It was bound to happen. Facebook has upped the game on advertisments with it’s new ad format. Sponsored Stories turns your friends’ actions into promoted content. This article from Mashable has the scoop of what this means for social media, Facebook users and businesses alike.

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Facebook is rolling out Sponsored Stories, a new ad format that turns your friends’ actions into promoted content.

Sponsored Stories is “a way for marketers to sponsor activities that happen throughout the News Feed,” Facebook Product Marketing Lead Jim Squires told Mashable. Companies can choose to take certain user actions — such as checkins or actions within Facebook apps — and feature them in the column on the right side of the News Feed.

For example, if you’re Whole Foods and you’re looking to increase your exposure on Facebook, you can pay to have a percentage of all checkins to Whole Foods featured in a Sponsored Stories slot in the right-side column. Your content wouldn’t be shown directly, but the actions of a user’s friends would appear. Users seeing their friends “liking” or checking in to Whole Foods will drive increased trust and increased traffic.

“The advertiser is not controlling the message; it’s about actions,” Squires said.

Here’s an example of an action that could potentially be sponsored:

And here’s what it might look like as a Sponsored Story:

Starting today, four specific types of user actions can be turned into featured stories: likes, checkins, actions within custom applications and Page posts. If a company has a custom app (e.g. Starbucks Card or even FarmVille), it can promote the actions users take within them. The same is true of users posting on the walls of their favorite brands.

Facebook’s roster of launch partners includes Coke, Levi’s, Anheuser Busch and Playfish. Also, the social network is partnering with a slew of nonprofits for Sponsored Stories, including Donors Choose, Girl Up!, Malaria No More, Amnesty International, Women for Women, Autism Speaks, (RED), Alzheimer’s Association and UNICEF. However, anybody will be able to bid on Sponsored Story slots (by a per-impression and/or a per-click basis) starting January 25.

We haven’t seen Facebook play with new ad formats for a while — most of its revenue comes from the targeted advertising that appears on most Facebook pages. It has been timid about new ad formats after the spectacular failure of Beacon. Sponsored Stories seems like a simple and logical way to introduce new forms of advertising into Facebook’s system, though.

Sponsored Stories has a lot of similarities to Twitter Promoted Tweets. Both are trying to use content from within their networks and turn them into advertising dollars. There is one key difference between Sponsored Stories and Promoted Tweets, though: The user defines the advertised content in Facebook’s format, not the advertiser.

It’s that one little difference Facebook hopes will turn into big bucks.

Mashable

Facebook has over 500 million users and your business can benefit greatly from having a Facebook page; however just being on Facebook isn’t enough.  Whether you are a small business or a large one you need to develop a personality for your page.  I found this helpful article below on socialmediatoday that outlines six tips for bringing personality to your Facebook business page.  Use these tips to help you create your business’ personality and build engagement on your Facebook page.
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6 tips for bringing personality to your Facebook business page

The majority of Facebook business pages tend to be a little dull, with the occasional Like, but not much else changing the landscape of posts by the business trying to get people interested in what they do. The reason so many business pages are so dull comes down to a lack of personality. I don’t want a personal relationship with your logo and when all you talk about is business, I’m not sure if I really care, because it’s about you, not me.

People want personality and they want to know that you’re interested in them. Businesses that do well with Facebook are businesses that bring some personality to their business page that goes beyond just promoting the business. The following tips I recommend to businesses trying to bring life to their fan pages.

Tip 1: Put together or promote events that are community oriented. Even if you don’t own a brick and mortar store front, you can still get involved in promoting an event. And if its an event that’s not overtly connected to your business, you can still tell people you’ll meet them at the event to chat and enjoy it. By getting involved in your community, on and offline, you can present people an opportunity to meet you as a person, as well as a business.

Tip 2: When you get comments, respond to them. It always surprises me how many businesses don’t respond to their fans. It doesn’t take a lot of time, and it really builds rapport when you take the time to respond. It’s also another opportunity for you to engage people and let them get to know you. I always try to respond to people so they feel acknowledged. Another benefit as well is that the more comments you get, the more likely your original post and the comments will show up in the top news feed in your network.

Tip 3: Post pictures and videos. Don’t limit your messages to text. Posting pictures and video can be a great way to show people your business and your personality. Pictures invite people and also invite them to respond. Videos can also do the same. At the same time, don’t go overboard on them.

Tip 4: It’s about them, not you. Yes it’s your fan-page, but its about the people who’ve chosen to fan it…if you want them to interact on your page. The successful business pages are ones where there’s a collaborative relationship at work between the business and the fans.

Tip 5: It’s okay if its not always about business. Not everything you post needs to be about business. It’s okay to share the occasional personal tidbit or interest on your business page. Let people see that you are actually a person by posting about interests that aren’t overtly business related.

Tip 6: Put together a contest. Think up some trivia questions and offers prizes who get the questions right. It’s fun to do and people will remember it. Whoever wins will also remember you. You can also do giveaways, again with the point being to mix up your Facebook page and get some engagement going.

Your Facebook business page doesn’t have to be the typical business page. Inject some personality into it and then keep it and have fun. Wouldn’t you rather have people associate your business with your personality? If they get to know YOU, then they will also know more about your business than they would if you keep it strictly business.

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That’s why it’s critical to build a content strategy into your social media campaign. Without a framework for what you say and a plan for how and when you say it, you risk leaving your audiences, at best, confused. At worst, they’ll ignore you. Who wants that?

These five content strategy techniques will build better relationships and earn your brand better results on the social web.

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1. Know Your Voice

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Everything you say on the social web should “sound” like your brand. It’s something Skittles does well. Some of its status messages garner more than 1,000 comments, and many exceed 10,000 “Likes” on Facebook

Why are these little content snippets so successful? The writing is just like the candy: colorful, playful and imaginative. The pithy, daily, flavor-packed observations are reliably surprising. You can relish today’s post and look forward to tomorrow’s — like candy in word form.

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2. Time Your Content

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Create a calendar that spells out what you’re going to say and when you’re going to say. Make sure it’s relevant to where people are in their lives and the season. Nobody cares about Santa Claus in January, but a whole lot of people care about sales after Christmas. A quick look at Google Trends will confirm that.

Banana Republic’s tweeters got the memo.

Macy’s and Walmart didn’t.

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3. Know Your Audience

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Why does somebody follow you? Why do they like you? It’s because your brand offers them something. Make sure you deliver. Here’s SKYY Vodka on Twitter with a message that’s relevant to most of its followers about the ultimate Bloody Mary, with personable responses to those people engaging in the conversation.

Compare that to Grey Goose, which hasn’t tweeted since September 2010.

And Grey Goose’s Facebook wall features a weekly “drink card” with identical copy.

Grey Goose isn’t talking to me, it’s talking at me. Points for posting regularly, but why should we care?

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4. Solve Problems

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Humans have survived for so long because they’re great at answering questions like “What do I do when my t-shirt’s stitching rips?” We all love it when somebody helps us the way Threadless does in this Facebook string.

Give your audience the tools to help themselves, and make sure your social media team has the right information to share. By making things easier for others, we build trust. Trust strengthens our relationship.

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5. Be True

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Good content isn’t fake. It doesn’t make promises that it can’t keep. It’s human and honest. It has a personality and a point of view. It’s intrinsically social. That’s why it engages us. That’s why we follow or like your brand.

Your audiences will sniff it out if you’re pretending. But if you’re fun, honest and relevant, they’re going to recommend you to their friends. Isn’t that what social media’s all about?

Source: http://mashable.com

With 2010 behind us and 2011 well on its way, observing and analyzing progress in the social sphere is crucial to future business planning and endeavors. Anything and everything that happens within a business’s community now requires a social response. Businesses need to be social-savvy in order to gain a following and maintain a place in their communities; locally and online.

There are several aspects of this progress that will continue to be crucial in the coming year, including: defining the voice of your brand, defining your mission and purpose, hearing what customers have to say and engaging, reactively and proactively.

Although the main goal may be to reach your audience, making your mark on the social scene requires you to go a few steps further; your audience has an audience who has their own audience, so on and so forth. Thus, whether it’s your customers, influencers, colleagues or competitors, you need to consider the interests and needs of several different audiences to gain real opportunities and to garner interest and respect for your brand.

Source: BrianSolis.com