SEO Werkt!

On the heels of Google buying Wildfire and Salesforce nabbing Buddy Media, we have heard from two very reliable sources, plus a third anonymous source, that Gannett Co., the media giant that owns USA Today and other properties, is buying BLiNQ Media. The price for the Facebook advertising software and service is up to $92 million over a period of three to four years, with a quarter of that amount, $23 million, coming up front.

We hear the purchase agreement has been signed and the pair are now marching towards a close at the end of this month. The rationale behind the deal is clear: when brands buy ad placements on Gannett properties, it could use BLiNQ to also sell them ads on social sites and collect a solid margin.

Gannett is looking to BLiNQ, which has built up a profitable Facebook ads API business, to become G’s equivalent of the Washington Post Company’s SocialCode, its social media marketing and analytics agency (which picked up 15 Digg engineers in May). Gannett and BLiNQ, TechCrunch understands, have already been working together for about a year on ad campaigns for advertising clients, primarily via those brands’ agencies. This will bring more of that expertise in house.

Digital was one of the bright spots for Gannett in its Q2 earnings, reported in the middle of July. With overall revenues of $1.3 billion down 2% on print advertising pressures, in its publishing segment, digital revenues were up by 29.3%; in its U.S. Community Publishing division they were up 33%; at USA Today they were up by 37%; and at the company’s Newsquest UK division they were up by 10%.

BLiNQ has only taken in about $3 million in funding, none from VCs, since launching in 2008. It was profitable in its Facebook marketing business from early on, and so it hasn’t needed to seek outside investment. More recently, it has been expanding into marketing on LinkedIn and Twitter, as well as Facebook’s mobile advertising efforts.

Among Gannett’s assets are digital marketing agency PointRoll and online circular company ShopLocal. You can see where a BLiNQ Media acquisition could position it very well to offer social ad buying services and tools to its advertiser and local business clients.

TechCrunch understands that in addition to David Nicol Williams, the co-founder and CEO of BLiNQ, Gannett was also interested in startup’s engineering team, led by CTO, Luis Caballero, who had also built up the engineering team at Vitrue. (Both companies are based in Atlanta, Georgia, which it turns out is something of a hotbed for social media marketing. Who knew?) TechCrunch understands that like Vitrue, Blinq has some IP that it is patenting. Blinq’s is centered around media optimization algorithms.

There is still “tons of innovation” that Blinq has left to roll out, we understand, so this could be the start of something interesting. With big media properties and advertising clients to test its products, it could crack the social code before Social Code, and help Gannett stay profitable as paper print media ends up in the wood chipper.

It was announced on Tuesday that “The Daily,” media giant News Corp.’s foray into digital newspapers, will lay off 50 of its 170 employees as the embattled subscription-based publication fights to stay alive.

Facebook has allegedly hired a team of former Apple software engineers to revamp its iPhone app and reports claim the social media giant is planning a major code overhaul in lieu of a simple update.

The BBC has been expanding its digital business in anticipation of a time when revenue streams from traditional products like TV and physical distribution  become less strong, and that strategy is steadily beginning to bear more and more fruit. The media giant’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, today published its annual review, which indicates that in headline sales of £1,085 million ($1.7 billion), digital now makes up 12.8 percent of revenue — up from 8.1 percent a year ago. The BBC now aims to take that proportion to 15 percent by 2015.

The boost in digital looks like it’s coming in large part from two areas: the rise of VOD sales, and the growth of apps — with both of those in turn fuelled by the rise of better broadband, as well as tablet and smartphone usage. BBC Worldwide says that it saw 12.5 million app downloads in the last year, and has now has racked up a total of 25 million downloads overall. Cumulative VOD downloads now stand at 31 million.

“Digital continues to be a priority for BBC Worldwide and this year shows we have made both financial and strategic progress,” said Daniel Heaf, EVP & MD, BBC Worldwide Digital, in a statement. “Crucially, a greater number of consumers are enjoying a greater range of the BBC’s content on more platforms than ever before. The pace of change looks set to continue and we’re excited about the new opportunities we’ll have to simultaneously grow the BBC’s reach and BBC Wordwide’s profits.”

Those VOD downloads, the BBC says, were triple this year compared to the year before, with sales coming not just from over-the-top providers like Netflix, but also “established broadcasters,” a sign of how these older companies will not go gently into the night as Netflix continues its download march, with an increasing shift of viewing time on its service dedicated to TV shows rather than films (a trend that would play into the hand of BBC Worldwide, which has a far greater catalog of TV shows than it does feature films).

Within apps, BBC says that in the year since it launched the Global iPlayer — now available as an iPad app in 16 markets including across Western Europe, Canada and Australia — it has seen 1 million downloads. It’s still technically in trial phase, although the BBC says that it is now extending that trial until autumn of this year (not clear whether it becomes a full commercial operation at that point, or whether it closes down in preparation for a full launch).

The most popular app over the year, however, is BBC News, which picked up 10.3 million downloads on iOS and Android devices. The company also launched 11 games and currently has 12 more in development, taking the total downloads of games to 3.5 million. Among the titles launched this year, Top Gear’s Stunt School Revolution, which picked up 2 million downloads in its first month, the fastest ever achieved by a BBC game.

The BBC offers some content on demand that you can buy via Facebook credits, but it doesn’t break out in its annual report how successful those products have been. It is, however, continuing to build up its audience there, with some 25 million fans now spread across its different pages on the social network, and the site proving to be a massive referral engine for its main websites, generating some 40 percent of traffic to key web brands.

BBC pages getting especially high traffic on Facebook included Top Gear, Top Gear USA and The Stig. The BBC says that together these three provided 17 percent more engagement with fans between May and June (up from 8 percent the year before), with the total brought in by the Top Gear properties up to 17.6 million. Doctor Who, meanwhile, saw a 27 percent engagement from users (up from 19 percent). It now has a 2.5m fan base. As with other media brands, the BBC is finding that Facebook is a strong traffic referral engine. It says that about 40 percent of traffic to our sites including: TopGear.com, LonelyPlanet.com, GoodFood.com and bbc.com comes from Facebook.

You can see also why Facebook is an important traffic driver for BBC when you look at stats on its wider presence online. It’s big, but its biggest property not growing so fast at the moment: BBC.com had 58.5m unique users throughout the year, but that’s only 3.7 million up from 55.1 million in 2010/2011.  Smaller “lifestyle” sites like BBCGoodFood.com are growing much faster, although are also significantly smaller: it was up 58.5 percent, while Lonelyplanet.com reached 700,000 registered users (yet an impressive half a billion+ page views in 2011/2012) on a monthly average of 11.3m unique users, a rise of 35.8 percent on the previous year.

The company’s headline profits for the year were £155 million ($240 million) up from £144 million a year ago. This figures did not include the sale of the BBC Magazine titles last year for £121 million.

Facebook recently made two changes on its Page Insights, helping page owners understand the true reach of their posts. The reach metric will now include mobile data, while the desktop News Feed will no longer be counted unless a user scrolls down and load the page’s story.

Mobile Distribution on Facebook Page Reach

Reach is described as the total number of people who were able to view a page post within the first 28 days since it was posted. It is counted whenever a post loads and appears on the News Feed.

Since July 3, Facebook has been adding mobile distribution to the page’s total reach. Prior to this, it was unclear whether the reach data was limited to desktop distribution alone. Thus, page owners don’t really know whether they are reaching more users that they thought.

It is also unknown whether the social media giant will combine the desktop and mobile distribution on the Page Insight report. Last year, Facebook made a temporary report scheme, distinguishing whether a Like or comment came from a mobile or desktop user. But it seems that this function is no longer available from the Insight Application Programming Interface.

Redesigned News Feed Loading System

Other than adding mobile distribution on the Reach metrics, Facebook also redesigned its News Feed’s loading system to improve its efficiency. The News Feed will now load fewer stories at a time, and users will have to scroll down if they want to see more items on their feed.

This change also has a direct affect on a page’s total reach. Previously, the metrics might include impressions that users might not have actually seen. But since reach and impression are now counted upon load, insights should accurately reflect what users have viewed. However, it should not affect how many fans will see a page’s post in their News Feed.

Unclear Effect of Page Insight Changes

It is unknown whether these changes will now provide an increased or decreased insight to page owners. The inclusion of mobile distribution in the metrics may increase the numbers, but the changes in the News Feed could make it lower. Thus, it will remain unclear which component balances the other.

This only means that Facebook should provide an updated Page Insight guide in order to help page owners to understand the changes on their metrics. That way, they would know whether they are still reaping the rewards brought by their Facebook marketing campaign.

The post Facebook Pages Gets Updated Insight for More Accurate Metric appeared first on About Social Media.

If you are Facebook you are probably hoping that the whole IPO thing gets smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror as quickly as possible. The scrutiny that the social media giant has faced in light of its newly acquired responsibility to shareholders has created as many doubters as supporters. Hey, the love affair had to cool down at some point, right?

The latest bit of data that can be used against Facebook (if one chooses to do so) comes from the firm 33across. According to their findings, marketers are moving in the direction that makes Facebook less of their concentration rather than more. Th chart below comes from their findings. It’s a little tough to see so we apologize in advance.

I am not sure that this is really anything for Facebook and their fanboys/girls to worry about too much. This kind of question and the increase in those paying attention to the rest of the web is more indicative of the evolution of marketers rather than the decreasing importance of Facebook.

Why? Because the best digital marketers have seen enough evidence that the Internet is a very wide channel that works best with total attention. If efforts get too ‘siloed’, like placing too much emphasis on Facebook at the expense of the rest of the web, then there is plenty of money left on the table. Facebook is simply a part of (albeit a pretty big one for sure) the total digital marketing opportunity that marketers have today. The more marketers look at the total web experience that can lead a prospect or customer to their business the better off they will be in succeeding to reach more of their target market. It’s common sense really.

If you or others in your marketing organization are fixated on Facebook at the expense of other channels it is likely that you are making a mistake. Sure, Facebook on its own can be effective but most people are not making decisions based on their Facebook friends and likes only. They seek counsel from elsewhere on the web. It’s our job as marketers to identify all the areas where target markets play and to make sure we are there in the appropriate fashion (display, posts, video etc).

If you are Facebook it would be best to understand your place in this evolving ecosystem and take full advantage of it. Of course, if Facebook’s corner of the digital world doesn’t produce enough revenue to live up to the hype then there will be blood. That’s a problem for the bankers and not us mere mortals.

How is your Facebook to rest of the web ratio? Are you concentrating on Facebook and leaving other rich sources of potential business for your competitors to play unfettered? We hope not unless of course you are competing with us. Then it’s OK to ignore everything else .

Facebook is probably not the first place you would think to go for SEO advice. However, the social media giant is looking to change that. With the help of Distilled, an online marketing agency, Facebook launched a new video that provides users tips on how to optimize their Facebook pages. The video is aimed more at [...]

Yahoo and Facebook are making progress in an attempt to resolve patent legal disputes, according to an AllThingsD report that cites sources familiar with the matter.

The battle between the two companies started back in March when Yahoo accused Facebook of infringing on 10 specific patents — many of which dealt with social communication functionality that’s crucial to Facebook. The suit — allegedly being driven by former Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson — came at a very unfortunate time for Facebook, which was preparing to make its public debut.

The social media giant countered weeks later with its own set of patents that it claimed Yahoo was infringing — although Yahoo refused to acknowledge them as valid.

With Thompson no longer at Yahoo, it seems that the executive team was far more willing to settle those patent disputes with Facebook. Terms of the settlement deal may contain cross-licensing patent agreements between the companies and deeper integration between Yahoo and Facebook products, according to the AllThingsD report.

We’re reaching out to both companies, and will update the post with any new info.

Update (4:02 p.m. PT): Facebook declined to comment about the developments.

Image via Preto Perola/Shutterstock

Filed under: social, VentureBeat

According to a post from Inside Facebook, the social media giant has created new levels of interaction for admins. No longer is any admin allowed to have access and control over any section of a Facebook page. Now, at least, the duties can be broken down by several categories as you can see from the chart below.

The post from Inside Facebook reported

Facebook first announced that it would offer five levels of admin access at the Facebook Marketing Conference in February, but at the time it did not explain what the different roles would be. For now, page owners cannot change the privileges associated with the roles above. For example, an advertiser cannot create posts as the page unless they are changed to a content creator — though doing so also gives them the ability to respond to fans through comments or private messages. Still, these roles seem to cover the needs of most pages.

The default setting is still for the manager role which allows for the admin to do everything (just like the current system). Now, at least, there is an option to give different people different access based on their different roles.

Last week, Facebook announced a new feature, which enables users to try out games straight from the News Feed. The new Feed Gaming is part of the social media giant’s effort to improve game discovery. In addition, this allows developers to create a short demo of their games that users can play whenever it is mentioned in the News Feed and Timeline.

The Good Side of Game Demos on Facebook

The good thing about this feature is that it doesn’t collect data, and it doesn’t require users to authorize an app. This creates a risk-free environment for the player to test a game before committing to it. Once the sample is complete, they will be prompted to play the game’s full version.

King’s Bubble Witch Saga, Angry Birds Friends by Rovio, Tetris Online’s Tetris Battle and Idle Worship by Idle Games are now using Facebook’s Feed Gaming. Demos have been a reliable tactic in the gaming industry when it comes to building the word-of-mouth hype. This also lets developers test the effectiveness of various game samples, images and copy in their feed stories. In turn, they can leverage in-feed gaming to create engaging stories for users.

Using the Word-of-Mouth Hype in Feed Gaming

As mentioned earlier, demos are reliable tactics when building hype for a particular game. In the case of Facebook’s Feed Gaming, this involves publishing a News Feed story on behalf of the user with an attached Flash object.

When a user’s friend sees this post, they will be given an option to play the game inline. This gives way for interesting scenarios for a game’s embeddable version. Being able to post a game preview on a user’s Timeline, developers can encourage other players to click-through their canvass app.

Other than publishing a game preview, game developers can also opt in to do the following:

• Publish high scores on a game’s particular level and challenge the user‘s friends to beat it.
• Post a replay of an interesting game activity so that other users can see how to complete a level.
• Create an embeddable mini-game that could encourage users to play the full version.

However, any users who are interacting to the game demo will be anonymous. This means that game devs will find it impossible to monitor whether a user has previously installed the game or not. Thus, they will have to consider making a Facebook game that would be useful for both new and existing players.