
A/B test Facebook posts with Spark - etr71115
http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/30/naytev-wants-to-bring-a-buzzfeed-style-social-tool-to-every-publisher-with-spark/
======
whitlock
I thought this was in reference to Apache Spark.

~~~
dlandis
Is it using Apache Spark maybe? I'm confused, even their logo reminded me of
Apache Spark in terms of color at least. There are other "Spark" projects out
there as well.

~~~
batbomb
Actually it's practically the SwiftStack logo reversed:

[https://swiftstack.com/](https://swiftstack.com/)

------
Omnipresent
Apart from the name debacle I think what they are doing is fascinating. I
imagine this would be immensely useful for marketing. Does anyone have an idea
how they would be doing this? I suppose they would need data from previously
posted facebook stories.

~~~
lukethomas
This is purely a guess, but I'd imagine they boost posts (aka pay to display a
post to more people), and show them to people who already like the page to
collect initial CTR/Like/Share stats.

Then take the winner of that test and post to the rest of the people who like
the page, where "organic reach" takes over.

------
mbesto
The way this is described is kind of confusing, especially since "dark
posting" isn't really a thing anymore (i.e. unpublished posts are simply just
ads). Basically how the manual process works:

1\. Post several ads (which will show up in people's newsfeed's along with
their friend's updates, Page post, etc) that mimics the exact phrase and
imagery that you would otherwise put in your Page post.

2\. Create like 5-10 of them with different creative, verbiage, etc.

3\. Whichever ad gets the most engagement, you copy that ad to a Facebook post
which does show up in a Page feed (and if you're lucky in people's newsfeeds).
Hope it goes viral and you'll end up with clicks to your content.

Unless you have viral headlining and content ("30 things these 6 girls never
thought was possible until now") this won't be that useful, as the
cost/benefit of it probably isn't worth it.

------
shostack
I wonder if FB will buy them or build this in themselves. Given the shift to
charging for any sort of significant organic reach, it seems natural for
anyone marketing on FB to want to do this since the posts they are putting out
there are essentially ads this point, and should be tested as such to the
extent possible with the tools available.

Having a native tool to do this lets FB assure people that they are getting
the most bang for their buck now that they need to pay to play.

------
compostor42
They could have an an amazing project here but fail solely because their name
is already used by much more well-known projects.

30 seconds of googling could have prevented this.

------
kyubic
As if it wasn't confusing enough with Apache Spark, there's Spark Framework
([http://sparkjava.com](http://sparkjava.com)) which also has an extremely
similar-looking logo to this Spark.

------
quadrature
good luck to them on trying to rank for "spark", i have a hard enough time
sifting through spark notes when looking for apache spark stuff.

------
omouse
Why not just write something that's worth a damn and isn't just filler?

~~~
jdpigeon
I agree. I still understand exactly what 'dark testing' is. Is there an
audience that sees the 'unpublished page post?'

~~~
mkmk
You show multiple ads to a small selection of the facebook world, and then
compare the performance of the various ads and select the best one for
publication.

------
typomatic
I probably won't use an analytics product made by a company who immediately
runs into a trademark suit because they're not familiar with one of the
preeminent analytics solutions on the market.

