Internet Marketing and Facebook

Recently there have been several developments in Facebook, the popular social networking website, which companies will find interesting and potentially very useful for marketing.

Marketing and advertising opportunities range from straightforward pay per click advertising to developing funky applications and games that will appeal to your target market. This article gives an overview of the most popular features and the most useful opportunities for business.

Facebook
In May 2007 Facebook Platform was launched - a new technology that left competitors like MySpace reeling. Application developers could now not only design programmes that the Facebook audience could engage with, but also conduct viral marketing on a huge scale. For example, if I download an application on Facebook all of my friends can see that and can be invited to download too.

Facebook Platform allows businesses to create applications that their target market would potentially be interested in. They can use these applications to engage with customers creating a custom business presence. Businesses can create their own applications or simply sponsor existing applications.

There are a huge number of applications, however here are several of the more popular and interesting ones:

IRead – Show your friends your favourite books. Write reviews. See friends reviews.
Eating – add restaurant reviews. See reviews in your area
My Flickr - Connection to Flickr so that Facebook friends can view pictures.
ILike – share music you like and find your favourite concerts
SkypeMe – See who is online and make Skype calls from within facebook.
Movies – compare your taste in movies and share reviews with friends
Funwall and Superwall – Share videos, pictures, and messages with friends.

Facebook Pages
Another useful tool for companies is Facebook Pages. Businesses can use this page to engage with their customers by adding information including video content and articles. Customers can also add testimonials, see events, and engage with your company. For a few examples of company Facebook pages check out:

Red - The Aids charity has its own page of popular “red” products to buy.
Fotolia – The marketplace for royalty free stock images is engaging with the Facebook community.
Ikea – The leading Swedish furniture chain is doing quite a bit of marketing on Facebook.

Facebook Beacon
Launched only a few months ago in November 2007, Facebook Beacon is a great tool for e-commerce companies. When a customer buys a product, the purchase is displayed on his or her profile and in the news feed. This means that all of their friends who may also be interested in the product see information about the purchase. What a great viral marketing tool to promote your products!

Facebook Social Ads
Facebook social ads is another excellent marketing tool in a very familiar format, similar to Google Adsense. Companies can create an ad and display it to a potential customer’s profile page. Companies have the option to either pay for ads by cost per click (CPC) or by number of impressions (CPM).

Facebook Insights
Facebook also has its own statistics package called Facebook Insights. Information is available on how your Facebook social ads are doing, and what customer demographics are most interested in your business.

Facebook Poll
Another useful tool is Facebook Poll, which allows you to survey potential customers in your demographic. You can ask for opinions about a product launch and get real time information back.

Although Facebook started out as a social networking site for college students, the customer demographic is changing to incorporate people of all ages. All companies need to consider how they harness this rapidly expanding networking community as part of their marketing strategy.

Facebook is leading the way in offering very useful online marketing tools for business. Facebook Beacon seems an especially promising marketing tool and one that should deliver huge benefits for e-commerce business. Facebook social ads are also potentially very useful – especially because companies can deliver ads to their target market – building relationships with potential customers and all of their friends.

We at Com.Motion will certainly be encouraging our customers to consider Facebook as part of their marketing mix in 2008.