On the heels of Travis’ recent post Get Engaged!, I started looking more closely at Facebook’s (FB) rapidly evolving advertising strategy. The two major spaces the company is focusing on are a beefed up ad presence on its coveted FB Home Page and on email pages.
For me, the jury is still out as to whether an increasing ad presence will hurt or help FB in the long run.
As a user, I’m not that thrilled – except when the advertising is fun and creative, then, I personally don’t mind it. And it’s presence on the sidebar means I can tune it out pretty easily.
However, as a marketer, I can’t (and I’ll tell you that you can’t) pass up the opportunity to use FB’s new offerings to advertisers to help build connections with your target audiences. I’d tell you, you shouldn’t rely solely on this space, but it definitely should be one of your mediums in a well integrated campaign to gen Y and gen X audiences. See the blog Facebook Experimenting with Video Poll Home Page Engagement Ad Unit.
The numbers make a pretty compelling argument to be in this space. According to FB’s Manager of Brand Market Solutions, Trista Handisides, the Facebook home page is the “most engaging page on the Internet” – with nearly 6 billion monthly minutes spent, compared to 3 billion minutes for Yahoo, 1.86 billion for MSN, and 700 million for MySpace. (check out her comments at the Facebook Marketing Breakfast).
Particularly intriguing to me, are the possibilities to incorporate video into ads. In a move that’s very on FB brand, the videos are combined with polls that ask something of users, as an engagement mechanism. These aren’t hugely widespread yet, but I suspect we’ll see a growing number. I know they certainly catch my eye more. To get an idea, look for the current Lexus campaign. It’s a nice combination of a TV driven campaign that is intriguing enough to give it a viral quality on the Web, i.e. by using the polls on FB to ask audiences what they believe is happening in the commercial. Answering the poll takes you to Lexus’ FB page, where you can learn more about the product, see the other ads, and, of course, read what others are saying about the campaign.
What a great opportunity for higher ed marketers to get creative. Taking the big picture view, you could go the Lexus route by using TV combined with other tools, including FB. However, you’d have to have a good question to pay it off. For example, our client, the University of Southern Maine is currently running a TV campaign with the theme “That’s Education My Way, this would marry nicely with a FB video/engagement spot that invites the user to choose what “Education Their Way” would look like and lead them to a University prospective student page that would further the conversation. You heard it here first USM!
Other opportunities on FB include using banner ads like the flash ad for Best Buy on the left. These appear mostly on your email home page.
You’ll also see polls included with intriguing still images.
The ads I’ve been discussing are all negotiated through FB’s advertising unit. If you’re doing these kinds of ads, it’s a good idea, to work with an agency as it will know the ins and outs of negotiating in this space and can give you some pointers on how to get the most out of this investment.
The ads you see most often, consisting of a headline, image, and a brief sell line below, are the kind you can create yourself right on FB. They come at a set price for view and performance. These are a great way to get started and, for the price, a good medium to incorporate into your ad buys aimed at younger audiences. But, if you can, step it up. It will pay off in terms of building engagement equity for you brand. The added bonus is that FB’s great metrics allow you to measure results in real time. But that’s a blog for another time…
On a side note… three finalist for the International Brand Master have been chosen: Andrew Careaga, Catherine Scruggs, and Jenny Beckman-Wong (in no particular order). Now the voting is in your hands! Read about the top three nominees and their accomplishments in higher education below and vote for which person you think exemplifies their profession. Don’t take the voting lightly as the 2009 International Brand Master will be asked to speak of their challenges and successes at the Brand Manager’s Summit in October of 2009. Vote by Wednesday July 8 (click here).
Posted by Ineke 
