Facebook Marketing Success Stories for Businesses

Facebook says its membership stands at 55 million active users worldwide and it hosts more than 100,000 pages for businesses. So as marketers, many of us are looking to find a repeatable formula to use on Facebook.

But it is still too early. For now, we need to read the tea leaves of early adopters. Here are a few examples of success stories with Facebook that show a business impact:

• Bryce Gruber is the 23-year-old owner of IntenCity Global, a five-person marketing and public-relations firm in New York. She says Facebook works well for her and has brought tangible results. She recently drew more than 300 people to an opening party for a clothing store that she expected would only attract 150 to 200. And the people who learned of the party through Facebook bought several thousand dollars in merchandise. Her approach is to post information and reminders about her events regularly, and upload plenty of party pictures afterward. Each day, she gets 20 to 30 messages on her Wall and keeps that going with quick replies. The effort means she shows up often in her Facebook friends' news feeds, where people are notified of their friend’s activities on Facebook.

• On the company page of Rootsgear's, which designs T-shirts with political and social messages, people can look at the firm's designs and see a calendar of upcoming events. The company stokes its group membership of about 1,400 by every few months sending out invitations to join to new Facebook friends collected by cofounder Sunmit Singh. Mr. Singh says the Facebook page drives more traffic to Rootsgear's e-commerce site than Google's search engine or MySpace, another social-networking site where it has a presence. And Facebook has helped the year-old company's sales.

• The company page on Facebook of Junnoon, an Indian restaurant in Palo Alto, Calif., includes basic information such as address, hours, prices, photos and coming events, as well as reviews from local newspapers and Zagat. By opting to become a "fan" on the company page, instead of just a Facebook friend, people can make reservations directly from the page and post ratings and reviews. Although company pages are free, Facebook hopes companies that use them also will buy ad space through its new Social Ads program. Ads can be used to target Indian food enthusiasts in the local area. Companies can either pay per click or per page view. The minimum cost is $5 per day.

So where is the Buzz? You need to do 2 things right away: 1) Get a Facebook strategy for yourself personally (see my “Get a Facebook Strategy” blog post, November 2007), and 2) Start a company page for your company before someone else does. Think of this in the same way cybersquatters were buying URLs – you need to control your own destiny.

(Some portions of this post were excerpted from a Wall Street Journal article.)

 

Make Money with Podcasting

The debate over how to make money with podcasts began shortly after they were rolled out. At first, the natural inclination was to do pre-roll or post-roll ads on podcasts – much like existing media such as TV and radio.

But some very successful companies have ignored this strategy. They have developed their own business model that has allowed them to earn money from their passion.

Here are 9 ways to make money from podcasting:

• Become a podcast consultant – Why not help those who are trying to get started with podcasting by hanging out your own shingle and offering your services?
• Start a full-service podcasting company like podango.
• Form a podcast network like PodTech and offer services as well.
• Charge for premium content – If your content is that valuable, charge for it
• Podcast advertising – Companies like Kiptronic will do audio ad insertions and share the revenue. They also do post read (listen) ads.
• Solicit donations from listeners – PayPal has an app you can put on your site that will allow folks to leave you a tip (think tipjar).
• Score valuable schwag – Barter with companies for things you need to keep your podcast series going.
• Employ a sponsorship model – An example here is MommyCast, which keeps its product recommendations really relevant to its audience.
• Build a huge following and sell your company – Wallstrip, which was bought by CBS, tapped into a huge audience, and it paid off.

If you are going to consider advertising in your podcasts, think about your listeners first. I suggest you start the show first, and then run the ad, so listeners are not lost the second they tune in. And think about listeners on an iPod shuffle. If all they hear at the very beginning of your podcast is the same ad, they will be disoriented, they won’t support your advertiser and they may even opt out of your podcast series.

 

Social Media Strategy: How to Guide

December is always a good time to take a look around and consider what changes you might make in your marketing strategy. This year, I sense some form of a social media strategy is at the top of everyone’s wish list.

So if you are thinking about social media, and you need to do it for your company, you may want to start with a few strategic tenets.

Begin by asking yourself these questions:

1. What target audience are we trying to reach?
2. Which media does this audience like to take part in?
3. What are we trying to accomplish with them:

• Positioning as a thought leader?
• Sales?
• Spread good ideas and information?

Then, determine the best course of action for reaching them.

We are rapidly heading toward an always-on economy, where customers control how, when and where they will be open and willing to accept a marketing message. Your job is to figure out when and where to launch an online service that gets you there. Remember, finding the right medium in a sea of choices is fast becoming more important than the message itself!

 

Virtual Events: What should you be doing?

Imagine an event where all the content is delivered online, either "live" or recorded. This “virtual event” is delivered with an easy-to-use, game-like interface, and it includes features for social networking.

Unisfair, a company based in Menlo Park, Calif., is offering a virtual event product and service that can revolutionize how we deliver information to large audiences. After reading some recent FactPoint research on virtual events, I decided to explore this further with Brent Arslaner, VP of Marketing at Unisfair. I wanted to figure out what marketers should be doing with virtual events in the coming year. Enjoy …



Link to Original Audio Source

About Brent

Brent Arslaner oversees all Global Marketing ensuring Unisfair maintains its leadership role providing Virtual Event solutions.

Prior to joining Unisfair, Brent was Vice President of Marketing at Jamcracker, a leading provider of On Demand Delivery solutions. Before Jamcracker, he was Vice President of Product Strategy at Kana Software where he defined corporate strategy and built strategic partnerships.

Brent went to Kana through its acquisition of Broadbase Software. At Broadbase, he was instrumental in driving the IPO process, successfully acquiring and integrating six companies and growing the company to over $100 million in sales. Earlier, Brent held senior marketing positions at PeopleSoft and Intrepid Systems.

 

Buzz Marketing picks of the week ...

Facebook, a Marketer's Friend
Great article - the use of Facebook for PR / Events as well as the viral nature of the mini feed is where it is at!
(tags: Facebook)

Why the Future of Online Advertising Is About Identity
Rohit makes a great point from an individual standpoint but also from a corporate brand standpoint. The better the corporate identity(brand) the more likely they will have a strong community online
(tags: Online advertising)

The Four Tenets of the Community Manager
For those of you who want to be a Community Manager - this is a must read - excellent blend of community+brand+communications
(tags: Communities)

Clearspring to Serve Widgets as Ads
Very cool idea - using widgets as ads and providing the ad tracking - Google will come a knocking for this one!
(tags: widget)

7 Ideas For Social Media And Business
Patrick Schaber does a great job looking at the softer side of Social Media - If you cant get a true ROI calculated you need to at least be thinking about these 7 ideas
(tags: Social Media)

 

Is ROI killing marketing?

During a recent panel discussion I participated in at the Convergence 2007 event, I started to realize that ROI is dictating certain types of behavior by marketers. Looking at any marketing expense purely from an ROI perspective would lead you to NOT do certain types of things.

For example, consider internal branding campaigns. With little to show other than happy employees, this initiative would fall to a second tier initiative since lead generation activities would normally be needed to calculate your ROI. As a second tier initiative it is fine. But who can afford to have that as a first tier initiative anymore if you are only judged on ROI?

What about offline advertising? We have all seen the numbers lately showing how dollars are flowing from offline to online at a double digit pace. Is this not fueled by the continuing quest to get ROI?

And what CMO would come in and do a 100% brand awareness play and expect to be able to keep his or her job at month 24? The average tenure of CMOs is 23 months, the shortest of any C-suite role. Isn’t ROI driving this type of behavior too?

I exaggerate to prove the point and demonstrate the impact the drive for ROI is having on marketing. Don’t get me wrong. ROI is important. But when you look only at that metric, you tend to do things that ring the cash register, rather than build your brand.

 

PR's role in new media, a podcast with Cece Salomon-Lee

PR professionals have been on the front end of all media relationships for a very long time. But the advent of new media poses some challenges for even the best PR professional.

To get some advice on how PR pros should handle new media, I conducted an interview with Cece Salomon-Lee. She runs her own blog called PR Meets Marketing, where she discusses how marketing is changing the way she practices PR.



Link to Original Audio Source

About Cece

After nearly 12 years with high-technology public relations agencies, Cece Salomon-Lee took her first in-house PR position in early 2006. In addition to managing public relations and media programs, Cece provides corporate messages and strategy in her current position as marcom manager with ON24, Inc. In her spare time, she shares her experiences on her PR Meets Marketing blog.

Please note: her comments on this site are her own and don’t necessarily represent ON24’s positions, strategies or opinions.