I don’t know why I’ve been making Facebook out to be some angelic, internet superhero that could accomplish anything that advertisers need. According to a story by Limited Pressing, a small ecommerce company, Facebook is anything but honest to their advertisers, or at least this one in particular. Apparently, Facebook has not been so clean cut about their advertising methods, and their negotiating skills need a bit of work too. Based on this story, my opinion of Facebook is totally shot, now knowing what they truly do behind the scenes of their bullshit blog posts.

Limited Pressing is a company that was gave Facebook advertising a try, as they thought, with such a popular network, advertising with them would be perfect. The thing is, I don’t think Facebook should have ever been used for advertising. Sure they’ve done well for a lot of their advertising customers, but apparently they have been screwing over others. Limited Pressing started to notice that the amount of clicks they were paying for and the amount of clicks that they could verify were not matching up. After some research, they found that 80% of their clicks that they were charged for were from those who did not have JavaScript enabled.

Usually, the amount of clicks without JavaScript enabled equaled out to around 1-2%, but nowhere near 80%. So, Limited Pressing took further action by installing a page logger that kept track of each time a page was loaded.

What they found was that the astonishing 80% of clicks that couldn’t be accounted for were coming from bots.

A couple months ago, when we were preparing to launch the new Limited Run, we started to experiment with Facebook ads. Unfortunately, while testing their ad system, we noticed some very strange things. Facebook was charging us for clicks, yet we could only verify about 20% of them actually showing up on our site.

At first, we thought it was our analytics service. We tried signing up for a handful of other big name companies, and still, we couldn’t verify more than 15-20% of clicks. So we did what any good developers would do. We built our own analytic software. Here’s what we found: on about 80% of the clicks Facebook was charging us for, JavaScript wasn’t on. And if the person clicking the ad doesn’t have JavaScript, it’s very difficult for an analytics service to verify the click. What’s important here is that in all of our years of experience, only about 1-2% of people coming to us have JavaScript disabled, not 80% like these clicks coming from Facebook.

So we did what any good developers would do. We built a page logger. Any time a page was loaded, we’d keep track of it. You know what we found? The 80% of clicks we were paying for were from bots. That’s correct. Bots were loading pages and driving up our advertising costs.

“Bots were loading pages and driving up our advertising costs.” They stated that they did not blame Facebook, but from another point of view it’s hard to see who else could benefit from clicks that weren’t genuine. Now, it seems hard to believe that Facebook would stoop so damn low, but money can make people do some pretty terrible things.

As I continued to read, thinking I’d heard the worst of what Facebook had done to one of their customers, Limited Pressing continued to explain how Facebook apparently held their name hostage. The company simply wanted to change their name in the advertisements, as the company had changed its name. Facebook was willing to make the name change, as long as the company agreed to $2,000 worth of advertising. How the hell could Facebook expect a company to agree to such an ultimatum when all they were looking for was a slight alteration in their advertisements? “So we did what any good hardcore kids would do. We cursed that piece of shit out! Damn we were so pissed. We still are. This is why we need to delete this page and move away from Facebook.”

I can’t blame them, as I’m sure anyone can’t. If this is the way Facebook does business with loyal advertisers, then they aren’t worth the money. In the words of Limited Pressing, “They’re scumbags and we just don’t have the patience for scumbags.” This kind of thing is hard to ignore, so my advice would be to put Facebook a bit lower on your priority list. There are other platforms that can bring similar results without putting you through any of the struggle that Limited Pressing went through.

If you want to read their full story, you can find it here.

—–
No Bullshit Network? NAM Offers

Even though Google+ has been improving more each day that passes, Google is known as being a little bit behind in the line of social marketing. We know that, and so do they, which is why they’ve been focusing on their social marketing strategies. It’s the reason for Google+’s sudden boosts and Google knows that its social competitors are only going to be improving as well. Google has had success in the past acquiring companies that work with competitors, and things usually work out in that way. Well, today they’ve announced their acquisition of a company that will help them out in social marketing as well as have an advantage on competitors.

Wildfire is a social marketing platform that focuses mostly on Facebook, but also works with Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Google writes on their blog about Wildfire, “Their co-founders, Victoria Ransom and Alain Chuard, launched their startup just four years ago. Since then, they and their team have built a service that helps businesses like Virgin, Cirque du Soleil, Gilt Group and Spotify manage their social efforts across numerous social websites. It’s a platform for brands to manage their pages, apps, tweets, videos, sponsorships, ads, promotions and more, all in one place.”  So, now, along with managing their own social market on Google+, Google has taken over a company that manages social advertising all over the web.

Wildfire has only been around 4 years, but Google apparently saw potential in the company through the sufficient results they’ve seen so far. Google’s goal isn’t only beating out competitors in social marketing tactics, but they are working on bringing “fresher content” to social media advertising and building their advertising network further. Due to the constant success of things like AdWords, Google has a significant reputation in the marketing world already, so with this acquisition of Wildfire, social marketers can expect good things.

In their blog post, Google comments on their numerous opportuinities offered to advertisers saying, “Google Analytics helps businesses measure the contribution of hundreds of social sites; our Admeld services has helped to serve ads in Facebook developers’ social apps; and our DoubleClick platform enables clients to run and measure ads across social websites. On Google+, brands use services like Vitrue, Buddy Media and others to manage their pages, with many more to come.” Also, we’ve seen a lot of success in the companies that Google has acquired in the past, as Google knows the advertising world like the back of its virtual hand.

So, in sum, Google has purchased another company that will probably end up improving Google Inc. further, if that’s possible. Google hasn’t released the price tag of Wildfire, but according to MarketingLand, reports say about $250 million. Clearly, the purchase of Wildfire is a sensible decision for Google, as they’ve never had trouble making any of their acquired companies work perfectly in their favor and in the favor of advertisers. With Wildfire, Google will probably see a lot of improvement in their social media marketing, giving other social media advertisers a run for their money.

From what I’ve been hearing lately, I was under the impression that Android has been a better option for advertisers than iOS in recent months. All of the reports on mobile marketing that have compared the two have commented on how much better Android is for advertisers, and how CTRs on Android platforms often prove to be significantly better. People have been more excited about Android than ever lately, but now there is news that shows Android as being a bit worse off than marketers may believe. Then again, there are a lot of people out there who could have seen this coming from a mile away.

According to Strategy Analytics, as reported by Virtual-Strategy Magazine, Android powered Smartphones are down 56% in the United States market in Q2 of 2012. Apparently, the shipments of smartphones dropped 5% for the year, reaching 24 million units during Q2. The research shows that the Android operating system has lost a lot of its lead to Apple iOS, causing its share to fall four points to 56%. Strategy Analytics experts estimated that Android had 13.4 million smartphone shipments for 56% shares, while last year the number was 15.3 million at 61% shares. Apparently, Android is still, by volume, the number one platform in the country, “but its market share is approaching a peak and Apple iOS has been gaining ground.”

Not only has Android seen troubles in market shares, but Blackberry has seen some issues in the past year as well. Scott Bicheno who is a senior analyst at Strategy Analytics comments on Blackberry’s market health, saying that,“Blackberry’s smartphone market share in the United States has dropped from 11 percent to 7 percent over the past year, reaching its lowest level in recent history. Consumers, businesses and operators continue to be frustrated by Blackberry’s limited touchscreen smartphone portfolio and repeated delays to its new BB10 operating system.”

Apple’s iOS is the only platform left that still shows signs of growth, giving the people at Apple an opportunity to make changes and prosper further. There is evidence of Apple already making an effort to pull in front of the race, as they are soon to release a new version of the iPhone, according to rumor. If they do release this new device, the pressure on Android and Blackberry will become immense, and when put under a lot of pressure, things tend to break.

I’m not saying that this slight change in the race is going to ruin either of the companies that have pulled back, but Apple may just shine in the spotlight for a while. There couldn’t have been a better time to plan a release of a new device than when competitors are down in the market. Anyway, when considering which platform is most reliable, it’s definitely helpful to know about their standing in the United States market, and anything that may have happened within it.  Android and Blackberry are still reliable for advertisers, but Apple may pop up soon as a better option.

Facebook has a lot of gadgets, buttons, links, and options available to its users and those using the network to advertise. There are thinks like the famous Like, the new subscribe button that just came to the network, sponsored stories, invitations to events, and now its newest is the recommendations bar that launched just last Thursday. We’ve seen things on other networks that are personally targeted and recommended, so its a surprise that Facebook took so long to get to it. They are often the network model, with other networks working off of their platform. Anyway, its just another sign that Facebook is slowly but surely sinking in popularity.

So, the recommendations, according to All Things D, function just as you’d expect them to. When a user is reading an article, viewing a product or page, or just browsing the web, they will reach the bottom of the page they are on, and recommendations will show in a classically designed bar. The recommendations are based on things that their friends have Liked and the only recommendations that appear will be related products or other articles from the same page. This, in effect, brings more value to the Like button, as it no longer only affects one product or article, but also can be a way to suggest things to friends. The Like can now function as a modern word-of-mouth strategy.

All Things D writes, “It’s one part of Facebook’s entire social plugin suite, a set of tools that hook into publishing platform backends to incorporate Facebook widgets into Web sites. The list of other items includes the ubiquitous “Like” button, “Subscribe” button and “Comments” sections.” All of the members of this “suite” are responsible for Facebook’s newfound success in the advertising world. With this new member, Facebook has brought in personal retargeting based on a user’s Friends list.

This new recommendations bar is available for web publishers to install on their pages, and it would be a wise move, indeed. Of course, with these new suggestions from friends, there is a great chance of bringing up clickthrough rates on things that appear in the Recommendations bar. It will function similar to the side bar that exists on Facebook now, showing certain pages and how many friends have liked said pages. This function that has already existed for a while has been relatively functional, but the Recommendations bar is an improvement to the method, being that it is available away from Facebook itself.

So, Facebook continues to improve to keep its place amongst the top internet names. It’s ever-growing advertising tactics have started to bring it recognition in the marketing world, and it’s becoming a decent competitor for advertising leaders. Although it’s got a long way to go, these new members of the “suite” are bringing in quite a bit of attention from businesses and advertisers. They’ve been quite effective so far, and they will probably continue to be. The Recommendations bar began as a limited pilot, but on Thursday of last week, the function was made available to all publishers.

There’s been some news in the line of Google+ and how it’s performance is holding up. Most people, when they heard of Google+, were extremely excited for it to come out, saying that it would be the next Facebook, trumping the one that already exists. Some people were worried that Facebook would be left behind, like Myspace was with Facebook. What actually happened, however, was people nibbled at Google+, but not too many really became hooked right away. Google+ traffic was slow to start, but over the time since its release, things appear to have begun improving for the new social network.

Based on comScore numbers reported by Morten Myrstad, a communications consultant at Kontxt on Google+, one can see how Google+ is doing significantly better than its beginnings. Apparently, in June of this year Google+ had around 110.7 million unique visitors in the entire world. When that number is compared to numbers from November of last year, there has been a 66% growth. What’s more exciting than a 66% growth worldwide in less than a year? Well, the United States alone has seen an 82% growth in visitors since last November, now with 27.7 million unique visitors. So, clearly Google+ is doing something right, because more and more people are starting to hop on the Google bandwagon. The network already has 250 million accounts, 75 million daily users, and 150 million monthly users around the globe. Anyway, we all know what capacity Google has for creating success on the internet, so it’s becoming hard to understand, now, why people doubted Google+ to begin with.

Now there are probably a few reasons that all of these people are just now deciding to jump into the world of Google+. One of these reasons may be that Google has recently been plastering the name of their social network all around the web, in advertisements, articles, and videos. They even now have a button that competes with Facebook’s like, which brings me to my second possible reason. In the recent past, we’ve seen people branching away from Facebook to sites like Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest. It’s been said that people are becoming bored with the aging Facebook format. Therefore, trying for something new, people have been migrating around the web to different social networks, and some of them have tried out Google+ for this reason.

Anyway, the best part of this newfound success with Google’s social network is the copious opportunities it brings forth. Everyone knows and is greatly impressed with the things Google has done for advertising already. Now that they have a successful social network at their disposal, there’s a good chance that we will see some very successful advertising strategies to come. Facebook has done some great things with social media advertising, but they have never had the advertising experience and expertise that Google has shown in the past. Therefore, I think that someday soon, Google will rise up as not only an advertising giant, but also one of the more successful social media advertisers.

Those advertisers who use Facebook for advertising, as well as those who are looking into doing the same have been patiently awaiting the results of Facebook’s quarterly earnings report for Q2. Today, that information was released by Facebook and the results seem quite satisfactory. Although Facebook was bound to recover from its advertising issues in the past, I don’t think anybody expected it to happen so fast. In the long run, it’s easy to understand that Facebook would be a valuable advertising source, bringing in quite a bit of revenue from marketers alone.

To start, Facebook has released some pretty incredible numbers, stating that 84% of their revenue in Q2 came from advertising revenue. In total, Facebook brought in $992 million from advertising alone, which is a large fraction of their total quarterly earnings of $1.18 billion. These earnings, however, are far from Facebook’s actual overall worth, which stands at a baffling $60 billion. Facebook has always been quite a successful firm, but advertising has never really been it’s claim to fame. Now, with the percentage of the total revenue that Facebook receives from advertising, it could be evidence that Facebook’s name might be changing for marketers, and that it is doing very well in the area after all.

During the quarterly earning announcements, Facebook mentioned their acknowledgement of the importance of mobile strategies. According toMark Zuckerberg, as reported in a ClickZ article by Kate Kaye, Facebook is, “dedicated to better monetizing the mobile usage explosion. Because mobile users spend so much time on their news feeds – where Sponsored Stories ads appear in the mobile platorm.” It’s been reported that just about half of the revenue generated through sponsored stories comes from Facebook’s highly successful mobile platform. It seems that mobile is what the company is most excited about, as it’s results are proficient.

Along with announcing their earnings for Q2, Facebook took the opportunity to release information officially on some new advertising ideas, most of which we’ve already learned of from rumors and leaked information. Anyway, Facebook described in depth the rotating marketplace ads on static pages that optimize ad serving. Also, they explained a new real-time ad exchange and announced that it doesn’t allow for mobile inventory with Facebook’s DSP partners. The company also stated that it was planning to improve further on the way sponsored stories and advertisements on the network are currently performing.

So, regardless of the IPO issues that the company received quite a bit of criticism for, their advertising seems to be in ship shape, so to speak. Facebook has actually taken the criticism that they’ve received and learned from it, revamping advertising techniques based on what they learned from their critiques. The surprise here isn’t Facebook’s earnings, because Facebook has always brought in substantial revenue. The shocker is the percentage of that revenue that has come from advertising, and how much it has grown since this time last year (up 28%). So, Facebook will definitely continue to be a main source for social media marketing.