Facebook Advertising | Social Media Marketing

Entertainment giant Disney Corporation is using Facebook effectively in promoting their latest movie, Alice In Wonderland. Their Alice In Wonderland Facebook Fan Page is one of the most customised Facebook pages we have ever seen. It is beautifully illustrated and filled with interactive features and all kinds of fun stuff for fans.

The opening page is not the Wall as in most Facebook fan pages but a quirky Mad Hatter Flash application where you can join the Mad Hatter’s army to fight the Red Queen. There is also an invitation to a special Tea-Party (for getting the viral message out there) as well as plenty of videos and pictures. The fan pages feature a separate tab for the movie based Nintendo Wii and SD games as well as a live stream from the red carpet party. The stream is delivered by Ustream which is the other big name in Facebook streaming together with Livestream who produced the Foo Fighters concert three months ago (see post). Disney’s Alice In Wonderland Facebook page has attracted close to a million fans and as I’m writing this post the numbers keep on going up and up. These fan pages are a good example of how companies can use, and should use Facebook as part of their social marketing operations. Click here to see the fan page.  The new Alice In Wonderland movie, directed by Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp as Mad Hatter opens in movie theaters March 5.

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It’s the biggest event in the history of sports. Olympics. As Facebook has become the biggest Social Media and hang around place on the planet, then obviously Olympics must be on Facebook as well. The official Facebook page for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics (www.facebook.com/olympics) is nicely put together with lots of pictures, videos, discussions and even an RSS feed subscription. The Facebook page was established by the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) as a part of their marketing program. It is no accident that they also have a link to their official merchandising store on the page info. The Vancouver 2010 fan page has gathered over 1.1 million fans so far; whereas the Beijing 2008 Olympics Facebook page managed to get ‘only’ about 320.000 fans. This must be an indication of the huge growth Facebook has experienced in the last few years. The next Winter Olympics which will be held in 2014 in Sochi (South-West Russia) have also set-up their Facebook page in good time and will no doubt gather a million plus fan base when the time comes. Additionally there are two wanna be Facebook Groups pitching for future events; Chicago 2016 and Minneapolis 2020.

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James Cameron’s new film Avatar has become a massive hit in the box office. It is a wonderful combination of a virtual world and a real world. It is also a no-brainer to predict that it will be released as an online version at some stage. Today’s virtual online worlds have attracted millions of users, reasonable venture capital and even impressive revenues once in awhile. The futuristic term “virtual world” means different things to different audience. Some of the popular ones include Sims, Gaia Online, Habbo or Kaneva. Then we have the  large-scale multiplayer games like Blizzard’s World of Warcraft and Diablo. One of the pioneers in this area was the open-ended 3D play ground Second Life which took the world by storm in 2005.

Facebook has its own selection of virtual worlds in the form of the hugely popular Mafia Wars and a bit older Vampires, City of Eternals. Mafia Wars has over 1.6 million fans on Facebook and there are 25 million monthly users who are playing it. The game has over 75.000 followers on Twitter as well. As Facebook is the dominant social network at the moment it would not be a surprise if the Avatar world of Pandora would be released on Facebook rather sooner than later. In the meantime, let’s go and see the 3D version of the film again…and again.

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If you enjoy using Social Media Websites chances are that you would have a Facebook account as well as a Twitter account. Both of these allow you to make updates to your status. By creating a connection between these two accounts you only need to write your message once as it will be posted to the other one automatically. There are two ways of creating the connection between Facebook and Twitter. You can link your Twitter account to your personal Facebook account; or you can link your Facebook Page to your Twitter account.  In the first option the message goes from Twitter to Facebook and in the second option it goes from Facebook to Twitter. For instance if you use Twitter regularly just write your message on your Twitter account and it will be posted automatically on your Facebook account. You will see it on your Facebook profile page and it will appear on the Facebook News Feed. Here is how you can do that in just a few simple steps.

Connecting Your Twitter Account to Your Personal Facebook Account

In this connection when you write a message on your Twitter account it gets automatically posted into your Facebook status and Wall. Here are 5 simple steps how you can make that connection. You need to be logged into your Facebook account in order to do this.

Step 1 – Locate the Twitter Application

The Twitter application as well as many other cool applications are stored in the Facebook Applications area.

http://www.facebook.com/apps/directory.php

Alternatively, you can access it directly at the following URL:

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2231777543

Once you have located the application click the blue ‘Go to Application’ -button.

Step2 – Allow Access

By clicking the ‘Allow’ –button you will authorise Twitter and Facebook create the connection needed. Go ahead and … click.

Step 3 – Log on to Twitter

Next you will need to log in to your Twitter account to make the connection happen.

Since we are creating a connection to your personal Facebook account you should use your personal Twitter account here as well.

Step 4 – Allow Twitter updates

In order to get the automatic update from your Twitter account to show up on your Facebook status you need to click the ‘+ Allow Twitter to Update Your Facebook Status’ –button.

This enables the connection and sends you to the next screen.

Step 5 – Authorisation

This is a bit unnecessary step but you need to click the blue ‘Allow Status Updates’ –button to finalise the operation.

The only good thing about this page is that it gives you the page URL where you can change the settings of this Twitter application as well as your other Facebook applications. Here is the direct link to that page: http://www.facebook.com/editapps.php

Once you click the button you will be back on the previous screen. From this screen you can also update your Facebook status. This will be posted automatically to you Twitter account as well. Please note that when you update your status on your Facebook profile page as you would do normally, it does not post to your Twitter account.

…and you’re done!

Congratulations!

You have now connected your Twitter account with your personal Facebook account. Everytime you  write a new Twitter post it will now automatically show up on your Facebook Profile. Next time we will have a look how to connect your Facebook Business Page to your Twitter business account.

This article is Part 2 of the illustrated bonus guide ‘Linking Facebook and Twitter‘ which you can get free by ordering the Facebook Advertising Guide.

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If you are a Twitter user then you would know about the popular re-tweet function. When you receive a Twitter post , or a Tweet that you like you can do a re-tweet on it by clicking on the Retweet button in that post. The message will get posted to your account with a mention about the original person who wrote it (RT @johnsmith). This is a great way of spreading interesting or important posts on Twitter and often these messages spread virally. Ever since Facebook tried to buy Twitter (see post) they have been trying to emulate Twitter’s operations; and it’s no surprise when Facebook decided to have  its own version of Twitter’s re-tweet functionality. It doesn’t have a cool name yet like ‘re-tweet’ or anything so people are just calling it the ‘Facebook Via Feature’. This new feature lets you make a re-post on another user’s shared items such as links.

This is how you do re-tweet (or Facebook via) on Facebook:

When you see a friend’s posted item in your news feed that you would like to re-post click the ‘share‘ button below it. A new window opens up and and you will see a mention ‘via johnsmith (Remove)‘  below the comment box. Write your comment in the box and click the Share-button. If you don’t want to use the via-feature then click the Remove-button before you post it on your profile. Once you have shared your friend’s post it will appear on your profile with a via link that points to your friend’s profile. Your friends will also see the item in their News Feed and they can in turn do a re-post creating a viral loop of the message. Pretty cool, eh? Go ahead now and give it a go… and let me know how you find this feature.

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Facebook’s CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg annouces that the social network he started in 2004 has now reached 350 million users.

Zuckerberg also said that Facebook will be removing their regional networks. Facebook’s current privacy model revolves around networks which works well for smaller groups of people. However,  some of the regional networks, like India and China have now millions of members and this is no longer the best way to control the privacy issues of users. About 50 percent of all Facebook users belong to some regional network. Facebook will be adding features that many users have already asked for; for instance the ability to control who sees the content you create or upload. In addition, the privacy settings page will be made simpler by combining some settings. This is actually a very good upgrade as their privacy settings are quite a mess. So the next Facebook update will remove the current regional networks and create some new privacy features.  In the next couple of weeks Facebook will ask users to review and update their privacy settings.  Facebook will suggest settings for users based on their current level of privacy, but the best way to do this is to customise them yourself.

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Facebook was launched five years ago on February 4^th in 2004. Its founder, Mark Zuckerberg launched the Facebook as an experimental social network exclusively for Harvard University students. It was a huge hit right from the beginning. The current board members are Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Andreessen, Jim Breyer, Don Graham and Peter Thiel, David Sze (observer) and Paul Mader (observer). Facebook’s headquarters are in Palo Alto, California and they have offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas,  Detroit,  New York,  Venice Beach, Dublin, London, Paris, Sydney and Toronto.

The mega succesful rock band KISS had a live concert last night on Facebook. This seems to become a trend with big bands since just about three weeks ago Foo Fighters had their own Facebook appearance. See post. The KISS concert was arranged through Celebs On Facebook who have over 2 million fans.

As well as being one of the most famous bands on earth, KISS is also a massive marketing organization run by Gene Simmons, aged 60 selling ‘official’ clothing, jewellery, calendars, lithographs, glassware and even limited edition KISS wine. Oh, yes …and close to 100 million albums as well. It is rumoured that KISS is the only band in the world who make more money from their merchandising than from their music.

The Facebook concert was aired from the Staples Centre in Los Angeles, California and it was delivered by Ustream. Funnily enough the event was not advertised on the official KISS Faceboook page.  KISS has over 300.000 fans on Facebook and their current lineup includes Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer. The band was founded 1972 by Simmons and Stanley. Their biggest hits include Crazy Crazy Nights, Strutter and I Was Made For Loving You. You can check out the concert event here.

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Do You Want To Reach 350.000.000 Targeted Customers?

I have finally finished and published my Facebook Advertising Guide. It is currently available as a digital download managed by PayDotCom (108 pages, full colour) and it will be later available as a paperback.

Facebook Advertising Guide is not about fancy theories and statistics how to make million dollars on Facebook overnight. This guide book is a practical Facebook guide for all of you who want to learn how Facebook advertising works and how to do it effectively. Within the different chapters of this book I will present visual step-by-step guides how to do certain marketing operations on Facebook. There are also plenty of references and web addresses (URL’s) to various areas on Facebook and the web. Facebook Advertising Guide will show you how to bring your message across to over 350 Million targeted Facebook users quick and easy. I will teach you how you can advertise  effectively on Facebook plus how  you can create and advertise Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups, Facebook News Feeds and much more. There are also plenty of real life examples of Facebook advertising projects from real companies.

If you would like to get a copy of the new Facebook Advertising Guide, please click here.

Facebook presented a live concert from Foo Fighters last weekend. The live performance was streamed from their Studio 606 in California. Dave Grohl’s Foo Fighters is hugely popular on Facebook with over 800.000 fans. The concert event was to promote their latest album Greatest Hits which will be released today November 3rd. According to Foo Fighters Facebook Events Page the concert attracted 16.316 confirmed guests. This event is just one example of the power of Facebook as one of the most important advertising channels of modern day marketing.

If you missed the concert, click here to see it on Livestream’s website.

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If you are still wondering what is the current state of Social Networking, Social Media or Social Media Marketing, have a look at part two of the awesome presentation series by the Boston-based communications expert, Marta Kagan.

If you missed part one, you can see it here..
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