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On Tuesday Facebook announced it’s new advertising strategy to the world.
It comes in the form of Social Ads, Facebook Pages, Beacon, Insights, Platform and Polls.
Social Ads - allow marketers to create an ad and target it precisely to the audience they choose. Ads can be displayed in the left hand ad space, as well as in a news feed when attached to a relevant social story. Simply write an ad, choose a target audience, and
decide where you want to drive traffic. Social ads can be purchased based on number of clicks (CPC) or number of impression (CPM).
Facebook Pages - is free, so any business wanting to market themselves on Facebook will start by creating their own Facebook page. Facebook users can become fans of a business and interact with them just as they would their friends. Those interactions become stories that are sent across news feeds and can be seen by a business’ fans and their friends.
Beacon - allows 3rd party vendors (like eBay and Amazon) to publish information into a Facebook user’s profile and news feed every time the user preforms a specified action, like make a purchase or add an item to their wish list. Users will have the option to opt out before the “story” is published on their profile. Facebook is promoting this as word of mouth marketing.
Insights - will give you demographic data on who is interacting with your ads, and what you can do to optimize your ads. Facebook Insights will be a free service for all Facebook pages and Social Ads.
Platform - provides marketers with the tools to create their own Facebook applications.
Polls - allows marketers to create and target polls based on gender, age, location, interest and other demographic data. These polls will show up in Facebook user’s news feeds where they will have the option of participating.
Is it Revolutionary?
Facebook’s new social marketing offerings seem impressive, but marketers are already experts at lumping us into groups, and targeting ads based on what TV shows we watch and what web pages we visit. Targeting consumers based on their personal information, and the personal information of who they associate with is taking this one step further.
The truly revolutionary part of Facebook’s advertising strategy is also the most challenging to pull off. This automated word of mouth marketing created by Social ads, Beacon, and Facebook user’s interactions with brands will only succeed if Facebook users let it. If it is integrated smoothly and seamlessly, these stories/ ads/ interactions will just become part of a Facebook users daily life. If Facebook users are unhappy with these ads, they will find a way to turn them off, revolt, or simply leave.
Low Budget Facebook Marketing
The potential of setting up a free Facebook page, and having Facebook users become your fans, and then having the interactions of those fans with you brand be broadcast to their friends, will be very appealing to internet marketers. But to get this to work, businesses are going to have to figure out how to get consumers to interact with them.
You might ask, why would people interact with a brand’s Facebook page?
Here are just a few reasons, and I’m sure creative marketers can easily add to this list:
1. Because they really really like a brand (ie. Sports fans, Apple fans)
2. Because there is a benefit to doing so (ie. free stuff, discounts, coupons)
3. Because there is useful information (ie. cool interesting stuff you can’t find anywhere else)
4. Because their friends are doing it…
Like I mentioned earlier, if it works, reason #4 is what will truly separate Facebook’s brand of marketing from what currently exits both on and offline.
You can read the official press release here.
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