PardonMyFrench

Hey Marketing Genius - Your Facebook Advertising Is Awful

To The Marketing Genius Running Bad Facebook Advertising:

I don't get it.  Your Facebook advertising is awful.  It's almost like you are 18 years old and just started reading a marketing 101 book. Or worse yet.  You are robbing your clients blind with high agency fees.

Yes, Google Advertising is hard.  It requires logical campaign design, optimization, and an understanding of search.  Perhaps you've given up with Google or your clients figured out you don't know anything.

Facebook isn't hard.  It's actually very intuitive and very easy to use.  Yes you can setup multiple campaigns and multiple ads.  You can use some bid management help, but at the end of the day, the platform is easy to microtarget people based on interest and demographics.  So there's no reason for the following lousy political ads....

Elizabeth Warren (Democrat for Senate from Massachusetts): I live in NJ.
 I'm a registered Republican.  Probably show up in the conservative bucket.  I don't susbcribe to multiple political accounts.  I should NOT be in your target.

Debbie Wasserman Schulz (Head of the DNC): Same as Elizabeth Warren targeting above. Just really bad ad targeting.

George Allen (Republican running for Senate in Virginia): The ad targeting was good.  I dont like the ad because it gave me the impression that his campaign is on life support...(snicker away)

Obama LGBT: Well the targeting is way off here.  Wrong political category (for the most part), wrong Presidential candidate,  and it is very easy to add in narrow interest targeting to find people in the LGBT target. However, not to be outdone, The Mitt Romney campaign (sorry) has the worst targeting

Now.  I'm not a facebook fan of Mitt Romney.  I was following him since 2008 but during the 2012 Primary I didn't want friends thinking I supported him, so I unliked him.  Plus, I found the posts not very informative.  They then hit me with a lot of ads which of course was the correct target.  That was fine but they stopped.

So now, I get served individual ads based on potential microtargets.  However, all of these microtargets are so easy to find, its inexcusable to not use them.  And, Facebook has matured so that just getting likes is not that compelling + it's not very helpful for your strategy if someone is in multiple micro targets or coalitions.

Romney Hispanic Target: Umm, I don't like Romney and I'm not Hispanic.   The Hispanic target is the ONLY broad match target under the Ethnics category.  CHECK THE BOX.

Women for Romney: Listen folks, Facebook was founded to help Zuckerberg get a date.  Use the gender targeting.  Try using something more than just a friend of mine liking the page for your targeting.

Young Americans for Mitt: I'm 45.  As young and immature as I like to be, I'm pretty sure 45 is not in the Young American target.  Use the age targeting.

So to summarize, I've been served ads meant for women, young voters, Hispanic voters, LGBT, and out of state liberal/progressive ads.  I can actually rationalize the Warren + Debbie Wasserman Schulz ads as testing into the active politics broad category but the rest of the lifestyle targeting by President Obama and especially Romney for President are just poor.  

I havent seen any more poorly targeted Obama ads but the Romney ads just keep coming.  It doesn't make any sense.  If you really want to build up facebook coalitions, why not try to put the correct demos in your coalition.  Sure maybe it costs you a little more money to add the demo, but doesn't that make the most sense to have the purest coalition as possible?  It's easy, try it.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

P.S. By the way, The Obama Campaign is still serving LGBT ads.  It's really a poor display of the lifestyle targeting available in Facebook and demonstrates that The Obama Campaign is not technologically savvy.

P.P.S Oh and not to be outdown by lousy facebook marketing, Romney is now targeting me with Hispanic versions of his ad.  Really, hit the ethnic targeting. Its there and available.

My NJ Devils and NY Giants Get Social Media

My family just recently became weekend NJ Devils season ticket holders.  We've also been long time NY Giants season ticket holders (I split the tickets with my Uncle).  We are also Yankees fans and hit the occasional Somerset Patriots games.  Plus, my son attends Red Bulls games with his friends and we watch the occasional Manchester United game on TV (yeah we like sports).  One of the marketing strategies I've noticed is which teams and sports get social media and which ones don't.  The Devils and the Giants get social media.

FIRST THE GIANTS

The Giants have a mobile app where they load up behind the scenes videos and articles which I enjoy reading and watching.  They also really push using Twitter at the stadium and make regular in game updates on their Facebook page with pictures.  One little known social outreach was before the Giants season finale versus the Cowboys, star quarterback Eli Manning made 500 calls to season ticket holders.  How do I know this?  My Uncle got one of those calls, picked up the phone, and found  Eli Manning on the other end.  Talk about luck.  Eli was calling 500 fans to make sure everyone was loud at the stadium that weekend (my Uncle gave the tickets to a friend). They have one main problem which I'll talk about below.

THE NJ DEVILS

While the Giants are good at social media, the Devils are better.  They still hand out iPads at the game to "get Social"and regular push Facebook at all of their games.  They also encourage people to post pictures and tweet.  The Devils have done a great job pushing their Facebook page.  I havent found a mobile app (I dont think there is one) which I wish there was one to make it easier to read and share stories, but I know that takes some money to build one or an agreement with a provider.  They have the same problem as the Giants, but one thing I did find annoying is that when you search for their FB page you have to make sure you type in "New Jersey Devils" and not "NJ Devils" to get the official page and to make it just a little more confusing the official page is listed as "Ticket Sales".  I think a call into Facebook should help them fix it.

THE MAIN PROBLEM FOR GIANTS AND DEVILS

I think that both teams struggle to decide where their main information hub is.  For the Giants it seems to be Twitter but that's not the best place; it should be Facebook.  The Devils seem to be torn between their website where a lot of articles, videos, stories, schedule, and stats are stored and Facebook where people "get social".  I find myself going between the two and I think that's suboptimal.  Also, it would be awesome if there was a way for people to check into their seats similar to what's available in Ticketmaster for their games.

If I was advising the Devils, I'd make the leap into social even more.  I bet other local team are taking notice, so they need to keep pushing the envelope.  I don't think beefing up their Facebook page would be revolutionary enough.  I'd recommend (and yes it costs money) a Facebook App similar to the infamous Washington Post app where it would post stories, post updates to the reader's FB page, and even let people check into game events. The Devils social team should also spend a lot of time understanding Facebook's newly released Open Graph to understand the actions they could be publishing.

With that bigger push and a new designed App, the Devils could keep pushing the social media sports envelope open even more and finally make the leap into minimizing the over reliance of their website as the main information hub.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

P.S. A little more advice is to take a look at FB ads especially the Sponsored Stories, Page Post Like and Page Like ad formats to help spread their messaging.

My 1 Week with Google +: It's a Twitter Killer

Yes the world is all a twitter about Google+ which is Google's real social networking application.  And my initial reaction is, it's a Twitter killer and will be an effective alternative to Facebook.  I've had a hate, love, hate, relationship with Twitter over the years, but I think Google+ puts Twitter out of its misery.  Sorry if you like Twitter, but it kind of sucks. So, here's why I think Google+ is a Twitter killer and why I like it in addition to Facebook.

1. Twitter posts are kind of like spitting out your car window while cruising on the NJ Turnpike.  If someone is following you or happens to see it, someone might read your Tweet (ie - gets hit by your spit). Otherwise, the Tweet just makes the Tweeter feel better.
2. Twitter has no real advertising model and they are out of time.  Yes you can run promoted tweets or promoted trends, but their model has suboptimal targeting so no sophisticated, one:one advertiser can use it.
3. Are you a celeb, football player, etc?  Then maybe your tweets can get you some earned press.  If you are a regular person, do you really think your friends are online waiting anxiously to read your tweet?
4. Twitter is another site or app you need to access.
5. Finally, not to leave Facebook out of this rant, but the one thing Twitter has over FB is its ability to broadcast worldwide.  One of my beefs about Facebook is that it isnt easy to just broadcast to groups of people.

Google+ solves a lot of Twitter's problems, my one main issue with FB, and then has something that the other two are desperately trying to get which is more utility.  Here's why...

• G+ gives you the ability to broadcast publicly or to specific circles
• There is a slick interface to add friends and to put them in circles.
• It's really easy to message to specific circles; yes you can do something like that with FB but it isnt as slick.
• Google's entire basis for existence at this point is advertising
• I love the hangout application
• G+ finally gives Google the application that wraps everything together.  Gmail, Account, AdWords, Social, YT, etc.  Twitter and FB can't do that...
• If I'm awake, I'm in AdWords.  So having everything linked to my Google account is very efficient.

I think Facebook is too large and too embedded in the web for Google+ to displace it. Twitter on the other hand is dead man walking.  I think G+ can easily replace it and once G+ is linked with news sites like FB, it will be an effective foil to Facebook.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

 

 

Using Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter

I had a great conversation the other day with my good friend Cathy Davis regarding LinkedIn. I was surprised to hear how much she uses it and how useful it has been to her marketing consulting business.  What made me laugh out loud was I remember when she first logged onto LinkedIn when we were working together at Harrisdirect.  To me LinkedIn was a place I turned to when looking for a job years ago or a kind of online business rolodex.  So after I got off the phone with her, I decided to make some changes to my own use of the three major social networking tools (is there really more than 3?).  So effective immediately....

1. Facebook - for a while now you had to know me in order to connect with me on Facebook and if you know me than you know that I like posting things on my family, long valley, and politics.  So if you don't want to see a boring home video - move on. If you don't like my politics, by all means, comment a way; however, once you start getting nasty or personal -you are either going to get an email from me or the boot.
2. LinkedIn - this will be for the most part my digital marketing playground.  I may make status updates directly onto LinkedIn regarding online, you may see posts indirectly posted from my blog or Twitter; I wont be turning those off but then again, I'm not directly making those posts.  This should be a relatively political and family free social site.  In order to be my contact a LinkedIn you have to at least prove to me you know who I am...
3. Twitter - I continue my love a little, hate a little relationship but for me Twitter is about inbound and outbound links.  I will follow almost anyone if they follow me.  Unfortunately, if you are looking for a conversation with me, Twitter is probably not the place for that to occur with me.  It's about links

I'm going to give this a go.  The biggest changes are the greater use of LinkedIn for digital thoughts and the relentless focus of politics and family on Facebook.   Don't be upset with me if I give you the boot off of Facebook, but unfortunately those are my two passions and if you don't get that about me, you don't get to hang with me in Facebook.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Facebook, Twitter, and Buzz - Which Tools Work Now?

(First let me state, I get the irony of this post being sent out to my Twitter account)

I used to be a religious user of Twitter.  Going back into early 2007, I Tweeted.  I even took upon myself to Tweet out McCain's daily campaign news clips in addition to my own opinion and articles that I found interesting.  Facebook for me, wasn't something I was really into and it did take a while for me to embrace their advertising platform, not because I'm stubborn, but because it took Facebook a while to come into the advertising prime time. Also, I didn't have a ton of my real life friends and family on Facebook, but that has changed and so has my use of both of them.

Nowadays Twitter has become so popular in everyday life, to me it has almost become a joke.    Not that the the platform isn't useful but people use it as a punch line it sitcoms, news programs, etc that it just doesn't seem cool anymore.  Sure, it is still the best place to get fast breaking news in addition to political news, but as a way to have interactive conversations with people, it just doesn't do it for me anymore.  I won't be disconnecting Twitter any time soon, but as a primary vehicle for communicating, it just doesn't seem right anymore.  Yes, I still Tweet but not as often.  Yes I still read Twitter for political news, but if you are a small business trying to get your own story out, I think there are better vehicles for you.

One of those is Facebook.  I do check Facebook multiple times per day and I do make a lot of posts.  It's just more personable and interactive.  Plus, a lot of friends and family are on there so it doesn't feel so alone anymore.  Also, if you are a new business and you can't figure out how to communicate in Facebook, what makes you think that Twitter will work for you?  Hone your marketing skills in Facebook and then move out to other communication tools.  However, Facebook has privacy problems and they are definitely in advertising revenue generation mode, so if you are a little nervous about them, there are alternatives.

That takes me to Google Buzz.  I was into it at the start and drifted away.  Now, I'm starting to take a look at it again.  The integration with Gmail and Google Reader is just too much to ignore.  However, you know what's holding it back?  Integration into other tools - like Typepad which doesn't have a link to share this post in Buzz or good integration into my iPad.  However, I think Google has a much better advertising model and takes privacy a little more seriously than Facebook.

My thoughts?  I think long term Twitter goes away somehow.  Facebook has too many regular people on it for it to be ignored.  They of course have a downside risk of becoming Geo Cities like MySpace.  I think Google Buzz is worthy enough to start to be taken seriously, so I'm going to be spending more time on it..I think you should too.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

NJEA - When Good Marketing Ideas Go Bad

Are you a Facebook user and living in New Jersey?  Than no doubt you've see the super cheap NJEA support teacher and/or anti-Christie Facebook ads.  You know you've seen them - cute looking woman, NJ map, or now the very misleading millionaires tax ad with a boat.  No doubt the marketing geniuses at the NJEA are paying CPMs that are less than 50 cents, but then again everyone pays these rock bottom ad rates (unless you are on the user's Facebook homepage).  What is kind of disturbing is how they've taken a good marketing idea (Facebook) but outsourced it to people that aren't really paying attention to the community.  Here's a screen shot of the Facebook page and why they don't really get Facebook.

1. They've let the fans take over their comments without really trying to steer the conversation or answer them back with their propaganda. 
2. There seems to be more negative comments and posts which gives the perception that the page has outlived its usefulness 
3. Even when someone hammers them about merit pay for teachers there are a pathetic 4 comments posted in response.
4. The posts are getting really negative against the NJEA.  Here's the best example " The corrupt education machine that has plagued New Jersey should stop pimping out our children and tell the truth. IT IS ABOUT YOU!!!! I am tired of this and other left wing liberal groups doing nothing more than lining thier own pockets. Teachers - grow a backbone and stand on your own feet, stop hiding behind our...."
5. The ads are taking the tone of the discussion into the gutter and even go so far as to mislead people regarding a millionaires tax in NJ.  Governor Christie on the other side is taking his argument to the schools where he stands there and takes questions.
6. The actual website visits don't even register in your typical tools so you'd have to assume their petition drive is not even worth bragging about
7. No paid search ads or content targeting which means they are relying on the CPM targeting in Facebook (sad)
8. The actual site is well designed and my guess is it probably cost the NJEA about $25K which seems like a decent price but the media is useless in its support so they have a well built site which hardly anyone notices.

If I was a NJ Teacher, I'd be screaming mad at this subpar marketing effort.  The Facebook page has been taken over by Tea Party like activists who don't want to put up with marketing fluff and misleading information.  The website has low traffic and they aren't really trying to engage NJ voters where the real action occurs which is in Google and NJ sites outside of Facebook; heck, not even within their own Facebook page.  With the school budget votes approaching, this isn't helpful and NJEA ought to grow up.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

FarmVille… My Life: The Top 15 Facebook Status Update Terms of 2009

Some 35 million Facebook users update their status every day, or around ten percent of the service’s 350 million monthly active users. Meanwhile, the service has grown by 200 million new people in the past year; the US alone now has nearly 100 million, including many of the parents and grandparents of the service’s original college users.

via www.insidefacebook.com

PardonMyFrench - love Facebook but just looking at the top status from 2009 and you see they have a long one to go to be more than an online gaming destination

Revisiting Facebook for Online Advertising

You long time readers know that I've had a love-hate relationship with using Facebook as an online advertising buy; that is specifically buying banner ad space and not for using it for connecting with customers-supporters which I always believed it was extremely useful.  Facebook with its low CPM rates and lack of targeting options coupled with boring ad units put it extremely low on my media recommendation list.  That is until recently. I've become very bullish on Facebook advertising and hope they make more targeting options changes.

On the right is a screen shot of a make believe ad buy (actually it was a real one but I

 can't who it is really for).  So, let's take a tour and describe  what I like about Facebook for advertising and what I think they should still change.

1) The geo-targeting works fine if you want to target by city, state, or country.  However, there aren't zip code, county, or MSA options plus I could really use a bulk upload.  I'd imagine Facebook will be changing this in the future.

2) Other demos like male/female, targeting on a user's birthday, education level and whether you are in a relationship and if you are interested in males or females provides some interesting targeting options especially if you are a dating site (for example) or need to target based on marital status.  Interesting targeting but really this is left over from their college only Facebook days.

3) Now the Keywords is where it gets very interesting.  You have to be a keyword wizard and you have to understand that these keywords are not the kind you would normally search on but really kind of like groups within Facebook of what people put on their page.  The main problem I have with this is that if you enter in more than one term Facebook looks at it as an OR instead of an AND.  For example if you wanted Republicans who like Obama you can't (see below for the exception),  You'll find 2.9 million Facebook people who have Barack Obama on their page but when you add in Republican you get about 3.17 million which is just adding in Republicans to Obama's total.  This is good targeting, but an AND function would be much better,

4) The workplace targeting is very interesting especially if you are going after a certain company.  This is unbelievably cool

5) Connection targeting really only works if you are the Facebook admin so you can target your own supporters or if you want to exclude them.  This is how the Barack Obama admin can target their large fan base and then use keywords to further segment them out.  That's how they could find Barack Obama Republicans.

6) The CPMs or CPCs are dirt cheap still - at this level I like using CPMs so I make sure my ad is shown.  The ad units are not their new sexy units which are usually reserved for their large customers (this should change too soon) and the media is not on a user's home page but on their subpages.  Again this is kind of a bummer if you don't have multiple thousands of dollars to spend, but still quite the non-premier options are quite good now.

I think Facebook is a good tool right now especially with their targeting options and dirt cheap CPMs.  I do hope they make some improvements to their keyword targets by making it an AND and not an OR plus provide the option for lower spenders to get on a home page or get better ad units.  At that point with those three changes, Facebook would explode for the small advertiser.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Skittles.com Revamp - Genius or Did Mars Spend too Much Time at Hot Dog Johnny's?

Twitter was all the rage this morning with the revamp of Skittles.com because it seems the folks in Mars' marketing division revamped the site so it is a 300x250 ad unit with a picture and links.  When you roll over the boxes it can either expands into landing pages or pops up a Twitter search results page or even Skittles's Facebook page. 

Unfortunately for Skittles I didn't see too many flattering posts.  Most people thought the revamp of the site was a hoax to drive traffic.  A lot of people thought that their marketing division spent too much time at Hot Dog Johnny's because they are relying on Twitter for consumer generated content or Facebook.  The Twitter ones could be particularly damaging because people  can post (or did post) unflattering comments that can appear on their homepage.  Or even worse, the frequent downtime of Twitter could display a Twitter apology.  Of course the classic web designers think it is an awful execution.  Me?  I think it is brilliant for a product just like it.

5 REASONS WHY SKITTLE'S REDESIGN IS BRILLIANT MARKETING

1. How much site utility did they have to start, none?  Yes that's right.  Why would anyone go back to this type of site?  Sure if there was a promotion, it would generate traffic, but this is candy.  How many times are you going back to look up the calorie value?  Sure if they had recipes, you'd get better traffic, but for candy? Zero.
2. Twitter Provides Sporadic Customer Updates.  Again this is a low involvement product.  How often are you going to Tweet how great the greens are?  Sure they could be taking a beating today from so called marketing gurus, but after the first few days blow over, they'll have Twitters world wide generating content for them.
3. Facebook Tells You Which of Your Friends Are Fans Too.  Yes.  When you look at the Fans on their Facebook page, you'll more likely than not see some of your Facebook friends who are also fans reinforcing for you that they like Skittles too.  That's an awesome feature because they just turned your Facebook friends into product ambassadors for Skittles.
4. No More Website Content.  No need to figure out how to update the content often.  Let Twitter and Facebook do it for you.  The rest of the site is media information, product information, and contact links - basically low involvement stuff that changes infrequently.
5. Websites Can Be Subservient to CGC.  People will spend a lot more time on their Facebook and Twitter pages (Google too) than they will ever spend on a CPG site like Skittles.com.  So instead of trying to pull people away from pages they'd rather visit, Skittles figured out how to keep their website front and center by making it a DHTML overlay.

I wrote a post a while back asking if you really need a website and it appears the good folks at Mars read a fellow Warren County/Morris County's blog post (Long Valley is about 10 minutes from Hackettstown).  Sites that won't update their content often or don't provide utility to bring people back on a regular basis should pay close attention to Skittles.com. 

Do you always need a website or should you just rely on Facebook and Twitter for your content?  Very interesting question and I wish Skittles.com a lot of success.  I think it is brilliant.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

2008 Election Recount Part 4 - Why Weren't We More Social?

This is part 4 of my series looking at the 2008 Presidential Election.  Past posts are: Part 1 The Palin Effect, Part 2 Monday Morning Quarterback, and Part 3 The Death of Microtargeting.

So one of the questions that everyone likes to ask or write about is why didn't Senator McCain's team embrace social networking?  My answer is, well we did but we were challenged by money, people resources, and our own supporters.

First a little disclosure.  It is no secret that I am not a believer in using social networking sites for PAID online advertising.  That's especially true for MySpace which is where I believe good advertisers go to die, especially if they do direct deals with them.  Facebook, I have a little more faith in, but I am hard pressed to recommend them for advertising too.  YouTube I love and I've run campaigns there; I especially love YouTube because they are powered by Google which always makes me happy.  So, standard display advertising is a waste of money on most social networking sites, but I do (and did) believe they are critical for involving supporters and pushing CRM messages.  OK, so what do I think happened.  Three things....

1. No Money - as much as social networking costs next to nothing when compared with advertising, it still costs money to develop widgets and content.  When compared with Senator Obama, we were at a significant disadvantage.
2. No People - social networking done correctly needs people to do the outreach.  Unofficially I've heard that Senator Obama's eCampaign totaled around 95 and Senator McCain's totaled around 15.  At that level of disparity you have to make choices by prioritizing items.
3. Different Supporters - While I believe there were quite a number of people that supported Senator McCain that would spontaneously create videos, Senator Obama as well as Congressman Ron Paul had a much larger pool of people that would create content.  Here's a screen shot of videos when you search on YouTube for Barack Obama and John McCain (filtered out crap).  Other than "Dear Mr. Obama" and "Obama's Citizenship Problem" the number of positive McCain supporter videos are nowhere to be found and even if they were further do on the list, they would not have nearly as many video views.  Heck, even our best professional fan video - Raisin' McCain by John Rich only generated 152,000 views.

McCain's team had a Facebook page and we pushed messaging through it added widgets, and had 600K+ supporters.  To put that in perspective, we had 3.85 times as many supporters as Hillary Clinton.  Yes, Obama was a monster when it came to Facebook but then again you could argue he had inside help to get him started. We did some advertising in Facebook and for a very small micro-target it performed great, but didn't scale.

We used YouTube from the very beginning.  When the campaign imploded during the Primary season we had to use YouTube to push out video ads.  Web videos was a key strategy for us especially before we won New Hampshire.

The blogosphere was also very important but it was a tough row to hoe prior to wrapping up the nomination and then it took some time after that.  The vast majority of Republican blogs are very conservative writers and those are our activists.  It was BRUTAL during the Primary season.  Town Hall bloggers were rough, Michelle Malkin, RedState, Race42008, and so on.  I should know because I monitored posts.  I made comments.  I reached out to bloggers.  I mixed it up with people.  I interacted with Mitt Romney's army of supporters and took on Ron Paul's zealots.  Town Hall's Hugh Hewitt DROVE ME FRIGGIN CRAZY and years later I still find it difficult to read his posts. 

I marshalled bloggers to help John McCain win TechCrunch's Tech President endorsement.  Heck, who do you think put John McCain's SecondLife together just in case?  If you were one of my Twitter followers in the last month of the campaign you saw campaign posts from the Daily Briefing.  We pushed out widgets, video contests, tried donation gathering from MySpace, Yahoo! Answers, MySpace Townhall, etc and etc.

So when people say John McCain's team wasn't social, they are wrong.  We were very social.  Did we run into the greatest use of social networking marketing in the history of the internet in the form of Barack Obama? YES. 

If we were more social would we have won the election?  No.  We still had to deal withan unpopular President, the economy, and money problems.  Senator McCain's eCampaign Team was VERY SOCIAL and any marketer should be jealous of what we accomplished; that is unless you were on Senator Obama's campaign.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

So Do You Actually Recommend Facebook for Online Advertising

I've had about two Facebook moments just today alone for two different clients.  One client was looking to target the youth segment and the second client wanted to push widgets-applications out to a wide audience.  For both clients I didn't recommend buying online ads in Facebook for reasons that I've given in the past (more on that in a second).  Then I get back from my meetings in the city (my new favorite drink is Tanqueray 10, tonic and two slices of lime) and read this article in Fortune called Finding cracks in Facebook and I had to smile.  Not because of any Facebooks woes because clearly they are a leader in social networking, but because of this line:

"Facebook ads can sell for as little as 15 cents per 1,000 impressions (CPM) - compared with the estimated $13 on Yahoo properties. And even at those bargain prices, marketers are reluctant to spend money on a venue where users aren't paying attention."

I'm hard pressed to buy any ads on Facebook for exactly this reason.  I believe that social networking ads are online wallpaper especially for acquisition and even branding tactics.  And even at 15 cent CPMs it would be a stretch to recommend them.  Sure going after the youth market they are still the best place to find concentrated web surfers, but how good are those ads even at such a low rate.  15 cent CPMS with low click rates or acquisition is just what it is - cheap eyeballs and the vast majority of marketers have moved passed this.

I don't know why Facebook doesn't want to embrace what they are to a lot of marketers.  A great place to engage customers, evangelize supporters, push information, and have users show their love by posting badges and widgets.  It is a great, effective, and efficient tool for communicating with customers especially with the younger generation who increasingly uses email less and communicates via message boards.

The pressure started coming down when they wanted to monetize that traffic.  Sure partnering with Google to place paid clicks ads is an awesome tool and that model works because Google serves the ads based on relevancy.  Plus a lot of Google users don't realize that if you don't want your ads served on partner search sites you have to opt out of it.  It is a great monetization model, but then extrapolating that for display ads is another thing where CPMS are believed to be higher. 

However, it is hard to push CPMs up when you serve plain display ads without video.  They seem so outdated and cheap, plus you can build them yourself without much creative experience.  Those ads show that and contribute to their wallpaper feel.  For example, I logged on tonight and here are the ten ads that were served to me:

1. Verizon (placed probably by an ad network)
2. Great-prizes.com correctly messaged to men over 34 (Facebook flyer)
3. Savvy-daddy.com correctly message to me (Facebook flyer)
4. All American Dish (Facebook flyer)
5. NPD research correctly messaged to over 34 (FF)
6. Some 30 Year Old Millionaire ad (FF)
7. Puma ad for Like.com correctly targeted to men (FF)
8. Myeasyrewards.com (FF)
9. Same as #8
10. Vacation homes

While they got the targeting correct for most of the ads, this isn't hard to do based on the profiles.  The ads themselves are shall we say on the cheesy side of ads and would be hard pressed to be considered branding ad units.  I built a few ads, didn't turn them on, and you know what CPM rate I was told to bid? 32 cents!!  That's right 32 cent CPMs and if I wanted CPCs around 69 cents.  The CPM IS DIRT FRIGGIN CHEAP, especially when you take into consideration their advanced targeting that seems to actually work.

It would be hard for any major marketers to justify spending marketing dollars for something like this.  I don't want you to think Facebook has zero value, just when it comes to branding and acquisition.  For customer relationship management and evangelizing your base it is great, for advertising I'd recommend passing unless you are on the very low budget scale.  I think Facebook's new COO and former Googler Sheryl Sandberg has much longer to go to develop a new ad scheme aimed at the billions that marketers spend on branding ads every year. "I'm hopeful that we play a significant role in pushing the envelope [with] awareness building," she says. "How we get there, I don't think we know yet." 

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Is Twitter via Twitbin Killing Professional Facebookers?

I've had a love-hate-back to love relationship with Twitter.  It went into the serious love relationship when I downloaded Twitbin for Firefox.  Twitbin puts the updates on the left hand margin of my screen so I have an ongoing dialog running and can get news updates, friend updates, and other internet thought leader updates during the day.   It really makes it easy and removed one of the challenges I had with Twitter which was to open another tab and hit refresh to see what was going on.  It is like having an unlimited IM friends list without the annoying blinking when someone wants to find me.  However, Facebook for me is getting pushed aside.

This isn't to write that I think there are flaws with Facebook.   I just think that Twitter solves a lot of professional issues with Facebook.  To me the updating features in Facebook was what made it so interesting to the non-college aged crowd.  You can post updates of yourself and then see updates from your friends, however Twitter is Facebook updates on steroids.  The links that get posted on Facebook are easily pushed out on Twitter without all of the annoying content or images that take up space;  Twitter - you have 140 characters to push your message out.  Sure Twitter is text based, but you can always get a link to pictures and videos. 

Now we Professionals can keep our Rolodex LinkedIn product and couple it with Twitter to get into the update mode without having to resort to Facebook which to me has become inundated with gadgets, join requests, and gaming requests; so much so that I really don't understand the point of joining a cause that requires me to take no action.

Between my blog, RSS reader, LinkedIn, and Twitter updates I keep that professional internet feel all while participating in the update world with other professionals.  I'm starting not to miss Facebook.  Now if only some of the companies using Facebook to push updates out will turn to Twitter; that would be the unobtrusive, short text way to go.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Facebook Ads Get Kicked Up a Notch

Three interesting articles this weekend and in no particular order....

1. Techcrunch goes into details about Facebook's new advertising plans that they will announce on Tuesday in ad:tech.  Basically an expanded network on and off properties and the potential to combine purchases and actions off the Facebook platform and display them in your news feed.  That's almost mind blowing to think your Amazon book purchases can appear on your news feed for your network to see.
2. BusinessWeek looks at (surprise) declining click rates across the internet and it includes a quote from fellow internet Oldtimer Kevin Lee "Targeting will come in to rescue all forms of digital advertising."
3. And Cnet writes about more of Facebooks advertising and targeting plans

That's certainly a lot of articles on Facebook who continues to rival Google for news and changes to their advertising platform.  Notice the lack of any marketing buzz these days for MySpace which I've stated over and over again that it is nothing more than the Web 2.0 version of Geo Cities.  I've pretty much stated (and did so at a conference on social marketing) that buying banner ads on a social network is almost a complete waste of marketing dollars.  The vast majority of ads that I see in Facebook today are cheesy network buys that are probably worth at best a CPA; personally, I always asked to remove consumer generated content from any network buys.  However, even without Project Beacon (from Techcrunch) there is hope in the Facebook ads when you use their flyers or get access to their targeting selects.  I've seen better ads lately and unscientifically here's what I'm seeing tonight on 10 page refreshes

1. Untargeted acne ad
2. Potentially targeted pharma ad (drug for kids problems)
3. Crappy untargeted MSN search ad
4. Untargeted college intern ad
5. Untargeted Vonage ad
6. Untargeted JC Penny ad
7. Untargeted acne ad
8. Untargeted Vonage ad
9. Facebook flyer partially targeted to 30+ singles (I'm married)
10. Untargeted Monster.com ad

Clearly Facebook figured out that right now they are selling ugly wall paper which their users are most likely ignoring en masse.  Using the available data in Facebook to work on targeting is definitely a welcome step.  Project Beacon however "kicks it up a notch". 

One of the great parts of Facebook unlike Google, MySpace aka Geo Cities, LinkedIn, Yahoo, and all of the other pretenders is that Facebook makes it fun and easy to blast updates to your network.  They import my blog and tagged articles, when I take an action on Facebook it is broadcast, when I meet a new friend my network is notified, and I can send a blast note out to the entire group.

Now off-Facebook actions like book and CD purchases can be broadcast.  This provides powerful word of mouth marketing and testimonials without asking you the purchaser to write a post.  It can be broadcast to your network giving the product owners and website owners free advertising.   Couple that with Facebook demographics, movie ratings, etc and if Facebook can actually make sense of that data for the vast majority of stupid advertisers they have a real shot to solve the consumer generated content advertising challenge.

The other thing I like about Facebook's ad changes is that anyone, regardless of spend or importance can get access to demo targeting and ad construction.  This makes it very Google-like and helps the small advertiser to get access to their user base.  Clearly they are moving in the right direction.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Politico, Compete Study Rains on Social Networking Parade

Political news site The Politico just published a study it completed with Compete.com which looked at web surfing behaviors of people who visited the current crop of Presidential contenders' websites.  While some of you readers might be saying to yourself, oh great another political marketing post that I'll just ignore, I think you should spend a little more time studying the article and the results.  If a political marketers has challenges with social networking, then perhaps maybe you should rethink your strategy too.  The article called Campaign seek measure of internet success has some great quotes in it and a link to a table to run some of your own comparisons.  Here are some highlights from the article...

• Some of the more newsworthy efforts have focused on campaign-created MySpace, Facebook, Meetup and YouTube pages — and so far, the payoff has been difficult to measure.
• But the results reveal interesting online habits among the politically attuned. A significant number get their news from mainstream media versus political blogs. YouTube, meanwhile, is one of the most reliable ways for candidates to communicate directly to voters. But the candidates’ official Meetup, Facebook and MySpace pages appear less effective at that.
• Half of those tracked by Compete visited MySpace in September, and 54 percent visited YouTube. Nearly two-thirds went to Wikipedia, a quarter logged on to Facebook and 7 percent visited Meetup.
• Meetup, the darling of the 2004 election cycle, barely registers with any candidate other than Internet phenom Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas)
• Two percent checked out the candidates’ MySpace pages, and 1 percent hit his or her Facebook page.
• YouTube is in a different league, with 16 percent of its readers visiting candidate-specific pages
• The political readers captured by Compete were much more likely to get their news from a mainstream source than from political blogs. Forty-eight percent went to CNN, followed by Yahoo News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fox News, USA Today and, to a lesser extent, Politico.

So are these social networks all hype?  Well for politics I think they are over hyped, but they do serve useful purposes in connecting people.  While for advertisers, they provide a cheap and often free way of advertising.  Plus, the word of mouth potential of course is always there.

However (and that's a big however), as an acquisition vehicle I don't think the majority of advertisers have quite figured out how to use them.  Sure for every Ron Paul advertiser there are thousands of other advertisers that don't have the right message or product to move the social networking needle. 

This study clearly shows for the majority of political advertisers that they should put the spending back towards more traditional internet mediums.  Besides that I think advertisers should really think of social networks as a CRM vehicle (yes I wrote that).  That's really where your strategy should be moving towards and less of an acquisition vehicle.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Google to Facebook: If We Can't Buy You, Then Join You

I thought this announcement by Google in the post called Google News Goes Social was a brilliant move on their part.  Google created a Facebook application that lets users have news and customized searches appear on their profile pages.  Of course it also lets the user share any results page.  As you know, MSN bought the right to monetize inventory and when Facebook opened up to allow new applications, I guess the folks at Google seized on this opportunity to create an application that can help drive some of that traffic back to the mother ship.  Brilliant plus a little evil to boot.

Following that announcement, Steve Rubel posted this today under the title Schmidt Hints AdSense Maybe Coming to Facebook Apps that Eric Schmidt would like to have their ads in those applications so you can bet to see Google monetize more of that traffic without really getting into bed with Facebook.  Clearly Google has a purpose to get at that traffic which doesn't seem to be slowing down as proven by Bill Tancer over at Hitwise.

I wonder what Facebook is going to do about a potential increase in ads and how much will that piss off their users who are still predominately around college age.  Sure a bunch of us 30+ professionals have jumped on board realizing how much more interactive using Facebook is compared with Linkedin, but at the end of the day Facebook is still driven by the 18-30 crowd, right? 

Witness the ads that you find on the small left hand skyscraper.  Most of them are untargeted, network buys, but when they are targeted it seems to be at a macro level and not geared towards any profile data or behavioral targeting data.  Frequently the ads are filled by Virgin Mobile, Dating sites, Pimple Ads and those are the professional ones not the ones made using the Facebook Flyer platform.  The Facebook Flyers at least seem to be more targeted because I saw one for The Rutgers Network and then another one (dating) targeting 30+.  Check out this screen shot of some ads.

Anyway I think the battle over Facebook is far from over and that includes who gets to power ads in their pages.  I wonder how long before MSN starts barking about the Google Facebook App?

PardonMyFrench,

Eric