Category Archives: Facebook Mobile

by by Majestic Media

Facebook Updates Their Usage Numbers & Growth


When Facebook first filed it’s IPO two months ago it stated that it had 845 million monthly active users and 483 million daily active users.  In the latest amendment to the IPO Facebook announced it now has 901 million monthly active users and 526 million active daily users.  Facebook explains where the growth stemmed from :

“As of March 31, 2012, we had 901 million MAUs, an increase of 33% from March 31, 2011. We experienced growth across different geographies, with users in Brazil, India, and the United States representing key sources of growth. We had 45 million MAUs in Brazil as of March 31, 2012, an increase of 180% from the same period in the prior year, and we had 51 million MAUs in India as of March 31, 2012, an increase of 107% from the same period in the prior year. Additionally, we had 169 million MAUs in the United States as of March 31, 2012, an increase of 15% from the same period in the prior year.”

 

Facebook also revised the mobile users numbers.  In the original IPO Facebook said that they had 425 million active monthly mobile users as of Dec. 31st, Facebook states that they now have updated that number to 500 million MAUs  as of April 20th

The last two numbers that Facebook altered are, friends connections, increased from 100 billion to 125 billion. Lastly the number of daily likes and comments increased from 2.7 billion in quarter 4 to 3.2 billion in quarter one of this year.

by by Majestic Media

Facebook Adds Social App Discovery To Android


Android devices are now on par with iOS devices as Facebook announced it has added single sign on and deep-linking to the Android platform.  Facebook released these features for the iOS platform in February.

The social application discovery  allows users to discover applications through various channels such as requests bookmarks and the newsfeed.  In order to access this feature Android users must install the Facebook update released last week.

By enabling SSO for apps developers are able to ensure that their apps are discoverable through the news feed timeline requests bookmarks and search.

Utilizing deep linking can allow developers to lead users to specific page within the app instead of a generic landing page.

by by Majestic Media

Facebook Makes Ringmark Open Source.

In an apparent attempt to encourage mobile development Facebook has open sourced their HTML5 test suite .  One of the main advantages of Ringmark is that it allows developers to see instantly whether their apps will be able to run on any mobile browser.  This is particularly important for developers as the mobile market continues to grow and mobile browser capabilities become more fragmented.

When Facebook initially released Ringmark there were just over 400 tests for developers. By open sourcing Ringmark any developer can provide tests and add to the platform .  By improving Ringmark Facebook hopes to enourage not only developers but also mobile browser vendors to improve their products.

Facebook has increasingly been trying to encourage developers to utilize HTML5 for mobile apps.  This may be due to the fact that Facebook is unable to monetize native iOS or native apps.   With Facebook’s huge and growing base of mobile users it is extremely important that they not only monetize mobile users but provide those users with a rich experience. Facebook engineer Matt Kelly wrote in the blog post announcing the news:

“For those that are building with the web today, it’s a major hurdle to learn native technologies like Objective-C and Java. We hope that an improved mobile web can unlock a large contingency of developers that could, and will, be developing for mobile.”

by by Majestic Media

Facebook Now Offering Mobile Referral Insight


When Facebook filed their initial public offering, mobile was clearly an area that needed a lot of development.  Since then, Facebook has taken steps to monetize the mobile platform by allowing sponsored stories to appear on news feeds.  Now they have taken another step to encourage advertisers to embrace the mobile platform by introducing mobile referral insights.

This particular insight will offer a break down of four key metrics related to mobile in real time:

  1. Total mobile app clicks: displaying clicks across all sources
  2. Source Break down: this graph shows the breakdown of app referral sources
  3. Device Breakdown: This shows the break down of mobile referrals (iPhone, Android, Ipad)
  4. Demographic Breakdown: Allows you to see a breakdown of mobile referral data by age, gender, language and country.

Facebook developers blog also commented further on the source breakdown insight :

  • Feed: Referrals from Feed are triggered by publishing via Open Graph, Graph API, or using the Feed Dialog.
  • Timeline: Referrals from Timeline are mobile app referral clicks that come directly from Timeline as a result of publishing content as noted above.
  • Notification: Referrals from Notifications are triggered via sending Requests on Mobile Web, iOS, or Android.
  • Bookmark: Indicates the number of clicks to your app via Bookmarks. Bookmarks are automatically displayed to the user within Facebook once they login to your app. This list of bookmarks is in sync across desktop and mobile so the apps you use most frequently are there when you want them.
  • Search: Indicates the number of clicks to your app via direct Search.
  • Unknown: Referrals may be marked as Unknown when your app receives traffic from or redirects users back to certain Facebook endpoints. If you see a high number of of Unknown referrals, make sure that your app never redirects users on mobile devices to apps.facebook.com.

This insight should help developers feel more comfortable in assessing the growing mobile platform in their advertising.

by by Majestic Media

New Facebook Ads Explained


Leading up to the first Facebook Marketing Conference, there was a an abundance of rumors of what new products Facebook would announce.  As it turns out most of the rumors were accurate.  One of the main focuses of the conference was the roll out of  new forms of advertisements.

Offers:
As rumored, Facebook has scrapped check-deals in favour of offers.  Offers will allow brands to post offers such as, receive 20% of “x” product.  It will be free to create these on your brands page but in order to have your offer receive maximum exposure you will have to pay.

Mobile:
Since Facebook’s IPO, there has been much speculation on how they will monetize mobile.  It was announced at the FMC that sponsored stories and offers will now be appearing in the mobile news feed on both Android and native iOS devices.   The inclusion of offers makes sense, as it would allow users to redeem offers while actually at the POS.  Similar to the defunct check-in deals.

Premium Ads:
Premium ads will focus on gaining maximum exposure for your ads.  There are three main placements for your premium ads. 
i) On the right side of the page
ii) In the news feed
iii) and in the mobile news feed

There is an optional fourth placement in which your ad would appear as users log out. 

Their are some key differences in premium ads versus the existing market place ads:
i) Premium ads will originate from a brands page
ii) They can consist of video photos and will most likely resemble a wall post
iii) The billing will also be different than that of traditional market place ads…advertisers will instead be paying for impressions and reach.

In order to accomplish this method of billing Facebook partnered with Nielsen  and is implementing their gross rating system.

Facebook has stated the new premium format of ads will yield impressive results, stating advertisers can expect a 40% increase in engagement, an 80% gain in retention and a 16% increase in fan rate.