Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Exclusive: Target Facebook Fans for 44% Cheaper Registrations Says TBG Digital Test
- Platform Update: Facebook Removes Pre-Filled Stream Stories, Like Box Configurator Gets Border Color
- Featured Facebook Campaigns: Hot Wheels, New Belgium Brewing, Men’s Health and Women’s Health, Dogs, Callaway Golf and 7-Eleven
- BandPage, VEVO, Friends, Videos, IQ and More on This Week’s Top 20 Growing Facebook Apps by MAU
| Exclusive: Target Facebook Fans for 44% Cheaper Registrations Says TBG Digital Test Posted: 06 Jun 2011 05:49 PM PDT
The data helps establish the value of a Facebook fan by demonstrating some of the savings in conversion acquisition costs business can make by investing in growing their fan bases. This is because in addition to sending Page updates to fans, businesses can specifically target their own fan base with Facebook ads. For instance, if a health care company planned on acquiring 1 million registrations over a year via Facebook ads at $10 per registration, it could save $4.4 million by advertising to its Facebook fans instead of the general Facebook population. This means if the cost of attaining enough fans from which to secure 1 million health care registrations is less than $4.4 million, the company has produced a direct return on investment on its Facebook fan acquisition strategy without even counting the value of being able to communicate directly with the fans through Page updates.
The test results should spur a wide variety of companies to consider increasing their efforts to drive fans to their Facebook Page in order to be able to specifically target these users with Facebook ads. A Facebook fan base could be wise investment for web services including off-platform game developers and group buying networks such as Groupon who frequently spend huge amounts on registration acquisition. The one-time cost of fan acquisition could assist them to market new games and deals for years to come. Event promoters should look to serve ads to the fan bases of any venue, entertainer, or sponsor involved in the production of their event to take advantage of the reduced cost of signups culled from fan targeting. They should also work to build their own fan bases through promotions and physical on-site kiosks that can collect Likes from event goers. Ecommerce sites and brands that conduct direct response advertising should also look at how developing a Facebook fan base now could be smart strategic move that could lower costs later. While TBG Digital benefits from increased interest in advertising on Facebook that these results might generate, its testing methods are sound and it uses a large enough sample size to be reliable. Facebook is obviously not the only online advertising medium, and email marketing is still very important. However, similar to how accruing large email lists was eventually recognized as a sound marketing investment, Facebook Likes are emerging as valuable for targeting ads as well as for communicating directly with customers through Page updates. Some companies might worry that a currently small fan base means there’s no point in focusing on building a Facebook Page audience. Really though, this means there’s plenty of low hanging fruit — people who truly care about their brand but haven’t thought to Like them — that is yet to be picked through ads and viral campaigns. Facebook’s Sponsored Stories allow brands to turn a small buzz into highly efficient fan acquisition campaigns. Finally, as more brands realize the importance of Facebook, competition for fans will increase and the cost per fan will probably increase. Armed with these new numbers demonstrating the value of a Facebook fan, marketers should push their companies to redouble their fan acquisition initiatives as a component of a clearly measurable strategy for generating ROI from social. For strategies on how to most effectively use Facebook ads to drive Likes to your Page and other types of conversions, visit the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s comprehensive guide to advertising and marketing on Facebook. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Platform Update: Facebook Removes Pre-Filled Stream Stories, Like Box Configurator Gets Border Color Posted: 06 Jun 2011 11:05 AM PDT The latest Platform Update to the Facebook Developers Blog announced a breaking change to the message parameter for feed dialogs. As of July 12th, stream stories can no longer be pre-filled with content. It also noted the addition of a border color option to the Like Box social plugin configurator. The update reminded developers about the need for access tokens to view the wall or posts of users and Pages via the Graph API, and the July 1st mandatory migration to Facebook Credits for app payment processing. Previously, developers could pre-fill the message section of a stream story with content created earlier in the workflow. While this allowed simple publishing of content already created by a user, it was sometimes abused by spammy apps to make it look as if the user had added context to a news feed story that was in fact pre-filled by the application. Unauthorized pre-filled messages such as “This is so funny, you have to check it out” encouraged friends to click on spam and phishing links, giving malicious developers added virality and endangering users.
The abuse by spammers appears to have outweighed the legitimate uses, so Facebook is removing the pre-filled message option for the sake of user security. Facebook will begin ignoring the feed dialog message parameter starting on July 12th. This breaking change may negatively impact some innocent developers who only pre-filled messages with content users authorized for feed publishing. These developers will now have to get users to explicitly enter content into a publishing dialog. Like Box Border ColorWeb publishers now have an additional style option when configuring the Like Box social plugin, which allows websites to collect Likes for a specific Facebook Page. They can add an HTML color code to display a colored border around the Like Box. This will make it easier to blend the social plugin into websites with color schemes that don’t match Facebook’s blue and white.
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| Posted: 06 Jun 2011 09:55 AM PDT Mystery, charity, Father’s Day, vanity and beer were all subjects of different Facebook campaigns this week that promoted contest and giveaway entries or content sharing in order to increase brand loyalty. We've excerpted two of the campaigns below. You can see the full week's coverage in the Facebook Marketing Bible, which also includes detailed breakdowns of dozens of other featured campaigns by top-performing brands and businesses on Facebook.
Mattel, Hot Wheels Yellow Driver MysteryGoal: Engagement, Page Growth, Network Exposure, Product Purchase, Brand Loyalty Core Mechanic: Team Hot Wheels participated in the 100th anniversary of the Indy 500 and a masked Yellow Driver completed a new world record distance jump. In order to find out who the driver really was, users were directed to the company's Facebook Page where they could find a YouTube video, Twitter updates, news and even a quiz. Method: Hot Wheels began to promote the mysterious Yellow Driver before the May 29 record jump. Incidentally the driver, Tanner Foust, was in a four-wheel vehicle and went down a 90-foot ramp to soar 332 feet. Obtaining access to the information on Facebook was Like-gated and the promotion is the landing tab for the Hot Wheels Page. Impact: The Page currently has about 418,700 likes and the YouTube video revealing the Yellow Driver's identity has more than 4.3 million views. The campaign produced a spike in Like growth, with the Page adding roughly 18,000 new Likes on May 29th, the day of the jump.
Dog Bless USA Challenge GrantGoal: Page Growth, Engagement, Charity, Network Exposure Core Mechanic: Dog Bless You is an organization that celebrates dogs which partnered with explore.org and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. It’s goal was to offer service dogs for returning veterans for every 5,000 Facebook Likes the Page receives, up to 100 dogs ($500,000) from Memorial Day (May 30) until July 4.
Method: The landing tab on the Dog Bless You Page explains a little about the promotion with a "thermometer" of the number of Likes it takes to reach the top goal. This thermometer lends a sense of urgency to the campaign, encouraging visitors to participate. The IAVA and explore.org Pages are also mentioning the promotion in the stream.
Impact: The Dog Bless You Page is at 205,700 Likes and the total goal is 675,000. The promotion could have been a lot more engaging and dynamic overall. There's no app, no way to invite friends, no space for comments or additional Likes within the Page tab. And the fact that neither of the two supporting organizations include a tab directing traffic to the Page also hampers the effort. Organizations that collaborate on Facebook campaigns need to ensure each partner is doing its part in terms of promotion. How are top brands in the industry designing their Facebook marketing campaigns? See the Facebook Marketing Bible for detailed breakdowns of dozens of Featured Campaigns by top-performing brands and businesses on Facebook. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| BandPage, VEVO, Friends, Videos, IQ and More on This Week’s Top 20 Growing Facebook Apps by MAU Posted: 06 Jun 2011 07:59 AM PDT
Profile and friend analyzer applications were popular this week, as indicated by their growth in monthly active users. Although, we also saw music-related apps like BandPage by RootMusic and VEVO for Artists, video and Page tab apps, and then there was a mishmash of photo, virtual good, IQ and horoscope apps. The apps on our list this week grew from between 189,100 to 1.3 million MAU. Our list is compiled using AppData, our data tracking service covering traffic growth for apps on Facebook, and covers those that gained the most users in the past seven days. Top Gainers This Week
60 Photos is an app that grew by a huge 1.3 million MAU this week. The app asks users to rate the Facebook photos of their friends, clicking "nice" or "pass," and publishes a feed story each time a photo is rated positively. Another app with huge viral characteristics was e-Diagnostics, which grew by 265,400 MAU mostly in Indonesia; essentially the app is like an IQ test, asking users to complete puzzles, then before giving the results the app asks users to rank their friends' intelligence, generating a feed story with each answer.
Pieces of Flair is an app that grew by 321,400 MAU that promises to let users select virtual goods of "flair" to represent themselves. Then there was the Turkish Daily Horoscope app that grew by 685,300 MAU; the app asks users to invite friends, as well as receive a daily horoscope post to their Wall. BandPage by RootMusic grew by 1.3 million MAU mostly in the United States and VEVO for Artists grew by 690,300 MAU. Each app is useful to musicians wanting to promote their music on Facebook. For musicians and other Page administrators there was Welcome Tab for Pages with 290,500 MAU and FBML Tab Maker with 189,100 MAU. Each app allows users to create Page tabs with different types of code or features.
The friend and profile analyzers this week included the Connect app Friend Matrix with about 398,000 MAU that creates a collage of your friends. My Report Card with 329,800 MAU that publishes a photo album of your profile stats to your feed, tagging your friends. And finally, Your World Rank with 282,300 MAU that grew mostly in India and compiles your stats into a feed story. Two video apps that allow users to view, share and Like videos, Video Forever with 313,400 MAU and Video Anatolia with 252,100 MAU, also made the list. All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Stay tuned for our look at the top weekly gainers by daily active users on Wednesday, and the top emerging apps on Friday. |
By advertising to Facebook fans instead of non-fans, advertisers can reduce the acquisition cost of registrations by 44%, event signups by 33%, and purchases by 15%. These results of a 4.1 billion ad-impression, thirteen-client test have been exclusively shared with Inside Facebook by TBG Digital, developers of one of the 
TBG Digital is in a relatively unique position to provide this data, as the company serves upwards of 2.1 billion ad impressions a day, making it one of the largest ad buying services or tools on top of the Facebook Ads API. Last month, it shared data indicating that Facebook’s 
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