Facebook Ad Disapproved: Negative User Feedback

One of the few drawbacks of dealing the Facebook self-serve advertising platform is that some entire successful campaigns can be disabled if the ads receive enough negative user feedback.

The typical message advertisers see when ads are disapproved goes something like:

“This ad has been disapproved due to negative user feedback concerning the ad’s content. Ad quality and user feedback have always been important considerations for Facebook Ads, and help determine which ads are served to users. In general, ads that receive negative user feedback through both automated and manual reports are less likely to be shown to users, and may be removed from the site. This ad should not be run again in its current form. We appreciate your understanding.”

The new twist in this story is that I’m starting to see this disapproval message on ads that haven’t even ran yet!? Campaigns that have never been started will occasionally have a few of these “Disapproved due to user feedback” messages. These ads will in no way be related to any other ads I’ve previously created or ran.

As most FB advertisers know, there are dozens of anomalies like this every month as Facebook’s advertising platform continues to evolve. Personally I embrace the horrors.

The 80/20 Rule for Effective Social Networking

Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and other social networks that provide or feature status updates from users have taken the internet by storm over the past several years.

MySpace helped lead the Web 2.0 revolution before it crashed and burned. Now Facebook seems like it could be headed down the same path.

Originally, the first huge wave of Facebook users embraced the network mainly because of the value add factor. It was possible to be more aware of your competitors, get useful tips from people you trusted, and discover new and emerging trends by monitoring the socialsphere. In some ways, we were building Web 2.0 together.

Recently Facebook is a relaxing area where the last thing they think about is business or growing their personal network. I get the feeling most people aren’t measuring the ROI of status messages left by their friends, and basically you end up coming out of the whole situation knowing what everyone is drinking, eating, and watching on TV. This data is already available from a variety of sources so I don’t really need to get it from Facebook.

So what is the 80/20 Rule of Social Networking?
One of my associates that introduced me to Facebook in 2008 explained the value add factor – simply put, 80% of your posts need to add value to your readers, while at most 20% can be about your breakfast or your plans for the afternoon. If you violate the 80/20 rule you will not gain followers who value their time.

Rarely do people calculate the real cost required for others to read their updates. These are people I unfollow. There are many friends I have in the real world that I enjoy to hang out with during non work hours, but that I don’t necessary want to read updates from everyday of the week, all year long. This isn’t because I value their friendship less, I just don’t have the capacity to read what 45 people had for lunch, what they are planning to do that evening, or what type of wine they just opened.

With over 25,000 friends, subscriptions, and connections between Youtube, Tumblr, LinkedIN, Facebook, and Twitter, the value of the information I receive has been in a steep decline. Perhaps if I was spamming commercial products this would be a more ideal setup, but I’m simply there to consume and analyze information. This is 7 times more people than live in my hometown!

How to Unfriend your Grandma on Facebook
The recent South Park espisode featuring Facebook spelled out clearly what many of us have been thinking for the past 6 months about Facebook. For the past several weeks I’ve typically unfollowed/unfriended 25-30 people per day acrossed all networks I participate in to help keep the noise level down. Sometimes, these accounts I unfollow may be people I value relationships with in Real Life, and their feelings get hurt, or they get mad, or just don’t understand how I could unfriend them.

The problem is growing larger now that most people who primary used Facebook for business in the past are following their parents, siblings, mate’s friends, people from the bar, etc. The reason is simple – how the hell are you supposed to reject friend requests from blood relatives and people you really value without them feeling hurt in some way?

For the most part, I’ve been inactive on my personal Facebook account for the past 6 months because it just costs to much to use timewise. I’m not the only one. Professional networks such as LinkedIn are experiencing record traffic levels as Facebook’s traffic starts to level off after giant gains recently. Business people may seek more niche driven networks to increase ROI on time.

If you unfollow/unfriend me because this message cost $40.00 of your time to read and wasn’t helpful I understand. That’s how the world should work.

MyLife.com Drops Ads from Facebook

Has MyLife.com banned the use of Facebook and MySpace as sources of traffic in their affiliate program?

I received the following email on April 6th from one of my associates that seems to indicate it’s true:

“Dear Valued Affiliate,
Effective today, all MyLife affiliates are restricted from advertising on Facebook and MySpace. Please make the change on your end immediately. Your cooperation is appreciate”

Is this the end of an era or just a nasty hoax of some sort? The MyLife offer helped launch several careers and assisted many networks with their social advertising initiatives. This leaves me with just one huge question, how on earth will people find out who has been searching their name now??

MySpace CEO Quits As Facebook Has 10x Daily Reach

Owen Van Natta, the CEO of MySpace since April 2009, is on his way out. Owen was hired from rival Facebook where he served as Chief Operating Officer.

In a statement, MySpace said Mr Natta will be replaced a by two people, Mike Jones and Jason Hirschhorn.

This is probably the best thing that could happen for MySpace. Perhaps because I’m getting old as the hills now, but everyone I know has already migrated away from MySpace to Facebook.

The following graph show’s the social network’s overall reach has dropped from 8% to just above 3% over the past 18 months (no end in sight for the decline):

Are other top executives going to run for the doors as the ship sinks? Will a new leadership team get MySpace back on course? The near future will tell.

Here’s Facebook’s reach graph showing 30% (10x more traffic than MySpace now):

Facebook Tops Google Traffic For 3 Days in One Week

Facebook topped Google’s traffic again on New Year’s Eve, marking the 3rd time in a 7 day period the Social Networking giant exceeded Google’s US Visitor count according to Hitwise, an independent traffic monitoring firm.

Apparently people were constantly updating their status with their latest meal highlights and wishing holiday greetings to their 300 friends more often than they were searching for how to bake a ham, or find driving directions. Facebook kicking off 2010 as the number 1 site in the US seems appropriate after the huge year the company had in 2009.

Facebook Advertisers Are Not Cheering
There has been a noticable decrease in Facebook Advertising performance over the past several weeks. It seems like most of the additional traffic is not as productive as the standard daily user, I’d have bet the opposite. Stats have been delayed over the past 48 hours as they are updating or fixing the ad system. Over the past 24 hours, we saw only one ad approval cycle.