Brand Advertising on Facebook: Six Key Steps

This recent article from Ad Age http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/brand-advertising-facebook-a-6-step-blueprint/229166 shows that as brands continue to increase their ad spending on Facebook, there’s an ongoing conversation on how to most effectively deploy dollars. A six-step ‘blueprint’ combines the most efficient advertising medium (marketplace right-hand-column ads) with user engagement and re-targeting.

1) Standard Marketplace Ads: Grow your fan base
After you have built the framework for your fan page — an attractive image, thorough information, images, videos, as well as some custom tabs — your initial spend should focus on growing your fan base through standard marketplace ads. These ads pointing to your fan page will allow users to either “like” your fan page directly within the ad unit or click on the ad and “like” from the actual fan page. The goal will be to drive as many fans as possible at the lowest Cost Per Fan (CPF) possible while staying within your core target market. Ad copy should be kept short and effective (i.e., “If you like Cars, Like X”) and should be very direct in asking the user to like your page. Give users a reason to like your page, (i.e., by liking X, your fans get access to exclusive content).

2) ‘Page Like’ Sponsored Story: Grow your fan base
Similar to standard marketplace ads. The difference is that it’s shown exclusively to friends of your fans and you have less control over copy. Users seeing this will specifically see some friends who have liked your page. The idea: if one of my good friends has “liked” the page, I should also be interested. This ad unit becomes more effective as you grow your fan base. This is why it is important to first build up your fan base through standard marketplace ads before introducing “Page Like” sponsored stories.

3) Post Frequently: Engage your fan base
It’s crucial to mention posting as part of brand advertising. Engaging your fan base with regular posts will give you ROI from steps 1 and 2, and is essential for steps 4, 5, and 6. Post at a minimum once a day. Keep your posts short (under 80 characters is ideal). Post when your audience is there (it may not always be during 9 to 5 working hours, depending on your brand). Provide clear instructions if you want them to engage. (i.e. ‘I think X is amazing. ‘Like’ this post if you agree!). Pose questions when you post to your fan page — questions drive responses and a higher level of user engagement. If you don’t engage your fan base with frequent and effective posts, you’ll be wasting your marketing dollars.

4) ‘Page Post’ Sponsored Story: Engage your fan base
This leverages your posting work in step 3 by taking your posts and turning them into an ad unit visible to your existing fans. The idea: If you post to your page, it’s likely that your fans may not even see it. They may log in several hours or days after the post was made, and miss that post altogether. The page post sponsored story will convert that post into an actual ad unit and display it on the right-hand column — increasing the chance your fans will see and engage withy our posts.

5) ‘Page Post Like’ Sponsored Story: Grow your fan base
This again leverages frequent postings to your fan page and is a hybrid of the page-like sponsored story and the page-post sponsored story. This is “created” when one of your existing fans likes one of your posts. It is then shown to the friends of your fans who liked your post, leveraging the fact that a users’ social circle will influence their actions. This is an effective way to grow your fan base as the social context is there, and the content is more engaging than simply your page alone. The content leverages a post on that page that can have a strong statement opinion, or question. Friends of your fans are likely to want to jump into the conversation if the post is powerful enough.

6) Standard Marketplace Ads: Leverage your large, engaged fan base
One of the mistakes that brands make is thinking that growing their fan base and engaging them within the Facebook fan page is as far as this platform can go. Not true. By growing your fan base and keeping them engaged you have an opportunity to direct them elsewhere. By creating standard marketplace ads specifically targeted to your existing fan base, you can drive your fans to an external page. To give you an idea of how effective this can be, we ran a contest for a large telecommunications company that was looking for contest entries. When we targeted the brand’s existing fan base, we were able to get contest entries at 10% of the cost compared to advertising to the general public. These savings can be significant as your fan base grows and you come up with effective ways to re-target them. You can leverage your fan base for contests, market research, promoting a sale and driving them directly to your e-commerce website to make a purchase. Be sure to use unique tracking links when targeting your existing fan base versus advertising to the general public and you will then be able to directly measure the difference in performance. This final piece is crucial for brands because it allows them to see a real and direct ROI on their entire Facebook ad spend.

ALL THE TERRA BLU CHIPS IN THE WORLD CAN’T MAKE UP FOR THIS (or, when an idiot damages your brand)

Add this guy to the irresponsible list of brand-degrading morons, like the Domino’s Pizza YouTube teenfools and SouthWest Airline’s fathead pilot who broadcasts his infantile opinions across the skyways. It makes us shake our heads, but they do damage to valuable brands that have costs millions and millions of dollars to build. Sadly, the lawsuit will be launched against JetBlue, (although if they continued to serve the guy…maybe they deserve it).

Story: Drunk JetBlue flier urinated on sleeping girl

Here’s one flight you can count your lucky stars you weren’t on.

The New York Post has the head-scratching report on JetBlue Flight 166, writing “chaos erupted on (the airline’s) red-eye flight from Portland, Ore., to JFK yesterday when a drunk allegedly urinated on a sleeping 11-year-old girl.”

The incident came when an apparently intoxicated 18-year-old stumbled toward the lavatory but didn’t realize he hadn’t quite made it the whole way to the bathroom.

“I was drunk, and I did not realize I was pissing on her leg,” the 6-foot-4, 195-pound Vermont man is quoted by the Post as saying to authorities. The newspaper says he told them he had eight alcoholic drinks, though the Post did not say whether the man had claimed to have had those drinks on the flight.

The girl’s father, who himself was in the bathroom at the time of the incident, came back to his seat just in time to catch the man “midstream,” the Post writes.

Flight attendants had to separate the men as the enraged father appeared to be on the verge of violence, witnesses tell the Post.

As if that wasn’t enough for one flight, Flight 166 was beset with another incident.

The Post says another man on the flight began complaining about chest pains about an hour before the flight was to land. He eventually vomited, and — after calls for a doctor on board went unanswered — the flight crew did its best to clean up and comfort the man until the flight landed.

Six police officers met the Flight 166 when it arrived. Four officers were for the urinating teenager and two for the ill passenger. No update was provided on the sick mans’ condition, but the 18-year-old was released after being charged with indecent exposure.

Archive: August 12, 2011

Brand Advertising on Facebook: Six Key Steps

ALL THE TERRA BLU CHIPS IN THE WORLD CAN’T MAKE UP FOR THIS (or, when an idiot damages your brand)