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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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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Businesses are gradually realising the commercial potential of 250 million Facebook users and opening shops inside Facebook. The latest shop to open doors is 1-800-flowers.com founded by Jim McCann who started his first retail store in 1976 in New York. Now the online flower retailer has launched an e-commerce store which they claim to be the first fully functional commercial store front inside Facebook.

Registered Facebook users can now order all kinds of flower products from the online florist and gift shop without ever leaving the social network environment. The shopping itself is quite easy and straight forward. First you choose a nice bunch of flowers from their catalogue; the prices vary from $29.99 to over $100. Then you enter your US based zip code and delivery date; next your contact details and the recipient’s details and finally your credit card numbers and you’re done. So, for instance as the lovely Sandra Bullock here had her birthday 4 days ago you could have sent her some red roses straight through your Facebook account. Very handy indeed! Sandra has about 30.000 fans on Facebook by the way!

The 1-800-flowers.com Facebook Shop has been built by a relatively new network developer, Alvenda who are based in Minneapolis. Alvenda was founded just last year by Wade Gerten, Brian Howe and Lou Abramowski. So far the Facebook Flower Shop has attracted 1,905 fans, me included, but I’m sure it will gain lots more as the news start spreading. Currently 1-800-flowers accepts payment with all major credit cards, but as (if) Facebook introduces its own internal currency (see Facebook Money Is Coming) you would be able to make purchases using that as well. If you enjoyed this post, then make sure you subscribe to my RSS Feed or ReTweet.

The number of customers using Facebook’s online-advertising system has more than tripled in the past 12 months. This means that more and more small- and medium- sized businesses are now using Facebook as part of their online marketing strategy. Lots of local businesses are now finding success in this advertising model. Facebook launched its advertising program in 2007.

The ads, which appear on users’ Facebook profile pages (wall, info, photos etc.) allow 25 characters in the title and as many as 135 characters in the body of the text plus an optional photo. The targeting behind the ads is driven by the personal profiles of Facebook users. If you list Simpsons as your favourite TV-show, you will probably see an ad from Foxtel sooner or later.

Wired’s Fred Vogelstein thinks that Facebook is poised to take over display advertising the way that Google has dominated search advertising. Internet users behave differently on Facebook than anywhere else online. Most of them use their real names, connect with their real friends, share their real thoughts, tastes and news. This is what makes Facebook audience so appealing to advertisers. You have real people with personal qualities who can be divided into exact consumer categories. Google, Yahoo and other search engines, on the other hand know little about of its users other than their search histories and some browsing activity.

Doubling its membership in March, Twitter is growing even faster than Facebook. As you might remember, at the end of last year, Facebook tried to buy Twitter for $500M but failed miserably. If Facebook had secured Twitter’s huge stake on the real time user generated information, they could have secured the dominant position in user generated live content. More and more Internet users are transferring their social habits to Twitter and Facebook from sites like Friendster and MySpace. In May this year, Facebook surpassed MySpace in the US, which was the last strong hold for the News Corp owned site. According Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg Facebook’s revenue may climb 70 percent this year. Also last month, Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies paid $200 million for less than 2 percent of Facebook, valuing the company at $10 billion. Earlier Microsoft had secured a 1.6% stake for $240 million.

Facebook is based in Palo Alto, California. It was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004. Wired is a monthly magazine published since March 1993. Wired reports on how technology affects culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast Publications, it is published in San Francisco, California.

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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)