Between privacy issues, a sweaty CEO and technical problems with its “Like” buttons Facebook is having a rough time lately. But Facebook Pages remain a key audience development and content promotion opportunity for publishers so it is important to make the most of them. A good way to enhance Facebook Pages is by using Static FBML to customize tabs for an improved visual experience and greater functionality.

I have seen plenty of blog posts and conference presentations on how to utilize Static FBML but I rarely see news sites highlighted among the examples of good usage. So I thought I’d take a look at a selection of news organizations to see how many are taking advantage of FBML.

The short answer? Not so many. I revisited the 25 pages covered in Which News Sites Have the Most Valuable Facebook Pages? and found that the majority are making little or no use of Static FBML. There are a handful of examples however that are worth pointing out.

The Economist

The Economist has multiple customized tabs for subscription, featured articles and a news quiz:

Fox News

Fox News offers a more visual and interactive experience through its “Fun Stuff” tab:

Chicago Tribune

Chicago Tribune uses a welcome tab to highlight sections and features from its main site:

Yahoo! News

Compare the Fox News and Chicago Tribune tabs to Yahoo! News‘ welcome tab, which could certainly use a bit more pizzazz:

To be fair Yahoo! News is just using the welcome tab to establish some rules of conduct. But I think there is a middle ground between the Fox News and Yahoo! News tabs that would work well for most organizations.

The New York Times

I did not see any custom tabs on The New York Times page this week but in the past they have added them for major events such as the Winter Olympics:

Newsweek and Time

In going through the Facebook Pages I also noticed that several organizations are utilizing professional applications from Involver for things like Twitter and news feed integration, as seen in these examples from Newsweek and Time:

I don’t know much about Involver but it looks like they offer some good options for companies that prefer to outsource.

So the bottom line is that news organizations are dabbling with Static FBML on their Facebook Pages but few are doing anything that is noteworthy. Much of what I came across will not be particularly compelling to users or do much to drive repeat visits.

News sites have a big advantage over other companies on Facebook because they regularly produce breaking news and other forms of quality content that can be featured on their pages and placed in user news feeds. So perhaps they have less of a need to add extra bells and whistles. But the average Facebook user is only going to “Like” so many news pages so it is important to offer a strong user experience and stand out from the competition.

For more information on using Static FBML check out:

• How to Customize Your Facebook Page Using Static FBML
• How To Create the Perfect Facebook Fan Page
• Facebook Static FBML FAQ / Tutorial

Related posts:

1. Which News Sites Have the Most Valuable Facebook Pages?
2. Facebook Pages: Which News Sites Get the Most Engagement?
3. News Sites on Twitter: Who is Making the Most Impact?

Maintaining a Facebook Page is now a fundamental part of most news organizations’ social media presence. News sites utilize Facebook Pages to increase brand visibility, promote content, interact with users and drive traffic back to their main sites. But how much are these pages really worth to them, and which news sites are getting the most value for their efforts?

Only the news organizations themselves can fully answer that question; their own analytics data combined with internal estimates of the value of fans and various actions will paint the clearest picture. But when I came across Vitrue’s new Social Page Evaluator I thought it would be interesting to compare ballpark valuation figures for selection of major news sites.

The Social Page Evaluator (SPE) provides an estimated “Annual Page Value” for any single Facebook Page based on the last 30 days of activity. According to its disclaimer the SPE factors in fan count, user activity, brand activity and “a proprietary engagement multiplier” and then calculates an “Earned Media Value” using a default CPM of $5. The CPM can be adjusted between $1 and $25.

While the methodology and accuracy can be debated the tool does offer way to make a relative comparison of various Facebook Pages, so that is all I am attempting to do.

Here is a ranking of major news organization Facebook Pages based on activity in the last 30 days and using the default $5 CPM:

CNN earns the #1 spot by a considerable margin but The New York Times, Fox News and NPR also have impressive valuations.

In looking at the table, total number of fans certainly plays a large role but posts and interactions matter too. Fox News getting 67,808 interactions from just 41 posts is impressive, although the quality of those interactions is not measured. I had previously pointed out the high level of engagement that Fox News gets on its Facebook page; this data supports that further.

Additional Notes

I also wanted to point out a few things that I noticed while doing the analysis.

CBS News and Reuters are the only two news organizations in the group that have not created a short, customized URL for their page (e.g. www.facebook.com/nytimes):

That is a missed opportunity.

While on Facebook, the page URL shown to users in the browser changes radically depending on how it was navigated to. For example when I went to the CNN page by searching “CNN” while on the Fox News page I ended up on this URL:

There are multiple combinations that can occur. If you paste those funky URLs into a new browser tab they redirect to a better URL (in the CNN example www.facebook.com/cnn?ref=ts). But it is still not the main URL for the page and the redirects themselves do not appear to be permanent.

Also for Facebook Pages that were set with capital letters in the name (e.g. www.facebook.com/TheEconomist) the lower case version has a 302 redirect:

The same is true for capitalized URLs that were set in lower case.

So to minimize user confusion and maximize inbound links to the actual Facebook Page URL it is a good idea to display the main URL in a couple places on the page.

Some organizations do this on their Info tab:

Related posts:

1. Facebook Pages: Which News Sites Get the Most Engagement?
2. News Sites Not Making Much Use of Static FBML on Facebook Pages
3. A Closer Look at Fan Engagement on the Fox News Facebook Page

So Lebron and Kobe may (or may not) be heading towards a much-hyped NBA Finals matchup, but the real question on fans’ minds is: Which NBA playoff teams have the most user engagement on their Facebook Pages?

Ok fans could care less about that, but for myself and some sports and social media marketers out there it’s an interesting question.

In my post on the most popular NBA teams on Twitter and Facebook (and the more recent one on MLB teams) I looked strictly at the following each team has built up. This time I’ll compare user engagement on each team’s Facebook page.

With the second round of the playoffs recently under way I thought now was a good time to pull the numbers since all 16 teams were still recently active. So I checked the number of likes and comments for each team’s last 10 updates. I was going to go back to the first day of the playoffs but that turned out to be quite a few updates, so I’m using 10 as a representative sample.

I realize that counting likes and comments is a very limited measurement of engagement but it offers a simple way to compare user activity on each team’s Facebook Page.

So here are the 16 NBA playoff teams ranked by the average number of likes and comments on their last 10 updates (through Monday night prior to the start of any games):

The Lakers are dominating but more fans mean more opportunities for engagement so they do have an advantage. Denver makes a strong showing at #2 despite having fewer fans than four other teams. Orlando having a long lay-off between the first and second rounds had a negative impact on their numbers. Their most recent 10 updates got limited feedback but the 10 before that fared much better.

Oklahoma City was a surprise at #15; I expected them to do better after their impressive effort in the first round. The Charlotte Bobcats came in last – unless they can get Michael Jordan to start making updates they’ve got their work cut out for them.

So what types of updates drew the most user feedback? Here are the wall posts that received the most likes for each team:

Related posts:

1. The Most Popular NBA Teams on Twitter and Facebook
2. Facebook Pages: Which News Sites Get the Most Engagement?
3. A Closer Look at Fan Engagement on the Fox News Facebook Page

There has been a lot of news and reaction around Facebook’s new additions to the Facebook Platform: Social Plugins, the Open Graph protocol and the Graph API. News and content sites are a natural fit for participation and Facebook is encouraging news site adoption by showcasing sites that are already experimenting with it. So I thought I’d take a look at some early examples of Facebook Open Graph integration on news sites.

(You can jump to the end for the Takeaways).

The Huffington Post

The Huffington Post has added a “Hot on Facebook” module to its home page and in a sidebar on posts:

I like this and think it will do a good job of encouraging user clicks, similar to the Digg widget that has worked well on news sites. Seeing that stories have been liked thousands of times certainly caught my interest.

They have also added the Like button to their post template:

At least to-date a prominent Share button is still present too. Users may be unsure which button to use, and since the like and share numbers are different it creates the impression of things being out of sync (even though they are two different things). Add in the Facebook chiclet below the headline and I’d say they are going a little overboard:

I’m also not sure why the Hot on Facebook module shows 4,241 likes while the post itself shows only 1,363.

Time.com

Time.com is selectively applying the Like button in the “Must Reads” module on its home page:

It is not clear why in this particular case only one of four stories has the button. And interestingly when you click through on that story the Like button does not appear on the page:

Since this is a blog post it is likely that Time just hasn’t rolled out integration across all editorial templates yet.

The Like button does appear on their article template:

But at least on my computer it was a little slow to load, and once loaded it added some extra white space before the start of the editorial text. Like The Huffington Post there are also competing Facebook buttons at work.

The Washington Post

The Washington Post is using Facebook to create a branded featured called Network News that takes the form of a small widget on their home page and on editorial templates:

This looks like a nice, simple, useful integration but apparently it has caused user uproar to the point where they had to add an opt-out feature to the widget (the red X):

Over the weekend the situation was serious enough that they felt the need to feature an article explaining the widget and how to opt-out right at the top of their home page:

CNN.com

CNN.com has a “Friends Activity” module on their home page which shows stories that friends liked and those shared in high volume:

Clicking on “View more friends’ activity” brings up a full page version with more links and friend information:

As for button integration on articles, CNN has decided to go with “recommend” instead of “like”:

It would be interesting to learn what impact that difference in language has on usage.

Takeaways

• At this early stage news sites are still experimenting with various forms of integration, location and functionality. Start simple to see how users respond and measure the impact on Facebook referrals.




• Many users are still unfamiliar with the new offerings and concerns about privacy seem to be a common first reaction. So tread carefully and provide clear instructions, settings and (when relevant) opt-out functionality.




• Consider the impact that Facebook Open Graph protocol integration will have on your existing on-site community features and social functionality. This ReadWriteWeb article is a good resource: Facebook Open Graph: The Definitive Guide For Publishers, Users and Competitors.




• When adding to editorial templates make sure the new Like button compliments any existing Facebook implementations. Avoid button overkill and the potential user confusion that goes with it.




• It is also important to note that the Like button functions differently than the various Share buttons that many sites are already using, and at least in its basic form creates a less compelling output. (See Facebook Like Button Vs. Facebook Share: Why I’m Keeping Both from Danny Sullivan). Using the XFBML version instead of an iFrame allows for more customization.




• Carefully monitor the effect of any integration on page load time. Site speed is now a ranking factor so this impacts SEO as well as usability.




• Not covered in my examples above is the fact that Open Graph protocol can also provide sites with additional reporting data. This Inside Facebook post has the details: With the Open Graph Protocol, Any URL Can Be Treated Just Like a Facebook Page

Related posts:

1. News Sites Not Making Much Use of Static FBML on Facebook Pages
2. Google Buzz and News Sites: Good Potential But Facebook Still the Better Play
3. An Early Look at News Media Twitter Lists: Not Much Traction

A new baseball season is underway and we are in that wonderfully brief period when fans all over the country still believe this could actually be the year for their team. Enjoy it while you can.

But while major market teams have a big advantage in the real game, social media is the great equalizer online, so I thought I’d see which teams have attracted the largest following on Twitter and Facebook. After getting good response to the posts I did on NFL and NBA teams I wanted to add MLB to the mix.

So without further ado here are the 30 Major League Baseball teams, ranked by total number of Twitter followers and Facebook fans:

I’ll add the usual caveats: these numbers change very quickly but I find taking a snapshot at various points useful for comparison (perhaps I’ll update this at the All Star break and the end of the season). And of course social media is not a popularity contest; it’s how you engage your followers/fans that really matters. But reach has value too and I like to see which teams are faring best in that area.

Baseball is a game of statistics after all, so looking at numbers seems fitting. I could take it further and come up with analogies for batting average and on-base percentage like average tweets per day or retweet percentages, but maybe another time.

Not surprisingly the Yankees and Red Sox are at the top of the standings, although Boston is far behind the Yankees and Phillies in Twitter followers. I believe that playing in the World Series got the Yankees and Phillies added to the previous version of Twitter’s Suggested Users list, which is likely why their numbers are so much higher.

In looking at the figures above, it is clear that teams are attracting much larger audiences through Facebook than Twitter at this point.

On a different note, if I was the Detroit Tigers I’d get in touch with Facebook. While the Tigers fan page has 248k+ fans, as of today the only page Facebook search shows for “Detroit Tigers” is an unofficial, outdated page with 841 fans:

Even clicking “See More Results” doesn’t surface the real page – I had to use Google to find it.

As Markus points out in the comments below, the problem with Facebook search and the Detroit Tigers page was actually that I used the misspelling “Detriot” in my search query. Pretty embarrassing. I guess I can salvage things by using this to point out that Facebook search needs to do a better job of understanding the user intent behind common misspellings!

Related posts:

1. The Most Popular NFL Teams on Twitter and Facebook
2. The Most Popular NBA Teams on Twitter and Facebook
3. NBA Playoff Teams Ranked by Facebook Page Engagement

The major search engines are making real-time search a priority, resulting in good visibility opportunities for news sites especially for breaking news. Google, Bing and Yahoo are all experimenting with various forms of real-time results now and making deals with Twitter, Facebook and other social sites. So how can news sites maximize their real-time search visibility?

It should be noted that there many forms of real-time search, including Twitter Search itself and sites like OneRiot, Collecta and Topsy, among others. But in this post I am focusing on real-time results in the major search engines.

First, a quick look at how news content is currently being included in real-time search results.

In its “Latest results” Google blends results from Google News and Google Blog Search with updates from Twitter and Facebook Pages, offering multiple paths in for news and content sites.

For example as news was breaking on the Chile earthquake a couple weeks ago, The New York Times created a Twitter List to pull together the latest information from a variety of sources. The Chile Earthquake list was shared quite a bit on Twitter, causing it to appear frequently in real-time search results.

As this was happening, the real-time results for “earthquake in Chile” (at the time of this screen grab) included both the actual breaking news article and a retweet of @nytimes announcing the List, creating a double impression:

Editorial content is even more prominent on Bing Twitter, where the “Top links shared in Tweets” get a dedicated place on the page and remain there for longer periods of time. To-date the top links for many queries tend to be news sites as seen in this example for “NCAA tournament”:

In this particular case The New York Times was not included in the top links section but it did appear in the regular tweet stream. The fact that Bing identifies the source of any shortened URL helps credible news sources to stand out, particularly in the top links section where the domain for each link is referenced four times.

The opportunity is more limited on Yahoo, with real-time results limited to two tweets featured in the Twitter tab of the “Latest News” box:

However links to news content are often included in the highlighted tweets and Yahoo plans to incorporate more real-time content soon.

Real-time Search Optimization

As can be seen, news sites have some real advantages in competing for real-time search visibility particularly in Google and Bing. News organizations can quickly gain multiple listings and sustain them for a period of time through user retweets. This combined with the fact that well-known, trusted sources stand out from the clutter increases the likelihood of getting clicks.

So what can news sites do to maximize their visibility in real-time search?

• Monitor hot topics and trends to understand what users are searching for and talking about




• Add keyword support to tweets and updates and utilize hashtags




• Coordinate content promotion activities, timing tweets and Facebook Page updates for shortly after articles and blog posts are indexed in Google News or Google Blog Search




• Mobilize fans and followers through active engagement to foster an influx of tweets, shares and links to content, particularly from authoritative users. This helps to keep the content in the real-time stream and to establish it as a top shared link




• Act quickly – real-time search opportunities don’t stick around for long

These steps are pretty straightforward but the nature of real-time search also creates challenges. Here are some additional things to keep in mind:

• True real-time results happen in the moment and are fleeting, so it is difficult to sustain visibility. I had difficulty keeping up just to grab screenshots for this post (fortunately both Google and Bing have a “pause” button)




• The engines are still in a testing and experimentation phase, so real-time is not being strongly promoted yet and many users are not even aware it exists




• A recent eye tracking study from Oneupweb showed that user engagement with real-time search results is still limited, although it fared better with users looking for news content




• In terms of tracking there is not currently a simple way to separate real-time referrals from other Google, Bing or Yahoo search referrals. Tom Critchlow of Distilled offered some potential workarounds in a recent SEOMoz post, but it’s not an easy process right now. Tracking data from URL shorteners like Bit.ly can help to paint a clearer picture

If you have any additional tips or observations, I’d love to learn them. What are you doing to increase the real-time search visibility of your content?

UPDATE:
Some new developments: Google is now including “Top Links” with its real-time results and is allowing users to zoom in and “replay” tweets from specific dates and times. And Bing is experimenting with blending Twitter results into its main Web results.

Related posts:

1. Free Tools for Monitoring Hot Search Trends
2. Google News Optimization Tips
3. How to Identify Your Own Top Trends

For my presentation on Twitter Marketing Tactics at SMX West this week I wanted to get a sense of just how much traffic Twitter is driving to major news sites. So I conducted an informal poll of 10 US newspaper and magazine sites that Define works with or I am friendly with.

The surveyed group included a mix of sites covering general and breaking news as well as specific topics such as lifestyle, sports or entertainment. Most organizations prefer to keep their figures private so I’m not able to share the actual sites but they are all well-known brands. I looked at referral data for 2008, 2009 and 2010 to-date and for comparison also included Facebook and Digg.

So what percentage of total site traffic came from Twitter and the other social sites? Here are the group averages:

To-date in 2010 Twitter represents an average of 0.7% of total site traffic.

10 newspaper and magazines sites is not a sufficient sample so take this survey for what it is, but the data does provide a rough idea of what major publishers are experiencing. Among the surveyed sites the highest Twitter percentage was 2.9% but the majority fell below 1%. The highs for Facebook and Digg were 2% and 7.2% respectively. The Digg percentages varied the most with straight news sites faring best.

Some notes:

• While all of the surveyed sites have some form of social media strategy none of them are doing as much as they could be. So these figures represent the experiences of typical news sites, not ones that have fully dialed in SMM.




• Despite the low percentages, to-date this year Twitter and Facebook are top 25 referrers for all of the sites and top 10 referrers for most. It is interesting that a top 10 referrer can represent such a small percentage of total site traffic. But since total monthly traffic for most of the group is in the millions, tens of millions or more those small percentages do represent substantial numbers. And if social media is bringing in traffic that the sites might not have otherwise received that’s a nice bump.




• Well-established brands still get a large portion of their traffic via direct navigation. Among the sites surveyed the figures ranged from 30-60%. Partnerships with other large content sites and cross-network promotions were another major driver.




• Natural search engine referrals ranged from about 10% to over 40% and Google.com was the #1 or #2 referring domain for nearly every site. So despite all the attention that social media deservedly gets, search is still its daddy.




• It is interesting that Digg is trending down this year. Not every site in the group was a natural fit for Digg and we are still in Q1 2010 so it is difficult to draw any strong conclusions. But even among the sites that do very well in Digg the numbers have dropped.

REQUEST:

I’d like to expand the size of the survey group, so if any newspaper or magazine professionals out there are willing to share their percentages it will be much appreciated. You can contact me via this form or direct message me on Twitter. Your anonymity will be maintained. Alternatively if anyone is willing to share their figures publicly please leave a comment below. Thanks!

Related posts:

1. Social Media Visitors More Loyal But Still a Very Small Percentage of Site Traffic
2. Hitwise Reports News and Media’s Share of Search-Referred Traffic Declining
3. The Most Popular MLB Teams on Twitter and Facebook

Google Buzz has certainly gotten a lot of attention in the past week be it for privacy concerns, suggestions for improvements or its “Code Red” push to get things right. But at this early stage, how strong are the marketing opportunities for news sites?

Sharing and discussing content is a key component of Google Buzz, so it’s a natural fit for article promotion and audience development. At a minimum news sites should set up an official profile and experiment with “buzz this” buttons on their templates.

Mashable was one of the first to set up a branded profile and they’ve done well in attracting more than 18K followers to date, although at least for now they are not choosing to follow their audience back:

Despite this their followers are actively engaging with the content; many Mashable submissions are getting a decent number of “likes” and comments:

I wouldn’t expect this to be driving significant traffic yet but as Google Buzz adoption and usage grows the traffic will grow with it.

To what degree that happens depends on how well Google does at improving the interface and functionality. Outside of the privacy issues, most of the current criticism lies with the fact that Buzz is simply too busy and overwhelming. Adding more filtering and organization options will help, and continuing to (safely and appropriately) tie it with Gmail will give Buzz a major leg up on services like Friendfeed that never made it mainstream.

But will it ever catch up with Facebook? That’s a much tougher road, because Facebook has done a great job of gaining adoption across a wide range of demographics. And while there are many improvements that could be made to the interface, Facebook Pages offer a clean, simple way for news sites to promote their content and interact with readers. Facebook itself is making a push to get users to create personalized news channels that benefit both users and news sites.

So at least for now Facebook is the much stronger play.

Related posts:

1. Does Google Want Brands in Your Social Circle?
2. Google Social Search: Are You in Your Target Audiences’ Social Circles?
3. An Early Look at News Media Twitter Lists: Not Much Traction

So the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints will meet in Miami for Super Bowl XLIV. NFL analysts and sports writers now have two weeks to dissect the matchup, talk about players and schemes and come up with good storylines. But I’m here to look at what really matters – which team has more reach via social media?

Now we all know that social media isn’t a numbers game – it’s not just about reach, it’s about making the most of your connections. Furthermore it’s not possible to fully quantify reach across all social media, especially since that brings up the discussion of what should or shouldn’t be considered “social media.” So I’m going to gloss over all of that and just look at four things, one for each quarter in the Super Bowl.

1st Quarter: Blog mentions
Two days after the conference championships, which team is being blogged about more?

Google Blog Search has 519,933 total results for “Indianapolis Colts” and 20,776 in the past week. For “New Orleans Saints” it’s 726,855 total and 31,215 in the past week.

On Icerocket the Colts have 24,526 total / 2,466 past week, and the Saints have 29,603 total / 3,666 past week.

And Technorati is showing 4,973 posts related to the Colts and 6,178 for the Saints.

Advantage: SAINTS

_________________

2nd Quarter: Digg
Ok, which team has seen the most activity on Digg? According to Digg’s search tool 1,549 Colts articles have been submitted, with only eight being promoted to the front page and three receiving more than 500 diggs. That compares with 1,645 articles submitted, 11 promoted and two with 500+ diggs for the Saints.

Advantage: SAINTS

…At the half, the Saints head into the locker room ahead. Can Peyton Manning and the Colts pull out another come from behind victory?

_________________

3rd Quarter: Facebook
Facebook offers one of the best ways for teams to engage with their fan base, so which team is making the most of it? As of today the Colts’ official Facebook page has 249,481 fans and their wall posts are getting a good amount of “likes” and comments. But from what I can see, and I searched with both Facebook and Google, the Saints do not have an official page. There are several unofficial pages, the largest one with 368,365 fans, but since the Saints appear to be missing the opportunity to engage Facebook users in an official capacity, this is a major fumble.

Advantage: COLTS

_________________

4th Quarter: Twitter
It gets worse on Twitter – from what I can see neither team has an official profile. So here we’ve got the equivalent of one team throwing an interception and then the other giving it right back.

There are several unofficial Twitter profiles for each team run by fans and media sites, but I could not find any official accounts. @NOScom comes close for the Saints, but this appears to be run by the people managing the team’s website, not the team itself. (Please correct me if I’m wrong).

Too bad the teams aren’t choosing to directly engage their fans via Twitter.

How about the players? Twitter-athletes.com currently lists profiles for six Colts players and 15 Saints players. Plus I suppose the Saints can count Kim Kardashian as a “spokesperson” of sorts.

So the Saints have a small edge here, but without an official presence from either team I’m calling this quarter a tie.

Advantage: NONE

_________________

WINNER:

Despite what looked like a Colts comeback, after a poor 4th quarter by both teams the winner of the Social Media Super Bowl is:

THE NEW ORLEANS SAINTS

It’ll be interesting to see how these figures increase as the hype builds over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully we’ll see some creative use of social media by both the teams and some of the players. And good luck to both teams in Super Bowl XLIV.

P.S. Vikings fans, I feel your pain. You had it.

Photo credit: Steven Snodgrass (it’s a Creative Commons photo on Flickr, but I couldn’t get WordPress to link to it directly above).

Related posts:

1. The Most Popular NFL Teams on Twitter and Facebook
2. The Most Popular NBA Teams on Twitter and Facebook
3. My Top 10 Posts of 2009 on News Media, SEO and Social Media

Want to use your Facebook Page to build out your mailing list? Alicia Keys knows how to do it.

Users who go to the “Sign Up” tab on her Facebook Page get a personal appeal from Alicia Keys herself, extolling the virtues of her mailing list. Here’s how the video appears on the sign-up form (watch it here):

(click on the image to enlarge)

I have no idea what kind of following she’s built up, but this direct, multimedia approach is certainly increasing the conversion rate on the form. Users who sign up see a second video with a thank you message from Keys.

Now not every business will have as engaging a representative, but that does not mean a personal video appeal isn’t applicable beyond celebrity. The key takeaway: the more ways you can bring your Facebook Pages to life, the better.

I noticed that in addition to the email list users can sign up for text and voice updates via mobile phone. Perhaps for that Alicia Keys should adopt the same style as she did in her Saturday Night Live digital short:

Just saying.

Related posts:

1. Videos in Press Releases are Cool – If They Provide Meaningful Content
2. The Most Popular NBA Teams on Twitter and Facebook
3. Pro PR Tips: 100 PR Tips from Rafe Needleman Published as a Book

NBA players, like many professional athletes, have taken social media by storm, but what about their teams? Fans love hearing directly from players, but they also identify strongly with the teams themselves. Twitter and Facebook offer a great opportunity for NBA teams to connect with their fans in a more personal, interactive way. So which NBA teams have the largest following on Twitter and Facebook, who is making the most of their presence?

I got good response when I looked at the most popular NFL teams on Facebook and Twitter back in November, so today I thought I’d do the same for the NBA.

In the table below the 30 NBA teams are ranked by total followers/fans on their official Twitter accounts and Facebook pages. I realize these figures change quickly, but the snapshot is useful for comparison.

The Lakers and Magic are well ahead in terms of total following, which isn’t surprising considering the popularity of the two teams and their stars, and the fact that both teams were in the Finals last year.

While a number of smaller markets and weaker teams are at the bottom of the list, I didn’t expect to see the Miami Heat down there. They are competitive on Twitter in terms of reach but their lack of a real presence on Facebook sent them down to #28. It doesn’t look like they even have an official page on Facebook; the one with 599 followers was the best that I could find.

But while building up followers is great, it’s what you do with that following that really matters.

So what should NBA teams be doing on Twitter and Facebook? The most important thing is to communicate with the fans, plain and simple. Let them know what’s going on with the team, and more importantly LISTEN to what they have to say.

Beyond that there’s no right or wrong answer, but teams will certainly get a lot more traction by being compelling and interactive. Facebook pages offer a better opportunity for expanded content and extended conversations, but there’s a lot you can do with Twitter too.

A simple thing that many teams do is providing in-game updates via Twitter. As a Bulls fan living outside of Chicago I don’t get to watch many games, but I feel connected to the team when I see a scoring update:

Here are a few other things NBA teams should think about:

• Dish: offer insights and information that fans can’t get anywhere else
• Go behind the scenes: give them sense of what the organization is really like
• Humanize: not just the players, let them get to know the entire organization
• Speaking of players: the more they are involved with the team’s official social media activities, the less likely they’ll be to “go rogue” and say something regrettable on their own profiles
• Multimedia: photos and video bring sports content to life, and social media users love to share them
• Contests and promotions: tickets, gear, autographs, chances to meet players – you can quickly build buzz by giving away the good stuff
• Tie it to the community: let fans see that the team cares about the city and what’s going on there

Now if we could only get the NBA to change the first round playoff series back to five games…

Related posts:

1. The Most Popular NFL Teams on Twitter and Facebook
2. The Most Popular MLB Teams on Twitter and Facebook
3. NBA Playoff Teams Ranked by Facebook Page Engagement

The role of social media in professional sports is getting a lot of attention these days, unfortunately mostly in the form of teams and leagues trying to clamp down on it or players making mistakes with it.

Despite this, fans are passionately supporting and discussing their teams through a range of social media outlets, in particular Twitter and Facebook. Since we’re in the heart of football season, I thought I’d take a look at which NFL teams have the largest following on both sites.

In the table below the 32 NFL teams are ranked by the total number of followers/fans on their official Twitter accounts and Facebook pages. These figures obviously change quickly but this current snapshot is useful for comparison.

Interestingly, despite no official presence on Twitter the Pittsburgh Steelers have the largest reach thanks to their large number of Facebook fans. I was also surprised that the Dallas Cowboys do not have an official Facebook page as they would certainly attract a significant number of fans.

I had expected all the teams to have more followers on Twitter. The San Diego Chargers lead the league with only 28K followers. (UPDATE: Thanks to Mike Blewitt for noticing that it is actually the New England Patriots that have the most Twitter followers at 30K+).

The New Orleans Saints and New York Giants are currently at the bottom of the social media heap with no official presence on either Twitter or Facebook. However an unofficial Saints page is very popular on Facebook with 163,760 fans.

Capturing data on only “official” accounts and pages was actually somewhat difficult (I welcome corrections if I’ve missed any). Twitter is a wild west for NFL teams right now – there are far more unofficial accounts, and even those that that claim to be official aren’t always actually so. Twitter should consider extending its “verified accounts” to team sites as well. On Facebook the official team pages are easier to identify, but they often face competition from other pages created by fans or local media. For several teams the unofficial pages have significantly more fans.

So the main takeaway is that NFL teams need to take better control of their social media presence and come up with more a cohesive engagement strategy. NFL fans are among the most passionate, so there is a great opportunity to leverage their loyalty and enthusiasm and further extend the relationships.

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1. The Most Popular NBA Teams on Twitter and Facebook
2. The Most Popular MLB Teams on Twitter and Facebook
3. Social Media Super Bowl: Which Team Has More Reach?

My post on Facebook Page engagement for news sites has drawn some interest in the fact that Fox News averages many more “likes” and comments per update than any other news site, despite having significantly fewer fans than CNN, NPR or The New York Times. So I thought I’d take a closer look at what Fox News is doing on its Facebook Page, as well as some engagement examples.

After reviewing several days’ worth of activity, I have to say that nearly anything Fox News posts to its page ends up getting a decent amount of likes and comments from fans. Even more mundane news items still manage to spark a round of commenting. So it seems to me that it is the strong, passionate opinions of the fans themselves more than anything specific that Fox News is doing.

That said Fox News does attempt to solicit fan opinions, particularly on more controversial topics, which certainly helps to encourage participation:

Referencing political figures that are known to generate strong reactions from their user base is also working for them:

As for the type and quality of comments being posted, I’ll share this sampling of today’s comments on Barak Obama’s address to the UN General Assembly and let you make your own assessment:

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1. Facebook Pages: Which News Sites Get the Most Engagement?
2. NBA Playoff Teams Ranked by Facebook Page Engagement
3. Newsweek Cares about (some of) your Tweets. Fox News Not so Much.

Now that the improved Facebook Pages have been around for a while I wanted to check the level of engagement that major news sites are achieving with them.

Most news sites have an official Facebook Page now, with the typical approach being to add a daily stream of links to new content while promoting site features, apps, feeds, etc. in the sidebars and subpages. Some news sites are supplementing content links with direct questions and comments to users, but this does not appear to be happening in any significant volume.

Using a sampling of 15 16 news sites, I captured the total number of fans on their Facebook Pages as of today. To judge user engagement and activity, I also calculated the average number of “likes” and comments that the last 10 updates/links to each page received.

CNN currently has the most fans, with The New York Times not too far beyond. Fox News and The Economist have crossed six figures, after which the figures start dropping quickly.

Fox News is strongly ahead in terms of fan engagement and activity – their like and comment numbers are significantly greater than any of the other sites. This is not surprising based on the reactions that Fox News reporting tends to generate from both sides of the political fence.

A couple of notes: The Guardian’s page has only 4 updates total, so their averages are based on a smaller selection. The Daily Telegraph has N/A for likes and comments because they do not appear to posting any updates or links at this time.

UPDATE:
After seeing Matt Gallivan’s comment I added NPR to the table today. They are indeed #2 in terms of total fans (among the group of news sites that I looked at). Their fan engagement figures also rank high.

Related posts:

1. A Closer Look at Fan Engagement on the Fox News Facebook Page
2. Which News Sites Have the Most Valuable Facebook Pages?
3. NBA Playoff Teams Ranked by Facebook Page Engagement

Inside Facebook published some new statistics this week on Facebook’s US audience growth over the last 60 days. Interestingly, users over 55 decreased by 650,000 during this period:

This is a big change from the previous 60 days which had shown considerable growth in that demographic.

I can share anecdotally that my own mother, who is in her early sixties, joined Facebook a few months ago along with a number of her peers. From what I’ve observed she doesn’t necessarily know she’s doing half the time (sorry Mom!), but her and her friends seem to be sticking with it. Email is by far still the preferred tool for online communication and content sharing in her age group, but social media is beginning to make inroads.

Let’s see what they make of Google Wave.

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Today Newsweek offered live streaming of Jon Meacham’s interview with Treasury Security Tim Geithner on its Facebook page. This is a good example of how publishers are attempting to add more value to their official pages on social media sites, which is certainly needed as many of the pages are still fairly one-dimensional.

However in going to the interview page on Facebook after the fact I didn’t see any links to the recorded video of the interview that has been published on Newsweek.com. (The video is not currently available on Facebook). The large graphic links to the home page, and the “More from Newsweek” links point to other content:

Hosting the video on Newsweek.com is a good idea because long-term that’s where you want users and search engines to access it. But it’s also really important to direct Facebook users who may come looking for it to the right place. I’d imagine the “Geithner Interview” tab won’t stay on their Facebook page for too long, so it’ll be important to include a link on the main tab for a while as well.

UPDATE:
Last night Newsweek added a wrap-up article to the page where the video was posted on their site, and linked to it in a wall post on their Facebook page:

The wall post will quickly move down the list, but in the short-term it will help people who come looking for the video.

2ND UPDATE:
Some time later on the Facebook interview page, the “Thanks for Watching the Live Q&A!” graphic (shown above) was changed to “Miss the Live Interview? Watch the Video on the New Newsweek.com”, which links to the video on the Newsweek site. Glad to see this was addressed, and hopefully they didn’t lose too many visitors during the critical early period when people were actively seeking out the interview.

Related posts:

1. Newsweek on Tumblr: Good Effort, Needs More Engagement
2. Video Interview: Rupert Murdoch Doesn’t Like Search So Much
3. Newsweek Cares about (some of) your Tweets. Fox News Not so Much.