Marketing Director

Facebook Advertising Undressed

Facebook has passed Google in terms of market share of weekly visits in the US highlighting it's position as America's favourite website. With no end to the growth in sight Facebook Advertising is a must for any online advertising campaign or is it? This post will reveal how your information is 'given' to advertisers by Facebook.
People love Facebook but Facebook advertising is many things to many people. I asked my network on Facebook, "What do you think of Facebook Advertising?". The perspectives varied especially between those who use Facebook ads and those who can't stand to even see them. In this post I am addressing this complaint which came from more than a couple of the responders.

This is something of a common complaint about Facebook. The user's 'cut' is the entire Facebook ecosystem: the communication, the games, the quizzes etc. Facebook doesn't 'sell our personal information'. They provide advertisers access to a targeting system based on information you enter into Facebook. Your information is never revealed to advertisers and doesn't leave the site. This is the kind of information that advertisers receive:

Sample 'Responder Demographics' Report:


The information on the far right is: % of Impressions, % of Clickers and CTR. (m1317 = Male 13 -17 years old)




Sample 'Responder Profiles' Report:
 

*NOTE: Facebook's reporting system is imperfect. When a column is empty it moves items from columns to the right to the open column on the left. IE: the only books or movies listed by clickers were 'twilight series' and 'twilight' respectively, but 'rap' is a Music interest which has been pushed left because there was no 'Book' or 'Movie' in the second position. I hope that's not too confusing. The columns are: Interest, Book, Movie, Music, TV Show.

This may give an advertiser hints about what kinds of people click their ads but in no way does it release your personal information to advertisers. Besides choosing TV programs to advertise on what else could this be used for? Facebook offers advertisers and promoters many opportunities that are hard to find online especially when it comes to targeting. This is how Facebook turned a profit last year, ahead of schedule. Any business or product that employees people has to have a revenue model to grow. That is what Facebook is doing and ultimately it is to benefit the users. The history of the creation of Facebook is a fascinating read from the Business Insider.

What do you think of Facebook advertising? Love it as an advertiser? Hate it as a user? Or don't even notice it. These seem to be the three perspectives I have found I would love to hear yours in a comment below. Watch this space for a new post "Facebook Advertising's Benefits: Beyond the Click".

Understanding Social Networks: Delivery


The three major social networks or as a Pakistani gentleman who repurposed my presentation calls them "The Three Amigos" Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter should be considered the essential social networks for most users. Niche Social Networks are a different beast altogether. I want to discuss the differences in 'Delivery' for the Three Amigos.

Linking together different social media profiles is all the rage these days and it does save time, but it may do damage to people's networks that they may not consider. Consider how you felt the last time you read something you didn't understand. This may be how your network on LinkedIn or Facebook feel seeing RT, @ or # in a message you post. They may not understand what it is.
Twitter is different from Facebook and LinkedIn in that it has symbols and key strings you wouldn't normally see when using the other networks. If you are someone who has only heard of Twitter but hasn't come to understand these words and symbols it can be challenging to understand and off putting. Remember what it was like the last time you read something that you didn't understand completely.

I recently linked my Youtube with Twitter and Facebook. The problem was when I favourited things or added videos to a playlist I do it a whole bunch at once flooding the stream. Once I saw it I changed the settings which had a lot of good options, like it would only update my networks when i uploaded a new video. Let's look at a few examples of messages across social networks.

This is an example of what a Facebook post looks like from April Smith. Notice the logo and the meta description pulled from the page automatically by Facebook. April has also posted this to the DNC Fan Page wall by using Facebook's mention function neither the graphic, the meta description nor the mention appear when cross posting as below:


I don't mean to call out my friend Jeremy Lim he is a busy professional in high demand so I understand him using cross posting to save time and get out his message but one just has to read the comments section of his post to understand the reaction of users who didn't know what a hashtag (#) was. 

This post could have appeared on Facebook in this way:

The big difference about the social networks is the different audiences. We can't treat them all the same. On Twitter the hashtags become links to searches about the topic (EX). This is what Jeremy's post looked like on Twitter:

On Twitter the message looks perfect and fits in the Twitter ecosystem, but on Facebook it looks out of place and makes at least one person feel like they 'haven't learned the tricks'. Jeremy reveals that in fact he is cross posting to almost a dozen different social networking sites with the same message. I believe doing so is taking a risk.

Lastly, one of my favourite independent local marketing people, Rosa Meyers. Rosa cross posts from Twitter to LinkedIn. Rosa is starting out in marketing and LinkedIn is one the best places for her to find and connect with current and future clients some of whom may have never seen an RT or a # because they don't use Twitter. This is what her cross posted tweet looked  like on LinkedIn:
Cross posting from Twitter to LinkedIn is a problem due to the differences in frequency for people using each platform as well. The biggest risk here is that the audience and potential audience on LinkedIn don't appreciate the 'cryptic' and very frequent updates as much as the audience on Twitter does. We only get one chance to make a first impression and when someone sees a status update on LinkedIn that they don't understand they may be less likely to connect with us.

In conclusion, as more and more people start using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn it's important that they feel like these ecosystems are easy to understand and I believe cross posting makes that more difficult. This post started out as one but will now be made into two: Delivery and Frequency, which I will cover in a later post.

For people who talk regularly these different messages are not a problem, they talk about it and someone learns something. It's when you don't speak to someone who only sees you on LinkedIn or Facebook, that the sight of these characters and symbols, which they don't understand, can put them off of communications and as the poster we may never know as they hide our updates on Facebook or LinkedIn. What are your thoughts on cross posting? What social networks do you use? Do you notice these differences in symbols and language? What are your feelings about it?

    VANOC's greatest oversight at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics


    Rick Hansen and Wayne Gretzky
    I had a lovely dinner last night with a few good friends and of course we discussed the Olympics. Everyone had a great time, a really great time. It was how a certain part of the opening ceremonies played out and how most of us didn't even notice that was offputting. It comes not from a technical glitch, but from what happened after the torch was lit and what it meant in the lives of those who lit the torch inside BC Place. It was no fault of the two individuals involved but an oversight by the planning group.
    By: David Byrd

    Rick Hansen and Wayne Gretzky are both national heros, without a doubt. Does anyone remember how Rick Hansen ended up in a wheel chair? "He was paralyzed at the age of 15 from being in the back of a pickup truck when it crashed into another car." -Wikipedia. So there's Rick Hansen inside BC Place where he finished his 26-month trek of over 40,000 km through 34 countries almost 23 years before and he sits there as Wayne jumps into the back of a pickup truck to take the torch down to the cauldron in Coal Harbour and light it.

    The parallel of being in the back of a pickup truck while Rick's message is to always wear a seat belt, don't drink and drive and be safe while driving seemed to me to be the largest oversight of VANOC and no one noticed.What do you think of this? What was the greatest oversight in your opinion?