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Promote your brand on Facebook, a step by step guide

by Andrew on 09/11/07 at 11:24 pm
13 comments

Yawn. Another blogger posts about Facebook and how it will change the world. Stick with me. If you’ve been asking, “so how will Facebook make money?”, here is my best attempt at answering:

Step 1 – “Brands are friends”
Until now, companies were not allowed to create Facebook profiles and try and pass them as real people. Many tried, but the profiles were removed by moderators. It was possible to create a Group that centered around a brand, but this was a rather limited approach. We created a group for Yuppiechef, but we couldn’t really give a reason for anyone to join it (although strangely enough, about 30 people did!).

This week Facebook launched “Pages“. These are essentially like user Profiles, but for brands. Instead of a joining the Yuppiechef group, you now add Yuppiechef as a friend. Well, almost – the correct language is “become a fan of Yuppiechef”.

How did Debbie do this? She went to the Yuppiechef profile page here, and clicked “Add to my Stores”. (Yuppiechef is categorised as a “Store”, as opposed to another type business).

Like a user profile, we can add photos, upload videos, and very importantly, add applications. This allows brands to interact with customers in creative ways. To get the ball rolling, I created a simple app that talks to the Yuppiechef store and displays the latest products on our Facebook page.

Ideally we would want to write applications that add value to users, and give them a reason to come back to the Yuppiechef page. We’ll get there!

Step 2 – “Fans promote your brand”
Through Facebook Beacon, we can integrate the Yuppiechef website with Facebook, so that if Debbie buys or reviews something at our online store, a news item will be added to Debbie’s Facebook profile (with her permission), telling her friends about it. If I am Debbie’s friend, and I see that she became a fan of Yuppiechef or bought a product at that store, I am more likely to check it out. Electronic automated word-of-mouth.

Here a customer on the Blockbuster website is sending a message to her Facebook profile telling her friends that she favourited Top Gun.

Step 3 – “Add some advertising dollars”
Facebook (and presumably Microsoft) are betting that the advertising model of the future needs to piggy-back with word-of-mouth in order to remain relevant. Facebook Social Ads allow brands to append an advert to news feeds about their products.

Meagan’s Blockbuster news feed now has an advert under it so that her friends can click through and rent it themselves.

Facebook’s advertising platform is a jaw-dropping example of how targetted advertising has become.

Here I am constructing an add that will display to South African males, 22 years or older, who have listed “Cooking” or “Cooking Shows” in their interests (about 1,400 users). The number of potential people I will reach with this ad updates as you make changes, so you can tweak your criteria until you are reaching a decent-sized audience that exactly matches your criteria. It kinda makes those billboards on the side of the N1 look a bit silly, doesn’t it?

Much like Google Adwords, you pay per click or per impression for these ads, and you upload your own pictures and text and choose where about you want to display them. Facebook has around 65 billion page views a month to sell, so it’s unlikely Zuckerberg and Co will be eating end-of-the-month Salticrax for a while.

“Does this mean Google Ads are dead?”
I hate to break it to you, but if you’re the marketing manager for “Jim’s Plumbers” or “Parkview Roofing Supplies”, I wouldn’t rush to create a Facebook page and expect people to become “Fans”. The vast majority of businesses shouldn’t be advertising on a Social Networking site. While people are wasting company bandwidth and time connecting with their old schoolmates in Canada, they don’t want to be interrupted by Jim and his special offer on drain cleaner. But if they run into a sewage problem and turn to Google for help (which more and more people are doing), Jim’s ad should appear, linking to a basic website with his contact details.

However, your brand might be one that people choose to align themselves with. When Shane bought his iPod last year it came with a few Apple stickers. He chose to stick one on his Acer Laptop, and told people that he was saving for a Mac. Apple would be a good candidate for a Facebook page, and Shane would be one of their first “Fans”.

If you are more of a Jim than a Steve Jobs, there is no real harm in creating a Facebook Page or Social Ads. The beauty of Facebook’s system is that you will probably just be ignored, but you will be wasting your time and money.

We’ve chosen to give it a bash with Yuppiechef, because we think it’s a brand that people want to be associated with. The test is, will you become a fan?

Additional Reading: NY Times, Marketing Vox, Facebook’s Blog

Example Facebook Page: (RED)

Andrew Smith is the pedantic systems guy behind Live Alchemy, a SA e-commerce company. Andrew writes for Ideate in an attempt to make the world a more efficient place. View more articles by Andrew.

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