Facebook Advertising | Social Media Marketing

Facebook has recently released a new form of participation on Facebook. Additionally to the original Facebook Pages (Fan Pages, or Like Pages as they should be called now) and Facebook Groups you can now create Facebook Community Pages. The purpose of these Community Pages is that by creating one you can generate support for your favorite cause, hobby, pet, hockey league or just about any topic that you are passionate about.

If your Community Page becomes popular, “it will be adopted and maintained by the Facebook community”. I wonder what that last sentence really means. Does it mean that Facebook them selves will support these pages? If it does then their goal is clear. Facebook is creating an alternative to Wikipedia! This would a very clever strategy to spread the Facebook Universe even deeper to the Internet. Most of the community pages already seem to have copied their essence straight from Wikipedia and they even have special Wikipedia -tabs (see image above). I think Wikipedia is not going to be very happy about this as this is creating a lot of duplicate information on the web.

Active Facebook users have already created all sorts of Community Pages. There are pages for Solar Power, Feminism (already 2463 fans!), Free Speech and even Satanism and Terrorism! The last one is a bit awkward since at the top of the page in the Community Pages official intro box (by Facebook) it reads “If you have a passion for Terrorism, sign up and we’ll let you know when we’re ready for your help.” Hmm? Ok, this would work with most topics but in this case it is a bit off the chart.

If you want to create yourself a nice fresh Facebook Community Page today just go here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php, give your page a name and click the Create Community Page -button. Happy authoring!

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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.

Matt Wilson

Matt Wilson is from New York, USA and is the co-founder of Under30CEO urging people to drop the 9-5 and get passionate about something. You can follow him on Twitter as the Gen-Y spokesperson looking to help every young entrepreneur on the planet.

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

The Big 3 – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, they are the most populated most advanced systems out there; you have incredible reach when trying to find anyone in the online space on these platforms.  Now that these platforms are open its incredibly easy to cross promote your messages across all 3 with tools like Tweetdeck.  Send your status to all 3 with just a click of the button.

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

Social Media hasn’t changed advertising, but marketing strategies have shifted to having actual interaction with the products/services consumers use everyday.  We now look to get to know the companies behind the things we like and give them permission to market to us.  If we walk by a North Face store, some of us like text messages when there are sales.  We want to get to know the people behind the company and consume content that has to do with our favorite brands.

Q3. How do you measure the effects of Social Media Marketing?

Return on Marketing Investment for social media should be measured just like any ROMI equation, take the amount of investment and divide it by your revenue.  Tracking your marketing ROMI incrementally allows you to track how your efforts are affecting your revenue.  The best part of social media is that it costs very little to use these platforms, the main expense is manpower.  However, long term brand awareness and trust is invaluable and cannot be measured over short periods of time in this equation.

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

It starts with listening!  Instead of just making noise, social media’s main purpose should be to hear what is happening in your industry and what people are saying about your company.  Start with search.twitter.com and Google Alerts to find out what conversations are happening.  Start tracking the blogs with Google Reader and following the movers and shakers in your industry on Twitter.  Then, find out where to make your mark on the industry by joining the conversation.

Q5. Do you think every company (that has a website) should have a Social Media Strategy? Why?

Yes, but not necessarily on a large scale.  Social media should not be everyone’s focus.  Many B2B companies have trouble marketing with social media because their target market simply does not use social media on a large scale.  B2B companies can however, thrive on social media by networking with people on their industry. B2C companies should use social media.  Your target market lives online.

Q6. How do you see Facebook as a Social Media Marketing tool?

Under30CEO uses Facebook.com/Under30CEO to update our fans when there are new developments on our blog.  This gets pushed out to our fans in their newsfeed; it’s a great way to stay in contact with our people on their time, in their space, instead of them coming to our website.  People want to go on Facebook to see whats going on–they love seeing Under30CEO.  We most recently launched our Limitless VC Contest giving over $3,000 of startup capital and mentorship from 5 multimillionaires.

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.

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.

Exciting new interview series about using Social Media for Business purposes. We have a great panel of Internet professionals from all over the world who are at the cutting edge of the latest social platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and other Social Media websites and tools.  Among the experts answering the questions are (not in any particular order):

	Shannon Shubert – Social Media Marketing Expert, SanDiego USA		Iggy Pintado – CEO at Connect Gen, Sydney Australia
	Sergei Romancha – Manager of R&D at Web CEO, Kiev Ukraine		Lewis Howes – Founder or Sports Executives Association, Columbus, Ohio USA
	Karri Ojanen – Senior Experience Architect at Organic, Toronto Canada		Hannah Suarez – Online Marketing Consultant, Brisbane Australia
	Matt Wilson – Co-founder of Under30CEO, New York USA		Justin Flitter - Social Media Mentor, Auckland New Zealand
	Janne Muhonen – Director, New Businesses at Talentum Media, Helsinki Finland		Will Payovich – Creative Director at Euro RSCG, Chicago USA
	Ciarán Norris - Head of Social Media at MindShare, London United Kingdom		Paul Dunay – Award-winning B2B Marketing Expert, New York City USA

During this exciting and truly international interview series our experts will reveal the most effective Social Media Platforms and the key points to consider when you begin using Social Media for your business marketing. You will also learn many interesting and important facts and tips about Social Media Marketing as well as get to know 12 prominent Internet professionals from Toronto to Sydney and Kiev to Auckland. The first interview will go live this Friday 23rd April.

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Did anybody see this coming? Social network becoming bigger than a search engine? Facebook said it can be done; and they’ve done it last week! Facebook surpassed Google in the United States to become the most visited site on the Internet for the week 8th-14th March 2010. As this feat is an amazing result for the company you might not know that Facebook has been reaching the No. 1 position on several short occations in the past as well; on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day as well as the first weekend this March.

According to a US based metrics company Experian Hitwise Facebook claimed its top position over Google with 7.07 % of total Internet visits in US whereas Google had to settle for position two behind the world’s biggest social network with 7.03 %. Facebook’s growth has been phenomenal in the past year. Facebook visits grew by a whopping 185 % while Google was able to increase its visit only by 9 %. Together these two Internet behemoths accounted for almost 15 % of all US based Internet traffic last week.

Google is in a bit of a trouble with all the competition from the popular social networking sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook. Their new Buzz service is designed to compete with Twitter and is very cleverly integrated with Gmail. So far it hasn’t reached a big following as some security issues have been raised. Also the interface isn’t as clever as in Twitter or Facebook Wall.

Facebook continues to grow at a very nice pace and is now attracting more than 400 million global users. This is good news for the advertisers as they now have a huge social platform which can reach a lot of potential clients. Facebook’s advertising engine is famous for being the best in the market for accurately defining and reaching your target audience.

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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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