Just yesterday we were informed about an API change from our partners at Facebook aimed to help the Vitrue SRM’s page moderation. In the past, the Facebook API has allowed applications like the Vitrue SRM to remove comments from Facebook Page posts, but not remove the Fan post themselves. We are excited about the change and have already updated our platform to support it.

As noted, the Vitrue SRM provides easy, powerful and comprehensive Facebook Page moderation by seamlessly integrating flagged items through an administrative dashboard. All user comments are screened and flagged if matches are found in our inappropriate language and spam filters.

Facebook Page moderation can also be tailored for the brand with custom word filters. These are ideal for competitive keywords, campaign keywords, product conversations, or anything relevant to your social media vernacular. Facebook Page marketers can take action from the dashboard to immediately remove a Fan post or comment and with a simple interface for contextual review.

The Vitrue SRM has been developed with the largest and most successful brands on Facebook and Twitter. Vitrue’s platform is built for scale, serving over 21 million fans and growing fast. Vitrue’s innovation and expertise comes from managing this tremendous fan base. Leading social media innovation with easy-to-use tools like moderation from the Vitrue SRM, marketers, publishers and agencies can react in realtime and drive engagement in a brand-safe environment.

For more information about the Vitrue SRM take a look at our presentation and demo then contact us today and start managing your Facebook Page with the most comprehensive suite, built just for you.

Have a question or comment? Leave a note and join the conversation.

Marketers, publishers and agencies who aren’t messaging their fan bases at least daily are missing the boat. If this is you, consider leveraging a publishing suite like the Vitrue SRM, and simplify social media marketing.

More details about Google’s real-time search and Fan pages updates can be read at Inside Facebook

For more information about the Vitrue SRM take a look at our presentation and demo then contact us today and start managing your Facebook Page with the most comprehensive suite, built just for you.

There is no denying the power of social media. And if 2009 with its staggering growth statistics weren’t enough proof, then look no further than the Super Bowl.  Arguably, this was the most social Super Bowl of all time. Brand marketers, sports fans, and advertising fans utilized social media to buzz about the big game.

This year’s Super Bowl was the most watched television program in history with 106.5 million watching, according to Nielsen.  I think social media played a role in those ratings. Twitter, Facebook and blogs were all a buzz leading up to the game, whether it was about watching the game, the television ads or just Americans rallying behind the much beleaguered city of New Orleans.  One can link the tremendous social media buzz around the game to its viewership.

Leading up to the big game, you couldn’t read the words “Super Bowl ads” without “social media” being connected – and with good reason. It’s not just about the commercial spot anymore; it’s about those ads - and the buzz around them - driving viewers online to start and share conversations about a brand, particularly on Facebook and Twitter.  And if done effectively marketers can create millions of brand ambassadors online, talking and sharing your brand with their family, friends and colleagues. And millions were chatting pregame about these ads, essentially creating interest to tune-in and watch them live.

We wanted to look at the advertisers to see how big broadcast media impacts social media. We have listed the top 20 biggest movers in terms of percentage from where they started before the game’s big bang.  Our finding were covered in “PRWeek” for the second year in a row.

A few thoughts on the top gainers

“Shutter Island” #1
It is interesting to see an upcoming movie garner the top percentage gainer spot - is it Leonardo DiCaprio’s appeal or Martin Scorsese? Movie studios embracing big broadcast has paid off dividends in social buzz. Entertainment brands can not only drive anticipation for an upcoming release but extend their life and keep in cultural relevancy for continued sales of DVDs through social media (from simple status updaters which enable fans to cite and publish of their favorite lines to image applications where fans can literally become part of a scene).

Google #2
Incredible spot that has received much attention - first time Google entered TV to our knowledge – what a beautifully executed and thought provoking spot spot - not everything has to been  crazy humor to break through the clutter.

E Trade #3
Their epic campaign was taken to new level this year and created much chatter - babies playing off present day landscape - “is that milk-alocholic Lindsey over there?” Touching into cultural  conversation which needs to be extended on a 24 X 7 basis - not just a one off.  We challenge creatives to be apply creative thinking to social media infrastructure as well.

Dove Men #4
What a great product debut - key placement in the Super Bowl which moved the needle.  Smart move to introduce the product to key audience while women who watch with their men endorse the benefits and will most likely purchase for the household.

So now what?
I think everyone gets that social should be a part of the marketing mix. The question is do they know how to effectively do that, especially with the TV medium? Some may say TV ads are dying, and there is some merit to that. However, big events, like the Super Bowl, Oscars, etc., will always attract people around a TV. People don’t like to view these events by themselves in their room on their laptop, It’s a community thing - “Can you believe she won!” “Did you see that catch!”  So marketers need to learn to effectively leverage the ‘traditional’ medium with social. Yes, these spots are about entertaining and brand awareness…but can they also effectively translate to social currency that live on a 24X7 basis.

A fun and smart campaign that introduces, the world’s greatest spokesperson for Nationwide, picking up on a wildly popular cultural meme.
The campaign reaches out and embraces consumers to get to know them better, listen to their issues and solve their problems.

Only one person is capable of being on the consumer’s side…the world’s greatest spokesperson.

As a central hub, Vitrue has executed a Facebook application where users can become part of the fun. Users are prompted to enter their own caption on top of pre-populated lines….THE WORLD’S fill in your own thoughts IN THE WORLD.  The application loads in a users photo album so they can select a picture of their beloved friend, pet, child, whatever to create a photo or T-shirt a users can publish to their wall or also publish to a gallery of other submissions.

I love this app - simple and fun and a perfect extension of a campaign. Check out my interpretation of the world’s greatest dog

The campaign is starting its debut and its spots will be fronted in tonight’s opening Olympic ceremony as well as NASCAR’s opening race, the Daytona 500 this Sunday.

Be sure and check it out and share with the world your favorite.

My start in Internet advertising (AKA online marketing), was in the world of display advertising. At that time, the elements of traditional advertising held sway (and they still should - even in social - and I’ll get to that). The banner ad was your chance, in 468×60 pixels, to get your message to your prospective customer. Your invitation was simple: Click here. The goals were, and are, equally straightforward: Get the user to notice, and then, ultimately, click. What works? Clear, relevant, eye-catching messages.

Now the costs of creating a banner and successfully finding appropriate media to run it on (including your own site) and analyzing how well it’s performing are not the same as those required to create a television ad and run it during the Super Bowl. However, I have never, EVER heard a client say “I don’t really care what the banner looks like.”

Similarly, in e mail marketing, I have never heard of a client investing time and effort into marketing to, in this case, their most loyal customers, and being ok with having limited control over that email’s content and layout.

When it comes to social media, however, it seems that many serious brands and marketers are still ok with letting Facebook decide how their posts look…or letting a free third party click counters capture their user data – valuable data that is freely viewable by anyone and held with no contract. Why should we spend a lot of time and effort on creating the perfect banner or e mail, and then think that a tweet or Facebook wall post is just something you can do on a whim? Or worse - scheduled for a month down the line? That’s like socializing by delivering a monologue at a party.

If anything, your Facebook wall message or tweet is more important than your banner ads or your e mail messages. You are communicating with your most loyal customers, and these customers have allowed you to invade the same space they use to hang out with their friends, and they probably don’t want you to embarrass them. In other words, you’ve been invited to the party. Once you get in and start clinking martini glasses, don’t you want to look good?!

Something else that surprises me about social media is that some marketers are less concerned with their Facebook presence and communication strategy than they are with how they handle discussion about their brand outside their walls and outside the parties they have been invited to attend.

The value in understanding conversations and trends around you brand is vital, of course. But I’d suggest to any marketer to consider that throwing a party (or being invited to one) is quite different from running around eavesdropping on other parties, then leaping through windows when you think you’ve heard your brand mentioned. Now, it IS the Internet and users should expect that public comments are, well, public. But isn’t there something creepy about the guy in high school who wasn’t invited to the party, but shows up anyway, and whose only concerned is to fit in?

Now THERE’S the difference, right? Social media is social. That’s why you need to worry about how you handle the parties you attend and how you deal with the parties you don’t. On the other hand, while It’s no longer just the banner ad, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be very attentive - and methodical - with your messaging.

When it comes to social media, we should learn from the tried and true methods that breed success in other forms of media - including print or television. But we also need to be able to make the right strategic decisions about how we play with others, and how we can be the ones getting the eye from across the room at the party we’ve been invited to!

We are thrilled to be selected as a finalist for the Red Herring Global 100 award which recognizes private companies that are playing a leading role in innovation and technology from around the world.

Vitrue was selected as a finalist from a pool of nearly 1,200 private companies and nominees were reviewed on both quantitative and qualitative criteria such as financial performance, technology innovation, quality of management, execution of strategy, and integration into their ecosystem. Further noted by Red Herring, the judges look closely at the company’s global strategy to evaluate how the company will be able to handle the challenges of internationalization and a global presence. Furthermore, Red Herring cites these global innovators are the ones to watch as they disrupt their respective industries.

“This year was especially difficult,” said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. “Despite the global economic situation, there were many great companies producing really innovative and amazing products that we had a difficult time narrowing the pool and selecting the finalists. Now we’re faced with the arduous task of selecting the final 100 winners of the award. We know that this year’s crop will grow into some amazing companies that are sure to go far.”

We are honored to be a part of this global list.  We are committed to aggressively driving social media forward and strive for new ways to exceed market expectations to establish connections between brands and consumers.

As cited in one of our blog posts from Q4 last year, we outlined our new Facebook Moderation features to the Vitrue SRM, Global Brands Demand Global Scale, “Just one year ago, we were helping brands manage fan pages that totaled 100,000 or so fans.  Today, we are currently managing pages that combine for over 10,000,000 fans marking a 100-fold increase. On top of that, our systems are managing social activity on a global scale “across the pond” so think about the transactional horse-power we are working on here. This explosive fan growth, which creates hundreds of millions of comments and social actions, requires world-class technology solutions which scale to meet the unique needs of brand marketers who want to encourage authentic conversations on Facebook but need safeguards to protect brand integrity.”

In 2009 alone, Facebook crossed the 350 million mark of global users, illustrating of the awesome power of our collective social currency.  What a tremendous opportunity this presents for marketers to drive engagement, build their fan bases and truly harness the power of social media.

1. iPhone
2. Disney
3. CNN
4. MTV
5. NBA
6. iTunes
7. Wii
8. Apple
9. Xbox
10. Nike
11. Starbucks
12. NFL
13. PlayStation
14. Adidas
15. BlackBerry
16. Sony
17. Mercedes
18. Microsoft
19. Samsung
20. BMW
21. Nintendo
22. Best Buy
23. ESPN
24. Ford
25. Honda
26. Ferrari
27. Gucci
28. Nokia
29. Major League Baseball
30. Dell
31. Coca-Cola
32. CBS
33. ABC
34. iPod
35. Mac
36. Turner
37. Nissan
38. Toyota
39. eBay
40. Amazon
41. Victoria’s Secret
42. Nutella
43. NASCAR
44. Disneyland
45. Audi
46. NHL
47. Red Bull
48. Verizon
49. Intel
50. Subway
51. Hewlett-Packard
52. Puma
53. Kia
54. Fox News
55. Porsche
56. Jeep
57. Dodge
58. Pandora
59. Walmart
60. Zappos
61. Suzuki
62. McDonald’s
63. Krystal
64. T-Mobile
65. Skittles
66. KFC
67. Volkswagen
68. NBC
69. Sprint
70. Pixar
71. Motorola
72. IKEA
73. Pepsi
74. Cisco
75. REI
76. LG
77. AT&T
78. Converse
79. The Gap
80. Chevrolet
81. Louis Vuitton
82. Toys”R”Us
83. H&M
84. Philips
85. General Motors
86. Pringles
87. Visa
88. Prada
89. Panasonic
90. IBM
91. VH1
92. Hulu
93. Oracle
94. Burberry
95. SEGA
96. Sears
97. Avon
98. Jet Blue
99. Lacoste
100. Comcast

We are excited to release our second annual ranking of the most social brands, The Vitrue 100. 2009 certainly marked the tipping point for social media with Facebook crossing 350 million month active users worldwide (100 million US users) according to “Inside Facebook”, December 2009.

Adoption of social media by marketers has also followed suit,  as eMarketer cites the percentage of the Fortune 500 not using social media has dropped dramatically - from 43% now to only 9%.

Forrester is also stating that social media marketing is projected to grow at an annual rate of 34%, faster than any other form of online marketing (US Interactive Marketing Spend 2009 to 2014 Report issued Summer 2009).

So what does all this mean as we head into 2010?  Marketers are adding social as a foundation into the marketing mix and need the infrastructure to manage their increasingly robust presences. TV spots are now tagged out with Facebook URLs instead of corporate web sites and point-of-sale call to actions now direct you to fan them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter.

Marketers get that social works. So with this in mind we established The Vitrue 100 to help bring credibility and clarity to this emerging space. The Vitrue 100 helps provide the industry with overall trends. We issue the list to highlight the most social brands and help demonstrate the value of social media marketing.

Some thoughts on this year’s list:

• Overall provocative mix of blue chip brands – cross category from CPG to auto to electronics to retail
• iPhone still reigns supreme, second year in a row as the most buzzed about brand on the social web
• Game consoles dominate the top of the list Wii #7, Xbox#9, PlayStation #13, Nintendo #21
• Biggest gainer this year was Adidas, also NBA, Nike, MLB, Nissan, Victoria’s Secret, HP, KFC all made impressive gains, check out The Vitrue 100 from 2008 here
• Luxury brands on the list this year with good representation – Gucci #27, Louis Vuitton #81, Prada #88 and Burberry #94
• Media brands make up 8% of list – CNN #3, MTV #4, ESPN #23, CBS #32, ABC #33, Turner #36, Fox News #56, NBC #68 – perhaps illustrating our socialization of their content
• Cosmetic brands under represented missing outside of Avon at #97 as well as travel brands as jet Blue was the only airline to make this year’s list
• Sport brands make sense to be so prominent too as people are very passionate NBA #5, NFL #12, MLB #29, NASCAR #43, NHL #46
• Restaurants also make sense – people talk about where they want to eat – Subway #50, McDonald’s #62, Krystal #63, KFC #66
• Automotive vertical well represented – Mercedes #17, BMW #20, Ford #24, Honda #25, Ferrari #27, Toyota #38, Audi #45, Kia #53, Porsche #55, Jeep #56, Dodge #57, Suzuki#61, Volkswagen #67, Chevrolet #80, GM #85

Take a look and let us know what you think.

Methodology
The Vitrue 100 is the result of Vitrue’s daily analysis of over 2,000 popular brands on the social web.

On July 1, 2009, we refined the SMI’s algorithm in our continual efforts to reflect the the social web.  See more details here> http://vitrue.com/smi/

The Vitrue SMI report is an easy to understand measurement of a brand’s online conversations. Based on our patent-pending technology, index scores are comprised of various online conversations from status updates to multi-dimensional video sites. The Vitrue SMI score provides a snapshot in time to help make sense of the overwhelming amount of measurable data.

We derive the Vitrue SMI by reviewing popular social media sites. We update the Vitrue SMI once daily. Our sample set represents different dimensions of social interactivity:

• Social Networking - general sharing
• Video Sharing - high engagement of viewing time and authenticity of dimension
• Status Updates - aka Micro-Blogs; key influencers who chatter and actively push content
• Photo Sharing - social meta data
• Blogs - general blogsphere, commentary mentions

The index numbers are not intended to be used in absolute terms; rather, they provide a numerical basis to compare the social media prominence of two or more terms. We frequently update the algorithm based on changes in usage patterns, overall traffic and social network results.

The changing world of online conversations results in significant movements up and down for brands. The Vitrue 100 was determined by averaging the SMI scores for each brand across each day in December 2009. To further clarify, “annual” based on grouping of pull done once a year as the first Vitrue 100 was done December 2008 and we wanted to measure year over year. The result is a ranked list of the brands which are most talked about on the social web.

Some powerhouse technology brands were omitted from the list as they provide the backbone of many social networks.  While Google, Facebook and others are top brands, The Vitrue 100 is measuring companies that are using social technology, not those who are the technology.

As the year draws to a close, we gratefully pause to wish you a happy holiday season.

We appreciate the continued support and are so excited about what is to come in 2010!

1. USC
2. Ohio State
3. Florida
4. LSU
5. Mississippi
6. Auburn
7. Texas
8. Georgia Tech
9. Michigan State
10. Missouri
11. Alabama
12. Michigan
13. Oklahoma
14. Georgia
15. West Virginia
16. Nebraska
17. Clemson
18. Florida State
19. UCLA
20. Oregon
21. Cincinnati
22. Standford
23. Iowa
24. Boise State
25. Virginia Tech

We worked with “USA Today” to release our updated college football social buzz ranking.  Preseason we reported how the field was shaping up. Now as the BCS closes in, no better time to see what the social web is most passionate about as we head into the almighty national play-offs.

What strikes me about the social ranking is the Southeastern Conference presence and how their teams are really generating buzz and attention through their on-field performance.  The other interesting note is the SEC garners excellent TV exposure that results with a great track record of success.

Another point is Florida State’s social ranking  at #18 despite their 6-6 season, they ranked high on the SMI all season- especially during the last weeks – perhaps you can attribute that to the Bobby Bowden situation - had the entire country talking…and the “demise” of FSU football?

Auburn peaked during the last seven days with build up to the Alabama game as last week it was the featured game with huge TV exposure…possibly had everyone talking about a huge possible upset.

One thing I have state as my Catholic upbringing and my old nun teachers would be upset if I didn’t set the record straight….I essentially said Notre Dame is no longer part of the BCS conversation on a national title basis, they have become irrelevant – my grandparents would be furious if they heard that quote!

And my Dawgs….although not in play-off contention – we did finish the season strong by beating Tech last week and are still high on what people are talking about on the social web.

With holiday retail in full swing and cyber Monday sales rising 14% over last year (Coremetrics), brands who are social and who connect the shopping experience with the Facebook social graph will win.

We are proud to work with Buy Buy in partnership on their Facebook presence to help provide not only conversation but helpful utility.

Best Buy Facebook Page, Get Advice

Our “Shop + Share” application allows users to shop for Best Buy products and share with or get advice from their Facebook friends. By leveraging the Remix API, Best Buy is one of the first major national retailers to make a true social shopping experience on Facebook.

“Fast Company” recently cited Best Buy as a brand doing it right by tapping into peer recommendations.

Social shopping is imperative for retail brands as they need to provide experiences that make it very easy for fans to tap into the knowledge of their friends, whose opinions are more likely to make an impact on their purchasing decisions.

Vitrue is proud to be working with (RED)™ , a simple idea that transforms our collective power as shoppers into a financial force that helps those affected by HIV in Africa.

(RED) product partners include powerhouse brands like Starbucks, American Express, Converse and Apple – just to name a few.  Our spending dollars when buying red products from these brands delivers a huge impact on the fight against AIDS.  To date over $140 million has been raised.

Yesterday’s observation was tremendous and the social media response was significant.  Major pushes on Facebook and Twitter to turn them each RED – literally. As “Mashable” cited, you could show you support by changing your profile picture on Facebook or tweeting with red hash tags – even Twitter turned their home page red.

Today the (RED) Facebook page has toped over 380,000 fans and the Twitter followers are over – 914,000 - such powerful adoption.

Using social media to do social good just makes sense.  People connect to causes and brands that are good and do good.  Any effective communication strategy is tied to giving consumers the power to express their values and emotions by doing things that matter in their lives.

Social media environments provide an unparalleled environment to make social change.  We are all influenced by social actions and simply fanning, commenting, liking, tweeting power incredible social awareness and change.

We are proud to support (RED)’s Facebook page.  By making it easier for consumers to interact with brands and entities that give back, it is a powerful way for charities to spread their message going forward. With brands and charities showcasing content and by simply sharing something you think is cool you are powering significant social change – be it a thought, a video testimonial, or an inspirational song.

We enthusiastically welcome interest and inquiries from other charities so that we can provide expertise on how to best leverage this marketing medium as we firmly believe social media and social good need to be tied together.

We wanted to provide some simple yet powerful takeaways of where we see social media headed as we head into 2010.

We have never seen a hotter market or a more fascinating time – as social media is truly changing how we interact with each other let alone our favorite  brands.

What we see working at Vitrue is staying committed to aggressively driving social media marketing forward and continually striving for strategic and creative new ways to meet and exceed evolving client and market needs as being social is now intrinsic to mainstream culture.

This morning we saw a great article in “Ad Age”, Starbucks Rings in the Holidays With Big Social-Media Push, that hit on one of our core trends.

“It’s like we’ve taken the version 1.0 of last year and now we’re really doing it at scale and going to a lot more places where our customers already are,” said Chris Bruzzo, VP-brand, content and online at Starbucks. “People are saying this is going to be a big year for social media and we’re a microcosm of that. Whereas last year it was a curiosity, this year it’s a core part of the program.”

So what do we anticipate seeing more of next year?
Check our top trends and let us know what you think will shape the future of social media.

Vitrue’s Seven Trends for Social Media in 2010

1. “Grass Roots Social Media” - push to customize and segment, making more localized and more relevant
2. Integration of social media will become the norm/become fabric of corporate marketing programs – what typically was siloed management of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, social media will be come much more integrated – like in the 90s for ad serving  whole departments are being created to manage social media. Testing and trials are over. It is here to stay.
3. Social communications sophistication - companies will be employing some of the same tactics they have used with email marketing over the past 10 years.  They have learned about messaging their customer base from years of trial, and now will be using much of the same process and policy.
4. Brands going global in their social strategy
5. Platform approach – brands need management systems and scale – everything is getting more social at an exponential rate
6. “Wisdom of friends” vs the “wisdom of crowds” purchasing influence continued to be shaped more and more by our peers
7. Facebook continues to evolve as the “identity platform” as its social currency, interactivity and its maturing portability is unmatched

First, promotions run on Facebook must be located “on an application box in a tab on a Facebook Page” or “on the canvas Page of an application on the Facebook Platform”.  Secondly, there is a new requirement that all promotions must be submitted to Facebook at least 7 days prior to the start of the promotion AND receive Facebook approval. This means that brands will no longer be able to run promotions and sweepstakes within the News Feed. These changes to the Promotion Guidelines are very much in line with a very important Facebook goal: improving the quality of the Facebook environment.

All of the recent Facebook changes are an attempt to streamline the Facebook feed and improve the quality of the user’s experience.   With such massive and global adoption, the Facebook stream has become cluttered.  We all have Facebook “friends” that we haven’t spoken to in ages and with whom we rarely if ever interact.  The Live Stream gets filled up quickly with updates that just aren’t meaningful to a user and reduces the quality of the Facebook experience.

E mail is another communication channel that has had to deal with this very issue.  Facebook is attempting to proactively deal with its own version of junk mail and spam and re-launching the News Feed as an algorithmically determined summary of what is important to a user based on which friend or brand that user interacts with the most which could end up being a huge benefit to Facebook users.

Clearly Facebook will need to continue tweaking the algorithm as many users have been vocal about their displeasure with the change, but as Facebook continues to improve this area and as users grow more accustomed to the experience, the News Feed could be a positive development for users.  Facebook should be commended for focusing on improving the quality of the user experience.

So how is this change related to the change in the promotions policy?  And what impact does this change have on brand marketing on Facebook?

Previously brands were allowed to run promotions with very little regards to the quality of the promotion.  Even low quality promotions were guaranteed to appear in a user’s stream.  Many promotions have been wildly successful at gaining fans but have had the side effect of cluttering up the stream.  While this offered an essentially free marketing channel to brands, it did very little to improve the quality of the Facebook ecosystem.

While some brands have stuck to using the least costly methods of fan engagement, Facebook has seen other brands invest in creating high quality promotions and applications that users want to interact with often.  Facebook recognizes that its very existence depends on creating a high quality user environment.

Facebook is the platform, but without content that users want to engage with on a regular basis, it would become less valuable over time. By requiring brands to run promotions via the application box on a Facebook Page or on the canvas Page of an application, Facebook accomplishes two goals.  First, it helps to keep the stream clean. Second, it signals that Facebook is committed to Pages building app-based promotions.  If your promotion is of low quality and not engaging (i.e. not created in a way that Facebook users want to interact with it), it is unlikely that your promotion will make it into a user’s News Feed.  That means that brands must be willing to invest heavily in building really cool promotions and apps if they want to effectively market to Facebook’s 300 million users.

Facebook’s recent changes to its promotions policy coupled with its recent efforts to clean up the stream will go a long way toward improving the quality of the user experience.  As a brand, you must ask yourself if you are ready, willing and able to build a high quality Facebook presence?

So, what does this mean for managers of brand pages?

Because the pre-filtered news feed is the default option for all users, it means less fans are going to see your posts, by default.  How much less?  By analyzing customer data collected in Vitrue’s SRM (Social Relationship Manager) application suite, we’ve determined that, on average, there are approximately 57% less interactions and 30% less clicks on wall posts.  By interactions we mean likes and comments. This analysis compared multiple categories of posts from the 3 weeks prior to the change versus one week after the change and covered multiple Vitrue clients.

Why is this happening?

According to many industry insiders, including Justin Smith @ Inside Facebook, the algorithm which determines the content included in an individual user’s pre-filtered news feed takes into account the following:

- How many people (and especially your friends) comment on and like stories from Pages you’re a fan of
- Which Pages you visit frequently
- Which Pages you interact with frequently

With this change, it appears Facebook is adopting an “earned placement model” similar to Google search, at least with regards to this new default pre-filtered view.  Users that like the real-time “live feed” view can always change to it very easily and leave that as their default, but it’s likely a significant portion of users will continue to use the default served up to them by Facebook (as demonstrated by the 57% reduction in interactions measured by Vitrue SRM).

Another interesting element is that pages you frequently visit and interact with are more likely to appear again in your news feed.  This makes sense that your news feed would have items Facebook “thinks” are more relevant for you, but it also means Facebook is encouraging brand pages to have fans to visit their brand page instead of leaving Facebook for external sources through wall posts. There is also what appears to be a “Catch-22″ when it comes to earning more engagement on a wall post to earn placement in the pre-filtered news feed.  How do you get engagement on a wall post if users never see it in the first place in order to engage with it?

So, what do I do now?

All this is definitely encouraging page owners to create higher quality content which begs to be engaged with, which will keep users coming back for more interactions and more page visits, within the Facebook ecosystem.   How do you know what’s higher quality content? Facebook has a generic “post quality” rating they introduced this year which is a directional indicator of all of your posts.  But if you’re looking for more detailed information, the Vitrue SRM provides comprehensive information on click-throughs, comments, likes and moderation capabilities to analyze each post in detail.

Joe DiMaggio's Glove, attribution to Glenda Bautista link to http://glenda.be/

Baseball is a game of numbers.  We might talk about A-Rod’s game winning home run like we talk about that hilarious television advert we saw during the Super Bowl, but in this business we know that good advertising and marketing requires more than a big hit. The front office achieves results by analyzing reams of data and getting the right folks to assess needs, fill the right positions, and make the right changes at the right time. Having money to spend doesn’t hurt either.

And so, I started to dig into the tools we use to analyze social buzz around this fantastic east coast World Series matchup. Would the buzz trends end up being an accurate reflection of the outcome?

Then I thought, “That’s no fun. Besides, everybody hates the Yankees. And everyone in LA? Well, I can imagine they’re tweeting about the Lakers these days, and just pretending they didn’t get their butts handed to them this October.” Using the Vitrue SMI, The Yanks win for overall buzz, as phrases like “Yankees win the World Series” are more prevalent,  but they also win in the “sucks” category. No surprise there.  Let’s face it: position by position, it’s a tossup. Cold hard baseball data doesn’t tell us much more for this matchup. It’s going to be a close series, folks.

What might be more interesting is to dig into their personalities a little more. After all, every baseball aficionado knows that personalities are what make a team – not bloated salaries (OK…so the Yankees have both).

So I did a little digging into which Yanks and which Phils are engaging the most with their fans. Apologies for missing anyone, but here are the most active Twitterers I came across who are playing in the series, along with their followers:

Nick Swisher: @NickSwisher – over 1 million followers
CC Sabathia: @CC_Sabathia –  over 34,000 followers
Chad Durbin: @chaddurbin – over 5,100 followers (he points to @ShowcaseU now)
Jorge Posada: @newjorgeposada – 4,000 followers
Brad Lidge:  @bradlidge -192followers
Chien-Ming Wang (on the DL): @ChienMingWang - 970 followers

Jamie Moyer may not be playing for the Phils in the series, but he is also using Twitter to promote philanthropy with The Moyer Foundation – a non-profit he runs to benefit children in extreme stress, including bereavement camps. You can find him at @moyerfoundation. Nice work Jamie!

Jamie Moyer isn’t the only one using Twitter to promote a cause or a business. Chad Durbin is promoting his sports recruiting business, Showcase U, while Jorge Posada is promoting a book and a community around keeping fit. Nick Swisher is selling T-Shirts and other gear for a number of charities via Swish’s Wishes, dedicated to “enriching lives and lifting the spirits of children who are facing vital health issues”.

I think I’m going to follow these guys and keep an eye on their tweets. I don’t expect anything earth shattering, nor controversial, though. It’s also great to know that some of these guys are doing some great charity and community work.

With Vitrue’s marquee clients helping to drive our product road map, we are releasing new key functionality of the Vitrue Social Relationship Manager (SRM) - Facebook Wall  Moderation.  The Vitrue SRM now provides easy, powerful and comprehensive Facebook wall moderation by seamlessly integrating flagged items through a brand’s administrative dashboard.  All user comments are screened continuously and flagged if matches are found with one of the thousands of terms in our language filter.  Since we started Vitrue in 2006, “brand safety” has been a key cornerstone to our company strategy.  Providing scalable management technology to brands for photo and video contests, testimonial story uploads, and now things like Facebook Wall comments has, and will continue to be, a major focus for us.

Not only does our moderation allow for flagging of inappropriate keywords and keyword phrases, but it can also be customized on a per client basis for competitive, management and product findings.  Administrators can take action from the dashboard to delete immediately, assign for follow up or visit the wall where the comment took place for context review. This enhancement will allow the largest marketers in the world with global reach to instantaneously understand what is being said about their brand and perhaps equally important, proactively filter and remove unwanted messages like hate and profanity that may be damaging to a brand experience.

Just one year ago, we were helping brands manage fan pages that totaled 100,000 or so fans.  Today, we are currently managing pages that combine for over 10,000,000 fans marking a 100-fold increase. On top of that, our systems are managing social activity on a global scale “across the pond” so think about the transactional horse-power we are working on here. This explosive fan growth, which creates hundreds of millions of comments and social actions, requires world-class technology solutions which scale to meet the unique needs of brand marketers who want to encourage authentic conversations on Facebook but need safeguards to protect brand integrity.   I am proud to be working on such a platform.

Coupled with the  Facebook Moderation release in the new Vitrue SRM, other upgrades include augmenting comment and like counts on a per post basis, a powerful level of detail for marketers to draw learnings of what is resonating most with their fan base.  Also included is the integration of third party analytics providers such as Google Analytics and Omniture as well as reporting refinements that now include hourly and monthly views of a post’s click through.  These analytical views will help marketers evaluate the response curve by time to day and determine the optimal time for their messaging, as well as give insight to post-click activity.  Again, tremendous benefits for our marketer and agency friends.

As always, if you are interesting in learning more, just drop us a line or go to The Vitrue SRM to request information.

This version includes Facebook Wall Moderation, allowing clients to review/remove posts, and comments and flags/highlights inappropriate content with a language filter. This is one of the most anticipated features and adds tremendous amount of value to our product.

I am also excited to announce the inclusion of Twitter Pages in this release. As covered in “Mashable” today, we are excited to bring this innovation to the market.

We created Twitter Pages because we believe marketers need to harness the tremendous power and velocity of brand conversations on Twitter. With Twitter Pages, marketers now have the tools to create an launch a Twitter Page that hosts an asset to shape a conversation around – from video to photos to audio tracks.

Twitter Pages gives marketers a branded environment where they can set the tone. Here is a simple analogy I wanted to share to help explain the product.

Best Buy Twitter Page

The best part about a party is the conversation – without it – the party would be pretty boring. To have a party, you need to have a destination so people know where to gather to celebrate. Much like a party, Twitter Pages are designed to give marketers a quick and powerful way to set up a branded environment, theme to talk about and viral ability to share conversation within users own Twitter-verse. Check out our official product release here and let us know what you think about creating a brandable Twitter conversation.

In addition to moderation and Twitter Pages, The Vitrue SRM now supports 3rd party tracking codes (like Google Analytics & Omniture) allowing clients to see even more detailed web statistics on every click or Twitter Page.

Contact us today to learn more about the Vitrue SRM and how it makes social media marketing easy.

By establishing a comprehensive Facebook hub that is filled with information, Yoplait is helping empower and inform women as well as provide them the tools virally educate and raise awareness within their own social circles.

The campaign’s creative touts a strong message in a fun, sassy and truly all-girl manner of “Know Your Girls”.

The comprehensive Facebook presence enables women to connect and share through four different applications, all of which integrate into the publisher feature of a user’s wall enabling their social actions to organically spread and create awareness.

Yoplait Pledge - Know Your Girls

The pledge tab asks young women to “pledge” to get to know their body through education and awareness.  For each pledge executed, Yoplait will donate 10 cents to  the Susan G. Komen for the Cure® for research on young women. For every pledge received by October 31, 2009, Yoplait will donate 10 cents to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, up to $100,000.

The “Your Girls” tab allows you to add a photo of “Your Girls” as an empowering, proud and oh-so-sassy statement. No need to worry – no boys allowed – this is a gender-gated Facebook application.

Yoplait Lower Risk - Know Your Girls

The “Lower Risk” tab, provides fun and educational messages that can be downloaded and printed or shared with friends on Facebook.

The “Quiz” asks users a series of questions to test their knowledge of breast cancer and prevention and displays key facts after each answer to help expand knowledge.

The wall posts coming show the unified passion for a cure and each message provides another unique face and inspiring story behind the ongoing fight against breast cancer.

It’s our hope that this page and its message continue to grow and be shared throughout Facebook’s vast community.  And, hopefully, with programs like Yoplait’s “Know Your Girls”, that one day every woman will be empowered through education and awareness to take a stand against breast cancer.

This initiative is especially near and dear to my heart as my mother is a breast cancer survivor, and I know first-hand how early detection—through awareness, education and empowerment—can save your life and the lives of those you love.

Help us spread the word.

Kellogg Cares - Feeding America

This summer we were proud to announce our partnership with Kellogg, Facebook and Ashton Kutcher’s production company, Katalyst – for the Kellogg Cares initiative in support of Feeding America. 

We are now happy to say that the program has won a Sammy Award for “Best Social Good Contribution” from digiday for overall excellence and breakthrough achievement in social advertising, media and marketing. 

We hope that you can check out the Facebook presence and help us continue to raise awareness for this important cause.  As we stated before, by simply fanning the page or offering a comment your actions have a powerful and critical ripple effect.

The new tagging features make it easy for a user to link to any friend, page, group or event by using the @ function and choosing from a provided list (drop down determined by your friends, pages, groups and event).

The new functionality is powerful and I wanted to break down the opportunity for brands in particular.

As a user, a post now becomes more interactive when I call out a brand by using the @ symbol before their name.  By using the @ symbol, the brand name is then automatically hyperlinked to their page, making it easy for my friends to navigate to it.

Facebook Status Tagging User Example

Your post then appears in the feed of all your friends and is also posted on the brand wall:

Facebook Status Tagging User Comment on Brand Wall

Result for brands: Now much easier way for a fan to talk to a brand without having to go to the brand page and still provides the same viral benefits by sending the comment to my friends.

Additionally, as Inside Facebook cites, “Page managers will now have a major new channel for tracking comments and feedback about their brand or business. Until today, brands have been able to track posts and comments made on their Facebook Page directly by fans, as well as search public comments made by Facebook users through Facebook’s new real time search. However, starting today, all @ tags will appear on the wall of the Page as well, even though users never visited the Page. That’s a big deal for Page administrators hoping to gain more insight into how they’re being talked about inside Facebook.”

We are excited about the new tagging feature and how brands will incorporate this new functionality in the way they engage and listen to their most passionate consumers.