Tag Archives: fan page

Beyond the Facebook Status Update: SMBTV #5

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If you’re a brand trying to market to customers on Facebook, how do you cut through all the noise and reach your audience? What can you do to engage people through the medium, beyond just having them fan your page? Atlanta-based social media strategist Brad Ruffkess tackled these questions this morning at the fifth Social Media Breakfast Tech Valley.

Brad shared some interesting data points about Facebook:

  • Brad Ruffkess SMBTV The average user fans two pages a month on Facebook
  • Facebook approximates 30 billion page views per month
  • Gaming in social media is huge. Farmville has more users than Twitter
  • Facebook’s self-service ads drive $200 million in revenue

He shared some interesting ways brands are using Facebook: Adidas’ Star Wars campaign that integrates Google Maps and a Facebook user’s location to “blow up” their city with a blast from the Death Star. Canada’s CTV broadcast network integrated the Olympic Torch Relay live video stream with Facebook Connect to allow viewers to post status updates about watching the relay live.

Brad left plenty of time for Q&A that covered everything from the benefits and differences of profiles vs. groups vs. pages to the intricacies of FBML and ways to measure effectiveness of Facebook engagement.

Some of the key takeaways:

  • The value in Facebook is not necessarily the “share” but the “re-share” – what can you do to get your network to post content on your behalf? People like and trust information they see from their friends more than they do from brands.
  • Don’t forget to take your Facebook engagement off of Facebook. It’s very easy to use widgets and simple lines of code to add Facebook functionality to your Web site. Add a fan page box, allow users to comment on content on your site (video, e.g.) via Facebook status updates, use Facebook Connect for people to comment.
  • Quantity does not always (or sometimes ever) trump quality. A small number of passionate fans is more valuable than mountains of people who don’t really care.
  • Paid media is critical to success on Facebook and one way to cut through the noise. Advertising on Facebook is extremely targeted and affordable. At the very least, you can use the self-service ad tool to look at data surrounding the particular group you want to target.
  • There are rules of the road to Facebook and if you violate them, your page and community can be removed. Know the restrictions around things like contests and protocol for contacting fans and asking for their personal info. If you abuse the rules, Facebook can and will remove you – and then you’ve lost all the time and effort you’ve spent building up your page and following.

You can watch the video of the entire presentation via UStream, courtesy of MZA Multimedia. You can also view the Twitter transcript of the event.

What’s the most creative marketing use of Facebook that you’ve seen?

Why small brands are kicking butt with Facebook ads

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Most Facebook users have seen their fair share of irrelevant or inappropriately targeted ads show up in the sidebar (perhaps none as notorious as the man who saw his wife’s picture next to a Facebook dating ad). Most of the time I ignore the ads and don’t go through the trouble to “thumbs down” an ad and give a reason.

Lately, however, I’ve started to notice more and more genuinely good ads. They aren’t coming from huge brands with big budgets, either. Small organizations looking for an inexpensive way to precisely target audiences are turning to Facebook. Check out this ad that was served up to me earlier in the week:

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This ad worked for me because it was:

  1. Local: It somewhat startled me to see the town of East Greenbush mentioned in an ad. I thought, “Hey, I know where that is!”
  2. Relevant: I like going to plays and the theater. I had updated my Facebook status last week before heading in to a play at a different local theater, so Facebook knows it’s something I like to do. It wasn’t an ad for a local Monster Truck Derby.
  3. Quaint: Perhaps not the best term, but it was kind of refreshing to see an ad from a small, local organization versus big national brands. I had been getting sick of Facebook ads pushing summer blockbusters or TV shows or “Become a Fan of Megabrand X.”

I would likely never have heard about this production had it not been for the Facebook ad. I’d actually never heard of the organization (The Spotlight Players) putting on the play before until I saw this ad. It caused me to do a little searching and it turns out the organization, a small community theater group, doesn’t even have a Web site. Just about its entire online presence is via Facebook. They have a great fan page that includes several photo albums of previous productions and they use the wall to announce calls for auditions and post links to reviews. The page has 137 fans, which is pretty decent for a niche theater group that caters to a small suburban town.

I’m sure the Spotlight Players also take advantage of many traditional means of promoting shows (community calendar announcements in local newspapers, flyers, etc.) but since I don’t live in the specific community where they operate I’m unlikely to see those. Facebook ads are an easy and inexpensive way for them to expand their geographic reach and hopefully increase attendance at their productions.

Social media isn’t just for big companies and big brands with unlimited budgets. Nor is it only for organizations that have dedicated marketing staff or social media “expertise.” I doubt that The Spotlight Players have much of a budget at all and probably no dedicated marketing team or “social media experts” in their organization. Still, they’ve figured out an effective way to get the word out about who they are and what they do.

Last week I didn’t even know The Spotlight Players existed. Thanks to their Facebook efforts, I just may be going to see The Producers this weekend.