How to get more likes on Facebook – The Oatmeal.

The Facebook Timeline that brand pages were forced to switch over to last week is “flawed,” according to an eye movement study of six brand pages by SimpleUsability, with many of the new features going unnoticed or being misunderstood.

“The average user doesn’t fully understand the new layout, or interact with it in the way intended,” said Guy Redwood, managing director of SimpleUsability. “This will likely change over time, but as the mechanics of obtaining ‘Like

via Eye Movement Study Reveals Six Must-Know Things About Facebook Brand Pages.

You’re not unpopular, it’s just the nature of the news feed. Amongst all the business-related news at FMC, Facebook revealed that the average news feed story from a user profile reaches just 12 percent of their friends. Your actively shared links, photos, and status updates probably reach much higher than 12 percent of your friends, while more inane auto-generated posts about new friendships, wall posts, and articles you read may only be seen by your closest buddies.

via Your Average Facebook Post Only Reaches 12% Of Your Friends | TechCrunch.

As recently as 2010, growth in US Facebook usage was well into the double digits, at 38.6%, eMarketer estimates. But with 116.8 million US internet users already logging on to the site at least once monthly that year, growth rates were bound to plateau.By 2011 Facebook user growth rose a comparatively small 13.4%, and this year will be the first when growth rates drop to the single digits. Rates of change in the US will continue to decline throughout eMarketer’s forecast period.

via Facebook’s US User Growth Slows but Twitter Sees Double-Digit Gains – eMarketer.

Facebook’s analytics tool Insights will soon begin showing Page performance data in real-time or near real-time rather than on average 48 hour delay, according to our sources. Work on preparing for the switch to real-time reporting is apparently the cause of recent atypically long delays of 4 days or more, chronicled by one-off website WhyIsFacebookInsightsNotWorking.com.

via Scoop: Facebook To Speed Up Biz Analytics Tool Insights To Report In Real-Time | TechCrunch.

Facebook users have to work harder to keep their friend count up these days. A majority of adults on social networking sites have no bouts with deleting former “friends.”

Women more than men are restricting their profiles, deleting comments and tailoring their profiles due to privacy and reputation concerns, according to a new Pew Research Center’s Internet Project & American Life study. Researcher interviewed 2,277 Americans who were 18 or older on the phone to gain information about what the public thinks about social media privacy.

They found almost 70% of female respondents said they have unfriended individuals, compared to 58% of men who also said yes.

via Facebook Unfriending and Reputation Woes Rise [STUDY].

As Facebook filed for its initial public offer, it’s the perfect time to examine the website’s performance online and how its audience compares with that of other social networks.

Given the expected $75 billion to $100 billion initial valuation of Facebook, we’re all already aware of the magnitude of the business. Below we reveal how much of a behemoth the website itself is in the U.S. and other markets.

via 10 Things You Need To Know About Facebook Right Now.

Among the things the Huffington Post did that helped make it a social-news behemoth was to integrate Facebook’s open platform (then called Facebook Connect) into the site almost as soon as it was launched — something that immediately allowed readers to see what articles their friends had read, shared and commented on. That drove millions of readers to the site, and also boosted the number of comments by over 50 percent. And the site has also integrated virtually every other sharing tool known to man to make it easy for readers to share, and even come up with some of its own.

via How the Huffington Post became a new-media behemoth — Tech News and Analysis.

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau Spain’s (IAB Spain) November 2011 report “III Estudio Sobre Redes Sociales en Internet,” social network penetration increased to 75% in Spain in October 2011, a 7-percentage-point jump over 2010.

Facebook was the first choice for most users, followed by YouTube, Tuenti and, new to the 2011 study, Twitter.

via Facebook Solidifies Lead in Spain – eMarketer.

The bad news from Webtrends, however: Facebook’s GraphRank algorithm filters out content from brand pages that doesn’t engage users, and posts using language such as “percent off,” “coupon,” and “sale” result in the lowest engagement levels, leaving them in danger of being filtered out of users’ news feeds.

This prompted the company to create the Sociability Index, which examines click-through rates and cost per click to determine what type of content is “fun to talk about.”

One tip from Webtrends is:

Industries with low Sociability Index ratings need to carefully consider their ad topic in order to gain better CTR. For instance, if an insurance company sponsors a big football game, an ad for fans that highlights the game will prove better CTR than if the ad is directly selling insurance.

via How To Get More Clicks On Facebook: Make It Fun.