Social media marketing

February 2008

Facebook is a social networking tool that connects people with friends who work, study, or live around them. Many use Facebook to keep up with friends, plan events, upload photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.

Originally designed in February of 2004 for fellow Harvard students, by one of their own, Mark Zuckerberg (now founder and CEO), Facebook later expanded to include other universities and colleges and eventually, work and high-school networks as well.

In mid-2007, Facebook opened its developer platform to allow any user or company to create applications that leverage the usability of Facebook and its users.

Facebook Social Ads

This quarter Facebook released its own advertising platform called Facebook Social Ads. Instead of the traditional online skyscrapers and banner advertisements that everyone else offers, this marketing initiative brings e-marketing to a new level.

This platform has the ability to micro-target any given ad by a wide range of defined variables, ranging from a user's age, gender, and location to his or her favourite books, movies, and college major.

However, e-commerce and e-marketing on Facebook do not stop there.

Four other uniquely integrative tools were developed, working alongside each other to create a rich experience for the user while sending information back to the advertisers, product developers, and the Facebook corporation. The four tools other tools are Facebook Beacon, Facebook Pages, Facebook Insights, and Facebook Polls.

Facebook Beacon

Facebook Beacon is a viral marketing tool that allows users to share actions they take on a given Web site with their fellow Facebook friends.

For example, if a user visited a video rental Web site and added a movie to his "favourites" list, his Facebook friends would see that action in their Facebook news feeds.

This enables the video rental company to gain access to viral distribution within Facebook. When such interactions or engagements are published in the news feeds, they act as a word-of-mouth referral.

Facebook Pages

Another recent Facebook development was the release of Facebook Pages.

This is a great tool for building your brand, since users become involved with your brand, business or cause by interacting on your Facebook Page, whether it's writing on the "wall" or showing support by becoming a "fan."

You can easily add applications, photos, videos, or interactive flash content to your brand or company page, which enhances the brand and the user experience simultaneously.

As with Facebook Beacon, Facebook news feeds are created when users interact with your page, distributing the information to your users' friends.

You can also link your Facebook Ads with your Facebook Page. Having a Facebook Page is also beneficial for search engine optimization purposes.

Facebook Polls

Facebook Polls provide a quick and easy way to gather valuable information from tens of millions of people. Polls allow you to target users by the same variables as with Social Ads.

The detailed results are broken down by age group and gender. Facebook Polls provide live, real-time data of the poll activity without even needing to refresh the page.

Facebook Insights

Having covered all these different opportunities with Facebook, it seems only logical to have the ability to record and log these interactions into organized and defined metrics, which is why Facebook developed Insights, its own equivalent of Google Analytics.

Facebook Insights allows you to see who is interacting with your presence on Facebook, giving you accurate data on activity, fan demographics, ad performance, and trends. This information allows you to improve your Facebook custom content and adjust your ad-targeting.

From the performance of your social ads to the viral distribution rate of stories about your business, Facebook Insights helps you learn more about your target audience.

Beyond Facebook

Social media extends far beyond Facebook to include other Web sites with interactive, user-generated content such as blogs, forums, video sharing sites, and more.

In addition to social media marketing, Bell offers a full suite of digital marketing solutions based on proven strategies and tactics.

Our professionals are creative leaders, shaping the latest Web trends with innovative projects that command attention and deliver results.

See how we can build your brand and maximize sales with online marketing. Contact us today to discuss your needs.