Facebook added two new features for business users this week, enhanced
analytics for Facebook pages and direct access to emails for app
developers using the Facebook platform.
Facebook pages were
specifically designed for business and organisations looking to promote
themselves using Facebook, however until now analytics have been basic
to say the least. The only metric was an overall post quality and
interactions metric which really didn't give a very good indication of
how your posted items were performing.
The new post insights
will allow page owners to see the number of impressions and
interactions with each individual post. This should be a boost for
marketers using Facebook looking to better understand how they are
performing. The feature is still rolling out however many users have
reported the feature already live.
In addition to giving page
owners better insights, Facebook has also given app developers using
their platform access to users email addresses upon request. This means
that there is the potential for marketers with Facebook applications to
transfer leverage their Facebook users in traditional email marketing
campaigns.
From the Facebook blog:
"You'll ask users to share their primary email address with you by prompting them through the existing email extended permission
(users will still have the ability to choose to share a proxied email
address instead). You will also have the ability to require users to
share their email addresses in order to use your application or
Facebook Connect integration."
Essentially
this gives the opportunity for savvy marketers to harvest Facebook for
email addresses. Whilst users will still need to give permission to
send their email addresses to application owners, many users will often
click through prompts without reading properly them.
Any kind
of further direct email communication between a business and consumers
will still need to comply with local spam legislation. It seems that
Facebook is looking to further cement its lead in third party website
authentication using Facebook Connect.
Developers can learn how to request email address access by reading Facebook's
documentation.
