Facebook interactions drive page views and not vice versa

After an interesting talk by @joshuamarch on his theory on IPM (interactions per 1000 fans) I dug deeper into my Facebook page insights to have a look at whether interaction is a key driver of metrics on Facebook and the early results show this to be true.

Have a look at the pink ‘orbs’ on the graphs above and you will see that in November there was a massive spike in page views but there was absolutely no affect on interactions. Again there is a page view spike in April with no affect on interaction.

But then in May and June, we witnessed a sustained period of high interaction number and the PVs also peaked. What is even more interesting is the continued higher level of PVs as compared to before the activity peaks.

On the back of listening to Josh’s talk, I had a go at pushing the IPM metrics and you can see a big spike at the end of the interactions graph. I will be very interested to see the affect on PVs when the data comes in.

My best explanation for this phenomenon is that the more interaction a post receives the more visibility it gets in users’ feeds, the more their friends see it, bringing new and returning fans to the page.

So based on this evidence, interactions is the main proxy for driving page views to a Facebook page and should be seen as the key metric to push on Facebook. The reason this excites me is because my seniors are more interested in reach metrics (visits and PVs) than in engagement metrics (interactions) which, of course, I think are very important, more so than reach.

So proving (with solid numbers and graphs and all the stuff bosses like) that engagement drives reach metrics is a game changer for me and probably a lot of other people in my role.

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Does the milkman reduce your carbon footprint?

I've just been looking on www.milkandmore.co.uk about getting milk delivered to my house and after reading the details, I've made a few assumptions about the logistics of the business and if those assumptions are correct, then getting your milk and juice delivered in glass bottles is good carbon practice.

The main assumption I have made is that when the milkman collects your empty bottles and sends them off to be cleaned that the cleaning 'factory' is local or in a local enough hub.

Local is good for carbon
This would mean that the whole production cycle of the milk and OJ is in a closed local loop (except breakages of course) all being delivered by electric vehicles (this is not an assumption, I saw one this morning which started this whole thought process).

The alternative which I currently subscribe to, and I'll focus on my OJ obsession, is to get four Tetra Paks a week of OJ delivered by a diesel truck from online shopping (which is still a good green practice but this could be better). So that's 12 packs a month that don't get recycled (by my council at least) going from wherever they are produced (overseas I'm sure) to the factory where they are filled with OJ to the shop where they are sold to the house where they are consumed to the dump where they add to the landfill mass. Now my 12 a month is not a lot in the grand scheme but you know, another million people start using the milkman and we are sitting pretty, so is the milkman!

Tetra Pak claim to be carbon neutral but still...
And I'm sure they are but that doesn't mean that there isn't a better way. They are trying hard to get recycling of their Paks(?) throughout the UK but most aren't and anyway re-useable packaging is better than recyclable packing and glass is a lot less nasty than plastic!

I strongly believe that keeping the production cycle local is one of the best ways of reducing carbon output and the return of the milkman is a great example of this. (Oh and by the way, I have no commercial affiliation to Milkandmore, I just like what they are doing).

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My slides and audio interview from SMIB10

If you're interested in what I spoke about at Social Media in Business '10, you can see the slides and listen to my interview on my blog.

Hope you find it useful!

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My talk at Social Media in Business '10 #smib10

SMiB '10 was a graet event and I fell priviledged that I spoke at it as it was a great crowd and very inciteful speakers with lots of lessons to be shared. Below are my slides from the day, I thought Slide share would include the notes but unfortunately not (or I just can't find the setting!) so a bit of the detail is lost. I've also embedded my iPadio interview with Benjamin Ellis prior to the event if you feel like giving it a listen.

Apparently a video of my talk will be put online by the SMiB guys so I will update my blog with that when it is ready. Hope you like it!

Community management from the Trenches

View more presentations from Jon M Bishop.

iPadio interview:

No Such Thing as a Social Media Practitioner

What if social media was defined as the set of tools that a Community Manager/executive/strategist used?

That would imply that anyone involved in social media is a Community Manager of sorts which in my opinion is the truth anyway because anything you do in the space sends a message out to a community that needs constant attention and response essentially making social media practitioners Community Managers whether they like being called that or not!

For me, ‘Community Manager’ is a much more sustainable and believable title for businesses, years from now anyway, when the dust settles and social media marketing slots in alongside all the other traditional channels. Well, much more believable that guru, genius, tsar, hero (and my favourite) rockstar anyway.

Obama Spam

It seems even President Obama can’t escape the spammers!

Some intrepid internet abusers have realised that Obama’s Facebook updates get tons of view so and in true opportunist spammy style, have started posting comments trying to send punters off to somewhere else. Even the Haiti disaster can’t escape the ‘free designer bags’ scam, these people clearly have no shame and no class.

It’s also interesting to note that the pioneering Obama social media team seem to have adopted a completely open stance on comment moderation (ie they leave everything up) which is really progressive and respectable considering some of highly emotional and sensitive topics he needs to cover as a president.

Me personally, I’d delete the spam.



Home delivery is like a car pool for your shopping

 Here's a simple way to reduce your Carbon footprint: use online shopping. Its kind of the same model as using a car pool, only it's individuals' food items not the individuals themselves all being transported in the same vehicles making the process of getting food from your local store to your house much for efficient.

You can see the big mileage difference this creates in the two images here. So basically, if 4 people need to travel 5 miles to the store (there and back remember!) that ads up to 40 miles in total, if the delivery van delivers these 4 peoples' food instead, then the total mileage covered for the same foods to be delivered is only 16 miles.

This would also probably be a good way to drive 5 less miles a week if you are trying to keep up with the Act On CO2 campaign

Woo! Saving the planet made easy!

In this simple model the combined fuel saving is 40%

Great Nokia N900 viral campaign

Nokia are smart people. They make great phones and it seem their marketing department is just as sharp.

Nokia have been sending around a  'hacker box' to key voices in the mobile community. It is quite obviously a buzz generating gimmick for the N900 and they have nailed it! The buzz is huge on Twitter and its getting coverage on some of the top blogs and websites in the tech space.

How did they get it so right?

• It's all about the unboxing. Nokia have realised that when a new tech product comes on the market, people love to do unboxing videos and they went to great lengths to make it one of the best unboxing experiences to date.

• Spare no expense. That hacking box must have cost a fortune to a) make and b) ship because of the size and weight! It shows that they really value the opinions of the people that got one.

• Increase the N900's percieved value. Only an item of high value and much importance would demand such high quality promotion and effort. It is and it does

• Target the right people. They know that the N900 is going to taken up more by tech minded people than general consumers so they have targeted voices in that space like Techcrunch, Engadget the Nokia fan blogs and of course www.unboxings.com. Their video on Youtube here.

• Add smoke to seal the deal!

Nokia really went all out on this campaign and didn't spare# any expense thus ensuring a great viral response. Was your last campaign the highest stanard it could be?

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Finding a way for your company onto Youtube

Obviously, you want your company to be on Youtube. It’s a great engagement medium with a massive population.

But how? My company is boring, what will we make videos about?

Blendtec, is still the best example of this. Take a boring blending company, throw some cool gadgets into  their blenders, and blend the hell out of it and you’ve got a classic series of Youtube videos.

My first foray into Youtube for Gumtree has been to make user guides which gives us a valid reason to be on Youtube and benefit from the exposure but also more importantly, it helps educate users on using the site correctly and safely. We even set up a dedicated page on Gumtree using the Youtube API, which was fun, here: http://guide.gumtree.com

If a blending company can find an entertaining angle to make videos for Youtube, so can your company!

Does Twitter marketing work?

It’s still a big question, does Twitter marketing work? Well if you’re Gumtree, you want lots of traffic so that there are lots of buyers for the posted ads so one of my tasks is to drive traffic from Twitter and it is working great!

I’ve started Twitter accounts in a few Gumtree cities and only started tracking the results half way through October but as you can see from the graph below, its really starting to pull in quality traffic.

At this rate, we would have pulled in 350 000 hits per quarter via Twitter to which we can put a cash value, making Twitter a very valuable tool for us.