In a recent court ruling, Federal Judge Raymond Jackson ruled that the ‘like’ button on Facebook doesn’t qualify as free speech and therefore isn’t protected under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

Six employees of a Virginia sheriff’s office were fired by Sheriff BJ Roberts in 2009. At the same time, Roberts was in a political struggle with candidate Jim Adams. The fired employees contend that they were terminated because they had ‘liked’ Adams’ Facebook page. Roberts denies the claim and the court supported him.

According to Judge Jackson, “the court will not attempt to infer the actual content of Carter’s post from one click of a button on Adams’ Facebook page.” Carter being one of the fired employees. While the judge agrees that text posts on Facebook are protected speech, the like button is not.

This ruling is important to any business that markets on Facebook. The risk-reward ratio has changed significantly for every person engaging online. What used to be a simple thing to ask a potential customer to do, now has a risk involved since it’s not protected through free speech.

If your business isn’t directly involved in politics or other controversial activities, keep your opinions off your Facebook page. Don’t use your business page to air your thoughts about an election, share your endorsement of a candidate or weigh in on a hot topic. Keep that on your personal profile.

Instead, ask questions and get your fans to engage in dialog. Practice asking fair, open-ended questions with no implied answer. Find out what your fans think about news topics. Look for common ground issues that can unite people. Be real, have fun, but recognize that your fans have trusted you with their ‘like’ and you need to protect their choice since the First Amendment won’t.

James Wood is a writer, presenter and techie. He started his own business in 2009 to pay for adventures while volunteering on a farm in Ireland. The freedom of self-employment has let him consult in Hawaii, speak in England and visit 43 states. He writes for PrintPlace.com, a printing company offering booklets, catalogs and more printed-marketing media.

I know this is a bit behind but, in brief, the world’s biggest social network acquired the world’s biggest mobile social network on April 9, 2012.

This does not mean that Instagram’s platform will simply be absorbed into FB and disappear. Zuckerberg’s explanation:

“We believe these are different experiences that complement each other. But in order to do this well, we need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram’s strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook…. That’s why we’re committed to building and growing Instagram independently…. We will try to learn from Instagram’s experience to build similar features into our other products.”

One of the better POV’s on on why Facebook decided to buy Instagram came from the LA Times. One of my favorite lines:

“The San Francisco startup has just 13 employees. That works out to be $76 million per employee.”

Additional Resources on the Acquisition:

Mark Zuckerberg Announces it on his Timeline
https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10100318398827991

Facebook Press Release
http://newsroom.fb.com/Announcements/Facebook-to-Acquire-Instagram-141.aspx

Biz Week Coverage
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-09/facebook-snaps-up-instagram

Mashable Coverage
http://mashable.com/2012/04/09/facebook-instagram-buy/

Everyone has likely seen Spotify popping up in their News Feeds since last year, but Facebook continues to roll out new Open Graph apps – over 60 in just the last few weeks. With that in mind, I wanted to share a quick overview of how Open Graph apps are starting to (and can) be utilized.

Entertainment is the most robust category so far, with over 18 associated apps available. It is also important to note that Timeline, once optional, is now mandatory and is rumored to be available for businesses soon. With that in mind, OG apps should be developed with Timeline in mind to ensure the widest audience.

The general concept to embrace is frictionless sharing. Open Graph apps require users to allow continuous publishing permission and feature actions that can be automatically shared, rather than explicitly asking users to share individual actions (i.e. the Like button plugin).

A few high-level notes on who and what has rolled something out:

Brands:

• Ford Mustang
• Ford Grab-a-Badge (http://social.ford.com/grab-a-badge)
• AutoTrader

Apps:

• News – Washington Post, Yahoo! News, USA Today
• Travel – Where I’ve Been, TripAdvisor
• Giving – Causes
• Food – Foodily, Foodspotting
• Shopping & Fashion – Pinterest, LivingSocial (no Groupon!), GiftRocket
• Fitness – MapMyFitness, RunKeeper
• Entertainment – Hulu, TicketMaster, StubHub, DailyMotion,

Noticeably absent:

• YouTube
• Groupon

There is also a distinction to be make between how app activity appears in the News Feed/Ticker and users’ actual Timelines. In short, there are more aesthetic and functional options available now than ever before.

In terms of visibility, there are two algorithms at play in the News Feed: EdgeRank and Graph Rank. EdgeRank priority is mostly governed by an item’s affinity, weight and time, relevant to a user’s personal network. At this point, not much is known about the parameters for Graph Rank. In brief:

1. EdgeRank dictates what “normal” status items appear in any given user’s feed.
2. Graph Rank determines how Open Graph application activity is distributed.

Feel free to browse all 60 apps and watch some of FB’s ultra PR-friendly video overviews. Enjoy.

The long-awaited tech IPO of the year — perhaps of the decade — is on. According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook will file its paperwork for an Initial Public Offering this coming Wednesday. As you might expect, the Wall Street Journal’s source remains unnamed, however, The Journal has a track record for breaking such stories that is hard to dispute.

The social network is expected to be the largest tech IPO in history – topping out at an estimated $10 billion. To put that into perspective, Google’s 2005 IPO didn’t even reach the $2 billion mark.

There seem to be a number of signals pointing to an IPO in the near future – with one of the strongest signals being Facebook’s halted trading in secondary markets for three days earlier this week.

What are your expectations for Facebook finally going IPO? Will it bring about negative or positive change for the company? Leave us your thoughts in the comments.

Advertising on Facebook is an excellent way to reach a large number of consumers.  Facebook ads offer a cost effective marketing option that every business should consider.  As more people join Facebook every day, the opportunity to reach millions of consumers continues to grow for every business.  In order to increase the success you have when advertising on Facebook, you will need to optimize your campaigns so that you get the best results.  Here are a few tips to help you optimize your Facebook ad campaigns.

Test Several Headlines

Your headline is an important aspect of your Facebook ad.  The headline is the first thing a user will see and will determine whether or not the rest of the ad is read.  If you do not have a compelling headline, you could be missing out numerous sales as your Facebook ads go unnoticed.  When optimizing your headlines, come up with several different options and your ads using a different headline one at a time.  Track the number of clicks you receive with each headline to determine which one is the most effective.

Include Images

Including images with your Facebook ads is a great way to improve their effectiveness.  When creating Facebook ads that contain images, you will want to split test the effectiveness of each image as well.  By tracking the results of each image, you will be able to see which one is the most effective image to use in your ad.

Try Changing your Ad Copy

Your ad copy is the most important aspect of your Facebook ads.  Without quality, attention grabbing ad copy, you will not obtain the results you are capable of.  Try getting into the mindset of your target audience when writing your ad copy to help improve your Facebook ad results.  If you are selling a product, list the benefits associated with your product.  Whenever you make a change to your ad copy, you will want to track the results to see if the new copy is outperforming your previous ads.  By keeping records of every ad copy that you use, you will easily be able to see which Facebook ads you are currently running are the most effective.

Find Your Target Audience

Understanding your target audience is vital when looking to run a successful Facebook ad campaign.  Doing a bit of market research before you start an ad campaign will help you see who your target audience is.  Once you have this information, you will want to filter your Facebook ads to only appear for your target audience, ensuring that you do not waste money showing your ads to people who are not interested in your product or service.

Track Conversions

To fully optimize your Facebook ads, you will want to track all of your conversions.  Understanding where your conversions are coming from will help you determine which Facebook ads are the most effective.  If a specific ad is generating a lot of clicks but not many conversions, this ad is just costing you money and can be removed for your active campaign.  It is important that you only run ads that generate conversions, so that you can receive the highest ROI possible with your Facebook ad campaign.

Nic is a social media expert, specializing in Facebook advertising as part of his clients web marketing campaigns. With social media becoming a great avenue for marketing your business, it’s also important to optimize and test in the same way that you would with a traditional CPM or CPC campaign to get the best from your spend.

We naturally think of social media as the province of the young and hip. Our stereotypical image of a new-media-savvy person is young, spectacled, and nerdy, clad in sneakers and T-shirt, with a tattoo or three and an occasional piercing, slurping Red Bulls and munching junk snacks while hiding his lingering acne. Older people, we assume, lack the technological awareness and sophistication necessary to use social media and, their neural circuits having fossilized in the electronic Stone Age, and their ability to learn new tricks suffering from the drawbacks proverbially applying to old dogs. According to an article in MediaBadger, we would in many cases and ways be wrong, and those wanting to market to seniors should not ignore social media.

Here are some of the findings from the study:

• The first users of the Internet back in the 1990s were in their 40s and older. That’s primarily because the cost of computers in those days was much higher than it is today, and there were no portable options, so older people with higher and more stable incomes were the ones likely to be using it. Those same early Internet users have graduated to social media as they have emerged into being.
• The reasons why seniors (or “silver surfers” as the study quaintly terms them) engage in social media may be slightly different than for younger users. The biggest single reason is to stay in touch with friends and family, followed by pursuit of hobbies, with services, vacationing, and shopping filling the next three categories. Seniors still tend to be less trusting than younger people of online shopping and banking.
• A study of which social media outlets are used by age group shows that seniors are more likely to use Facebook, on-line forums, and photo sharing services than they are other outlets. Seniors are less likely than younger people to post videos on YouTube and similar outlets, but quite likely to view on-line videos.
• Seniors are late adopters of changing social media and less likely than younger people to learn new media that are difficult or complex. They quickly develop habits of use (or already have them by now) and are resistant to change. They love to comment online about current events, politics, or most other subjects and tend to have strong opinions. Then tend to prefer simple and easy to learn tools that interface easily with services and methods they are already used to using.

There are, in short, many differences between older social media users and younger ones. Just the same, this is not a demographic that Facebook marketers should ignore, nor are social media something that should be ignored by companies that routinely serve an older clientele.

While seniors are becoming more internet savvy, they are still at risk for online scams.  If you are a senior citizen or have a family member who is, a background check for all new friend requests may be a good idea.

Facebook is the biggest single social site out there. It seems that almost everyone who can access a computer has a Facebook page, as this social network has become a worldwide phenomenon.

Everyone and their grandparents are using Facebook, and almost all of these folks are either bemoaning changes that Facebook has made or they are looking for ways that they can make their Facebook user experience even better. There are a lot of ways that you can tweak Facebook to make it better for you.

Here are just 7 Facebook tweaks you can try:

1.) Hide the right sidebar

The right sidebar seems to be the most hated of the newer Facebook features. It shrinks down the viewable screen size, and the mini-newsfeed next to the big newsfeed just seems like a bit too much. You can easily hide this feature with a tiny tweak. At the bottom of the sidebar to the right there is a small button with an arrow; clicking that allows you to hide the sidebar away.

2.) Don’t clog up the newsfeed with game updates

Facebook gaming is one of the great things about Facebook, and it attracts a lot of new users to the site. As you play, your friends’ newsfeed and their walls may start to get stopped up with news of your achievements and announcements that you have begun to play Farkle. To stop this, in the Account settings you can set custom settings for all of your apps including settings so that no one but you gets these announcements.

3.) Stop Facebook emails

If you use your smartphone to access Facebook, you probably get notifications when you get a friend request, a new comment on a status update or more. It starts to get annoying when you get hit with an SMS message and an email about the same thing. It is easy to turn this off. You can go to your notification settings and turn off any text and email announcements you want.

4.) Get new stories in your newsfeed

Facebook’s new default is to show the top stories first. If a topic turns out to be hot, every time you visit the page it will end up at the top of the queue, which can get pretty boring. To get new content to the top of your newsfeed, click on the little arrow that is skewed a little to the left above where your newsfeed starts. Here you can select to see recent stories first. Remember, you may have to do this on more than one occasion; this Facebook tweak isn’t permanent.

5.) Find out how your profile looks to other people

When you look at your profile, there is a button labeled “view as” to the top left. After you click on that button, enter the name of a Facebook friend, and you will see your page as it appears to them. This is a great tweak to use to see if you might accidentally be oversharing. This can also help you to see if a spammer or errant app are sharing things to your wall.

6.) Get the word out

You have important things to say, and it seems like Facebook is just the place to say them. However, you want to let more people than just your friends have a listen. Tweak your Facebook to allow subscriptions. With subscriptions other folks are able to see your updates and leave comments, but they aren’t allowed to see all of your private personal information that your actual Friends have access to. To set up subscriptions, go to your profile, click on “subscriptions” from the left sidebar and go from there.

7.) Keep your location secret

Many people don’t like location-based services like check-in because they don’t want to tell the world that you aren’t at home. Some just don’t want the whole world knowing where they are at any given second. You can change your settings so that well intentioned friends who check in are unable to check you in as well. To tweak this and other tagging features, just go to your privacy settings and select “how tags work.”

This article is provided by Kevin Moor who writes for different sites, one of which provides information on the perfect uninstaller.

There are a lot of people on Facebook; folks are almost shocked when they learn that someone they know doesn’t have an account. People do everything on Facebook from share things that are important to them, connect with old friends, plan events and play games.

Facebook is rife with games, some of which aren’t just games anymore by pop culture sensations. There are a lot of games, and some of the titles available via this social site are absolute gems. Other games are downright lousy.

With so many gaming options to choose from on this social site, how does one know which games to play. While trial and error can work, Facebook gamers will end up wasting a lot of time trying out absolutely abysmal titles and probably ending up with a few malicious apps invading their system in the process.

There are several places where you can find information on the best games that Facebook has to offer, and this is just one such spot.

Here are 10 of the best games on Facebook that you will most likely love.

1.) Bejeweled Blitz

This 60 second gem swapping melee is one of the most popular games in the world. Easy to play and highly addictive, gameplay continues to stay challenging overtime. Comparing scores with your friends can give players a competitive spirit, and new bonuses and special gems give gamers just another reason to keep coming back.

2.) FarmVille

There are many imitators and many games modeled after this one, but FarmVille is the original. Tending to crops doesn’t sound like that much fun, but this game is huge. Easy to play and fun, the social aspect where your friends can assist you with tasks and look in on your crops makes it a perfect fit for Facebook.

3.) Texas Hold’em Poker

This is one of the top games on Facebook and the top poker game in the world. Texas Hold’em Poker has become a phenomenon, with folks all over the world watching it in their living rooms and playing in their kitchens, so it only makes sense that you can now play from your desktop too.

4.) CityVille

This top game is used monthly by about 49 million people, making it the most played game on Facebook. As the name suggests, it has a lot in common with FarmVille, except now instead of harvesting crops and building a farm, you have an urban center to struggle with.

5.) The Sims Social

The Sims and the other Sim games that have come before it have been much loved games for about two decades, so it is no surprise that there is now a version of Facebook. Not as comprehensive as one of their off Facebook games, this social version lets you play with your friends for free.

6.) Words With Friends

This poplar Scrabble-like game became a mobile sensation as an app for the iPhone and iPad. Now available on multiple mobile platforms, it is also on Facebook. The game is fully integrated so you can play on Facebook or your mobile app against people on Facebook or on their phones. It is a terribly fun and addictive game for all ages.

7.) Tetris Battle

Tetris has been a top, much loved videogame title since the 1980s. Once a big name for console systems, this addictive puzzle game has popped up in several places online. It only makes sense that it has found a home on Facebook.

8.) Slotomania

People love to gamble, and when they can’t gamble, they love to play games that make it feel like gambling. You don’t have to be an adult to get into the fun of this popular Facebook game.

9.) Cafè World

As television chefs have turned into super celebrities, more and more people daydream about opening restaurants. Now instead of just daydreaming, they can do it virtually with this extremely popular game.

10.) Empires & Allies

This fun game lets you build up your own forces and secure your own territory. You do get to work with your friends, however, to defeat the Dark Alliance, which seems just social enough to be ideal for Facebook and a good time for you.

What are your favorite games on Facebook?

This article is written by Kevin Moor, who also writes for trojanremovers.net, a site emphasizing trojan remover reviews.

I wanted to send along some of the latest Facebook updates shared by one of our reps.

An interesting development (or least news to me) is the Negative Feedback Stat for Insights. This is not a sentiment analysis, as is stated below, but appears to be a 2.0 version of unsubscribes and unLikes for individual posts. I am not seeing this in the Insights dashboard or exported file for any pages yet – please leave a comment below if you have, otherwise, this is likely in a beta rollout.

With that said, here are some of the more interesting and upcoming Facebook updates.

• FBML Apps and non-HTTPS will stop working on January 1, 2012
  • As previously messaged, Facebook will be fully transitioning to iFrames and secure browsing via HTTPS. iFrames are Facebook’s new framework for serving content on canvas pages and Page tabs
• Facebook Page Insights
  • A new Page Insights eLearning module can be found here: http://www.learnpageinsights.com/
  • With the launch of the new Page Insights, we’ll slowly be deprecating the old PI. Page admins will see warnings in the old Insights informing them of this upcoming change. Data will continue to be available through the old Insights for 1 month, with all data deleted and access to the old Insights removed on February 15, 2012
• Negative Feedback Stat
  • Facebook now show admins the number of unique users that gave negative feedback on a Page post so that they better understand which posts resonate with their audience. Please note this is not sentiment analysis.
  • Negative feedback is a unique count of people who hid the post or reported it as spam in their News Feed.
• IO Advertisers can now boost any post from any Page
  • IO clients can now create Facebook ads from any post made on any Page, even if they don’t own the Page. The ability to boost any post creates new opportunities for a advertisers, especially those who use celebrity or athlete endorsements. It can be used to support product/ movie launches, product promotions or events, and general brand awareness campaigns. (example, a film studio can boost Page posts by a featured actor who posts a trailer for an upcoming film)
  • This feature is only availabie through IO for Premium and Marketplace, and not in self serve or the API
• Facebook Studio Awards: December 31st deadline approaching
  • Enter your best campaigns by clicking the “Submit Your Work” button at: http://facebook-studio.com

Have you come across any Facebook or Page updates that I missed above? Please share them in the comments!

We all have been warned of the dangers and risks of offending Facebook material—specifically posting questionable photos and statuses online. We have been told many times that employers are frequently doing a full background check, which includes looking into profiles via social media. With this added personal material viewable, it has raised a lot of questions about what is okay for employers to look at and base their decisions off of, when concerning employment. Is it okay for employers to make a decision to not hire someone based on personal information not conveyed directly to them, but seen on a social networking site? Further, should an employer be able to fire someone who is already working for them based off what they have found online?

In my opinion, I think the best way to avoid having this dilemma altogether is to maintain private settings, be friends with only people you actually know, and most importantly, do not post anything you would ever be uncomfortable having your mom, grandmother, or employer see. These, in what I consider, common sense steps are an important way to avoid ever having any type of this conflict.

However, if following these steps still raises an issue in employment, I think it is important to consider the content that was considered offending, in order to evaluate if the Facebook activity is valid enough to have a person miss a job opportunity or get fired. For me, I think that anything that is posted online should be automatically assumed to be in the public. Thus, if you choose to post pictures of you partying or write statuses defaming someone, assume that it will be seen. That being said, it is time to consider the evaluations that employers are making when judging such material.

For an employer to fire someone based on Facebook activity actually seems OK to me, but only if it affects the company, itself. For example, if an employee has been posting private company information or defaming the company itself, I think it is not out of line for a company to fire that employee. However, if a company sees images or text that they do not agree with; however, it does not affect the company or the employer’s representation of him or the employees at the company, I think there should not be an issue. Of course, anything illegal (whether affecting the company or not) is always grounds for firing.

Again, all of this is very avoidable by taking action of what you do post online. Evaluate your priorities. If keeping your job is near the top of the list, you should be doing everything necessary to make sure you don’t lose that job, which includes keeping that bad work day rant to yourself rather than spilling it on your Facebook status.

Author By-Line
Karen Stephenson is a regular Facebook user and has done development work for different companies in social media. She promotes many websites such as Find UK Phone Numbers, a website which helps people find different company service telephone numbers in the UK.