Original at How to best leverage Facebook BlitzLocal

Read here to see what the Facebook engineers had to say, and hear what has worked for several case studies.

Intro: Facebook Platform for Mobile

How has the web changed since the early days?

• Photos!
• Facebook tagging (social)
• Games
• Not focused on rendering the best graphics, but social aspect
• 200 million people playing games on Facebook Platform
• The rise of mobile
• Across all levels of mobile devices
• 350M users of Facebook mobile
• Twice as engaged as desktop version
• Social + Mobile
• Friends, Newsfeed, search, notifications, requests, bookmarks
• Photography, websites, music, communication, games, books

Web Apps (HTML5) Development: Matt Kelly & Vikas Gupta

• How to facilitate sharing with friends
• Problematic when sharing over different types of devices
• Apps don’t exist across platforms
• Hard to share content between them even if apps exist
• How can Facebook fix this?
• The social channels
• Requests: user to user direct messaging
• Make sure they are super fast! Almost real-time
• News Feed: one to many sharing with friends
• Posting, view on wall, view on news feed
• Open Graph: Lightweight, seamless sharing
• Wherever your app lives or works, Facebook distributes properly so there are no holes.
• Bookmarks
• m.facebook.com
• Gives users a specific spot to get back to your app
• Mechanism for engagement
• Native facebook for iPhone
• Payments
• Use credits to monetize apps
• Build social from the ground up
• Search, login auth, directed to app
• Social apps work everywhere
• iPhone, laptop, android, ipad, android tablet
• HTML5 works across all platforms

Native App + Open Graph: Aryeh Selekman & Christine Abernathy:

• iOS and Android + Facebook platform
• Open Source Native SDKs
• Developer app settings
• Fields to configure iOS and Android apps
• Linking and app distribution works appropriately if these fields are filled out correctly
• Single Sign On (SSO) login without typing
• Login with facebook button

• Understanding Native Distribution
• If an iOS or app exists, all requests/News Feed Stories/Timeline stories will link directly to native app (or apple store if not installed)
• On android, requests/News Feed Stories/Timeline stories wil only direct to your mobile web app
• 5 Best Practices
• 1. Build a mobile web app
• HTML5: distribution on m.facebook.com on all webkit enabled touch browsers
• native wrappers
• take advantage of SSO capabilities

• 2. Implement SSO
• 3. Implement requests for app discoverability
• Rate now, invite friends, send requests
• 4. Leverage existing friend graph
• Promote activity and interaction
• Re-engagement
• Push notification through native channels to let you know your friends joined
• 5. Get your app on timeline

• Open Graph and Mobile Apps
• One API – distribution to ticker, Timeline, newsfeed
• Allows you to define what people do in your application
• Reading, listening, watching, etc.
• 4 Steps to get started using open graph
• 1. Define your actions and objects
• Action verbs
• 2. Design your Timeline aggregations
• Pictures, maps, represent actions and data that people send through
• 3. Markup and expose your objects
• Everything represented by underlying URL
• Where do objects live
• 4. Publish actions
• Object URL
• Action names

Native Distribution for Mobile Apps

Case Study: PhoneGap

• Pattern
• Embed a chromeless browser in a native app
• Create a bridge between the browser and the native code providing access to native APIs
• Write a web app
• Package the web app with the native code and deploy to devices
• Write once debug everywhere
• Take note
• HTML, JS, CSS included in an app package
• HTML loaded on file:// URI scheme, no cross domain request restrictions
• Engineering wise, approach is simple to extend to new platforms
• Support Platforms
• iOS, Android, BB, webOS, Symbian, Windows Phone (mango), Samsung Bada
• Mobile first!
• HTML5: write native code easily, scale like an app so width is design width – no pinch zoom etc
• CSS3: webkit transformations
• The future
• Tooling
• WebGL
• Facebook, Linkedin, Walmart use case
• Continue polyfilling HTML5

Case Study: Washington Post Social Reader

• Coding for the futures
• Everything you write effects possible futures
• Architect for the foreseeable futures
• Short term futures
• Building mobile second
• Use mobile to rethink boundaries
• Roll mobile learning back into the webapp

Case Study: Thuzi

• Hospitality app
• Social by design
• Send invites, RSVPs
• Share great offers with my friends
• Provide reviews of the experience
• Capture the moment for a special occasion (Timeline)
• Local by design
• Dining is a local experience
• Find a local restaurant
• Invite friends, redeem offers, find out what’s happening
• Native by design
• Want to ensure you have access to the newest native APIs
• Want to have the fastest app possible
• Want to guarantee formatting correctness
• More choices for monetization – iAds, etc
• Many existing open source libraries and blog posts and tutorials
• Are not dependent upon plugins or other 3^rd party series for push notifications

Original at Facebook Mobile Hack NYC BlitzLocal

Brands and companies have understood the importance of communication with their customers. Traditionally, in a somewhat antiquated means of communication, chagrined customers would call a 1-800 number or write (if you were even less technologically inclined) to express their displeasure with a company. With platforms such as Twitter and Facebook that allow for instant response and timely interaction, good brands and companies have created accounts on these sites that are staffed full-time by a customer service representative.

1.     Responding requires a high-touch and thoughtful approach

Some great examples of brands that have taken to Twitter are:

-        Airlines:

• Delta’s @DeltaAssist
• American Airline’s @AmericanAir

-        Cable providers:

• Time Warner’s @TWCableHelp
• Comcast’s @ComcastCares

-        Motor companies:

• Ford’s @FordCustService

Engaging customers about their complaints is one of the best ways to retain brand loyalty and encourage their continued use. That being said, there is a right way and a wrong way of communicating with customers. There are two basic categories in which complaints fall: 1.“[brand] sucks” and 2.“[brand] help” – and knowing which to respond to is important. If a Twitter user merely tweets, “@Delta, you truly suck”, how is a brand supposed to respond? There is nothing in which to engage them with. However, if a Twitter user posts “@DeltaAssist traveling with an infant and had a confirmed seat on window but got moved to aisle”, it is Delta’s duty to respond to this customer.

However, one to three tweets should be the maximum for exchanges online; after that, the conversation should be taken offline by exchanging contact information. Sometimes, the problem can be resolved in just one tweet – for example: “@DeltaAssist: I’m sorry about your seat, please DM your confirmation # so we can check your next flight for you.” This takes care of the situation head on without going back and forth.

We’ve also noticed three great ways brands are responding to their fans on Twitter:

1.     Take advantage of over-share

If you’re in NYC, you’ve probably eaten at a food truck or three. The great thing about many food trucks is their ability to be mobile – they are restaurants on wheels! Brands such as the Souvlaki Truck have created Twitter accounts to monitor what they’re fans are saying about them. We recently tweeted to the @SouvlakiTruck recently about missing their food – they used to be right around the corner from us – once they saw our tweet, they responded by offering a care package to be sent to our office. The following week we were all dining on their delicious Greek food.  And because they were tuned in, the Souvlaki Truck was able to be proactive and garner 60,000 impressions from our tweeting our appreciation.

2.     Reveal the human side of brand

Recently, one of our interns tweeted to his colleague that we were out of sweet potato chips and hummus. Another great brand @PretzelCrisps, took it upon themselves to offer their snack as a viable alternative that goes great with hummus. They engaged him and asked for mailing address. Sure enough, that afternoon, bags upon bags of Pretzel Crisps were dropped off at our office. By revealing themselves as real people behind the social media platform and not just an automated bot that responds, the Pretzel Crisp brand was able to create a relationship with a new customer.

3.     Create personal interactions

One particular brand that has an interesting campaign on Twitter is Jell-o, which launched their “Pudding Face Mood Meter” in an effort to gauge America’s current mood. Jell-o is tracking tweets that contain smiling and frowning faces and are taking the opportunity to tweet to those users that tweeted frowning. While they are cued in to the collective American feelings at a current time, they are not making the interaction personal. It seems more insincere to tweet to someone who is having a bad day: “here, have a coupon for a free Jell-o pudding” as opposed to engaging the user if it’s appropriate to your brand message. This misguided effort to connect with new fans and the connection between the brand and the message they wish to convey is not obvious.

The few things we’ve learned from the culture of dissatisfaction are:

1.     That even though consumers are increasingly venting on Twitter and Facebook, certain brands are proactively transform complaints into praise.

2.     Brands can strengthen their existing customer relationships and create new ones by engaging the right way.

3.     As long as you make it a good story – the word will spread itself.

Guest author David-Michel Davies (DMD) is Executive Director of The Webby Awards & the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences.       He also serves as Chairman & Co-Founder of Internet Week New York. DMD has appeared on CNN, Fox News Channel, and Good Morning America to discuss Internet trends and news, and he has lectured to audiences at a diverse mix of conferences and companies including Interbrand, Microsoft and the Institute for the future.

Original at The Webby Awards Presents: Social Media & the Culture of Dissatisfaction BlitzLocal

One of their latest attempts to capture their fans attention is a game on their Facebook page called “The Quest for the Golden McRib.” The Quest is no simple or cheap flash game but a highly interactive set of challenges that incorporates Google Maps and real world McDonalds stores.  The game has loads of content and the mix of challenges will appeal to hardcore gamers as well as casual ones.  When the gamer successfully completes a challenge they receive a collectable badge that they can either keep tucked away or post it to their wall to brag to their friends.

The social aspect of this has huge potential to revolutionize the way we Facebook.  Gamification has begun, and you’ll probably be seeing a lot more of it over the next few years as others seek to diminish or negate the marketing edge of their competitors.  Although The Quest is ultimately a rather silly game; (elves with butterfly wings and pirate hats, rapping eagles, etc.), games on Facebook are still in their infancy. You can see that advertisers are contemplating new and unique ways to keep their brands fresh in consumers’ minds.  Ultimately, this is a win-win for everyone: the advertiser gets to speak directly to the consumer who is being entertained, as opposed to being forced to watch a commercial.  As gamification is further utilized and perfected, expect games to become even more compelling, common, and social.

Blake Beier is an Analyst with BlitzLocal, and a big fan of games.

Original at The Quest for Engagement: Fast Food and the Social Media War BlitzLocal

Depending on the term, it could be 90%+ of these searches not being relevant, and at $5-10 a click, that’s a lot of irrelevant clicks to pay for to find a winner, even if that winner will pay you $10,000 for a new website.

The biggest problem with B2B is that when someone types in “dentist”, you don’t know if they are a dentist or if they are looking for a dentist.

The die-hard PPC folks will argue that you’re just not choosing the right keywords (go for more specific terms), don’t have enough negative keywords (exclude anyone searching with city terms—since these are likely consumers), or you’re not writing specific enough ad copy (supposedly, consumer won’t click on your ad if your title is “Hey Dentists!”) While these comebacks are true, they are missing the big point.

In B2B marketing, you must target WHO the user is, not WHAT they are searching on.

In search, you don’t know who the user is, but you have a clue by the nature of their search terms. In social, you know WHO the user is and you’re catching them before they search.

STEP 1: Isolate the Target

So while you can get a ton of consumer traffic by targeting “dentist” in Google, when you interest target “dentist” on Facebook, you’re targeting by job title and profession.  Try it. In fact, try a number of job titles and see just how many chiropractors, teachers, plumbers, administrative assistants, and marketing managers there are out there.

Voila!  Now you’ve pinpointed all the dentists, dental assistants, students studying to be dentists, retired dentists, and folks who have a dentist fetish—all of them on Facebook. Now narrow down to the specific target you want by age, location or even specialty—maybe you want to talk to just cosmetic dentists in California.

Add in lateral targets—magazines they read, associations they’re a part of, and so forth.  You can read more about micro-targeting here.

STEP 2: Get Your Testimonials and Trust Signals

You probably thought I’d next talk about ads, which is what most people do.  Nope, in social people don’t search—they are interrupted with banner ads. You can focus on ad copy in Google PPC because people are actively looking. In Facebook, you have to gently nudge people to take a look at you and momentarily distract them from spying on their friends, or whatever they happen to be doing on Facebook.

So you need distraction-worthy content, which comes in the form of what their friends are doing. If that potential dentist client of yours is perusing through what her friends did yesterday, she might be persuaded to click on news where those very friends are talking about your business—maybe how they used your software to get more traffic to their website, streamline billing operations, etc.

When you have a TON of testimonials (across Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and so on), paired with content that you’ve published in major outlets, paired with positive things that other reputable organizations have said about you—then it’s more likely they are coming to you versus you coming to them. Some people call this “inbound” or “pull” marketing because you’re leveraging that prospective friends to do the selling for you. Because, despite your Harvard MBA and years of business experience; sorry Charlie, they trust what their friends have to say more.

Ideally, get this content to live on your website or Facebook page, although this is not completely necessary. Let’s say that you wrote some compelling article in an industry journal. Send ad traffic directly to that site so you can leverage their trust. If you wrote your article correctly, the by-line (about the author piece at the end) will have a line or two about what you do. And if you did a good job creating real value in that article, as opposed to selling, they’ll contact you. No need to scream at them or place popup windows in their path—they’ll find you.

Step 3: Turn Your Ads On 

You wouldn’t have a grand opening party without first making sure your place has plenty of food and drinks, right?  In the same way, make sure you have the compelling content from Step 2 before you start advertising. Otherwise, you’re just wasting money.

Take the interest targets that you set up in Step 1 and pair it against the content you have in Step 2.  Think about WHO you are talking to, not WHAT they might be searching on. For example, if they are a dental hygienist, what content is most compelling to them? What if they are a receptionist—what might they find interesting? You’ll find that you might not have super relevant content for everyone. That’s okay—you’re just testing at this stage. Later you can mix and match what combinations work best.

Note that this is NOT landing page optimization, which is more superficially about elements that comprise the landing page—the image, the size of the button, the headline, and so forth.  We’re talking about the whole lead gen. lifecycle—creating a clear path between the targets, what we say to them, and what we want them to do. That last piece is the landing page—to get them to call the phone number, fill out the form, watch the video, etc.

Step 4: Run the Math

Set your Facebook campaign budgets low, perhaps $10 a day. Use the default CPC bids, since you don’t need to get into the nuances of how bidding works—this is not Google. What you care about is your Cost Per Click and conversion rates.  CPC divided by conversion rate is your cost per lead, by the way.  We created a calculator for your use, in case you are rusty on first semester statistics:

This is B2B, so your cost per lead could be over $100. Maybe you’re at $2 a click and 1 in 50 clicks results in a phone call.  Maybe it’s a lot more because you’re selling something that costs thousands, so that a hundred dollars is an acceptable price. Or maybe you’re competing in New York City, where the price is exorbitant from all the advertisers that overlap one another from poor targeting.

Whatever the case, if you’re doing this on Facebook, you have to be prepared for seemingly negative ROI for the first few months.  Why? Because we are catching people well before they are searching, so it could be months before they want that new website, CEREC machine, billing system, or whatever it is you’re advertising. With Google, the conversion timeframe might be that same visit. This is unlikely in your case, unless your product is an impulse buy and also under $100.

Some final thoughts:

We are often asked a common set of questions, so let’s address some of them here:

How big should my interest target be? You don’t need a thousand ads—just a handful that target just the people that you want to hit. If your interest target is over 10,000 people, then either you’re doing something wrong or your audience is nationwide.

Do I need new landing pages for Facebook? Probably. Video is what converts nowadays, so you probably need to fix your other landing pages while you’re at it. Camera shy? They aren’t choosing you for your good looks, so get your Flip video, some good lighting, and film a 2 minute intro. Say what you’d say if that dentist was sitting right in your office—don’t be “fake” or talk like a newscaster.

Will BlitzLocal do this for me? Sure, if you have at least $10k to spend in fees, not counting advertising budget. If you’re a dentist, we require only $2k a month in total (labor plus ad spend), since we’re targeting just one region and because our dental campaigns can be replicated. If we have to build something that is not reusable across many clients, then we have to charge more for it. We are not the cheapest game in town.

Do you offer free articles and training?  I would love to use your service, but cannot afford it. Sure. Send a note to info@blitzlocal.com and we’ll send you some of our internal training materials. You can also post a question at facebook.com/blitzlocal, where others can see and benefit from what you ask.

 About the Author:

Dennis Yu is Chief Executive Officer of BlitzLocal, a Webtrends partner that builds social media dashboards to measure brand engagement and ROI, specializing in the intersection of Facebook and local advertising. You can reach him on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, his blog, or good old-fashioned email at dennis@blitzlocal.com. BlitzLocal is a leader in social and local advertising and analytics, creating mass micro-targeted campaigns. Mr. Yu is an internationally sought-after speaker and author on all things Facebook, and has been featured in National Public Radio, TechCrunch, Entrepreneur Magazine, CBS Evening News, and other venues.

Original at Marketing B2B via Facebook: The Most Common Mistake You’re Probably Making BlitzLocal

Speaker: Dan Thut, Rocketer, attempts to demonstrate how to use Facebook ads to grow the volume and efficiency of a PPC campaign, using a case study.

Chris McDonagh, webcast producer/moderator of searchmarketingnow.com introduced Marc Poirier, the CMO of Acquisio. Poirier talked a little about their software and introduced Dan Thut of Rocketer.

The question many ask is can we use Facebook for lead generation? The implied answer was yes, though it was left hanging.

Facebook advertising can have some pitfalls:

1. You can spend a lot of money very quickly, with not much to show for it
2. Many challenger brands are adopting Facebook advertising at a rapid and commendable rate, so they are eating away at big brands market share because they are getting to grips with this new advertising strategy faster than the big brands are.

You need an agile team and lots of tools to handle everything thrown at you from this new medium. (This was the beginning of a subtle sales pitch).

One overlooked way that Facebook advertising can be beneficial is that a well managed Facebook ad campaign can help established a PPC campaign deliver more value and more volume.

CASE STUDY:

• Increased monthly conversions from 8k to 21k
• CPA – cost per acquisition – dropped from 23 UK pounds to 13 pounds
• 34% increase in ppc brand searches
• 47% increase in direct-to-url traffic

Rocketer already had some data that suggested that people who clicked on a Facebook ad later transacted via a comparable Google PPC ad, but they wanted to test it. They carefully chose a client to work with and made sure they had total control of client’s marketing, to ensure the numbers would be accurate and not skewed by other factors.

They tested a lot of ads, and managed them closely.

They targeted UK men aged 16-45. (12 million)

How many different ad variants are needed for 12 million users?

They broke the group down into smaller groups. 113 counties x 25 sporting interests x 15 newspaper readerships – splits the 12 million users into tens of thousands of different niche interest groups!

Obviously, to manage tens of thousands of groups, each using at least a hundred different ad variants, you need technology to handle it all. (More subtle sales pitching here).

The process: build ads specific to each niche user group, get the right message to the right person at the right time, identify the successful ad types, but don’t stop there.

It only takes one rotten apple (ad) to quickly spoil the rest. Facebook ads can degrade very quickly (CTR drops / bounce rates rise), so their quality scores get worse. That one bad infects the others in the group quickly, and a lot of bad ads can infect the entire advertising account. Within 24 hours, a few bad apples can destroy all the ads in your account.

Since Facebook doesn’t tell us the quality score of ads, we have to gauge it ourselves, which is both important and difficult. So we need to watch the successful ads like a hawk and remove the degrading ones before they affect the others. Obviously, a tool is necessary to analyze thousands of ads and alert us when bad ones crop up. (I bet you know that this refers to the sales pitch, right?).

Although the presenter showed a graph indicating that PPC spend decreased while the Facebook ad testing was going on, I can’t say he ever really explained the correlation. I don’t know how or why one affected the other, so I’m not sure I would know how to duplicate such success.

In any case, this was really more about subtly selling software than it was about educating me on how Facebook ads can augment a PPC campaign. I don’t want to imply that they overdid the sales pitches, because it really was pretty subtle, but at the end, all I really got out of this presentation was that I need tools to manage large Facebook ad campaigns.

Original at The Impact of Facebook on PPC Advertising: A Case Study – Liveblogged BlitzLocal

This video is better than anything I’ve ever seen put out by Facebook. I have only seen a couple of videos that I found as entertaining and that made me smile.

One was the United Breaks Guitars Video I wrote about on GrowMap that has 9,822,277 views and the other was the Wedding Dance video that got 60,582,511 views.

The Facebook video below is up to 7,675,500 views.

If you want to get viral marketing working for you, it is very likely that you will not be able to produce these kinds of videos yourself. You need someone with a track record and real talent to produce viral videos.

Rhett and Link definitely have that ability. They have created web videos (which you can see at these links) for McDonalds and Coke, Dentyne Gum, Taco Bell, Alka-Seltzer, Food Network, Microbilt, Sanyo, Kotulas, TV Guide, Baby Ruth, Starburst, Hummer, and Cadillac, as well as integrating smaller brands such as Smule, AJJ Cornhole, and iRESQ – (click each brand for an example of the campaign).

Rhett & Link are a North Carolina-based comedy duo consisting of life-long best friends, Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal. They are best known for their internet videos and are self-proclaimed “Internetainers”. They have been featured on CNN, BBC, NPR, TV Guide, E! News, TMZ, The Jay Leno Show, Lopez Tonight, Last Call with Carson Daly, and Ellen.

In addition to their web presence, Rhett & Link are also musicians and filmmakers, and have worked in network television as hosts. They own and operate a video production company, Rhett & Link, Inc. and can be found on Facebook.

[Disclosure: Neither Gail Gardner (the author of this post) nor Blitz Local have a business relationship with nor personally knows or has a personal or working relationship with Rhett or Link.]

Original at Viral Videos: Facebook Song Video Marketing Going Viral BlitzLocal

So you have a nice new Facebook Page for your business. But how can it make your cash register ring?

Here are a few steps to get started:

1. Place a Facebook “Become a Fan” button on your website, so your site visitors can find your Page.

2. Ask all of your Facebook friends, employees and family members to “Fan” your new business Page on Facebook. Post a link to your new page on your personal profile and ask your friends to post it on their profiles.

3. Tell your customers  “Fan us on Facebook!”  (Share news of your new page with your customer email list.)

4. Once you get 50 fans, ask Facebook for a “vanity” URL (or link to your page). Here’s why. When you first create your Facebook Page, its link is long and full of numbers and symbols.  A “vanity URL” that looks something like this — www.facebook.com/mybizname — is much easier to share and remember.

5. Offer some generous coupons on your Page so your fans will be motivated to share them with their friends. Theis can generate traffic and new customers.

6. Consider advertising on Facebook. This may be the fastest way to reach new customers. You can target Facebook users by the words they’re using with friends (“spa,” “facial,” “baggy eyes”), by their age, their interests and more, combined with very precise geographic terms — within 1, 2, or 5 miles of your store address, or where you know your best customers live. Steer them to your website to book some services, or to your Facebook Page to collect monthly special coupons.

7. Lather, rinse, repeat — cha-ching.

Original at New Fan Page: now what? Seven easy tips to get started BlitzLocal

With meetings in nine world capitols this year, the eMetrics Summit attracts web analysts, business intelligence experts and marketing managers, who share wisdom on how to increase the return on online investment.

Dennis Yu, CEO of BlitzLocal, and Gillian Muessig, co-founder and president of SEOMoz, will demonstrate how to adapt standard web methods to track form completions, shopping cart checkouts and phone calls to the Facebook environment.

Yu and Muessig will show how to use Facebook’s own Insights tool to add a social dimension to analytics. They will also address the pros and cons of using modifications of Google Analytics and tools from other providers.

With more than 150,000 members, SEOmoz is the world’s brand leader in search marketing software tools, education, resources and community. The company’s flagship product, Linkscape, powers SEO tools and applications such as OpenSiteExplorer.org, RavenTools, and many more.

Muessig has provided keynotes and sessions for conferences around the world on the state and future of search marketing as well as technical issues. This month she launches “Getting Down to Business,” a new program on Webmaster Radio.

In 2006, Yu co-founded BlitzLocal, a Denver area firm that provides local search solutions for enterprises of all sizes. Clients include J.C. Penney, Equifax and Yahoo!, as well as local professional service providers, national franchises and non-profit groups.

An entrepreneur and internationally recognized lecturer in search engine marketing, Yu is an expert in search marketing technical analysis and pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaign development and optimization. He has written widely on the industry, been featured on National Public Radio and has counseled the Federal Trade Commission on privacy issues for social networks.

Original at BlitzLocal, SEOMoz leaders present Facebook session at eMetrics Summit Sydney BlitzLocal

Researching Facebook’s site was the most fun I’ve had at work in a long time.   I wasn’t nearly as familiar with Facebook as some of my friends.  The site is so addicting I’m not sure I want to know it too much better than I do now… Some of my Facebook savvy friends had hundreds of friends and were sending me Mafia Wars weapons, IQ Quizzes, and cause invitations before I even ‘friended’  my wife and daughter.   The quizzes are entertaining, the games are worse than crack, and the ability to re-connect with long lost friends sucked me in.  The site combines the best features of classmates.com, linkedin.com, Picasa, (photo sharing) chat, charities, fan clubs, causes, and games.  Additionally Facebook brings all the best features of these sites to a new viral level.  But the one thought that kept nagging at me was: folks on Facebook are not there to research products so how can we reach them while they’re socializing on this site?  The marketing challenges seem insurmountable:

• Finding my B2B audience among the 250 Million
• Getting their attention while they’re ‘playing’
• Not interrupting or peeving them in the process

Facebook’s Headquarters in Palo Alto have all the trappings of a typical Silicon Valley start up: high ceilings with exposed ventilation ducts, a gourmet kitchen open all hours, and a virtual United Nations of employees all spread out in desk areas without walls.  None of them appears older than 28, and some are moving about on skateboards and razors on smooth concrete floors.  Our conference room was a candy colored assortment sofas that swallow your bottom surrounding a 60-inch LCD TV serving as our demo screen.  Despite the trendy trappings, Facebook had much more substance than met the eye.

One of the mid twenty somethings presented to us that Facebook an incredible lineup of user demographics and can target them on no less than 19 different parameters including:

1. Country
2. State
3. Age
4. Gender
5. Interests
6. Activities
7. Music
8. TV Shows
9. Education
10. High School
11. College
12. Major
13. Workplace
14. Relationship status
15. Books
16. Moms/Parenting
17. Small Business
18. Pet Enthusiasts
19. Sports

Demographics didn’t quite convince me but I was getting warmer.  Facebook connects more than just people to people; it connects:

• People to companies
• People to organizations
• People to products
• People to classmates
• People to social groups
• People to causes
• People to hobbies and interests
• People to brands

While all this reconnecting/socializing/chatting/sharing/gaming is going on, the viral aspect of Facebook is also thrown into the mix. Word of mouth is powerful.

For example, when someone goes out to eat, buys a car or any product or service for that matter, do they trust the reviews they see on Yahoo!, Cars.com, or Amazon?  No disrespect to these fine websites, but I don’t trust their reviews any more than I trust restaurant reviews from TV “Phantom Diners.”  Disappointing sushi shops are more the rule than the exception when I believe American restaurant critics who purport to know something about sushi.  The fact is, I trust my friends, especially my very meticulous Japanese friend’s sushi restaurant recommendations.  So when I’m connected to friends on Facebook and one of them recommends a good sushi shop, they’ll usually tell a friend.  That friend tells friends and soon the word on the best sushi shop spreads around like a virus.

Now let’s take that virus and multiply it.  Let’s say the sushi shop we’re raving about runs an ad on Facebook with a $10 off coupon.  My friends are more inclined to click on the ad because of my recommendation.  CTR and Conversions increase because the social context increases the probability of intent to purchase, (by a multiple).  Ok, I’m getting warmer, but it’s still a B2C example.  What about B2B?

Through Facebook’s Pages, businesses can create a page to connect with customers and create a community.  Company X can, through Event Ads, let its community know that it’s attending the next Comdex or E3.   The company can run an ad on its corporate page with a lottery for a prize to be announced at its booth.  Company X could have speaker announcements on its Facebook Page.  Why would a company want to do this?  Company Fan Sites or Corporate site Pages are Voices – 1/3 of your fans will see what you put up on your site.  30% of your fans will read what you’ve launched on their individual home page.  If they comment on that announcement on their wall, it’s seen by all their friends following their comments.  How’s that for reach?

Engagement Advertisements

On the right side of the home page, (Engagement Ads) “become a fan,” Ads can be video, static, Users can comment on ads or video on the user’s profile page.

Celebrities and Industry Experts

Company X can capitalize on its unique content and celebrities.  If Company X has industry experts who’ve published technical articles and how-to application notes, it can feature these experts as Celebrities on Facebook.  If your company has a celebrity or expert who can create fresh content for you, that content can be launched as an update on the corporate Facebook page or the expert can have his or her own Facebook page.

Favorite Pages Application

The Favorite Pages Application can be used as a corporate sponsor.  The Afflac Duck fan site posts photos of the Duck visiting famous places all over the world such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the pyramids of Giza.  All the photos posted on the site of course are taken from the Duck’s perspective, i.e., from 1 foot off the ground.

If Facebook is the social networking site where everyone is, why not take advantage of the fact by becoming part of it?  The B2B aspect became clear: start a corporate Facebook page, populate it with useful unique content that users can’t get anywhere else, and make sure the content drives traffic to and from the corporate web site.  Facebook Profiles enable brands to connect with fans.  Videos, Comments and interactions get organically put back on users sites.  Companies can ask users for feedback.  They can make an offer once a day and make a pitch in the voice of a character

• Papa John’s Pizza gained millions of impressions and 130k fans in 24 hours
• They thanked the fans with exclusive offers – and the redemption rate was higher than email offers
• Built brand loyalty

I’m convinced.  Now can I convince my colleagues at work?

Meanwhile, I’ll just have some fun.

Original at B2B Advertising on Facebook BlitzLocal