Pew researchers called up almost a thousand Americans and asked them if they knew about the list of “traits and interests” that Facebook keeps for almost all active users. The company provides users easy access to it – you can see your own list here – yet 74 percent of respondents to the survey said they did not know about the list’s existence.
Furthermore, 51 percent of those surveyed said they were “not comfortable with Facebook compiling this information.”
If you do Facebook marketing, one thing that you want to understand is the Facebook algorithm, especially how your Facebook posts get seen on Facebook. Buffer collected all the relevant Facebook algorithm factors, updates, and changes and placed them in a single, regularly updated article for easy reference.
More accurately, they shared your personal data with Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, Microsoft, and other companies in exchange for even more data about you.
The New York Times has once again gotten its hands on a cache of documents from inside Facebook, this time detailing data-sharing arrangements between the company and other corporations, which had “more intrusive access to users’ personal data than [Facebook] has disclosed” for most of the past decade, the article revealed.
Late last year, Facebook tested out an interesting feature called “Find Wi-Fi” on the iOS Facebook app. After nearly half a year’s worth of testing, the said feature is now making its way to the public, with the Android Facebook app being part of the rollout.
Have you ever done a post and maybe forgot to add your featured image? Then, when you or someone else shares it on Facebook, it pulls in the wrong one?
Or maybe you changed that image after publishing and you cannot get new shares on Facebook to reflect that change.
Of course, there are some plugins that will let you choose the image specifically that will appear there, for example Yoast SEO. But still, there are times when the bugger is just too damn stubborn.
Here’s my tip. In the case of it pulling in the old one, make sure you have deleted it from your media gallery. Then, go to the Object Debugger, Facebook for Developers (don’t worry if you are not a developer) and put the URL in there and see if the new one comes up in the report. If not, scrape it again by pushing the button. Chances are good, this will solve your problem.
Venture Beat reached out to Facebook to find out when, exactly, employees can access a user’s account without entering their login credentials.
A Facebook spokesperson sent this answer:
We have rigorous administrative, physical, and technical controls in place to restrict employee access to user data. Our controls have been evaluated by independent third parties and confirmed multiple times by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner’s Office as part of their audit of our practices.
Access is tiered and limited by job function, and designated employees may only access the amount of information that’s necessary to carry out their job responsibilities, such as responding to bug reports or account support inquiries. Two separate systems are in place to detect suspicious patterns of behavior, and these systems produce reports once per week which are reviewed by two independent security teams.
We have a zero tolerance approach to abuse, and improper behavior results in termination.
One more argument against leaning too heavily on social media to promote your business. Cory Doctorow shares the recent news about how Facebook treats businesses and what they may have in mind for the future:
Facebook continues to tighten the screws on the businesses that use the service to market to their customers. Independent research shows that new updates from businesses reach about six percent of the people who follow those businesses. It is rumored that Facebook intends to reduce this number to “between one and two percent” over time. Businesses that want to reach the people who follow them at higher rates will have to pay Facebook to reach them through paid advertisements.
Always remember: your own web site is more important than any other online venue. By using their platform you are helping their business first and foremost, then (if you do it right) benefit yourself.
Facebook Timeline officially rolled out to Brand Pages on March 30, but many marketers still don’t know how to take the full advantage of it. A recent study found that fan growth after Timeline has “slowed slightly”– is your company experiencing a bit of a slowdown? If so, Lauren Drell has some good tips for you and backs them up with credible data:
2. Make the Most of Your Cover Photo — It’s Prime Real Estate
3. Pay Attention to Insights
4. Highlight or Pin Your Best Posts
5. Get Your Apps in a Row
6. Make Use of Facebook’s New Ad Suite
7. Run Contests to Boost Engagement
8. Drop in Those Milestones
9. Embrace Your Fans
BONUS: 10 Innovative Uses of Facebook Timeline for Brands