Facebook will be pounding the pavement this summer in an attempt to teach its largest group of advertisers — small and medium-sized businesses — how to utilize the company's ad offerings.
Facebook, along with partners like Square, Intuit QuickBooks, and LegalZoom, is planning a five-stop event tour the company calls Facebook Fit, a series of "boot camp-style events designed to help SMBs achieve business success," Facebook wrote in a blog post Tuesday.
Facebook has stops planned in five major U.S. markets, and expects 500 to 700 attendees at each event, according to Dan Levy, Facebook's director of small business. The events are intended for both existing and potential advertisers, and Levy tells Mashable that the specific content may be determined by which companies sign up.
The idea for a boot camp came as a result of Facebook's Small Business Council. a collection of a dozen advertisers who met at the company's Menlo Park, California, headquarters a few months back. Facebook found that many of the council members were sharing advertising insights with other SMBs, and Facebook wasn't supporting them in the process.
Facebook found that advertisers are still asking simple questions like, "How many users see my ad?" Businesses want to drive growth, and Facebook can do a better job of helping its advertisers determine exactly how much money their ads are generating, Levy explains. Facebook uses other statistics like Likes, fans and comments to help advertisers determine their ad success, but those aren't always clear.
"Those are things that help your business, but that's not what makes the cash register ring at the end of the day," Levy told Mashable. "You want to drive sales and you want to drive new customers, and we need to be helping businesses understand how they drive that, not just how they make a post go viral."
Facebook has more than one million advertisers, the majority of which are small businesses. Despite the high number of advertisers, however, there is still a lot of room for growth. Facebook has more than 25 million SMBs with active Facebook pages, meaning roughly 4% are actually advertising. That's a lot of untapped revenue potential.
It's logical to imagine marketers will advertise more aggressively with Facebook if they understand how the platform works, so a five city tour is a small price to pay if it puts a portion of Facebook's advertising community at ease.
Industry analyst Brian Blau believes that engagement metrics like fans, Likes, and comments are still important for SMBs, but is also watching Facebook's new video ads as a potential draw down the road. Facebook is still testing its video ad offerings with a select number of advertisers, but its unlikely SMBs will be able to afford them right now. The ads, which were expected to cost as much as $2 million, are being sold for closer to $600,000.
Still, Blau believes video might be a way for Facebook to lure more SMBs in the future. "Video is a really important medium going forward," he says. "Maybe bringing those kinds of [video] tools would be helpful for SMBs, too."
The Facebook Fit tour kicks off in New York City on June 3. The full schedule is below, and interested SMBs can sign up here.
New York – June 3
Miami – June 19
Chicago – July 10
Austin – July 24
Menlo Park – August 5
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The snow is melting, the sun is shining, the flowers are blooming and the birds are breaking into song. At least, that's what you imagine may be happening if you're stuck inside your office.
Yep, it's time to put in that summer vacation request — and start surfing Pinterest for ideas on where to go and what to do.
Pinterest's recent introduction of Place Pins may not have been intended entirely for this purpose, but they're becoming useful tools for planning getaways. Place Pins include extra details like location and contact information, along with a wanderlust-inducing photo.
Users have created 3 million Place Boards using this type of pin since November, according to Pinterest product manager Michael Yamartino. These boards are also searchable on Pinterest, something the company has been rolling out over the past few weeks. The goal is to make it easier for people to find new locations like restaurants or tourist attractions, says Yamartino.
Just how easy (and enjoyable) is it to plan a vacation this way? Mashable put Place Pins to the test.
Getting started
Here's how to make a Place Board: Click on the "+" button in the upper righthand corner of the screen and select "Create A Board." You'll then have the option to title the board, add a description and identify it by category.
Set the category to "Travel" to help other users find your board. You'll also want to add a map on this screen and decide if you want to keep your board private or share it publicly.
Add a map to your board in order to make it a Place Board.
If you're planning your vacation on Pinterest, there is a good chance you'll use other Place Boards to find good ideas. Making your board discoverable (not making it secret) will pay the favor forward to other users.
Once you have the basic details set, hit "Create Board."
Adding your partners in crime
You can now add other contributors to the board as well. If your family is going on vacation, adding your kids or spouse will let them contribute suggestions. To add others, click on "Edit Board" under the board's title, then search for the other contributors in the search bar near the bottom.
You can add other Pinterest users as contributors to a board. It's a way to help users plan trips together.
Once your board is complete, you can also send it to a friend. On the web, click on the "Send Board" button under the board's name, or click on the directional arrow next to "Edit" on mobile to share it with another person on Pinterest.
You're now set to map out your trip.
Planning your trip
You can find options for nearly everything for your trip, from lodging to entertainment to restaurants, on Pinterest. Start by adding the places to your board that you already know you want to visit. You can do this by clicking "Add A Place" to the right of your board title. Select the city you are planning to travel to, and then use the search bar.
This search feature will pull up existing pins from Pinterest that meet your search description. Once you see what you are looking for, click on the photo you prefer (if there is one) and then click "Pin It." The image will be added to your board along with an actual location pin on your map. Once it's added, you can add comments to your pins for later.
Once you've searched for a place, you can select the pin you want to add to your board.
This search tool is great for finding places you are already familiar with, but Pinterest also wants to help users discover new places. You can make general search queries here ("Restaurants near Safeco Field"), but since Pinterest is still populating its database of pins, search results are not as complete as they could be.
"A lot of [locations] already exist on Pinterest, we're just working on how it shows up in search," explains Yamartino. "As that data increases on Pinterest, we'll just keep making search better so that things are showing up with the location on them."
There are other ways to add a location to a Pinterest pin. You can search all of Pinterest's Place Boards by using the search bar in the upper lefthand corner of the screen. Once you search, filter the results by clicking the "Boards" button, and then select the "Place Boards" filter. This should offer up a collection of boards containing Place Pins.
Users can search Place Boards specifically, a new filter the company added in the last few weeks.
If you do happen to add a pin to your board that doesn't have a location attached to it, you can click the "Add to Map" button within the pin to search for a related location. Pinterest uses Foursquare's database to make this easier. Of course, if the photo's contents are a total mystery to you, and there is no place name, it won't work.
If a pin does not have location data, users can search for it within Pinterest to add it to their map.
You can also search on other sites, such as TripAdvisor, FourSquare, or OpenTable, which partner with Pinterest to include location data when an image is pinned from their website.
The last element of the planning process, and often the most challenging, is making reservations. Some Place Pins include phone numbers, if you don't mind picking up the phone. Most booking, however, is moving online, and Pinterest's pins aren't as helpful here.
You can try clicking on a Pin's image to link back to the original website — but unfortunately, many pins are shared from a third-party blog or travel site. That means you're left with no option but to conduct your own web search outside Pinterest to make a reservation. Flight and travel plans need to be completed outside of Pinterest as well.
Taking it all with you
Once you've mapped out your trip and made your reservations, it's time for the best part: Enjoying your vacation. Pinterest's mobile app, which is where the majority of Pinterest users are, can be very useful when you're looking to get around in a new city.
If you look at one of the pins within your Place Board on the app, and tap "See on map", you'll be taken to the default maps tool on your smartphone for directions. You can also click on the phone number associated with each Place Pin to call for assistance.
If you arrived early for a reservation and need to kill some time, Pinterest's app will also surface nearby places. Click on the "+" button along the bottom toolbar and click "Nearby" in order to see what else is around you.
Pinterest's mobile app allows users to put their Place Boards to the test while traveling.
If you're planning a summer trip, Pinterest Place Boards are worth taking for a test drive. The boards seem a lot more appealing than, say, a Word document or Excel spreadsheet filled with blue links. The search will become better as more users utilize it, and you may discover hidden gems you've never heard of before. And the ability to share a board with others makes the planning process more collaborative.
To see what a finished Place Board looks like, check out our board below.
Although Facebook may be losing steam with teenagers, as recent studies have claimed, young adults are still as active as ever on the social media site.
Harvard’s Institute of Politics polled over 3,000 18 to 29-year-olds, covering a wide range of topics from political affiliation to social media use. During the poll, participants were asked which social media platforms they currently had accounts for.
Surprisingly, the poll revealed that a stark majority of the participants were members of Facebook, but less than half of had accounts with other social media sites such as Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram.
The following chart, created by online statistic portal Statista, illustrates the percentage of reach for each social media site among young adults, as conducted in the poll.
Time will tell whether the stats will hold as today's teenagers - many of whom eschew Facebook — grow up.
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