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Inside Facebook

Inside Facebook


A Quick Look at This Year’s Black Friday Marketing Efforts on Facebook Pages

Posted: 25 Nov 2010 12:00 PM PST

Since the point of Thanksgiving is being thankful for what you already have, the holiday doesn’t lend itself to marketing as easily as most others.

The day after is a different story. A quick look around Facebook this week shows that big brands, as well as small businesses, are taking advantage of the Facebook platform's offerings in order to spread the world about their Black Friday sales.

Most big brands require that Facebook users Like their Page before seeing the discounts available on Black Friday.

Among the brands that employed this technique were Target, Wal Mart, and Toys "R" Us; each had a different Black Friday offering on Facebook. Toys "R" Us had a well-developed Black Friday app that allows a user to check out its sales in a catalog right on Facebook. You click on a menu of different categories and then you can view individual items and their sale prices.

Target is hosting a $25 gift card giveaway in honor of Black Friday that requires users to register on Facebook; they can then publish this fact to their stream. Wal Mart posted an Open House event for Friday, but is also featuring Black Friday-type of merchandise on its CrowdSaver tab, which we wrote about last month. Best Buy and Gap also posted events to promote their Black Friday sales and both had upwards of 3,000 confirmed customers as of Wednesday.

Old Navy launched a virtual game with CrowdStar and Sibblingz that allows players move through a virtual Old Navy store, shop for merchandize, socialize with other players, as well as "gift" virtual fashion to Facebook friends. While playing the game players will be able to see Old Navy's Black Friday sales. Additionally, Old Navy is advertising Friday-only deals on its Facebook Page and with an event.

Then there were retailers, big and small, that used Facebook's status updates and posted links to advertise their sales. This was the case with pharmacy chain CVS, which posted a link in a status update to its holiday catalog, as well as with smaller retailers such as Krazy Vatos boutique, which has been advertising its Black Friday hours all week on its Facebook Page via status updates.

Finally, Facebook's location service Places is also being used by retailers in a bid to drive business this Friday. Toys "R" Us is offering a 15% discount for the first 3,000 customers that spend more than $150. JCPenney and H&M are offering virtual coupons to customers who check in via Places.

The Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas is set to give guests an extra night or room upgrade for free if they check in on Places. Old Navy is also going to give 100 minutes of free phone calls to troops to call home for Thanksgiving when 15,000 check into the store via Facebook's Places. Other companies are using the holiday shopping spree as a forum for philanthropy; North Face is donating $1 to the National Park Foundation for every Places check-in while REI is donating to local conservation non-profits for Places check-ins.

For more detailed information about how big brands are using the Facebook platform to the advantage of their business, check out our Facebook Marketing Bible.

Facebook Job Listings: More Developer Advocacy, Engineering and Human Resources

Posted: 25 Nov 2010 08:25 AM PST

Seems like Facebook posted a range of new jobs on its Careers page before the holiday break, the most interesting of which involve developer support/advocacy and a set of new jobs focused on human resources.

We wrote last week about a Developer Advocate position, a position that will be responsible for broadening relationships with Facebook platform developers. This week Facebook posted a few similar positions, a Manager of Developer Advocacy, seemingly forming a full team within the company to do the same. Here’s the listing description:

  • As the Manager of Developer Advocacy, you will build and lead the team responsible for broadening the adoption of the Facebook Platform with software developers
  • This is a highly technical role, leading a highly technical team. You will both write code and speak with the most innovative engineers inside and outside of Facebook every day. You will be responsible for our outreach to third-party developers, particularly with the startup community
  • Your team will represent Facebook at developer conferences, events, and with the technical press/bloggers. Your team will write code samples, articles and tutorials for developers highlighting the power of the Facebook Platform
  • Most importantly, your team will advocate for the needs of the developer community within Facebook itself, working closely with the product and engineering teams to determine features and strategy
  • Our goal is to make Facebook an essential platform for developers with your team leading the way.

On a related note, Facebook is also hiring a Developer Site/Support Engineer, who will help "make developers successful at building applications" on the Facebook platform. This engineer will help maintain and build out the developers.facebook.com web site, work with customers on technical issues, and other similar responsibilities.

Along with existing listings for other communications jobs in the US and around the world, Facebook is seeking a Manager of Communications and Public Policy for Australia and New Zealand, to be based in Facebook's Sydney office. This person will be the lead for Facebook's strategic product, policy, privacy, safety and security efforts in this region — a tall order, considering Australia's stringent privacy laws. The new manager will work with the government and privacy advocacy groups, need experience in political communications and technology, and will be responsible for strategy, messaging and execution and must understand the Australian government.

Facebook also posted several new positions around human resources based in Palo Alto, Calif., another sign that it is working hard to maintain its fast-paced startup-style culture even as its headcount climbs towards 2000 people.

The Performance and Compensation Programs Manager will "build, scale and own the end-to-end delivery" of Facebook's global performance management and compensation programs, such as salary, merit, promotions, bonus and equity. The People Analytics Manager is set to "own the end-to-end architecture and delivery of our predictive analytics and HR data reporting."

A Global Benefits Manager will lead the design, implementation and administration of Facebook's global benefits. The HR Business Partner will be primarily responsible for helping Facebook deliver "organizational development solutions" for its new employees as it works to double the size of its workforce. Finally, the HRIS Analyst will manage that system within the company.

To wrap up, Facebook is also seeking a Technical Program Manager, Business Intelligence Engineer 1010002 and a Storage Engineer. For more Facebook-related jobs, check out the Inside Network Job Board.