facebook is trying to do.

Facebook is trying to create a local ecosystem, on desktops and mobile web through which people interact with the Internet. Obviously no one is tied to using Facebook for watching Hulu, or playing songs in Spotify, but the more people opt-in for that kind of integration, the more information they are making available for the use of marketers. There will undoubtedly be a move to incentivize this integration and generate the opt-in.

This is all part of the evolution of personal technology. Moves from touch notebooks, to, cloud computing, and the migration from offline to online file storage.

Bringing Streaming Media to the Top
Open Graph is providing a new platform for content providers   to use to gain access to Facebook’s audience of over 750 million users. Giving users the ability to consume media by streaming music and video from within Facebook will help content providers find more consumers, help Facebook keep their users engaged on the site and provide easy access to new media.

Friends’ Actions Determine Consumption
The addition of the Ticker and the feedback that comes with it will change how users consume media and services, which is what Facebook is counting on. If a developer has properly integrated their app into Facebook using the Open Graph API, users will be sharing almost all of their media consumption on the Ticker. From the Ticker, their friends can access that same media, whether it’s a video on Hulu or a song on Spotify. In the case of Hulu, users will actually be able to view their videos directly in Hulu’s Facebook app, leaving comments for their friends.

Greater Diversity of Responses
For years Facebook has allowed users to “Like” content on the site and, with the initial release of Open Graph, content on third-party sites. Sometimes, however, “Like” isn’t the best description. The latest update to Open Graph will allow sites to add custom actions, such as “Hiked” for a trail in a park or “Baked” for a cookie recipe. The ability to integrate these Gestures, as the company calls them, into Facebook could even result in the long-desired “Dislike” button.

Aggregation of Activities
One feature of the new Open Graph platform and the Timeline feature that’s being rolled out for user profiles is the aggregation of users’ actions in their Timeline. When a user interacts with an app multiple times in close succession, all of those actions will be grouped together and be placed prominently on their Timeline, drawing attention to the apps they interact with the most and giving a good view of their actions at a glance.

I travel to Montana for our brother’s wedding and share a hotel suite with my sister and her family. I wake up and see my twin nieces and nephews asleep in a Ying/Yang position – probably how they slept before they were born. I take a photo with my iPhone and on the way to the airport upload it to Facebook. My sister, who is driving back from Montana to Colorado (actually, her husband is doing the driving), sees the upload on her Facebook page from my feed and makes it her profile page. Not long after that, people are commenting on how sweet of a photo it is.

How incredible it is how fast things happen via wireless technology, iPhones, Facebook, and teenie tiny cameras embedded in this incredible device.

Thankfully, with the continuing growth of the Internet and increased popularity of smart phones, business owners like you now have another option when it comes to their marketing. Through social media marketing, you will find that you are able to save time and money while creating a more targeted and interactive campaign. The following are just four of the many advantages you’ll find when you take advantage of social media marketing.

Save Time

Time is money. Especially when you’re running a business. Traditional marketing campaigns often require a huge time investment to develop and launch. If you’re looking for instant gratification for your marketing efforts, social media is a great solution.

Setting up a social media marketing campaign can be quick and often you’ll see results within days (sometimes even hours!). With the use of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and other social media outlets, you are able to quickly create an Internet presence and be connected to potential clients.

Save Money

Radio, television and newspaper advertising can be costly; especially if you’re trying to create a creative and eye catching campaign. Social media, on the other hand, is extremely inexpensive. In many instances, it’s even free! There’s no cost involved in creating a Facebook page, Twitter account or LinkedIn profile. And you can upload a video to YouTube for free.

Many companies do make the small investment of having contests and giveaways to attract attention. However, the premiums associated with these giveaways often cost just the fraction of the price that you would have spent in a traditional marketing campaign.

Make Smarter Connections

Social media enables you to make smarter connections with potential clients. You can be much more targeted with your efforts than with advertising and other traditional marketing methods.

Friends often solicit each other for advice before making a purchase or enrolling in a service. They want to utilize a company that others like them trust. On Facebook and Twitter people are connected with others who have similar interests and needs. Simply by getting your current clients to “Like” your Facebook comments and become “Fans” of your Facebook page, you are becoming connected to all of their likeminded friends.

According to INQBATION.com, the average Facebook user is a member of 12 groups and has 130 friends on the site. This opens you up to a huge potential market! Think about it. If you get just 20 clients to become a fan of your Facebook page, you have an additional 2,600 potential customers who are being exposed to your page.

Get Clients Active

The more a person can get involved with your company and its products/services, the more likely it becomes that you’ll be able to convert them into a customer. And, thankfully, people go onto social media sites with the sole purpose of being active.

In fact, according to INQBATION.com, the average Facebook user not only spends more than 27 hours per month on the site, they also do the following on a monthly basis: write 25 comments, become a fan of 2 pages, and click the “Like” button 9 times.

You can get these potential clients involved in your business through other social media outlets, too. INQBATION.com recommends utilizing Twitter to solicit real time feedback from your followers. This can be especially useful when you have launched a new product or Web site that you would like critiqued before you spend thousands of dollars through a traditional marketing launch. And with YouTube, you are able to provide current and potential clients with informative and entertaining videos that will introduce them to your products and services.

For your next social media marketing campaign, visit CreditDonkey.com to find the right business credit cards. Earn reward points to reinvest in the growth of your business.

Requirements:

• A Facebook Page
• A RSS feed

Procedure:

Step 1. Go to your Facebook page and click on your “Notes” tab (See Notice 1 for more information)

Step 2. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, click on “Edit Import Settings”

Step 3. Specify the URL of your RSS feed. If the Content management System of your website is WordPress, the RSS feed URL of your blog will be http://www.nameofyourwebsite.com/feed/

Step 4. Be sure to confirm that you have the right to publish the content of the RSS feed on your Facebook page. Then, click on the “Start Importing” button.

Result: The blog articles of your blog will be shared on your Facebook page, and will be visible on your friends’ News, and next time you publish a new article on your blog, it will be published on your Facebook Page automatically.

Notice 1: Sometimes, the Notes tab is hidden. Below is a screenshot that explains how to display the notes tab of your Facebook page.

Notice 2: Normally the RSS feeds are not updated in real time and take a couple of hours to be refreshed with new content. Therefore, the automated process takes time to publish your posts on your Facebook page.