Image - Courtesy of the Facebook Advertising Guide ISBN 978-0-9806484-7-8

The study showed a notable increase in awareness, ad recall and purchasing intent when the Facebook Ads mentioned friends of those users who have become fans of the brand in the ad. This is actually no surprise as it has been a known fact that online (or off line) peer recommendations are one of the most influential factors in brand acceptance. If a Facebook Ad coincides with an item in a user’s News Feed (for instance indicating that a friend has become a fan of a brand, artists, product etc.) the impact of the ad on awareness and recall is even more evident.

Facebook Ads on average generated 10 % increase in ad recall, 4 % increase in brand awareness and 2 % increase in purchase behavour among users who saw the ads compared with a control group with similar demographics or characteristics who didn’t see the ad.

According to Jon Gibbs, VP-media analytics at Nielsen “Paid and earned media work together in ways that could have implications well beyond Facebook. The market has been talking very much about how to buy paid media and how to earn earned media, but there’s been very little attention to the types of hybrid impressions and hybrid experience that blends these two. Facebook’s Social Ads present a fairly unique way of blending paid and earned impressions.”

Nielsen is the world’s leading marketing and media information company active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in New York, USA.

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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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.

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

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This is a direct result of Starbucks’ aggressive internet and social media strategy according to Starbucks digital strategy director, Alexandra Wheeler. Starbucks is now actively incorporating and utilising the most popular social media channels, such as Twitter and Facebook in its online marketing.

Starbuck’s Free Pastry campaign, where you received a free pastry with a beverage purchase was a huge success. Nearly 600,000 people reacted to that campaign on Facebook. Another hugely successful campaign was their Product (Red) campaign with almost a million people responding “yes” or “maybe” to the promotion last holiday season. Product (Red) contributed 5 cents for every Starbucks beverage purchased to the AIDS-fighting project. These results show the power of the Starbucks as a brand and how well it has been able to connect with their clients through these social media networks.

According to Wheeler one of the key priorities we have to think about when it comes to social media marketing is that we have to connect in ways that are relevant to those environments as well as to our consumers. One of the most powerful ways is by sharing content and participating in discussion.

Starbucks has also a big fan base on Twitter. They have over 270.000 followers and are following 85.000 of them back. Almost all of Starbucks’ posts are @ replies which means that they actually are communicating with their fans. Most of the communication on their Facebook page, however is done by the fans on the wall posts. If you enjoyed this post, then make sure you subscribe to my RSS Feed or ReTweet.

Facebook and Twitter have become important tools for brand building and -maintenance for companies and public figures.

McDonalds has over 300.000 Facebook fans and Lacoste and Lacoste Bags have over 2500 followers on Twitter and close to a million fans on Facebook. Karl Lagerfeld has more than 21.000 followers on Twitter which is quite suprising since he’s following back none.  The basic rule on Twitter and other social medias is that when someone becomes your fan or starts following you, you should return the favour. Obviously Karl is so cool (see pic) that he can bend this rule. Generally for a commercial entity it is not a good idea to show disrespect and not to be interested in your fans or followers. Chanel has collected 45.000 fans on Facebook so far, however they missed out on Twitter. The most popular Chanel is ‘chanelwestcoast’ aka c.c. who is a 20 years old “Rapping Receptionist” from Los Angeles with over 18.000 followers.

There are over 9 million visitors on Twitter every month, while Facebook has more than 200 million users worldwide. These sites are serious sites to be at when you are a marketer or advertiser reliant on individual people to buy your stuff.

At first you might think that Facebook is just one more social networking site and Twitter is just a crazy, 140 character micro-blogging platform, but marketing professionals have for some time recognised the capabilities these tools offer for branding and customer loyalty.  One of the key advantages to using social medias for a brand is the engagement with your fans and hence, consumers. You are able to create an important link between your product and your consumer. If you searched “Coca Cola” on Twitter you would have found out that a Spanish guy was drinking Coke with his Doritos 9 minutes ago. Do you think that would be interesting news for the marketing department of the Coca Cola Company? We’ll, it should be. Suprisingly Coca Cola does not have a Twitter presence, however they do have 3.5 million fans on Facebook. Pepsi on the other hand has close to 3000 followers and they even have official Pepsi Max Finland up there! I think I’ll just follow both of them since Pepsi must be the coolest cola drink out there at the moment.

Here’s my advice to all you marketers who are targeting your products or services direct to individual consumers: lock in your Facebook and Twitter names as soon as possible. Don’t think about it, just do it. Later on, when you actually realise the importance of this, it is quite unpleasant to find out that someone else (perhaps even your competitor) has beaten you to it.

Kris Olin
Web Designer | Internet Promotion Strategist
Msc (marketing)
http://twitter.com/KrisOlin