Hating on Facebook [advertising]

Posted by Darren on Dec 2, 2008 • (Comments)

It’s becoming very clear that advertisers don’t know how to advertise on Facebook, said Charlene Li, an independent consultant and social media analyst.

The quote above appeared in todays NY Times.

It preserves the illusion, at least, of Facebook as an advertising business.

The quote above appeared on Valleywag.

It’s much easier to to talk about how hard something is than to actually do it. All too often, I see people hating on Facebook, but why don’t we collectively come together to talk about the successes we’ve had?  If advertisers don’t know how to use Facebook, then why not tell them how?

There are many companies that are finding success with Facebook.  Buddy Media is working with no less than 10 major brands including Anheuser Busch, Fox, FedEx, New Balance, Reebok, HBO, and Intel (to name only a few).  I’ve had success with some of my brands.  If advertisers aren’t finding success on Facebook, you would think that these guys would stay away.

To borrow a stock term from my friend Howard, I’m long Facebook [advertising possibilities].

Tagged as , , , , , , + Categorized as Advertising & Marketing, Internet & Web X.0
  • evan_lang
    Totally agree with you Darren… we need to focus on solutions and talk about how to leverage the incredible facebook audience.

    We at appssavvy are out there every day talking about the value of the application space. Buddy Media has seen some success with custom apps however building branded apps and getting an engaged audience is a very difficult endeavor and one which doesn't make sense for most brands. It’s not about getting installs; it’s about getting an audience to engage with brand

    We've successfully built apps for Kohl's and Alberto Culver but we always first look to leverage existing audiences by integrating a brand into an already successful application… many times we can introduce the very functionality that a custom app would bring into an existing app and instantly have an audience.

    Applications offer an incredible opportunity for brands to create great user experiences and make valuable connections with these users
  • Great stuff as always...on my own VERY small scale, I've found advertising on facebook to be a great way to get some eyeballs at a very cheap rate. The key I've found is in building something that engages the users (ie. build an app that's really a glorified ad but lets people actually do something [preferably something with/to their friends] related to your brand).

    I would think larger brands could really take much bigger advantage of this...for example Miller Lite's taste great/less filling long-running campaign...it's just calling out for a facebook app. that let's people pick a side and start slinging quips and things back and forth (while sharing and gifting some great virtual Miller Lite drinks of course)...

    Seems to me there are lots of ways to take old, successful, campaigns that 'viewers' have long identified with (but were historically unable to actually participate in beyond water cooler talk) and bring them to life inside of social networks like facebook and myspace...thereby breathing new life into the campaigns, generating even more water cooler talk, and of course most important relating in more sales.
  • shaheens
    Darren, thank you for being the voice of reason here. Marketers are being cautious in the hopes of avoiding a Beacon-esque mistake, but every day they're getting closer. Target has a new display ad up that highlights the fact that it will draw to its facebook page which I found compelling. Unfortunately the experience is a bit cluttered, but I am confident that our friends at FB will evolve the brand page structure much like they changed the format of user profiles to provide smoother user experience.
  • Completely agree Darren.

    I don't think Charlene is harshing on the idea of FB advertising (or "appvertising" as Buddy CEO Mike Lazerow calls it), she's just observing that brands haven't figured it out yet.

    I found the success of Buddy's Busch work pretty astounding - it drove multiple deep engagement sbetween the brand and its fans. You can't look at that work and conclude anything other than there's a lot of potential with social advertising.

    VivaKi is a huge believer in the future of social. We're investing a lot of resources in helping clients create value from social becausewe belive it's the future.

    If you didn't catch the recent AdWeek op/ed by David Kenny and Jack Klues about how we're tackling the topic, you can access it via this blog post:

    http://digitalhive.blogs.com/digiblog/2008/11/v...
  • Here's reality. We have to find a way to make it work because everybody is there. Let's face that.
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