SEO Werkt!

When it comes to ecommerce, Mac owners take the cake (the decorations, the plates, the party favors. . . ) with the highest average order value of $102.83. But the real surprise is what comes next. It’s not the PC owners, it’s the iPhone users with 97.49.

The numbers come from Monetate’s Ecommerce Quarterly data report for Q2 which looks at online shopping trends. And while you can’t control what device people use to shop, you can control how they access your e-store in the first place.

According to Monetate, that social media link that we all love so much, isn’t doing us any favors.

• Social media referral traffic lags far behind email and search, with the Average Order Value (AOV) of social traffic $26.21 less than search traffic and nearly $20 less than email referral traffic
• Conversion rates from social referral traffic in Q2 were .59% when compared with 4.25% for email and 2.49% for search

Let’s get a visual on that:

Wow, that’s quite a difference. Once again, it makes me wonder why we’re bothering with social media at all. Yes, I hear all of you shouting “it’s branding” and all exposure is good exposure but that only goes so far. At some point, you have to convert. You have to bring in new buyers, users, readers, listeners or whatever it is that pays the bills.

What I get from this, is that it’s not worth dumping money into social media ads like Facebook Sponsored Stories or Promoted Tweets. Seems like a free Twitter and Facebook account will get you just as much of a return with no (or very little) out of pocket.

Maybe that will change as social becomes a regular part of everyone’s life. But will it ever convert like Search does? I can see it getting close, but I can’t see it ever taking over. As for email, I think it’s become so common place that we forget about it, when clearly it’s the best channel for driving ecommerce sales.

What do you think? Will Social ever pack the punch of Search or Email? Or is it destined to be the little engine that thinks it can but can’t?

This guest post is by Christian Arno of Lingo24.

With just 140 characters you can reach a global audience. Hardly a newsflash, I know, but think about it. Followers around the world can give your blog the kind of exposure you could only have dreamed about in the past, everywhere from Tokyo to Buenos Aires. People eagerly await your posts on every continent. Tell me that doesn’t sound good!

Of course, going global on Twitter means embracing other languages. The English language only stretches so far. But building a multilingual presence on Twitter doesn’t have to be difficult.

When it comes down to it, whether you are representing a company or going solo, Twitter is a great way to attract a global audience to your blog. Get it right by following a few guidelines.

Target, aim, tweet

Like most things in life, it helps to have a strategy. Don’t be misled by how easy it is to fire off tweets. Sure, you could machine-translate your next message into umpteen languages and hit the Tweet button. If you want to destroy your reputation, that is.

Instead, think back to your overall marketing plan and where the non-English speaking countries fit your blogging strategy. Which markets are key for you? Your stats for other online content can be revealing here. Where do you need to build a presence, and where should you be improving your reach?

After all, why waste time tweeting in Russian if you are aiming to build your blog readership in South America? When you stop aiming for the whole world, it becomes a whole lot easier to be relevant to the people who matter.

Do your Twitter research

Not all countries and languages are represented equally on Twitter. The impact of your multilingual tweets will in part depend on how actively each language is used. For example, Arabic is the fastest-growing Twitter language, according to a Semiocast study. The same statistics show the rapid rise of Spanish and Dutch. When it comes to the most used languages, Japanese and Portuguese lead the pack. Malay and Korean speakers are also sending their share of the millions of tweets sent each day.

Reach out to these markets and your exposure can skyrocket.

Take care with translations

Unless you are tweeting about what you ate for lunch, resist the lure of instant translation tools. Producing accurate foreign language content can be tricky. You need to strike the right tone (not too stuffy, but avoiding offending anyone) as well as choosing just the right words. Add in the restriction of 140 characters (which gives you even less to play with in some languages than in English) and it becomes an art. Native speaker input is invaluable here.

Follow the right people

Your focus shouldn’t only be on who your followers are, but on who you are following. Stay tuned to the tweets of the big influencers in your overseas markets. These can range from celebrities to the leaders and popular bloggers in your own particular field. Re-tweeting the right people can build your own reputation for having your finger on the pulse.

Stay relevant

Finally, keep your tweets relevant. That means different accounts for each language, so that your followers don’t have to sift through unfamiliar languages. (They will probably just unfollow you instead.) And stay culturally aware. Some topics will offend in particular countries, others will simply be of no interest.

What you stand to gain

Fact: Twitter is a big player on the global social media scene. For over a year now, 70% of Twitter traffic has come from outside the US. If you can tap into the non-English speaking sectors of this international traffic, your exposure will increase dramatically.

Those fast-growing languages mentioned earlier give you a chance to get in early on up and coming markets. On the other hand, countries such as Japan lead the field in terms of posting activity, with more accounts actively posting messages than either the US or the UK.

Actively involved users mean a better chance of re-tweets. If you write something people want to share, you can end up with them doing local marketing for you. For free. It doesn’t get much better than that.

You also have a chance to tap into multiple consumer pools around the globe without leaving your seat. Being part of their conversations lets you monitor what they are saying: about your blog as a whole or your latest post, about other bloggers, about wants, desires and frustrations. Think how valuable that can be.

Twitter brings that information and that potential army of followers to you. But you can’t close the deal without being willing to send those 140 character tweets in other languages. Make the effort, and you’ll probably wonder what took you so long.

Christian Arno is the founder of Lingo24, a top translation service in the USA. Launched in 2001, Lingo24 now has over 170 employees spanning three continents and clients in over sixty countries. In the past twelve months, they have translated over forty million words for businesses in every industry sector, including the likes of MTV, World Bank and American Express. Follow Lingo24 on Twitter: @Lingo24.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

5 Fast Tips for Going Multilingual on Twitter

What does it mean to be bold? To be better than you were the day before? Google’s BOLD Internship is an 11-week internship designed to provide exposure into the technology industry for students who are historically under-represented in this field. However, the program isn’t just about work experience, it’s about growing as a person and befriending some of the coolest people you’ll ever get to meet at the same time.

My journey to BOLD was a product of circumstance. As a freshman in college, I was looking for something meaningful to do in the summer and I came across the inaugural Google BOLD Immersion program. As an 18 year-old, the tech world was virtually unknown to me. I did know however, that any opportunity with Google, is an awesome one. Even though I was intimidated by the odds, I gave it a shot anyways and applied.

No one was more surprised than me when I actually received an offer to participate in the program. BOLD Immersion builds pipeline for the BOLD Internship Program, and from there I was fortunate enough to get selected for the summer internship at the Google headquarters in Mountain View. This summer 175 students (including myself) are interning at Google across nine offices in the US and Canada as a part of BOLD.

Working at Google really is surreal. From free massages to music festivals, and all the free food your stomach can handle, all of the perks you hear about working at Google actually exist. Google is a company that places a lot of trust and respect in their interns. One of my projects for the summer writing a post for the Official Google Blog about tools and products that students can use as the head back to school. That’s a lot of responsibility for an intern. I’ve also had the chance to sit in on lunches with top executives, work on external facing projects, and really learn what the word “Googley” means. I can’t really think of other internships in which enjoying a three-tiered cruise party in the Bay with endless food, drinks and dancing with the SVP of Knowledge (Alan Eustace) would be possible.

The BOLD program emphasizes the value diversity brings. They recruit students from the usual suspects like Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and Harvard but interns come from a variety of universities like Spelman College, Rider College, and the University of Florida (where I go to school.) Your major is not as important as you are as a person and what you’ve accomplished. I’ve met interns here who own (and have sold) their own businesses, conducted research in Africa, and were even babysat by Whoopi Goldberg as a child. BOLD interns are an eclectic bunch that are incredibly smart but at no expense of personality.

There are no limits to the person you can become. I learned that at the BOLD internship.

Let’s face it, apps are the new sexy.  They’re an easy path to success, right?

With companies like Instagram being purchased for $1 billion, everyone hopes their application is going to become the next big hit. But with the hundreds of thousands of apps on the market, only a few are going to be huge successes.

This is where platform choice becomes critical. Having reliable vendors, massive distribution channels, and the ability to rapidly bring products to market sounds like a gift from the startup gods. At the same time, relying too much on a single vendor, a single distribution channel or a single product can make it difficult to both scale and stay successful. The platform you choose may determine the fate of your business. Instead of relying upon OPP (other people’s platforms), why not build, control, and own your own?

Entrapment by the “Gang of Four”

In the book, The Age of the Platform: How Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google Have Redefined Business, author Phil Simon explains how the “Gang of Four” are leveraging their platforms to succeed, making thousands of other businesses and millions of consumers reliant on them in the process. Few talk about the Internet without talking about these platforms.

1. Amazon: Amazon’s platform powers some of the largest websites. When you hear of a problem with AWS (Amazon Web Services), you hear about major websites going down, from established giants like Netflix to growing startups like Quora. There are certainly advantages to allowing Amazon to do the heavy lifting for your business, but becoming too heavily invested in a single provider creates other issues, such as vulnerability to their terms, pricing, technological changes, and downtime. That’s why companies like Twitter and Zynga are increasing investment in their own data centers to support their mission-critical operations and limit exposure to OPP.
2. Apple: Many online businesses also use their vendor as their primary distribution channel, creating increased platform risk. If Apple decides to change its rules for apps, your business may suddenly be at risk if the company rejects your feature. Or, it may decide to incorporate your feature into its platform — suddenly, your business is obsolete.
3. Facebook: With Facebook updating its policies and updating its layout regularly, it’s becoming harder to adapt to the evolving platform changes. Again, Zynga is expanding outside Facebook to further reduce its reliance on OPP. Like Apple, Facebook takes a 70/30 split on sales through its platform, but 30 percent is significantly more than the 2-4 percent in processing fees you’d pay if selling through your own website.
4. Google: Everyone wants to be at the top of Google’s search results because it’s free advertising.  To a small business, that free advertising can be a significant driver of revenue. However, being too heavily reliant on Google can be devastating when it makes an algorithm change — just ask the small businesses who were affected by the recent Penguin algorithm update.

Why Digg failed

When I asked Phil Simon about Digg, he said, “I wouldn’t say that Digg failed ‘as a platform’ because I’m not entirely convinced that it ever was one. They made two fundamental mistakes: their improvements weren’t innovative enough, and companies like Twitter and Facebook more or less co-opted Digg. In 2004, the idea of doing one thing on one site made sense; but in the Age of the Platform, people no longer want to use single-purpose sites as much as all-encompassing platforms.”

Digg never became a critical tool in the arsenal of its customers in the same way the Gang of Four have. It wasn’t a platform customers relied upon for critical needs, and so its disappearance caused no pain to anyone but its VCs.

Why Instagram was different

While Instagram leveraged the Gang of Four, it became its own social platform in the process, with people relying on it to power their photo sharing experiences. Certainly Instagram’s growth wouldn’t have been as explosive if it wasn’t for OPP, but it still controlled its own destiny and caused a rushed acquisition to thwart the hugh threat to Facebook.

You don’t need to build a massive global platform to succeed, but you will need to do two things: limit your exposure to OPP, and become your own platform.

Your website, your platform

Unfortunately, small businesses still have the mentality that a website is just for marketing, when in fact, your website can become a vital tool in your arsenal and serve as the launching platform to scale your business while limiting exposure to OPP. But if your website is not a critical part of your operation, then it’s not a platform and can’t be sufficiently leveraged to scale your business — yet.

Regardless of how popular OPP become, your website can be the platform upon which you can control your own destiny. With the least exposure to external forces, ultimately, your website can be the foundation upon which you build all other services — including mobile applications. Plus, wouldn’t it be cool to have people build on top of your platform, and make it so they can’t survive without it?

Take the first step: define the critical operations of your business, then start planning a website platform around them.

Mark Cenicola is the President and CEO BannerView.com and the author of “The Banner Brand: Small Business Success Comes from a BannerBrand, Build it on a Budget.”

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization composed of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC recently published #FixYoungAmerica: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of 30+ proven solutions to help end youth unemployment.

Image via kirainet/Flickr

Filed under: Entrepreneur

CommentLuv Relaunched!

Did you miss your chance last year to get this awesome plugin?  If so, don’t fret, it’s about to be relaunched and to celebrate, today, I’m giving you a chance to win a CommentLuv Premium single-site license.

This plugin makes it super easy to promote your blog whenever you comment on an enabled blog.  With the Premium version, you get more freedom to choose from up to 10 posts and pages of your choice – not just your most recent posts.  This lets you choose content that you want potential visitors to click and gives you an opportunity to get more exposure to those specific posts and pages.

But you already know all this and how great this plugin is – right?

For more information about CommentLuv, take a look at this post:

• CommentLuv Premium – New Features

Check out what Andy Bailey has to say about the relaunch:

CommentLuv Premium Relaunch Video from andy bailey on Vimeo.

Now, let’s get on with the giveaway!

It’s super easy to enter – how’s how:

Before you enter, please note: this giveaway is just for the single-site license.  If you’d prefer the unlimited license, visit this link for details:  Unlimited License 1st Year Anniversary Special

a Rafflecopter giveaway

CommentLuv Premium Giveaway – Enter Today! is a post from: We Blog Better. © 2012. Share it freely, but please link back to this source.

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Is your business taking full advantage of the marketing opportunities of Facebook?

Are you looking for more fans, better engagement and more sales?

If so, Social Media Examiner has some important news to share…

But first, here’s something to consider.

Since Facebook made Timeline mandatory for business pages on March 30, a lot of updates and enhancements have been introduced.

Some of them include:

• New layout
• Enhanced Facebook apps
• New Insights
• Sponsored stories and promoted updates
• Ability to schedule updates within Timeline itself

Today, businesses just like yours are using Facebook to create inspiring content that resonates with fans and converts them into customers and brand evangelists.

Take Emory’s on Silver Lake, for example—a lakeside bistro and bar in Everett, Washington. They created a $500 Facebook ad campaign that increased their fan base by 450% (now they have over 6000 fans!).

Successful marketing with Facebook Timeline is achievable with creative content and inspiring ads.

They created a great cover photo, showcased daily specials and nightlife events via sponsored stories, highlighted mouth-watering pictures and provided apps that allowed fans to access the menu and make reservations from within Facebook.

The strategy proved to be very successful and resulted in a 1500% increase in Facebook engagement!

How would you like to achieve something like that on your Facebook page?

Marketing in the Era of Timeline

Soon after Facebook Timeline was launched, brands across the board complained that the sharp decrease in fan engagement had to do with Timeline itself.

But advanced marketers quickly discovered that Timeline was not the culprit. The problem was with the strategies that brands were using to market on Facebook.

There has been a steep learning curve for all businesses using Facebook Timeline. Some are still struggling to figure it out.

But it is possible to gain more exposure on Facebook, attract quality customers and prospects and increase your sales.

Would you like to learn how? First, take a look at these numbers.

Current Statistics on Facebook Use and Adoption

Here are some statistical reasons why you should invest in learning about Facebook this year:

• 955 million monthly users
• 852 million daily logins (25% log in five times a day according to Edison Research)
• 72% of marketers plan to increase their use of Facebook marketing in 2012 (according to Social Media Marketing Industry Report)
• 54% of users access Facebook via mobile (according to Socialbakers)
• More than half of mobile users visit Facebook daily

These numbers show that Facebook is still the most frequently checked website on the Internet! The chances that your customers are there is very high, and that means that you should be there too.

Are you convinced? How would you like a “fast track” to Facebook marketing success?

Social Media Examiner Announces Facebook Success Summit 2012

Recognizing the need to keep up with all of the numerous Facebook changes, Michael Stelzner and company at Social Media Examiner have recruited 20 of the world’s leading Facebook marketing experts to present at the third-annual online Facebook Success Summit 2012.

Facebook Success Summit 2012 is designed to help you learn all of the latest business-building tactics on Facebook Timeline.

“Facebook is constantly evolving and almost everything that we taught last year has changed,” says Michael Stelzner, CEO and founder of Social Media Examiner. “If you want to quickly learn how to increase your exposure in the newsfeed, grow your audience, build strong brand advocates and increase your sales, this summit will deliver all of those things for you.”

Why Facebook Success Summit 2012?

Facebook Success Summit is the world’s largest online conference designed for marketers and business owners who want to achieve Facebook success.

• It is taught by some of the most respected Facebook experts in the industry.
• It is 100% online, which means that you can attend right from your home or office (no travel or hotel costs!).
• Conveniently spread over a four-week period starting on October 2, 2012.
• Transcripts and recordings are available if you’re unable to attend a session.
• Certificates of achievement are given to those who attend and pass an exam.

What Others Are Saying

Last year, 1800 people attended Facebook Success Summit 2011. They represented hundreds of small businesses as well as larger B2B and B2C organizations such as Sony, CNN, Hewlett-Packard, Hilton, Lexus, Air New Zealand, BP, Microsoft, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, ADP, Wells Fargo, Kaiser Permanente, PayPal, Oracle, Bristol-Myers Squibb, IBM and many more.

Here’s what attendees had to say about the event:

Well worth the time and money. I especially like that there are no travel costs and that if you happen to have a meeting or otherwise can’t attend, you can still read the transcript and watch the presentation. Ed Vawter

Great conference—I’ve had at least 19 “ah-ha!” moments so far. Jeff Evans

I stumbled across your Facebook conference by accident researching a client’s business. I was intrigued. I must say that it is one of the most well-thought-out virtual conferences I have ever seen, both in content (speakers) and tools that allow you to watch it live and review it many months later. Hal Fraser

Is This Summit Right for You?

Perhaps you’ve never attended a Facebook Success Summit before. You’re wondering whether this event is right for your business. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Am I getting the type of Facebook engagement that I would like?
• Are there some tactics that I’m not employing that might be useful for my business?
• Could I use some new ideas for marketing on Facebook?

If your answer to any of these questions is “Yes,” then come and learn from the leading Facebook authorities in the world.

Meet Your Presenters

This year’s presenters are the cream of the crop when it comes to Facebook marketing. They are leading experts in the industry and most of them have written a book about Facebook marketing.

Among them are:

• Mari Smith, co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day and author of The New Relationship Marketing
• Dave Kerpen, author of Likeable Social Media
• Amy Porterfield, co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies
• John Haydon, author of Facebook Marketing for Dummies
• Brian Carter, author of The Like Economy
• Mark Schaefer, author of Return on Influence
• Chris Treadaway, co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day
• Jesse Stay, author of Facebook Application Development for Dummies
• Andrea Vahl, co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies
• Phyllis Khare, author of Social Media Marketing e-Learning Kit and co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies
• And many others!

What to Expect at Facebook Success Summit 2012

Facebook Success Summit is like no other summit you’ve ever experienced before—an online destination and a live event all rolled into one!

Once you purchase a ticket, you will be given a personalized link (like a key!) that unlocks the door to an exciting, exclusive place.

There you will be treated to sneak previews of all the sessions prepared for you.

When the day of the summit comes, you may choose to watch any or all of the sessions. It’s totally up to you!

Feel free to sit down, kick back and relax (remember each session will come to you directly from your computer!). While you’re there, feel free to talk to any of the presenters; participate in our Twitter chat room; or download slides, recordings and transcripts for future reference.

When the session is finished, move over to our Networking Clubs where you can chat, network and get to know other summit attendees.

Later on that same evening, you can watch a replay of the same sessions, if you want to. You’ll get an email notice as soon as the recordings are available. Prefer to read? You’ll get transcripts within about a week. And it doesn’t end there.

Throughout the following weeks, hang out in the private Networking Club to learn, share and discuss ideas with other marketers.

Remember, it’s live, it’s online and it’s designed to reach you wherever you are!

So are you ready to go?

Want to Save Some Money?

If you reserve your spot now, you will save 50%. Click here for details.

Over to You

Are you interested in learning how to successfully market your brand using Facebook Timeline? Leave your comments in the box below.

Facebook’s mobile risk has turned into an opportunity for application developers. Today, the social network has unveiled a mobile ad unit designed specifically for application makers looking to promote their creations to the 543 million people who access Facebook on mobile each month.

Still currently in testing, the units are called “mobile ads for apps,” and they allow application makers to buy prominent exposure for their apps in the mobile News Feed.

The promoted applications appear alongside organically surfaced app recommendations in a suggested applications box. A click directs people to Google Play or the Apple App Store for download. The units run on a CPC model, so app developers can set a daily budget and bid for clicks through to Apple’s App Store or Google Play. App makers can also specify ad targeting preferences such as region, gender, and age.

Once the new unit is more widely released, it can help Facebook tackle its stock-crumbling problems; shares closed down Tuesday at $20.72. For starters, mobile ads for apps make Facebook far less constrained on the mobile ad front.

The company, which can pretty much only place ads in the mobile News Feed, now has a mobile ad unit that looks nothing like a Sponsored Story — or an ad, for that matter. In fact, the units, sandwiched next to suggested apps, are partially disguised as app recommendations, which means users might not process them like ads and may be more open to seeing them more frequently than Sponsored Stories.

Plus, Facebook is targeting a completely different buyer, which greatly expands the audience who might be interested in paying for exposure on the social network.

The net effect may be that Facebook can serve double or triple the number of ads it shows to each mobile user, and that’s a pretty big deal. In the theory, the social network could jump from making roughly $500,000 a day from mobile ads to making $1 million a day or more by the end of the third quarter. While the additional mobile revenue won’t be enough to magically return the company to a valuation of $100 billion or more, it should provide investors with some proof that Facebook can still make a buck or two from members that skip the web version.

Photo credit: Cienpies Design/Shutterstock

Filed under: social

Professional social network LinkedIn, fresh off a stellar second quarter earnings report, has today released new developer tools and resources in an effort to stimulate application development and supply its service with enough content to keep members continually engaged on web and mobile.

LinkedIn sign-in experience

In the form of developer tools, LinkedIn has released a refreshed sign-in with LinkedIn experience, a reworked share API to give developers more exposure on LinkedIn, and a cleaner, simpler developer website. The company has also revised its developer terms of service.

Specifically, the sign-in experience, which appears to be modeled after the screens used by Twitter and Facebook, has been improved with a new design and allows developers to request email addresses from the people who want to log in with LinkedIn. The screen now shows users exactly what types of data the application in question will have access to. The upgrade should encourage more publishers and mobile app makers to add a log in with LinkedIn option.

The spruced up share API is equally important as it gives approved devlopers exposure inside LinkedIn. The API has been updated with an attribution element so that should a LinkedIn member opt to share a piece a content to the site, the publisher will receive credit in the form of a “via” link listed atop the post.

The message from LinkedIn today is this: come build your media-rich applications on LinkedIn and integrate with us, and we’ll get your content in front of 175 million people. In return, LinkedIn gets content flowing into its network that should further engage its members who, especially on mobile, are consuming it even more rabidly with each passing month.

Head of API platform product and strategy Madhu Gupta summed up the intent of the changes with this statement: “We’re now making it even easier for our developer community to use LinkedIn as their main distribution platform for discussing and sharing professional content.”

You can read that statement as LinkedIn wanting to be the single place where business folks go to get, discuss, and share news. And really, this is all about content, as evidenced by developer tool launch partners WordPress, Flipboard, and Business Insider.

Content will be the thing that keeps LinkedIn relevant on mobile. CEO Jeff Weiner said as much to investors last week. Content is driving especially high engagement rates in LinkedIn’s iPad application, where the company is starting to experiment with advertisements, he said. “We are seeing encouraging signs of engagement as more than half the page views on the app are being generated by content-focused products such as updates, news and groups.”

LinkedIn also wants to be seen as having a platform as robust as any other. Twitter and Facebook, even amidst a wave of recent criticism and growing tension with developers, sit very much atop the platform hierarchy. LinkedIn’s platform offerings seem at best tertiary when pitted against Twitter and Facebook, which have their sign-in buttons embedded everywhere.

Filed under: dev, social

Here’s another nugget from the release of Facebook’s 10-Q today: Zynga accounted for 14 percent of its revenues in the first six months of 2012, but that number is down from the 19 percent of revenue that Zynga made up in 2011.

Revenues that Facebook collects from Zynga include payment processing for purchases made through its social games, advertising that third parties show on its gaming apps, and Facebook ads that appear on Zynga.com.

On the first two counts, Facebook is seeing marked declines in its exposure to Zynga’s performance: It reported that payments and direct advertising from Zynga accounted for 10 percent of its revenue in the first half of this year, down from 12 percent for the full year 2011. Display ad revenues from third parties that Facebook runs on Zynga’s social games also declined as a share of the social network’s overall business. Facebook reported that in the first half of 2012, approximately 4 percent of its revenues came from those display ads, which declined from 7 percent during fiscal 2011.

Meanwhile, Zynga’s launch of a social gaming network on its own site, Zynga.com, had little impact on Facebook revenues. While Facebook can display ads and Sponsored Stories on the site, the company said that it did not generate any meaningful revenue from those ads.

The decline in Zynga’s came as Facebook grew ad and other payments revenue in the quarter. But it also came as Zynga failed to meet analyst expectations in the second quarter. Zynga blamed Facebook in part, noting that the social network began emphasizing new games in its news feed and other channels, which led to a 15 percent decline for existing games.

For its part, Facebook’s reduced dependency on Zynga is probably a good thing. In the Risk Factors section of its 10-Q, it pointed to Zynga as a possible drag on revenues and stock price, if the social gaming company can’t get it together. “If Zynga does not maintain its level of engagement with our users or if we are unable to successfully maintain our relationship with Zynga, our financial results could be harmed,” it wrote.