Facebook & the social

news opportunity
 Agenda

1 Overview on Facebook Platform

2 Creating value for publishers

3 Facebook & journalism

4 Q&A
Wisdom of friends
People are discovering
content in a new way on
Facebook…
…and news sites
500M+ 250M+

monthly active mobile users

users
 Social Engagement

130
50%
Friends return daily
How can social design apply to
news?

Photos:
3B/month
Agenda

1 Overview on Facebook Platform

2 Creating value for publishers

3 Facebook & journalism

4 Q&A
Delivering results for
publishers

Traffic Engagement Insights

Increasing traffic to your
site
The average media organization has seena
300% increase in Facebook referrals since
January, 2010

From <1% of traffic to

#1 referral source in 5
months

From #5 referral
source to #1 referral
source

9x increase in
referral traffic
Traffic
qImplement “Like”
•When a user clicks Like, it (1) publishes a story to their friends, (2)
adds to their profile, and (3) is discoverable through search
Traffic
qOptimize “Like”
•Optimize placement and show friends
faces (3-5x increase in CTR)*
100%
- Place Like near visually engaging content increase

- Allow for adequate white space (not too

cluttered)

- Like button with faces has a 2-3x higher CTR

than CTR of button without faces

* Based on internal analysis of plugin performance across 100 top media and content domains
Traffic
qPublish: focus on content and status updates to increase
engagement
Stories that get more engagement

Post updates that contain: Expected increase in

engagement above average post

Touching, emotional stories

EX: “Fireman adopts girl orphaned in house fire…”;
2-3x

Provocative, passionate debates

EX: “A proposed new law denies citizenship to children of
2-3x
illegalimmigrants…”; “Is it time to ban vuvuzelas?”

Sports game important wins

EX: “The Chicago Blackhawks Win First Cup in 49 Years…”;
1.5–2x
“Celtics beat Lakers to even series…”

Simple, easy questions to the user

EX: Yes/No questions, “Will you watch the World Cup?”
1.5x
Increasing engagement
For users who sign in with Facebook:

22% 8
more pages more minutes
viewed spent

For traffic from Facebook:

85% 90 %
more
85%
more time articles more videos
spent read watched
Facebook is #1 source of traffic because:

65% 18%
increase in increase in
FB reshares comments
Engagement
qImplement activity and recommendations plugin

•Users who click on the

Activity Feed plugin
generate 4x as many
page views as the
average media site
viewer

•Place above the fold

•Implement on article
pages where readers
are already engaging
with your content
Engagement
qUse Live Stream for live events
•Add the Like button to acquire connections

•
Engagement
Comment Box
Let users comment on any piece of content
on your site

•Reduce spam through

verified identities and
moderation tools
•Sync conversations on
both your site and
Facebook
•Easy to implement, with
one line of code
Insights
Analytics to understand the impact of
social activity across sites, apps, and
Facebook Pages

Insights for Insights for Insights for

Apps Pages Websites
Metrics to track how Analytics to measure Metrics for your
users are engagement with your site and its social
interacting with Facebook Page plugins, in real-time
your app
Agenda

1 Overview on Facebook Platform

2 Creating value for publishers

3 Facebook & journalism

4 Q&A
Facebook & journalism

Traffic Engagement Reporting

Traffic
Add “Like” to journalists and topics on your site
Journalis Topic (e.g., Business
t section)

When a reader clicks “Like”, 3 things happen:

• Publishes a story to their friends on Facebook
• Gives you the ability to publish to them
• Adds to profile
Traffic
Create a Page for your publication…
Traffic
…and for your journalists
Engagement
Interact with your readers
Reporting
Use Facebook as a reporting and story-telling tool

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/metro/facebook-story-mothers-joy-familys-sorrow.html
Reporting
Use your Page to solicit commentary, opinions, public
opinion and content from your readers
Getting started
3 things you can do today:

qSet up a Page and publish your articles so

every time you add a new post, it will go into
the News Feeds of your fans
q
qEngage your fans with questions and
observations related to your coverage
q
qSet up your mobile devices to access and add
to your Page from wherever you are
Join the dialogue at facebook.com/media &
facebook.com/journalist