Since Facebook launched Timeline for Pages toward the end of February, the majority of the attention has been on the early adopters, those big brands that just about everyone recognizes.

The countdown is on until Timeline is rolled out across all pages, and a company called Social Bizzle has created a video to illustrate what small businesses can do with Timeline.

The video below focuses on Marble Construction’s Timeline, following the steps to upgrade by Social Bizzle, who toured around the U.K. to offer instruction to businesses on how to do so.

Have you seen any innovative ideas when it comes to Timeline content? Have you upgraded your Page yet? Share your thoughts in the comment section below!

Twitter brand pages are certainly much different than those on Google+ and Facebook. Twitter has planned some upgrades; however these may not change much in the way of user interaction. If we break it down, users primarily interact with others through their Twitter timeline, meaning that they rarely visit a company page. Even if Twitter adds a bunch of bells and whistles, it may not break the habit and effectiveness of timeline engagement.

Even brands that have customers that tend to do a lot of product research, Twitter will likely remain a place for customer service, trend information, and news tips. If a user does choose to further their research on Twitter, they’re more likely to search hashtags or visit shared articles rather than visiting a Twitter brand page.

Some of the proposed changes include features such as contest and eCommerce that may turn brand pages into a digital storefront. Twitter originally launched a limited version of their brand pages back in December, and the latest round is partly a response to Facebook’s new Timeline for Pages, which was released in early March.

It’s fantastic to know that Twitter is working to make brand pages more engaging, especially due to the reach and engagement within the feed itself. Creating an on-site destination can only help with relationship building, continuing the development of those ‘strong ties’.

However, there are a few things to consider when projecting success. For one, consumers spend considerably less time on Twitter than on Facebook, as an average. Twitter users are also considerably more likely to access the network via mobile. Users also check their feeds for quick messages, not for in depth engagement. This is distinctively different from Facebook, however it shouldn’t be viewed as something detrimental. It’s an asset.

Given measurability, Twitter has far more reach and is much easier to track due to the open nature of the network when compared to Facebook and the new Google+. This is great for social reputation management, getting an idea of what users are saying about a brand. The idea of being able to “pin” a tweet to the top of a brand page isn’t a new one, but it will be interesting to see how it’s implemented should Twitter choose to adopt it.

Unless something drastic happens with brand pages, it’s unlikely that it will be any sort of strategic game changer. It will create a better first impression for Twitter users, sure, but not much beyond that. Should eCommerce and contest features arrive, we should see brands investing a lot more time and money.

Would you engage through a Twitter brand page? How do you think the pages will stack up against Facebook’s variation?

Facebook has reported that within a single week of the Timeline for Pages introduction, more than eight million brand pages adopted the new layout. At present there are roughly 37 million brand pages within Facebook, and whether other pages opt in or not, the 29 million who haven’t will be introduced to Timeline on March 30^th.

Given the fact that more than one in four brands have chosen to upgrade to the new layout, it’s certainly helping Facebook’s reputation given the strong criticism faced by regular Facebook users. Data to back up strategic decisions is always a help. Unsurprisingly, brands are already seeing engagement improvements through Timeline and new ads.

Ben & Jerry’s used Facebook’s Reach Generator solution to push its regular reach forward to 98% of people who liked the page, doubling its Page engagement rate during a 28 day period. For those that may be unfamiliar with Facebook’s Reach Generator solution, the idea is to create an ‘always on’ strategy that reaches 75% of Page fans using content from the Page. The focus is on brands creating content within the Page while Facebook ensures that the content is pushed to fans.

At the moment, Facebook estimates that the average Page reaches 16% of total fans per week. With the Reach Generator, Facebook guarantees that you will reach 75% of fans per month, averaging 50% of fans per week. Fans will see your message as a sponsored story within the right hand sidebar of their homepage, or in their Facebook news feed on desktop or mobile.

Ford has also said its Ford Mustang page engagement has improved significantly, specifically in the number of people talking about the page and engagement as a whole since adopting Timeline February 29^th. It also plans to use logout ads in the very near future.

Have you seen any innovative Timeline strategies by brands? Share your stories and strategies below!

Google is not aiming to inject ads into your social experience. Vic Gundotra, Google’s SVP of Engineering has said that users don’t want to be attacked by advertisements while looking at photos of their newborn daughter. Given that Google has always been about recognizing and improving the user experience, this is a relief.

Google’s goal is to turn ads into content. It sounds odd, but if we consider the relevance, a recommendation from a friend related to a particular restaurant wouldn’t simply be an ad, it would be what you’re looking for.

Google has also said that during times when we’re socializing online, it’s not the right time to display ads. The right time is when there’s a moment of commercial intent, and this can be captured by search. When you’re looking for that new restaurant to check out, that’s when Google wants to display your friend’s recommendation. Given that Google has such a broad reach across the web for a variety of online activities, it has the ability to save the social ads for cases where they’re most applicable.

A massive amount of purchases begin with a Google search. Google can tell whether you’re using it for shopping, and it can identify exactly what you’re shopping for, therefore creating opportunity to show you that friendly social recommendation.

If you consider what other social sites are doing, such as Facebook and Twitter, they’re forced to resort to throwing ads in your social streams. In order to monetize Google+, Google doesn’t need to push ads to you within the social section at all. It saves the social data that’s gathered there and applies it to search ads when you’re searching to potentially buy something.

Some interesting data that was shared with the New York Times shows that the strategy is working. Google is seeing a 5-10% click-through improvement on ads that have a social annotation through Google properties. If you consider the significance of a 10% increase in CTR, it’s massive, and shows that social strategies can’t be ignored.

There has been a lot of talk about the value of social search, but seeing how it’s being integrated and improving the user experience, it’s certainly more helpful than people think.

Do you support Google’s approach for a more social and relevant search experience? Will Google+ stay ‘ad free’ or will we see new forms of social ads being introduced?

Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Have you had a chance to check out the virality rate stat within your Facebook Page insights? It’s the percentage of fans who are sharing a page’s posts. If you’ve seen it, are you wondering why you have such a low percentage?

Don’t worry just yet: 61% of Facebook pages have a virality rate of 2.5% or less, as reported by EdgeRank Checker. The median rate came out at 1.9%.

To arrive at these figures, EdgeRank Checker analyzed more than 375,000 individual page posts across 10,000 separate pages, dating through from February 3^rd to March 3^rd of this year. The total number of fans and post frequency varied across the sample pages.

EdgeRank Checker decided to move ahead with the analysis in response to a question on Quora regarding the average virality rate. When looking at the average rate, it’s actually 2.97%, however Cad Wittman, EdgeRank Checker’s founder, noted that figure to be an average of average, making the median more accurate.

Using the median, it shows a single average due to the various page sizes and posting frequencies.

Finally, what it all comes down to: Pages on Facebook have room to increase the number of fans sharing posts.

The reality is that the majority of messages that tend to spread the furthest throughout Facebook are very rarely commercially related. Given the data, expecting larger percentages of fans to share content won’t come easy. There will clearly need to be a strategy in place in order to do so, which is where content marketing can play a beautiful role.

Are you working to improve Facebook page post sharing as part of your marketing strategy?

Have you ever considered just how far your Facebook page posts reach? Well, here’s an easy way to figure it out. You’ll be using page insights data to calculate the percentage of Facebook fans that actually view your content.

Total reach/total fans = the average organic reach per post

The example below is using insights from a Facebook page with 5,718 fans, highlighting the most recent ten page posts, and calculating a total reach of 14,891. When you divide the total reach by the number of page posts (the ten most recent in this case) you get a reach of 1,490 fan reached per post, as an average.

Formula wise:

1,490/14,891 = .26 or 26%

With each column representing unique users, and with the page not running any sort of advertising, as an average we can conclude that each post reaches 26% of fans organically.

For reference, Facebook revealed a 16% average reach during their announcement of the new Reach Generator ad program.

If you’re looking for a more precise average, there are third party analytic tools to help you, but for the casual administrator, this is an easy way to break out engagement and performance to determine just how effective your page is.

How does your page stack up against Facebook’s average?

Facebook will now allow you to paste a list of keywords within the “Precise Interests” section when setting up an ad on the network. Once you’re in the targeting section of the ad buying tool, Facebook will let you paste an interest/keyword list by clicking the little plus sign next to the Precise Interest field.

Once clicked, a box will pop up allowing you to “Paste in a list of saved terms.” A screenshot is located below.

The real benefit is that even if your list of keywords may not yet be among the precise interests for targeting, Facebook will find related keywords for you.

Given the nature of social advertising and how Facebook is constantly aiming to leverage and innovate, increasing reach and improving relevancy, these same keywords may become available for targeting in the future.  In the meantime, you may want to use this new option to further enhance interest targeting. Google’s keyword tool could also be of value here, especially for searching for keyword derivatives. If you’re interested in analyzing search trends, Google’s Insights for Search can help give you an idea of local search trends.

Will this new ad feature influence the way you approach ad targeting? If you’re not in the social advertising game, are you considering it?

Research firm comScore has released a new study showing that more than 64 million U.S. based users are using their mobile devices for social networking, more than half accessing the sites daily.

So what are users doing? 85% are checking out social posts from close friends and posting status updates came second at 74%. It’s also interesting that comScore has categorized blog reading as social networking.

While the majority of the study data shows that users are more likely to read posts from friends, it also notes that users are using social networks to interact with brands and organizations. Nearly 58% of these users are reading posts from brand pages; roughly 32% are even likely to click ads through mobile engagement.

Obviously with the growth of mobile the number of users that are engaging on social networks is ramping up significantly. When looking at the 64 million figure, it’s up 77% from the previous year, and daily users are up as much as 88%. This growth is directly related to smartphone adoption and an increase in mobile usage, which comScore has reported is up to 42% of the smartphone owner audience, which is also up 27% from the year prior.

When breaking out the most popular social media apps, it’s no surprise that Facebook is leading the pack across all mobile devices and platforms. Twitter is actually a lot lower in the ranks than Facebook, even behind the social game Words With Friends on iOS and Android.

Even though mobile social media access continues to grow at a breakneck pace, it’s not the only reason people are choosing to purchase smartphones. The study shows us that a phone’s ability to run social networking apps was well down the list of factors when deciding to purchase, the number one reason coming down to the network quality that the mobile carrier provides. The phone’s operating system and application selection is also heavily weighted.

How often do you use a mobile device for social activity? Does the comScore study hit the nail on the head with how users are using social media via mobile? Give us a shout below and let us know your thoughts!

Over the past year, Nordstrom, Gap, Gamestop, and JC Penny, just to name a few, have made a strategic decision to back out of the storefronts they had implemented on Facebook. Other retailers have joined the list as well, frustrated with the inability to sell on Facebook, and if there isn’t change, others will join in the “F-commerce” abandonment.

It’s too early to tell exactly whether blame should be placed with Facebook or the retailers themselves, but more importantly, there could very well be implications when it comes time for Facebook’s initial public offering of shares. Facebook will be under serious performance pressure to prove to shareholders that it has the ability to grow its impressive revenue base. Facebook based e-commerce storefronts are an example of a perfect opportunity to do just that, however more strategic attention will need to be placed on both Facebook themselves and the retailers to make the experience worthwhile to users.

If we consider Facebook as a whole, it’s built around socialization, not shopping/e-commerce. When comparing Facebook to Google, users are searching for things and it makes sense that consumers will click on ads that are related to their search queries. This is proven with the exceptional success of AdWords. On Facebook, users lack the ability to search for specific products or services, which puts a majority of the weight on brand recognition and familiarity.

It’s important for companies to consider why people are using social media to begin with and what drives online consumer behaviour. This is where companies often miss the boat. From a shareholder perspective, a failure in Facebook based retail could certainly raise questions about a sustainable business model.

One of Facebook’s major issues with retailers on the social network is that there isn’t emphasis on one retailer over another. If we consider the depth that companies go into with site optimization for increased user usability, for conversion improvements, and countless other measureable elements, you’re limiting that optimization on Facebook. And for what? A community element for browsing and shopping? Users will essentially be giving up an optimized buying experience for something sub-optimal in favour of the social dimension. The question is, where’s the balance and incentive for the user? Where’s the value?

Retailers are still struggling to find that balance between creating a buzz about their brand and building loyalty on social media platforms, ultimately converting users into consumers while staying within the platform. The result is that Facebook pages are beginning to feel like blogs.

Facebook commerce is still in the nascent stages and there is absolutely potential for brands who are willing to put in the time to figure out how to optimize design and deliver a user experience that is both engaging and that doesn’t force the consumer into leave Facebook to complete their purchase. The leaders will be those savvy, innovative brands and retailers that see their Facebook presence as something more. These companies will take the necessary steps to leverage their presence in the social space to create a unique, optimized storefront, creating a valuable social commerce experience for users.

For you social web fans, Bottlenose has given us some interesting news: it has officially hit version 2.0. For those that may be unfamiliar, Bottlenose is an intelligent social dashboard. We know, “Great, another social dashboard.” But don’t get mad, this is something else entirely.

For those interested in customers, you should use Nimble. If you’re interested in interpersonal connection, you should use Engag.io.If you want a social dashboard designed around ideas, enter Bottlenose.

The Bottlenose name was inspired by the dolphin, which is reflected in its primary feature known as Sonar – a visual representation of your online conversation. Bottlenose maps topics and tags throughout your social network, allowing you to see branches of information, also giving you the ability to dive into each one. This visual representation takes up the right half of your screen using Bottlenose’s default view, as scene above.

Bottlenose is an intensive web application and there’s certainly a lot going on behind the curtain. It’s constantly analyzing your social streams to identify and understand keywords, topics and threads of conversation.

This is all done at the browser level using HTML5 and Javascript – efficiency that feels light and unnoticeable, resulting in fantastic performance.

As Bottlenose continues to refresh itself with new information, it will also keep you up to date with what’s new through notifications. In the left hand sidebar, Bottlenose also has intelligent “assistants” that will suggest new branches for you to explore.

Another very cool feature is the expansion of photos, videos and articles within the stream. There’s also much more context for authors and messages, allowing you to explore interests and conversation threads.

At present, Bottlenose can pull in data and information from Facebook, Twitter, and RSS, however email and additional social networks will be the next new additions. Bottlenose is also opening up their API for interested third-party developers soon, and if you consider the potential for innovation and applications on that front, the relevance of data and information can really get interesting.

Nova Spivack, Bottlenose co-founder, has a vision of a nascent stream OS, an engine that can supply powerful applications with meaningful data.

Bottlenose is free, and if you happen to have a Klout score over 30, you can register and gain access straight away. If not, don’t fret, you can register for an invitation.