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Google Places Changes Limited Information Now Visible on Google Places Pages

I wanted to share with you a letter I sent out earlier this month to our Google Places clients. I think that you should be similarly aware of the changes that we are seeing in Google Places that affect the use of account set up and management services including our own. You will always get the truth from us on things that have changed on the Web, even if it affects our service offerings.

For now, we are evaluating if we will continue to offer Google Places management services or create a new and revised program.

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I wanted to keep you updated with the changes that Google has been making in the last several weeks to Google Places.

First, it used to be that when your listing was shown in a local search that the first page in the search results Google showed was your Google Places page. It was crucial that this page be optimized for your services for local placement.

These past several weeks I have seen a change in the way Google returns Google Places. Now it appears that Google ranks your listing, but is driving traffic NOT to your Google Places page, but rather directly to your website. For some accounts Google shows a link to the places page which now really just shows an owner comment section (which we update monthly) and your Google reviews from customers.

Although I am not sure yet if Google is still using the information that we update on your account to rack and stack listings, what we have been doing in our monthly updates for Google Places accounts is not visible to the consumer when they click into the Google Places page – only reviews are visible and the “owners” comments.

For now I am not discounting the importance of what we do in a Google Places monthly update but am watching carefully so that every service you purchase from us has value. If based on this new information you would like to stop our $40 per month Google Places update service to see what happens to your listing, just let me know.

If as I evaluate further and if I see that what Google has changed makes our update service not meaningful for you, I will make sure to advise you so.

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At this point, I don’t have a definitive answer to let you know about Google Places, but I do feel that we will be changing our program based on what is visible to the customer as well as potentially creating a Google Review Getting program. Stay tuned as we try to reach some conclusions on where your money is best spent for Google Places.

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Facebook Business Page Interaction – What is the Best Level?

I have been doing quite a bit of testing this past month on Facebook interaction levels and what is the best number of updates for a business page now that Facebook has completed its most recent changes.

First, it is important to know that for over a year we have recommended two status updates a day so that you would not spam your audience and fans. However, with the changes that Facebook made in September everything is now different. With people being able to subscribe to your page without being a fan; fans being able to block, filter, or subscribe to the type of updates you provide; and now your inability to react directly with fans and not even know who is a fan by name, interaction levels need to be different.

This is what I have found out so far in my testing:

  • For Facebook Business Pages with about 100 to 500 fans updates about five times a day seems to work to get you exposed.
  • Actively responding to comments or posting is key to fan interaction growth.
  • Doing only two updates a day seems now to simply get lost in the Facebook noise.

For Facebook Pages that have 500+ fans the thirst for interaction is stronger. In many cases up to 12 updates a day PLUS interaction with the posting of comments, doing polls, and sharing video appear to not hurt a page but rather grow a page. You can review an interesting analysis done before the new Facebook changes in this interesting article for more background. Remember however that their findings are pre-Facebook changes and so may not be valid today but are good for review.

I am continuing our testing through the end of the month. Find out how you can join in and help and get our white paper recommendations at the end of our testing period sharing our findings.

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Special Insights Into Using Facebook Advertising

We’ve started to do quite a bit more Facebook advertising management for clients. Here are a few insights that I wanted to share with you about our experience so far for clients.

  • Even if you choose to spend more than Facebook recommends per click, Facebook will not preferentially serve your ad program more to give you more impressions.
  • Change your ad creative every week. I recommend only two ad creatives running at a time per typical business account that is spending around $1,500 per month in clicks. Even if you put more creatives in the account, you will find that Facebook simply will not serve them.
  • There are limited places for ad placement on Facebook pages. Just this last week I saw that now Facebook is serving more than three or four ads in the sidebar. There is pent up demand and limited ad real estate. Just because you have a big spend budget does not mean that Facebook will be able to serve your ads to spend it. In fact we have found that clients whose 30 day ad spend budget is $2,000 do not even get near that spend using the Facebook pay per click ads.
  • It appears that Facebook is now tracking the CTR of ads in some accounts and will pause a creative or tag it to not show based on click through rates.
  • We are seeing strong website referrals in Google Analytics from Facebook for clients that are advertising there and pointing the ad to their website.
  • We have not had any clients be able to state unequivocally that Facebook is really driving strong leads or sale conversions at this point. Although we typically drive Facebook users to special landing pages with special Facebook lead forms, we are not having clients tell us that lots of sales are being generated from the advertising on Facebook.

If you would like to try advertising on Facebook for your business, I think you will be surprised to see how low our account management fess are. Please visit our Facebook advertising management page for more information and pricing.

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Facebook Nails Small Businesses With News Feed Changes

Are you finding that your fan engagement has dropped on Facebook? If you have under 1,000 fans most likely your activity has dropped or come to a crashing halt on your Facebook Business Page. Why? This study may shed some interesting insight in regards to what is happening to the traffic on your Facebook Business Page.

“Pages with less than 1,000 fans saw a decrease in engagement. Pages with more than 1,000 fans saw a steady  increase in engagement, right up to Pages with over 100,000 fans, which saw a 27.8% increase in the rate of engagement.”

“When you consider how the news feed now works, with the vast amount of  content and updates being shared, it is evident why the number of fans will  become more important. You need a higher number to increase the chances of your  content being found.” Read the full article and see the graphs.

So far in our testing on engagement levels including likes, comments, and interaction, we are seeing a marked decrease in participation and exposure for the 22 clients that we are monitoring since the changes. Although our testing and monitoring is not over yet, what we see it important in regards to how businesses may want to consider using Facebook in the future.

“The study from Edgerank Checker has found that over a sample of over 5,800 random Pages, 82% experienced a reduction in the amount of impressions on the Page.”

Yikes, that is scary. Your content, that you are working so hard to create for Facebook users, is getting lost in the noise. It appears that a standard two updates a day that many were using (to prevent spamming readers) in this new world on Facebook, will mean that your message gets lost in the shuffle. However if your users are on Facebook enough, they will see your content appear in the
right sidebar ticker, so take heart.

I personally am predicting a strong push from Facebook to move businesses into their pay per  click program. If you are interested in trying Facebook advertising. I invite you to review all Facebook our service offerings.