Facebook Advertising | Social Media Marketing

MasterChef Australia is an Australian competitive cooking reality show based on the original UK version of MasterChef. It is produced by Fremantle Media Australia and hosted by food critic, UK born Matt Preston, Top 40 chef George Calombaris and restaurateur and chef Gary Mehigan who is the owner of the famous Fenix and Maribyrnong Boathouse restaurants.

This popular reality tv-show uses Social Media Components in its marketing quite effectively. Masterchef has its own Facebook Page as well as Twitter account. The show has close to 95.000 fans on Facebook and over 6.000 followers on Twitter. They post 3.8 tweets/day approximately and have followers from all over the world. Their website (masterchef.com.au) is also built to function like a social media website or portal with social engagement features such as polls, competitions, recipes (duh..) and games. Logie Award winning judge Matt Preston has his own Facebook Page as well with over 6.000 fans.

MasterChef is on channel TEN 7.30 Sunday-Friday.

According to the first public Facebook user study done by Nielsen, Facebook Advertising works.  Nielsen studied more than 800,000 Facebook users as well as advertising campaigns from 14 different brands in several categories. Acccording to the study those Facebook Ads which included mentions from friends who were already fans of the advertised products saw an increase in product recall of 16 %. The increase was 30 % when the ads coincided with a similar mention in the users’ News Feeds.

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.

Social Media for Business -interview series has a panel of prominent Internet professionals from all over the world who are at the cutting edge of the latest Social Platforms. During this exciting and truly international interview series our experts reveal what are the most useful Social Media Tools and what you need to consider when you start using Social Media as part of  your marketing mix.

Will Payovich

Will Payovich is the Creative Director at Euro RSCG, Chicago USA. Will has successfully managed a wide variety of creative projects from high-end retail to highly technical industrial lubricants. He has delivered impressive results for many iconic consumer brands including, Citibank, Harley-Davidson, Western Union, Kraft, Sprint, Shell and ExxonMobil. Will’s creative leadership has produced numerous awards for the agency and he frequently serves as a judge at regional and international advertising competitions. He is also a regular contributor to trade publications on the topics creative and marketing strategy. Will keeps tabs on the industry at large with his daily blog.

Q1. What are the most important Social Media Platforms at the moment?

For advertisers, in general terms, the platforms with mass and activity. Facebook for its numbers and demographics, Twitter for its continued growth, influence and immediacy, and Foursquare which is gaining wider acceptance and popularity. Doesn’t mean any one of these aren’t the next Friendster-platforms will continue to evolve. What will help these platforms is that all are conducive to mobile as well as the desktop.

Q2. How do you see Social Media has changed the advertising communication?

It’s another channel in the marketing mix and not a silver bullet. It’s a channel that will require some trial and error and patience. And, it’s safe to assume it may not play a role at all in your advertising plan.

Q3. What Social Media Platforms would you recommend to a company that is just starting their online marketing?

It really all depends. Are you B2B? business to consumer? Product or service? Where will you find most of your prospects and customers? The reco becomes easier with a better understanding of your business and the goals you’ve set.

Q4. What are the key points to remember when a business starts using Social Media?

Research. Have a plan. It all requires effort. Test. Measure. Be nimble.

Three reasons NOT to start using Social Media:

1. Our competition [everybody] is doing it.
2. We don’t have a budget and social media=free marketing
3. We live in fear of receiving the slightest negative feedback

Q5. How does Social Media Marketing differ from traditional marketing?

Traditional marketing is a monologue. Social Media Marketing is a dialogue. A conversation. Equal parts talking and listening. Marketers were used to doing all the talking have to learn to listen and leverage user-generated, (consumer-generated) content.

Q6. Do you think every company (that has a website) should have a Social Media Strategy? Why?

It seems only natural to leverage social media. As long as it’s driving traffic to your website and not cannibalizing or confusing consumers, go for it. It should all tie into your strategic online plan-and, are you seeing dividends from the time and effort you’re putting in to it.

Q7. How do you see Facebook as a Social Media Marketing tool?

Facebook is an excellent tool for those in it for the long run. Funny how many abandoned “fan pages” are out there (not a great brand builder.) Facebook is great for those that have a plan and don’t make it a playground for idle interns. And for those who want to engage consumers and can take criticism as well as praise. When done right, Facebook allows brands to strengthen bonds with consumers like never before.

If you liked this interview there’s more to come in the series; please Subscribe to our RSS Feed or use the bookmark widget below.

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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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

Facebook is the most popular social networking site in the world. It is one of the greatest applications alongside Twitter and MSN Live Messenger to keep up with your friends.  But did you know that you can use Facebook effectively to promote your products and/or services as well? Facebook is also an execellent vehicle to create or reinforce brand awareness.

Here are two effective methods you can use Facebook for business purposes:

1. Facebook Ads. Advertising your products or services with Facebook Ads you can reach upto 200 million active Facebook users. These advertisements are the small ads you see on the right hand side of your profile page. For some reason I tend to get a lot of beer ads (?). As a marketer you can advertise to your potential audience by using their age, gender, location or personal interests as a targeting factor.  You also can target people with specific keywords they have written in their profiles. This type of advertising is one of the most targeted marketing vehicles in the world! There are very few competing medias where you can use so many specific factors as how to reach your audience.

2. Fan pages. Another way of advertising on Facebook is creating a fan page about your product or service. A lot of rock bands use this method very effectively. For instance, a great Finnish Goth Rock band Nightwish have over 250,000 fans! Do you think you could do some serious marketing to that audience? Yes, you could! You can start discussions, post photos and write announcements on your page for your fans to see. You can also send official updates to all of your fans, or just a segment of your fans who, say, are female and live in Sydney Australia. (Image by Andy Warhol.)

As we speculated last month, Facebook is about to hand over its official classifieds listings to a partner, and that partner is Oodle, we have been able to confirm. An announcement may be made as early as tomorrow.

What is interesting about this deal is that Oodle already powers the classifieds on MySpace. Even though Facebook and MySpace are archrivals, this makes sense because in classifieds scale matters. The more listings and the more people seeing those listings, the better.

Classifieds so far have failed on Facebook because they have not been reengineered to be more social. Oodle should take a look at iList, which tries to make listings go viral by letting friends promote your listings for you.

By becoming the preferred classifieds partner, Oodle’s app would be promoted by Facebook in return for a cut of revenues generated by listing fees and the like. Facebook is also looking for a partner to ru

Social media study shows 59 out of 100 leading retailers currently have a Fan Page on Facebook.

The study conducted in the US included 100 retailers with a prominent e-commerce presence. 59% of the retailers studied have produced a Fan Page on Facebook.  These retailers include Best Buy, Toys R Us, Kohl’s and Wal-Mart. If you plan your Facebook presence correctly you can attract a lot of interest. For instance a popular liqueur, Jagermeister has currently over 156,000 fans.  Not bad for a drink, eh?

Last year we have reached critical mass with Facebook marketing. It is no longer an option to be there. It is a must if you want to succeed globally. Social media sites are an important source of consumer connection and retailers are now using Facebook to reach their potential customers.  Facebook users can be profiled according to the details they give on their basic (demographics) and personal information (activities, interests, favourite music, favourite movies, book etc.). It is this information that the retailers and advertisers can use to reach their exact target audience. For instance, if you list Ballroom Dancing or Yoga in your activities or interests, you will most likely get advertisements related to those areas.

An effective Facebook presence requires that you carefully consider what your potential customers are looking for, what you would like to communicate, and what role a fan page should play in your overall marketing strategy. If you take all of these into account, it can be very effective in building customer loyalty and brand awareness.

(Study conducted in April of 2008 and updated in September of 2008 by Rosetta Marketing Agency)

Facebook Advertising Guide will show you how to bring your products to thousands of targeted customers quick and easy.

Facebook Advertising Guide will give you easy to understand advertising and marketing guidelines and tips how you can promote your products and services with pin point accuracy.

Please email us your details and we contact you as soon as the Facebook Advertising Guide is available.

Best regards,

Kris Olin
Digital Publisher, MscBa