Facebook’s New ‘Social Feedback Loop’ — and 7 Recommendations for Marketers

With the hype of Facebook’s f8 developer conference behind us, with its celebrity cameos and star-studded after parties probably calling in some help for the morning clean-up, it’s now time to think of the sobering implications of how this groundbreaking update to the Facebook platform causes us to rethink our social marketing strategies going forward.

Facebook’s ‘social feedback loop’

While we’ve described tools like Timeline and the new Open Graph features in our post yesterday, the really interesting piece is how they all fit together to create a feedback loop between Open Graph Apps and the Facebook experience — one that is designed to spur social discovery and engagement.

Let’s examine this in more detail.

It all starts with the apps

Facebook’s f8 Keynote: What it Means for Developers & Marketers

We’re at f8 in San Francisco today, with the keynote speeches just concluding. After an entertaining opening with comedian Andy Samberg masquerading as Mark Zuckerberg, the real “Zuck Dawg” (as Samberg called him) took the stage to deliver the true keynote. Facebook’s CTO Bret Taylor and VP Product Chris Cox followed, along with brief cameo CEO appearances from Spotify’s Daniel Ek and Netflix’s Reed Hastings. 

Overview of Announcements

Two major announcements were made at f8: (1) introduction of the Timeline and (2) development of the Open Graph.

Who’s Tuning In to f8 Live?

Yesterday morning changes to Facebook’s News Feed went live. Whether you love the changes or hate them, there are more — and likely more dramatic — Facebook updates and announcements slated for today. Rumors have been circling for weeks about the additional product announcements that Facebook will make at their annual f8 Developer’s Conference, which kicks off in a half hour (12:30pm EST, 9:30am PST).

We were curious about who is most interested in catching the live streaming of f8, so we dove into our Facebook advertising platform’s campaign data.

f8 Interest by State

The below map shows relative US interest in f8 on Facebook. The darkest blue states represent 5% or more of US interest in f8 on Facebook, with lighter blue states representing less interest. Combined, just four states represent over 50% of Americans interested in f8: California (33%), New York (9%), Florida (6%) and Texas (6%).