Category: Social Media Marketing

A number of Facebook apps dumped by the social network

| December 10, 2015

At the same time, the top social media platform has gone ahead and shut down Creative Labs.

The initiative that was behind a range of the most experimental Facebook apps published by the social network – as well as a number of the applications it put out over the last year – have all been shut down and are no longer available for download.

Some of the mobile apps no longer available include Riff, Rooms and Slingshot, which were essentially failures.

Each of those Facebook apps were unpopular and were considered to have missed the mark in terms of what mobile device users actually want. According to the social network, it still intends to encourage experimentation. However, that will not be through Creative Labs, a type of initiative somewhat like a startup, which was quietly closed down. As of December 7, the Riff, Rooms and Slingshot apps were taken down from the app stores where they had previously been available. Moreover, the webpage for Creative Labs has also been taken down.

According to a spokesperson, the Facebook apps hadn’t received any updates in quite some time.

Facebook AppsThe spokeswoman explained that “Since their launches, we’ve incorporated elements of Slingshot, Riff and Rooms into the Facebook for iOS and Android apps.”

The social network is known for its inclination to continually “move fast and break things.” This time, it determined that some of the efforts it had made under that mantra hadn’t worked out, so it was bringing them to an end. This could potentially mark an important milestone in the development of applications under the Facebook brand, as the company turns its attention on other creative avenues.

For instance, it is still looking toward artificial intelligence (AI) technology, as well as drones that would be able to bring internet connections to highly remote parts of the world, in addition to virtual reality (VR) goggles. While the company had been continually adding new Facebook apps to offer new components of the desktop version of its service as well as to compete with other popular application offerings, it has been gradually turning toward boosting the features of its core platform, including the 360 degree videos and live streaming.

Mobile social media marketing on Facebook could boost Google search results

| November 23, 2015

The massive search engine is now allowed to crawl public posts and data of some of the network’s members.

Facebook is now permitting the Google search engine crawlers to work their way through some of the public data of its members so that the indexing could lead searchers directly to the source, in a move that could considerably change the face of social media marketing.

This appears to be an opportunity that could be advantageous to both Facebook and Google, but marketers as well.

Now that the announcement has been made, many marketers are already starting to look at ways in which their social media marketing can have a more direct impact on their search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. Google searches conducted over Android-based smartphones will start to display public Facebook information such as Pages, profiles, Groups and Events. Should the user click a given Facebook link from among the results, they will be directed to the specific source on the page within the Facebook app.

This new social media marketing opportunity is being created through Google’s strategy to add search to apps.

Social Media Marketing - Google Search ResultsAccording to the Wall Street Journal, which was a first source to actually announce this mobile marketing news, “Google is making inroads in confronting a big challenge – searching inside apps.” This agreement between the two tech giants also suggests that the execs from the top social network are now discovering that sending searchers into their social media platform directly from search engine results presents a range of possibilities.

On the side of Google, it provides users with an even greater incentive to choose that company’s search features as opposed to opting for one of the alternatives, such as Bing. On the side of Facebook, more traffic will be driven to the platform because users who are searching for information will be exposed to links to the social network on a much more regular basis.

From the side of users, particularly in terms of brands with pages and groups, it will be interesting to see how this change will impact their social media marketing strategies and what they do to ensure they achieve the top possible spot for their desired keywords and phrases.