Staying relevant on Facebook seems to be most brands’ major concern with the rollout of Facebook’s new News feed. The News feed’s subfeeds will allow users to have a quick way to focus on only what their friends are sharing. Users who chose this option are essentially opting out of seeing content from business pages that they follow.

New News feed via TechCrunch http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/07/facebook-risks-it-all/

There will be 4 main feeds in which fans can find your content– News feed, Most Recent, Photos, and Following.  Luckily for Pages, the ‘Following’ feed includes both people and Pages, so it’s likely users will want to see both, but we all know those people, who don’t want to hear from brands.

The ‘All Friends’ feed will certainly be one of the (if not the) most popular feeds.  If users choose this as their feed of choice, brand pages will suffer.  Overall, my guess is that the good and the bad will probably balance out.

What can brands do to continue to be seen?

Without advertising, there is a simple solution: Brand Advocates.

Brand Advocates are your biggest marketers. Advocates’ recommendations are the number one influencer of purchase decisions and brand perceptions in nearly every product category from smartphones to software, hotels to housewares, cars to computers, and financial services to memberships.

In a recent Zuberance survey, 89 percent of Advocates said their friends buy or consider purchasing the products and services they recommend. Many consumers and business buyers ignore, skip, and TiVo out ads, but when advocates recommend something, consumers will go out of their way to buy it.

Brand Advocates are motivated by good experiences and a desire to help others. Over the last three years, Zuberance has powered over 30 million Advocate actions. We’ve never paid or provided an incentive to a single Advocate for their recommendation. And no Advocate has ever been given a freebie if their friends buy something.

Identifying, energizing and tracking Brand Advocates’ activity is easy — assuming you have a Brand Advocate Platform — and it’s what we do at Zuberance.

Brand Advocate receives email:

Brand Advocate shares offer:

Brand Advocate’s Friends See Your Brand in their News feed:

Sharing an offer is one of many ways for brands to get noticed and to stay relevant.

Companies that systematically identify and energize Brand Advocates are getting at least a 10X ROI in media and sales value, shown by our analysis of the Zuberance-powered advocacy program. In other words, for every $1 a company invests in energizing Advocates, the company gets $10 in positive WOM impressions and sales. This 10X “Return on Advocacy” is significantly higher than the return that marketers get from paid search campaigns on Google and other marketing approaches.

White Paper: The ROI of Energizing Brand Advocates

What plans do you have to keep your brand relevant when Facebook’s update News feed rolls out?

Request a Zuberance Demo

On Thursday, Facebook announced a new look and feel for News Feed.

Reactions ranged from “about time,” to “I hate Facebook, they’re always changing things.” I bet you can guess which type of person said each statement. Though, those who had negative thoughts, in fact, had not visited http://www.facebook.com/about/newsfeed to see what the changes would entail.

Goodbye Clutter, Hello bright, beautiful stories. I couldn’t agree more. In a fast-paced, visual digital world, we resonate best with images and a clean visual presentation.

Page Owners: Review your cover image and profile picture to prepare for the new News Feed. When a user likes your Page, a large part of your cover image and profile picture will be see in the News Feed of that person’s friends.

Personal Profiles: The above for page owners applies to personal pages. When you become friends with someone on Facebook, their friends will see your profile photo and cover image – for now, it seems to be the bottom portion. It has not been mentioned whether or not  cover photo dimensions will change.

Watch the below video from Facebook to understand and visualize the optimizations.

If you have a couple minutes after you browse your newsfeed, you can navigate to the filters and check out what you want to see. From pages your following to photos only, Facebook is letting you see what you want to see.

Are you looking forward to Facebook spring cleaning your News Feed? With the filtering options, do you think it’s safe to assume that Facebook ad spend will increase to get brands noticed?

Facebook Adds “Nearby” Feature to Help Users Discover Nearby Businesses – Facebook Studio 

Facebook announced a new update this week called  ”Nearby,” accessed via the Facebook mobile app: now, in addition to showing which friends have checked in at a particular place, Nearby helps people discover places near them based on their friends’ recommendations.

Instagram’s response to angry users: “Thank You and We’re Listening” – Instagram Blog

Complaints of Instagrammers were heard ’round the world of social media recently after the company updated their Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Read Instagram’s response on their blog.

New Study: 70% of Consumers Seek New Products From Facebook Friends, Not Brands – Luxury Daily

Seventy percent of consumers prefer to hear about new products from Facebook friends rather than brands, according to a new report by 8thBridge. Therefore, online retailers should incorporate social sharing into the commerce experience.

Facebook Changes Privacy Controls, Forces Users to be Searchable – Mashable

Facebook’s new privacy tools will make it easier for you to pick which of your friends or subscribers can view your personal info, status updates and photos, according to Reuters. It also makes it simpler for you to request that a photograph of yourself be taken down by the uploader.

Twitter adds its own Instagram-like photo filters – CNN Tech

A day after confirming it had lost the ability to display Instagram images, Twitter has rolled out its own library of retro filters for its Android and iPhone apps. The eight filters are the usual suspects we’ve come to expect from mobile photo apps, including desaturated, black and white and high contrast.

Twitter to Add Photo Filters to Compete With Instagram - NY Times

Twitter is finally learning a lesson from Facebook: If you can’t buy it, build it. In the coming months, Twitter plans to update its mobile applications to introduce filters for photos that will allow people to share altered images on Twitter and bypass Instagram, the popular mobilecentric photo-sharing network, according to people who work at the company but asked not to be named as they are not allowed to discuss unannounced projects. The filters on Instagram make photos look like they were shot with 1960s Kodachrome or with 1890s sepia tone film.

Users Can Bypass EdgeRank, Opt-In To See All Facebook Page Posts - AllFacebook

The biggest recent gripe by brands on Facebook (as well as George Takei and Mark Cuban) has been the fact that fans don’t see all of their posts. Now, it appears that users can fix this. A reader tipped off sister site Inside Facebook, showing that some users can select to see notifications on desktop and mobile each time a page posts. By opting in to receive notifications whenever a page posts something, users can then see every post — answering a major problem for users and pages alike.

Obama’s “Four more years” bumps Bieber For Most Retweeted Tweet Ever - SF Gate

Not only did President Barack Obama beat challenger Mitt Romney to win reelection, but he shoved pop star Justin Bieber off the top of the charts for most re-tweeted Twitter tweet ever. The tweet, “Four more years,” with a photo of the president hugging first lady Michelle Obama, was sent about 8:16 p.m. Pacific time as the major TV networks were calling the race in Obama’s favor. In three hours, the message had been re-tweeted about 455,000 times, easily shattering the previous record of 223,000 set by Bieber in September.

Foursquare’s New Ratings Feature Should Terrify Yelp - VentureBeat

Yelp, Foursquare is gunning for you. The social network is adding to its iOS app and website a fairly minor yet hugely significant feature: Ratings. With the addition, Foursquare says its service will tell users where people actually like to go, not just the places they’ve visited.

Retailers Make Marketing Mistakes Amid Hurricane Sandy Tragedy – iMedia Connection

Hurricane Sandy was devastating. It took the lives of 113 people. An estimated 30,000 to 40,000 people will be left homeless. 8,000,000 people were without power from South Carolina to Maine (and many still remain without power). Amid the chaos, four major retailers somehow saw Hurricane Sandy as a marketing opportunity. Perhaps the potential dollar signs clouded their common sense and sensitivity for fellow Americans.

We’re in the era of the connected consumer. Every marketer understands this by now (and if they don’t, their customer base will soon look like a ghost town). However, as we’re running marketing programs day to day, it’s easy to forget just how much consumers rely on each other for purchase advice and the importance of online brand reputation.

Here are 10 facts that are sure to give you a frightening reminder!

1. 80% of consumers change their mind after reading a single bad review (Cone Communications).
2. 96% of Facebook fans never return to a brand page after “liking” it (Brandglue).
3. Due to EdgeRank, only 16% of your fanbase see branded posts in their newsfeeds (ComScore).
4. Only 1% of Facebook fans engage with brands (Ehrenberg-Bass).
5. One negative review can cost you 30 customers (Convergys).
6. The negative experiences of every 100 shoppers results in the loss of 32-36 shoppers due to customer defection and negative word of mouth (Verde Group).
7. Almost half of shoppers have avoided a particular store in the past because of someone else’s negative experience (Verde Group).
8. Only 33% of Americans have ever followed a brand in social media (Edison Research).
9. 67% of social network users say that they rarely pay attention to advertisements on social networking sites (Mintel).
10. The average consumer today checks 10.4 information sources before buying (Bazaarvoice).

Yikes! Here’s a fact that’s far from scary: Each Brand Advocate will bring you 3 new customers. Download “The Business Case For Advocacy” to learn more.

Happy Halloween!

-Cara Fuggetta, Marketing Manager, Zuberance

Facebook Cuts Off Reach Generator - AdWeek

While Facebook recently rolled out the ability for advertisers to target customers in their CRM databases, it is cutting off the ability for big brands to make sure a page post hits a majority of their fans through the Reach Generator tool. “We are simplifying our offerings for advertisers, who can now achieve reach goals through Promoted Posts, a recently launched product which gives businesses the increased flexibility to hand-select and boost posts in the News Feed,” said a Facebook spokesperson.

Look Out, Facebook Like Button: Pinterest’s “Pin This” Sees 637 Percent Growth Since Februrary - AllFacebook

The ever-present Facebook like button has seen growth of 34 percent since February in terms of being published to external websites. One would think that 34 percent is a fairly solid growth rate, but it placed Facebook behind Google Plus, AddThis,Twitter, StumbleUpon, and LinkedIn. And all of those social networks were dwarfed by the performance of the Pin This button from Pinterest, which saw growth skyrocket by 637 percent.

Twitter’s New Cover Shot Head Image- A Couple of Tips – Business 2 Community

As the update stands at the moment – you can effectively enhance your Twitter profile by including a background header image around your profile pic. Great for brands and enables individuals to get a bit more creative too. Simply select to update your Profile using the iPad App and select your Header image.

How to Tap into the Mind of Brand Advocates – AllThingsWOM by WOMMA 

A kick ass product or stellar customer service can be major factors in driving word of mouth. But let’s take a step back and look into the mind of a brand advocate. By getting a deeper understanding of their motivations and personality traits, we can tap into their wants and needs more effectively, forming a mutually beneficial relationship between brands and their best customers.

Five Ways to Spot a Fake Online Review, Restaurant or Otherwise – NPR

Thinking of going to a nice restaurant? Before you decide, you probably go online and read reviews of the place from other customers. Online reviews of restaurants, travel deals, apps and just about anything you want to buy have become a powerful driver of consumer behavior. Unsurprisingly, they have also created a powerful incentive to cheat.

People love family history and sharing their incredible discoveries found within their family tree. Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online family history resource, is enabling enthusiastic subscribers (AKA “Ancestry.com Advocates”) to recommend the family history website to their friends on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere.

Ancestry.com has energized their Advocates to:

• Create 7,270+ reviews and stories
• Publish their stories and photos to Facebook, Twitter, email (82% of Advocates prefer to publish to Facebook)
• Share 1,500 offers with their friends on Facebook, Twitter, email

Ancestry.com is displaying their Advocates’ stories on a dedicated Facebook tab. Click here to read some of these fascinating discoveries.

Director of Global Social Media, Nick Cifuentes, says that he’s ”been very pleased with the results we’ve achieved from the Zuberance Advocate Platform….[Zuberance] has made it simple and effortless to for us to find our Advocates and turn them into an ongoing marketing force. In particular, the content our Advocates have created powered by Zuberance is excellent and helps to continue further our marketing efforts,” he stated.

Hear Cifuentes on Zuberance webinar, “Top 5 Myths of Brand Advocacy Revealed” here.

Click here to read full Zuberance press release.

LEARN MORE ABOUT BRAND ADVOCATES at BrandAdvocateBook.com

Getting more customer recommendations is considered the Holy Grail in the social media age. For example, restaurants that boost their Yelp ratings by only one star can increase revenues by a whopping nine percent, according to recent research by Michael Luca from Harvard Business School. For a large restaurant chain, this can mean millions of dollars in sales.

Now, a ground-breaking new book shows marketers, small business owners, and even non-profits how to generate thousands of customer recommendations and boost online ratings by turning their best customers – “Brand Advocates” – into a volunteer marketing force.

The book, Brand Advocates: Turning Enthusiastic Customers into a Powerful Marketing Force (Wiley; ISBN: 978-1-1183-3603-8; July 2012; Hardcover & E-book) provides a step-by-step guide on how marketers, small business owners, and others can:

• Discover who their Brand Advocates are and what makes these influential customers tick
• Energize Advocates, generating thousands of positive recommendations on Amazon.com, TripAdvisor, Yelp, Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere without paying for or providing incentives to Advocates
• Reward Brand Advocates by giving them what they crave most (here’s a hint: it isn’t money)
• Measure results and ROI from advocacy programs

 Advocacy is Hot

Driving customer advocacy is now the #1 digital priority for CMOs worldwide, a recent IBM study of global CMOs showed.  And eMarketer recently stated: “Brand advocacy has become a critical part of the social media marketing mix.”

“Ultimate Guidebook to Brand Advocacy”

Brand Advocates is the first book that focuses on these influential consumers and shows marketers exactly how to engage and energize them to drive positive Word of Mouth, referral leads, and sales.

Porter Gale, the former VP Marketing at Virgin America, calls Brand Advocates the “ultimate guidebook to brand advocacy.” Says Gale: “Advocacy is the ultimate goal for every brand. Rob Fuggetta’s book is simple, clear, and filled with practical advice.”

 Packed with Real-World Case Studies

Brand Advocates is packed with dozens of real-world case studies from multiple industries and verticals including consumer products, restaurants, health and fitness, automotive, software, consumer electronics, and more. It includes a chapter devoted to how B2B marketers can activate Advocates as well.

Brand Advocates shows how GMC, Ford, Rubio’s Fresh Mexican Grill, Club One Fitness, Virgin America, Intuit, Microsoft, Circus Circus Hotel & Casino, and many others are leveraging their Advocates to amplify positive Word of Mouth and sales.

Who Should Read Brand Advocates?

• Brand Advocates is valuable for a wide range of audiences:
• B2C and B2B marketers in a variety of roles: branding, online/digital, social media, demand generation, eCommerce, corporate communications, market research, and more
• Sales executives and managers
• Customer experience and loyalty program professionals
• Executives and managers in ad agencies, digital agencies, public relations firms, and other marketing services providers
• Small business owners and entrepreneurs
• Professionals in non-profit organizations, government agencies, and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) plus in political campaigns
• College students in business and marketing programs

In addition, any company or organization that is measuring customer satisfaction, loyalty, or advocacy via Net Promoter® can also benefit from Brand Advocates. The book describes how to turn Promoters into a powerful marketing force.

About the Author

Rob Fuggetta is the world’s foremost authority on brand advocacy. Fuggetta is the founder and CEO of Zuberance, a leading social media marketing company that powers award-winning advocacy programs for consumer and business brands. A twenty-year veteran of Silicon Valley, Fuggetta has played a leadership role in three start-ups including Genuity, a Verizon spinout. He was formerly a partner at Regis McKenna, Inc., the legendary Silicon Valley marketing and communications firm that helped put Apple on the map.

 Available Now

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Brand Advocates is available now at leading book sellers including Amazon.com (print and Kindle edition); Barnes & Noble; 800 CEO Read; and BAM (Books-a-Million). In addition, the book is available directly from Wiley at www.wiley.com in both print and e-book editions from Wiley.com.

Net Promoter® is a registered trademark of Satmetrix Systems, Inc.; Bain & Company; and Fred Reichheld. All other trademarks are trademarks of their respective holders.

Since GM pulled their investment in Facebook Advertising (and are apparently considering returning), the effectiveness of Facebook ads has become a hot topic. At this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Coca-Cola CMO Joseph Tripodi defended Facebook against naysayers.

According to MarketingWeek, Tripodi believes that Facebook is still in infancy and we should be more focused on what it stands for (building relationships) rather than the platform itself.

“[Facebook] is at the early stages and we’re still learning how we engage and leverage it, but this hysteria that I’ve seen lately [about Facebook], I think it’s very short-termist and not thinking about the long term implications and the implications of engaging with people on that kind of platform.”

The real value in Facebook is that it’s a channel to develop and energize Brand Advocates which, according to Tripodi, “has overtaken loyalty as the holy grail for brands.”

“I used to think that loyalty was at the top of the pyramid of classic marketing awareness model, but now it’s advocates. If you can turn people that love your brand from passive loyalists to advocates you create a type of network advantage that means your brand will stay relevant. We all know that losing relevance is the worst thing that can happen to your brand.”

How do you get these passive loyalists to become active Advocates?

Three words: Make it easy! Give Advocates online tools to share their enthusiasm whether it’s writing reviews, creating testimonials, sharing offers and other content with their friends, answering prospects’ questions, and more.

Here’s how three top brands are staying relevant by turning loyalists into raving Brand Advocates:

• 24 Hour Fitness has energized their enthusiastic members to create over 8,490 reviews and share 54,600 offers with their social networks.
• Rubio’s has boosted CTR’s to a whopping 32% by giving Advocates offers to share on Facebook, Twitter, and via email.
• Box has identified a brand army of 69,400 Advocates via email, in-product notifications, Facebook, and their newsletter. For new press announcements and product launches, Box looks to their Advocates to add the halo effect and to get the social world chatting.

Beyond loyalty, Advocacy has become the ultimate goal for marketers. Gaining repeat customers is incredibly valuable, but that only really gets you to third base. In order to hit a grand slam, brands must mobilize their best customers to become a virtual marketing force (whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter, third party review sites, etc) that will drive leads, sales, and positive Word of Mouth.

-Beau Cowan, Marketing Coordinator, Zuberance

Google Places is Over, Company Makes Google+ the Center of Gravity For Local Search – Search Engine Land

Google Places pages have been entirely replaced by new Google+ Local pages. As of this morning roughly 80 million Google Place pages worldwide have been automatically converted into 80 million Google+ Local pages, according to Google’s Marissa Mayer. It’s a dramatic change (for the better) though it will undoubtedly disorient some users and business owners.

Foursquare Gets a Makeover: Here’s What’s New – Mashable

After a week of dropping hints from its Twitter account, Foursquare has finally launched its redesigned app. Anyone who was anticipating new breakout features, however, need not get too excited. The main difference between the new and old app is (much prettier) packaging.

Short-Term Lease vs. Long-Term Relationship: The Difference Between Influencers and Advocates – ZuberRants

In general, Influencers are defined by the size of their audience (Twitter followers, blog subscribers, etc) whereas Advocates are defined by their genuine satisfaction with specific brands and products. Now, this is not to say that an Influencer cannot be an authentic Advocate for your brand. In fact, when this happens (rarely), you’ve hit the jackpot!

Social Media Raises the Stake for Customer Service – EON

Americans are growing more frustrated with customer service and businesses are feeling the heat as consumers tell an increasing number of people about both their positive and poor service experiences. The 2012 American Express® Global Customer Service Barometer also found that consumers who have used social media for service wield the greatest amount of influence. They tell significantly more people about their service experiences, and say they’d spend 21% more with companies who deliver great service – compared to 13% on average.

75% of Facebook Users Have Never or Rarely Click on Facebook Ads – eMarketer

Facebook is now a public company, and its revenue and advertising plans are under significant scrutiny. However, users are more likely to interact with branded content on the site, not advertising, which may be an obstacle for the social network down the road.