Frictionless sharing is Facebook’s new model for more digestible (both psychologically and technically) social sharing. In other words, Facebook has redefined sharing.
There are two components to frictionless sharing:
Gestures That Make Sense – Facebook is now allowing app developers to use gestures other than“like” for news feed stories. In the example above, it says that I just “completed” a run with Runkeeper (by the way, I can run further than .27 miles…).“Completed” works better because although I definitely completed the run, I may have not “liked” it.
Permission Hurdles Removed – Timeline apps asks permission only once to access and share a user’s data. As shown below in the RunKeeper app, it’s easier for me to understand what the app needs to work. The app authorization also lists activities that will appear, and allows me to choose who can see your activities.
It’s important to realize that frictionless sharing is about removing both technical AND psychological hurdles to sharing.
Sponsored Stories can help you reach your target audience on Facebook by leveraging word-of-mouth recommendations more effectively. For example, Like Story Ads can be targeted to friends of current fans. These friends of fans may have similar interests in what your organization stands for, but haven’t “expressed” them yet by liking your Page. Sponsored Stories take advantage of this phenomena.
Leapfrog the News Feed
When someone likes your Page, a News Feed story is displayed to many of that user’s friends. But because there is a lot of activity shown in News Feed, there’s a good chance that that story might get overlooked.
Sponsored Stories leapfrog the News Feed and increase the likelihood (pun intended) that the person’s friends will like your Page via the ad.
I’ll be conducting a completely free Q&A session on Facebook this Friday at 1:00PM (EST). All you have to do is post your questions on the Nonprofit Facebook Guy’s UStream tab in the comments section. At 1:00PM on Friday, I’ll be answering these questions one by one.
Facebook Places Pages now include sub-categories, with more granular information about your Place. You can select multiple sub-categories, allowing Facebook users to more easily find your organization on their mobile device or laptop.
You can add sub-categories to your Place under the “Basic Information” tab of your Places Page.
What happens to your facebook profile if you die? if I die is the first Facebook application that enables you to create a video or a text message that will be published after you die.
Facebook Insights includes a data point called “Talking About This” which is the number of Facebook users who have engaged with one or more of your Page updates, or have created a story about your Page.
These various different action include:
Liking a post from your Page
Commenting on a post from your Page
Share a post from your Page
Answering a question using the Questions feature
Mentioning your Page in an update
Tagging your Page in a photo
Liking your Page
Posting on your Page wall
Responding to an Event on your Page
Checking into your Facebook Place (a type of Facebook Page)
By now you’re probably aware that your Facebook profile has automatically been upgraded to the new timeline layout, which features a large cover at the very top.
Many organizations, like the Ocean Concervancy, are creating covers that supporters can use on their timeline (see the example Beth is using above).
Dave Connell, of the OC said they’re “offering up these covers is a way for our supporters to express their personal support for the ocean.”
Notice that there is no hard-sell pitch for donations (which could violate Facebook’s TOC). Rather, the OC covers are “lightly branded” beautiful photographs of various ocean life.
How to create a custom Facebook cover for your nonprofit
The easiest way to create a custom Facebook cover is to get a designer to create one using Photoshop.
Have your designer use the dimensions shown below, or download the Photoshop template here (zip file) which includes three layers:
Background color – Which can be deleted or edited.
Profile picture box – This is intended to show you exactly where the user’s profile pic will appear on your cover. You want to know where the profile pic will be displayed so that you don’t block an important part of your Facebook cover. You can also use the profile pic to make your Facebook cover stand out.
Dimension layer – This layer is informational only and should be hidden or deleted.
What if you don’t have Photoshop? If you don’t have access to a designer or Photoshop, you can use pixlr, which is an online photo editing website that allows you to upload and crop photos at any dimension.
How to upload your new cover into Facebook
After you or your designer have created the images, create a Facebook Page photo album and then promote these covers via email, news feed and any other means.
The Like Button is the easiest and most popular way that you can encourage website visitors to share your content with their Facebook friends. This allows you to broaden your reach beyond your regular visitors, email subscribers and Facebook Page connections.
With the Like Button, you can allow visitors to share
Blog posts
Upcoming events
Your donation page
Stories about how your organization has impacted your community
You may have already heard that Facebook killed the RSS feature in the Notes application. This feature allowed Page admins to automatically up date their wall with blog posts. But now with this feature gone, how can Page admins integrate a blog with their Facebook Page?
Following are six apps that allow you to pull in an RSS feed onto your Facebook Page wall:
Networked Blogs – This app is one of the most flexible – and it’s free. You can post multiple blogs, allow people share posts with their friends, and display all posts on one tab.
RSS Tab for Facebook Pages – This app allows you to publish up to five different blogs on your Facebook Page. You can also put a like gate on blog posts so that only fans see the blog posts.
Shortstack is another custom tab tool that includes an RSS feature where you can display blog posts to fans, non-fans or both.
TABMAKER RSS - This app allows you to integrate your RSS-Feeds in your Page and add a ‘Like’ or ‘Send’ button in each blog post.
Social RSS - This app, from Socialbakers, allows you to publish RSS feeds to your wall or a dedicated tab on your profile or Facebook Page.
RSS Graffiti – RSS Graffiti posts any RSS feed to your Page wall, or multiple feeds to multiple Page walls.
