Facebook has recently reminded us that it will be releasing the new version of its Graph API at the end of April, which will affect all apps that include integration of the popular social network.   As experienced GoodBarber users, you know that our system currently supports Facebook integration for the Like and content sharing features.   In order to integrate Facebook in its apps, GoodBarber is using some of the V1 features (the one that will expire at the end of April 2015). But don't worry, not all Facebook integration will be compromised! There are some new and exciting features that will be presented in the coming weeks.   However, for the moment we are forced to temporarily disable the Like feature, in order to update our system with the new Graph API. All other functions will remain the same.   Stay tuned to this blog for more updates.

We often speak about the strategies that brands use to increase their visibility. Many of them have managed to create a very loyal client base, generate much buzz, and sometimes even strategically transform bad buzz into something positive. However, today I don't want to talk about the social network success stories of these brands. Rather, I want to speak to you from the perspective of a social network user about the behaviors of certain brands that drive me crazy, ultimately leading me to unsubscribe from their updates. When these behaviors are constantly recurring, they can create a negative feeling towards the brand amongst customers, even outside of social networks.  This happens to me often, and I think it occurs with a lot of you as well, so I believe it is very important to understand the magnitude and effects that certain behaviors may have on your customers' perception of your brand.  Therefore, I thought making a list of social network behaviors that agitate me the most could be useful for giving you an idea of exactly what not to do in your own business' social networking strategy.   

This month, Facebook introduced a new algorithm for News Feed algorithm for 2015 that will change the way we receive content on the most prominent page on Facebook. If you don’t know about the new guidelines yet, this will be a valuable article for you. We will explain in detail what you should know about the new guidelines for Promotions and Advertisers on the News Feed and how you can optimize your mobile campaign.

As there are 1.3 million apps available in the market, user engagement has become a key factor in the success of an application. Today, I'll show you how to achieve this engagement on social networks through five steps (Exist, Know, Offer, Identify, Award).  

Huge! Facebook is the largest online social network and according to Facebook stats has more than 1 billion monthly active users. Almost 90% of worldwide active users are using mobile phones to check their news feed, chat with friends and update their Facebook profile. There is no doubt that Facebook has conquered most of the world's internet users and brings to the table a great opportunity for brands, companies and entrepreneurs to launch their products with a low budget or even, for free. The mobile apps promotion are not an exception. In the last two years, Facebook has improved the advertising tools for mobile promotion, becoming more successful than conventional Facebook ads. The variety of advertising formats, the deep segmentation (gender, language, interests, behavior, connections, pages), and the placement of your ads on the News feed helps to increase the number of downloaded apps, the app's engagement and retention of app users. These facts also contribute to achieve a more relevant position through search tools of Google Play and Apple's App Store. But let's understand how it works in detail.

For those of you who have migrated from GoodBarber 2 to the new version, GoodBarber 3, you may have noticed that the Custom section wit the 4 templates (Contact Us, About, URL and HTML) does not exist anymore. In it's place we created the HTML section that allows you to choose between and HTML and URL template. But what about the About and Contact Us template? Many of you have been asking where to find these sections, don't worry, we haven't forgot them, we just decided to rebuild them completely to make even easier to use, now the configuration of the settings is very similar to that of the CMS sections :) Today we present the new Contact us section, it has just been published and it's ready for you to use it in your apps!

This year's f8 conference was all about helping developers build, grow and monetize their apps. Facebook's main objective is to become a stable mobile platform for developers to build on top of.   I took the time to watch the keynote . It's a 1 hour video. If you have the time, go ahead, it's worth watching it. If you don't, I'll give here the main points covered.

Your GoodBarber app embeds social sharing features that will help your users to spread the word about your content. It means that almost everywhere in the app, your readers have access to a "share" button that will lead them the sharing screen.   You've probably already added such features to your website: you can easily understand that the more the process will be easy for your users to share your posts or videos, the more they'll share it :)   Since the GoodBarber 2.5 Salvador release, we've also integrated Facebook likes into the apps. It means that once your reader is logged in your app with his Facebook account, he'll just have to click on the "heart" button to like the post he's reading. It's not exactly the same action than a real Facebook share: a share will create a new post in the user's timeline, and a like will just appear in the Facebook ticker feed.   To be honnest, as a Facebook user, I prefer most of the times to just "like" a blog post than to actually "share" it to my friends: the two actions are totally different and apply in different situations.   GoodBarber also allows you to ask your users to login using Facebook or Twitter to post a comment, to bookmark a content, or to submit a picture/video/text from a Submit section. You should enable this feature if you don't want the comments on your website to be anonymous.

Many of you have enabled the social sharing options into your apps, and you're right! It's a very good way to encourage your users to spread the word about your app and your content. Since last week, the Android beta is opened on GoodBarber. You probably noted that new options have appeared in your backend: in expert mode, you can now upload a specific icon and a specific splash screen for your Android app. In order to set up properly the sharing options in your app, you need to set up a new parameter in the Facebook and Twitter apps you have already created. Here is a little summary of the modifications you have to apply to your social apps if you have already created them.