Google Adwords has dominated the online advertising space for the last three or four years but Facebook I believe is positioned to really challenge Google for some of those advertising dollars.
We recently ran a series of campaigns for local events on Facebook and I was really impressed with the ROI that we got. It was much higher than anything that we have gotten using Adwords. So how did we do it?
Demographic Targeting
Unlike Adwords, Facebook users are not actively searching for your product or service. But by using Facebook’s demographics and location data we were able to really focus on our target audience. Read more... (234 words, 1 image, estimated 56 secs reading time)
As a father of a 12 year-old daughter I am very aware of the influence that social media sites like Facebook can have on teens and pre-teens. So when should you let your child onto these social media sites? That is one of the questions of Retrevo.com‘s latest Gadgetology study that looked at parenting, technology, and social media.
Study Highlights
- 30% of parents think 13 – 15 years old is the right age to get a social media page
- 36% of parents think 16 – 18 is the right age to get a social media page
Read more... (509 words, 3 images, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)
One of the most asked questions about Twitter, is how many followers do I need? What sort of reach do I need on Twitter to successfully generate leads?
Well according to a recent study by Hubspot called 2010 State of Inbound Marketing (PDF) that sweet spot is between 100 and 500 followers. Hubspot data showed that companies with 100 to 500 followers generated 146% more monthly leads than those with 21 to 100 followers. Growing a large following of thousands of followers does not appear top generate any additional leads lift.
Read more... (160 words, 3 images, estimated 38 secs reading time)
I came across a fascinating new study from Retrevo.com about social media addiction. At first glance I was shocked at the addiction level that people have to sites like Facebook and Twitter, but after travelling for the last two weeks and seeing people checking and updating these sites from their phones, I came to better understand the numbers.
The study asked 1,000 social media user’s questions such as when, where, and how much time they spend on sites and services like Facebook and Twitter. Here are the some of the results. Read more... (417 words, 4 images, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)
I received some interesting data today from Dessert Gallery (DG), a Houston-based cafe chain about their recent Facebook fan page campaign.
Utpal Dholakia, associate professor of management at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business, and Emily Durham, a Jones School alumna and founder of Restaurant Connections, a Houston?based restaurant consultancy surveyed customers of Dessert Gallery (DG).
The study, based on surveys of more than 1,700 respondents over a three-month period, found that compared with typical Dessert Gallery customers, the company’s Facebook fans:
- Made 36 percent more visits to DG’s stores each month.
Read more... (187 words, 1 image, estimated 45 secs reading time)
Really interesting article in the Boston Globe yesterday on how the Boston Celtics are using social media to not only increase revenues, but also to reach out to fans who cannot see the team live.
What the Celtics are doing?
The primary goal of the Celtics online efforts is to drive people to their web site. Celtics.com features GameTime Live, an application that features real time scores, tweets, and blogging with supporters throughout the world. The team beta-tested GameTime Live during the 2009 postseason, and more than 50,000 unique visitors checked it out during the triple-overtime loss to the Chicago Bulls in Game 6 of the first round. Read more... (547 words, 2 images, estimated 2:11 mins reading time)
Getting results from Twitter campaigns are rare but Computerworld had an interesting article on the Georgia Aquarium which sold 2,500 admission tickets through Facebook, MySpace and Twitter earlier this year.
To get its social media followers to take action, the aquarium offered 25% to 40% off admission prices from February through May to people who followed it on Twitter or signed on as Facebook or MySpace fans.
The campaign used a specific URL for the promotion which allowed the aquarium to track sales directly, according to Dave Santucci, vice president of marketing and communication.
Buy using a specific URL for the campaign the Aquarium was able to measure the ROI of the campaign. Read more... (170 words, 1 image, estimated 41 secs reading time)
Great interview of Scott Monty by Amber Cadabra from Altitude Branding. Scott is head of social media at Ford Motor Company and he had some very interesting things to say about how Ford uses social media.
Three interesting points that Amber and Scott discussed were:
What do you believe is the single biggest mistake companies make when integrating social media into their efforts?
Read more... (340 words, 1 image, estimated 1:22 mins reading time)
About six weeks ago we began to develop and implement a social media marketing plan for a soccer web site. Soccer Tickets Online is a new site and the initial focus of our social media marketing efforts has been to build brand awareness.
As I mentioned, Soccer Tickets Online is a new web site so the first goal of the campaign was to make people aware that the site exists. There are many different ways to approach that sort of goal, but the one we took was link baiting. We developed a page called “The best 5 soccer players of all-time” and submitted it to Digg. The post made the front page of Digg and crashed the server. Not a bad start? Read more... (669 words, 1 image, estimated 2:41 mins reading time)