Prepared: January 24, 2012

The Purpose of this POV:

The purpose of this POV is to 1) examine the release of the new Facebook open graph and action apps and 2) make recommendations on how brands can take advantage of the new open graph on Facebook to help drive real time consumer engagement.

Summary:

With the new open graph, Facebook wants everything a user does either on the web or in real life to be broadcast on Facebook. Many brands have been using the open graph since 2008 when the “LIKE” button debuted. This button, which could be embedded across the web, allowed for users to endorse particular content with a one-click solution. When a user liked something, this was broadcast to their social news feed for their friends to see.

Facebook called this a passive endorsement and wanted to transform the platform into a real time action engine where users would have a digital timeline of their activity. Thus, they showcased the New Open Graph in September of 2011 with Ticker, Timeline and Actions acting as the three cornerstone pieces of the platform.

How does the new Facebook Open Graph work?

The old open graph consisted ofThe “LIKE” buttonThe button could be placed anywhere on the webMainly used to build an earned community

The new open graph consists of three elementsTIMELINE TICKERACTIONS

ACTIONS!You can think of this as the new LIKE buttonActions are instead used to document the behaviors you take elsewhere on the web that are amplified on FacebookThey are defined by developers and you’ll see them in your TIMELINE, TICKER and NEWS FEED

POV: New Facebook Open Graph: Action Applications

When you visit Facebook

When you visit Facebook there are four main areas that are message centers. Please see images below each description. These areas include:

Newsfeed: This is unchanged and is still the main area a user lands on when logging in. Note that action applications will NOT be amplified in this area.

Ticker: This is a live real time scrolling dashboard located to the right of your news feed. This is the main area where action applications will be amplified so friends can discover what real time actions their network is exploring, discovering, doing, etc.

Timeline: This is now the new user profile. All action application usage will be embedded here for archivist purposes.

Actions: Any application used is now amplified on the ticker and embedded on the timeline. In this example the user is using the Washington Post Reader and The Guardian Reader applications and his actions are being imprinted into his digital timeline for archivist purposes. This activity is also displayed in real time on his Ticker.

How Action Applications Work

The premise behind action applications is the idea of “frictionless sharing.” This terminology means once you sign up for apps on the web or Facebook, they'll automatically share your activity through Facebook.

Action applications now number 60 on the Facebook platform with various partners. All revolve around an action verb. Some of the subject categories and partners in which apps now exist are listed below.

All apps are searchable on Facebook. Each Open Graph app gets its own "verb" like ran, listened, cooked, watched or read. These verbs show friends how a user is interacting with something in their digital life.

Essentially, a user will be able to share nearly any type of information or activity online (that they want to based on their privacy settings) without actually having to visit Facebook — once the action apps are installed by the user.

Facebook will begin approving any application that wants to integrate with Facebook’s Timeline via Open Graph starting immediately.

Some of the new action app categories and partners include:

Travel

Gogobot Airbnb TripAdvisor

Food

Foodspotting

Cookpad Snooth (wine) Urbanspoon Yummly Foodily

Shopping/Fashion

Pose Pinterest Polyvore Oodle Fab.com eBay Giftrocket Payvment Livingsocial

Fitness

MapMyRun Runkeeper

Entertainment

Rotten Tomatoes Dailymotion (French video site) Cinemur (French video site) Metacafe (videos) Wooga (Bubble Island, Diamond Dash) OMGPOP (Draw My Thing) Zynga (Words with Friends, Castleville)

Giving

Causes Fundrazr Artez.com

Others

BranchOut (job search) Monster (job search) Color (photo and video sharing) Courserank (education) Grockit (education) Foursquare (location) Goodreads (books) Kobo (books) StubHub (ticketing) Ticketmaster (ticketing) Ticketfly (ticketing) ScoreBig (ticketing) Appsfire (app discovery) Artfinder (art) Autotrader (cars)

Location

Foursquare

When a user downloads an application and begins using it, their action is fed to the Ticker and their Timeline. Apps will not require permission in the new open graph. Once a user clicks on that app, they are using it. An example of what the developer’s platform for action apps will look like:

Facebook Action Application FAQ

How does my brand build an application?

Begin by researching the developer platform at: https://developers.facebook.com/The biggest opportunity for your brand to enter the conversation of advocates is now through a combined program involving community/content strategy, content sharing strategy and application creation and deployment. Consult your Ogilvy representative for your best course of action depending on your desired goals.

What do I do if my strategy to date involved building Likes?

The Like button is not going away. It is still part of the open graph and still essential to building community. Although we recommend continuing to build your community in helping increase members to amplify messaging, the new open graph puts an emphasis on an engagement strategy. This is where all brands must turn their attention to in order to create engaging customer experiences and to build a data mining engine in the form of an application that collects user feedback. This user feedback in real time, will in turn, help plot your brand’s future marketing strategy and communications.

What if I don’t have budget for an application right now?

Don’t be concerned. The platform was just announced in September of 2011. Many brands will need to build a good story of user engagement and experience with their social agency partner. Please make sure that your brand doesn’t simply look at this as only a Facebook application. Because of the power of the open graph, an

application should be approached as a 360 degree, multi-channel user experience tool that can be leveraged across the web, social and mobile. As a result, this requires a long tail outlook for your consumer engagement strategy. Please consult your Ogilvy partner contact for additional details on building an action application strategy and development costs in designing an application.

I see that my user profile page has converted to Timeline. What about my brand page?

Facebook hasn’t announced changes to brand pages yet, but we do expect a conversion in the next few months to the Timeline format. This change will require a separate POV from the social team at Ogilvy on how your brand can best adapt to the changes and new features surely to come with the update.

I don’t like Timeline. Can I just opt-out?

No. Everyone will be switched over by the end of January. Facebook will start requiring users to migrate to the new design since it is the platform that was designed to harbor the full open graph experience. Because open graph and Timeline go hand in hand; the idea is for each user’s activity across various websites and apps, both on and off Facebook, to be aggregated as a visual living record of their life.

Can I really build an application around any action verb?

Yes, but as long as it’s within reason. Your app must publish actions that are simple, genuine and non-abusive.

Simple. Actions must correspond to single verbs and objects must correspond to single nouns. Facebook will reject apps that corrupt the structure of graph by adding poorly named actions and objects as well as apps publishing activity that appear to be requests.

Genuine. Your app must publish open graph actions that are based on actions that users take in your app.

Non-abusive. Do not mislead, confuse, or surprise users with unexpected posts. Action and objects must be well-formed and not violate content policies.

I want to get started today on building an application. What do I do?

The social team at Ogilvy can set up time to brainstorm application ideas, strategize about action engagement and walk you through the steps to develop the application. These include:

Building, testing and publishing your first open graph app. We can help you build a sample app to get an idea of how users can publish action items on behalf of your brand. The steps to build an open graph application are as follows:

Step 1: Create a Facebook app Step 2: Authenticate users with the Add to Timeline plug-in Step 3: Define initial action, object, and aggregation in the Dev App Step 4: Publish Actions for your users Step 5: Add social plug-ins to your app: Facepile plug-in, Activity plug-in and Recommendations plug-in Step 6: Submit Your Actions or approval to Facebook

Want to get started immediately? Your Social@Ogilvy team can set up time with you to brainstorm ideas, strategize with you and walk you through the process to develop an application and build a timeline.

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