

Bloggers have been participating for years and now as other media like Facebook Fan Pages and Twitter profiles become more popular, the commercialization of these audiences is on the increase.
Niche websites have evolved that provide a platform for trade of your social media audiences and of course there’s no shortage of listings on Ebay. It’s a new gold rush of sorts. Not of the scale of the .com trade, but who knows what the future holds.
Audience: 1,443,582
The recent deal between @BreakingNews and MSNBC is the latest high profile case. MSNBC drives more traffic to their site, which generates additional advertising revenue.
This deal follows the @cnnbrk deal earlier this year (2009.) At the time of the sale, @cnnbrk was the most populous Twitter account, with 945,152 followers. Today it boasts 2,811,594.
There’s a clear difference between the two examples above. One was for a proprietary name, which people assumed was CNN anyway. The other is a generic breaking news site, with no prior brand association.
This is the way things are starting to move and really, its no different to newspaper takeovers in days of yore. A community will no longer be a community for the sake of it. Bills need to be paid. commercialization is almost inevitable.
There’s always going to be some compromise, but let’s remember that we can’t please everyone all the time. Paid product placements on social media need to adhere to the principles of authenticity and transparency that are inherent to social media:
To illustrate one approach to product placement in social media, I’m going to use the fictious Facebook Fan Page:
Beer has 653,279 fans. The sizable audience will probably be of interest to the beer brands, especially considering the audiences growth potential. So how can the beer brand get their message to the community in a transparent, non-sinister and authentic manner that doesn’t bring them or the Fan Page in to disrepute?
This entails re-branded the page, changing the avatar, links and content on the page.
Remember that you built the community on the idea of love of beer…any beer. What if you select a beer that none of your audience likes? Then what? People leave, people complain, people stop paying attention. One must be weary of hijacking the community.
The problem is, we don’t actually know if the community likes this particular beer in the first place. The rebranded fan page with could turn the audience away.
Get people to vote on their favourite beer, then approach the local distributor with hard data, and leverage it for a sponsorship deal. You know that the majority of your audience likes this beer, so now the risk to the community is mitigated. You’ve asked the community what they prefer and now your going to give it to them, rather than imposing upon them.
The community has voted. Asahi is preferred by 64% of the audience. Now you can approach that brand with hard facts:
Hello Asahi beer, you page has 2431 fans on your Facebook Page. My beer page has 40,000 fans and 64% of then like Asahi beer. This will save you tens of thousands of dollars on expensive, but unproductive social media campaigns. My audience loves your beer. And they can be your audience. Interested in sponsoring / buying my beer fan page?
Why should they build a new community from scratch, when they can use yours instead? They don’t know how. It will cost them time and a lot of money. You’ve put a better deal on the table.
It started with blogs and now we have Twitter profiles, Facebook Fan pages, and to a lesser extent, Linkedin Groups that zoom in on niche audiences. It takes a group administrator with a lot of will-power to turn down the advances of advertisers wanting to talk to your audience, be it to promote an event, product or service.
For those who do take up these Sponsored Conversation opportunities, the execution has to be impeccable. It’s a delicate balance to promote sponsored material in an ethical and sustainable manner to help ensure there is no backlash from the very people that helped create your community.
Consumer generated media is attributed higher trust and therefore, arguably delivers a higher ROI. According to Forrester, Social Networking site profiles from a company or brand are trusted by only 18% of audiences. Surprisingly, Social Network profiles of people you know only received a 43% trust rating. At the time of writing, there was no data on the trust levels associated with a community created Facebook Fan Page or Twitter profile.
While the debate continues into 2010 , I’ll be publishing a Facebook for Business post tomorrow. Follow me for the update.
Related Reading:
Moonfruit: A Twitter Marketing Campaign Analysis
Tags: product placement, Social Media Marketing, sponsored conversations
A viral social media marketing campaign by EA has lived up to its name and quickly become an infection that appears will require Electronic Arts (EA) to do some damage control.
The nature of the competition which is sexually suggestive, has received a barrage of negative sentiment fuelled by tribes on Twitter using the #EAFail and #lust hashtags. Some Tweeps suggest that EA has isolated their female market (about 40% of gamers are women:)
malinhanas: Wow. Considering 40% of gamers are women makes this idea even more ridiculous #EAFail #Lust
MelindaShore: still don’t understand who thought that giving away a woman like she’s an iPod or theatre tickets was a good idea #eafail
And while there have been several male commentators weighing in with negative sentiment, The primary target market for Dante’s Inferno, red-blooded teenage males, don’t appear to have even raised an eyebrow.

A Night with the hottest girl at Comic-Con. Dinner, Booty & More. Suggestive? I think so. EA have failed Marketing 101. They have over-promised and under-delivered.

The Competition Details. The culprit: "Commit Acts of Lust"Though the imagery is clearly platonic
The wording on the flyers ” Commit Acts of Lust” is contradictory to the imagery on display. The picture suggests just taking a platonic picture with a booth babe and keep your hands to yourself. However, the image caption is a little more provocative. While most people are socially well adjusted, some attendees will have no doubt interpreted this as an invitation to get up-close and a little too personal with the booth girls. But as some commentators point out, everyone may be overreacting:
Vegas comment on Mashable:
Ah c’mon, the average person that goes to comic con is too afraid of booth babes (they might be horny tho) and no sexual harassment will happen. At all
And Tom Gray adds:
EA chose the wrong words in promoting their contest but their audience isn’t Gloria Steinem it’s socially awkward, 15 year old Conner sitting in the basement with his equally socially awkward friends dreaming of the girls they’ll never get – at least until they become the next software/internet/social media gazillionaire.
EA have responded to the criticism:
Thanks you for all of your comments and concerns around the Sin to Win Contest at Comic Con. We’ve responded here: http://twitpic.com/bi18o10:59 AM Jul 25th
We understand there’s a lot of debate right now around our “Sin to Win” promotion at Comic-Con and wanted to clarify a few things. We created this promotion as part of our marketing efforts around the circle of Lust (one of the nine sins/circles of Hell). Each month we will be focusing on a new Circle of Hell. This month is Lust. Costumed reps are a tradition at Comic-Con. In the spirit of both the Circle of Lust and Comic-Con, we are encouraging attendees to Tweet photos of themselves with any of the costumed reps at Comic-Con here, find us on Facebook or via e-mail. “Commit acts of lust” is simply a tongue-in-cheek way to say take pictures with costumed reps. Also, a “Night of Lust” means only that the winner will receive a chaperoned VIP night on the town with the Dante’s Inferno reps, all expenses paid, as well as other prizes.
We apologize for any confusion and offense that resulted from our choice of wording, and want to assure you that we take your concerns and sentiments seriously. We’ll continue to follow your comments and please let us know if you have any other thoughts or concerns. Keep watching as the event unfolds and we hope you’ll agree that it was all done in the spirit of the good natured fun of Comic-Con.
Everything is public. Comments can be picked up and quoted by any publication.This outcome shouldn’t have caught them with their pants down and they should have had a crisis response plan in place. The speed of propagation offered by Twitter means that you have to be on your toes and ready to react. Fast.
EA should have expected the campaign to be talked about when they chose a social medium like Twitter to run it. They should have known that more than just their primary target market for this game would get wind of it.
EA could have:
A more transparent apology that addressed these points would have been better, but there’s no doubt that the final cut had to go through the legal department for approval first. They probably should have run the whole campaign past legal and HR first too.
Gary Vay Ner Chuck shows us Crisis Management practice:
Turning Negatives into Positives
The flyer says:
Front: Dinner and a Sin Ful night with two hot girls, a limo service, paparazzi and a chest full of Booty.
Back: A night with the hottest girl at Comic-Con, Dinner, Booty and more.
And then the apology says:
A “Night of Lust” means only that the winner will receive a chaperoned VIP night on the town with the Dante’s Inferno reps, all expenses paid, as well as other prizes.
They appear to have insinuated more than what is actually in-store for the winner.
In contrast, here’s a more successful Twitter campaign: Moonfruit: A Twitter Marketing Campaign Analysis
Tags: Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Twitter, twitter marketing
Objective
My recent Facebook Social Ads trials were aimed at driving traffic to retail websites in order to earn affiliate commissions. Here is what I did and what I learned: Affiliate cookies typically last 30 days, Place very low bids. Adhering to Facebook’s recommended bids will drive you to bankruptcy and to complain loudly about how ads on social networking sites do not work. My objective was to drive traffic with lots of low cost, but well qualified clicks to high value products on retail websites and then benefit from sales that occur over the next 30 days. This methodology allows for making a positive ROI.
Headlines
Like with any ads, experimentation with different headlines and ad-copy was critical in identifying the correct mix. Once established, the ’secret formula’ delivered perpetual returns.
A female between 18 and 25 who has an interest in Vampires and Edward Cullen, is likely to be responsive to the headline: “Vampire Lover?”
OR A 27 year old male in San Francisco is likely to take notice of the headline: “27 and in SF?”
Ad-Copy
With ad-copy, I found two styles work well:. Firstly, a compelling message that is conversational in style. For example, positive customer reviews like:
“I love this set of Vampire tales! It has everything you want Mystery,Fantasy and of course romance with juicy bits! Only $88.99
Product Strategy
Promote specific, high value items to a captive audience (people who want what you are selling) who are more than likely to become customers. This increases the probability of your ROI being positive.
Targeting
Improve your targeting. I’m able to tell which specific page or application on Facebook each of my clickthroughs came from. I’ve been running identical Google Ads for comparison and my sales reports tell me exactly what search terms people are using to trigger my ads to show. I can then add these keywords to my Facebook targeting.
Limitations of the Facebook Social Ads Platform
Currently the Facebook social ad campaign manager is somewhat limited compared to Adwords. For example, if you want to change your bid, you need to make the change for each ad manually. There is no global bid manager, although i’m hopeful we will see this option appear in the future, together with email reports.
Concluding Observations and Comments
Finally, I noticed Subway have made clever use of Facebook, displaying ads with headlines like: “It’s time for Lunch” and “Hungry?” between around 11am to 2pm and encouraging you to order online. I think they are certainly doing something right.
I was using the Amazon Associates Program until they announced they will no longer pay referral fees on paid-search-derived traffic. In any case, the system seems to work better outside of the USA. I will continue to post my results as I experiment with different types of products, companies and countries.
What have your experiences with social network advertising been like? Please leave a comment or read more about Leveraging Social Networks
More about what works on Facebook:
engaging-with-facebook-social-ads/
facebook-advertising-resources-the-6-types-of-ads-on-the-new-home-page/
contextual-advertising-in-facebook.html
why-would-you-want-to-use-facebook-advertising
why-facebook-likes-small-ads-despite-the-small-dollars/
Americans Expect Companies to Have a Presence in Social Media
Some great ways to use Twitter include:
Tell everyone where your $2 tacos are available for sale
Write a book, 140 characters at a time
Get direct access to anyone who tweets about your brand
Networking: Start getting to know people who are attending the same event as you before you get there.
Private Tweets: Why is @appleinc posts private? I’d really like to know. Make your posts private and only let invited guests view them.
Twitter is another way to connect. All your customers have different preferences for how they wish to communicate with you. Twitter caters to the tastes of a subset of your customer base. Therefore, it makes sense to include it in your marketing / customer service mix.
Here’s more tips on using Twitter: Twitter with Flitter , How to Use Twitter as a Twool , How to Pick Up on Twitter , Brands That Tweet
Tags: Brand Strategy, linkedin, Social Media Marketing, social networks, Twitter
The standouts of the brands listed in Your Brand on Twitter I are Starbucks, Wholefoods and Dell. They have successfully developed Twitter communities rather than run-of-the-mill one way marketing channels that do not involve their customers. This is where all the other brands have fallen over in their Twitter strategies.
The value of Twitter appears to be the ability of your customers to have a seemingly direct line of communication to the brands that they enjoy. People don’t seem overly interested in Twitter feeds that do nothing more than highlight specials and dispense coupons. We already get enough of this via email and RSS feeds. Twitter is best used as a communication medium that elicits the values of the brand involved. Dispensing useful information rather than blatant promotions seems to be more amicable. I think Wholefoods.com have such a large following because of their ability to do this. You can read more coverage on Wholefoods Twitter strategy and also Zapos’ here.
Guy Kawasaki, a well known business leader has also amassed a respectable 75,000 strong following. Guy has a reputation for being a good writer and dispenser of quality and practical strategies that business people can employ to stay ahead of the competition. His tweets are always worth checking because you can be sure there will be a link or two of tremendous value.
So it may be that Twitter is a better fit for some brands than others, or it may be that some brands have figured out how to use Twitter properly. Another question is: How should we measure success on Twitter? The number of followers offers a solid comparison between brands and could be used as an indication of the influence that a brand holds in a market.
The real test is to see if there is any increase in sales. In many cases it is clear that Twitter is a goodwill strategy that should benefit long term sales. In others like Dell, it seems that it is also a useful direct marketing tool that benefits short term sales.
Tags: Brand Strategy, linkedin, Social Media Marketing, social networks, Twitter
Coupons on Twitter are becoming more common. But are they of real value to a business? The answer to that question lies in the motivation of a consumer to follow a company on Twitter. Lets look at a few brands and how they are using Twitter. I found these examples through the social brand index.
Note: This turned out to be a really long post, so I went Kill Bill on it and split it up into a series of posts.
Most Tweeters are following so many people that any coupons that may come their way will probably get overlooked. You could subscribe to CouponTweet or Cheaptweet, but how is that different to subscribing to couponmountain or ecoupons? Joey Mucha points out that using Twitter has added value to the brand due to the word-of-mouth potential of Twitter: “Impressive, no more slickdeals.net for me. Rewarding the twitter community with deals will pay huge dividends from company through the word of mouth it creates….”
Starbucks – 66000 followers, 64000 following
http://twitter.com/Starbucks
In Twitter Land since August 2008, Starbucks have amassed a healthy following of evangelists.
M&Ms – 12000 followers, 1 following
http://twitter.com/msgreen
Considering they’ve been on Twitter since January 2008, It’s fair to say that M&M’s are having a fruitless Twitter experience. The problems as I see them are that they are not tweeting often enough. Several tweets a day should be the norm. rather than one tweet every few days. They need to follow their followers. Showing an interest in your customers never hurt anyone!
Amazon – 5861 follower, 16 following
http://twitter.com/amazondeals
Have just jumped on http://twitter.com/amazon but have a stronger following for their daily gold box specials RSS feed which has been live since June 2007. This is a poor effort for such a major internet property. The problem it would seem, is that they offer no added value in their Twitter feed.
Buy.com – 562 followers, 126 following
http://twitter.com/Buy_com
A very focused series of tweets about specials. Live since August 2008, they have a meager 562 followers. Seem to suffer from the same ailment as Amazon, but they’re doing much worse.
Wholefoods.com – 160,000 followers, 159,000 following
http://twitter.com/wholefoods
Not one coupon or special as far as the eye can see, but they have done an awesome job at building a community.
Dell.com – 116,242 followers, 21 following
http://twitter.com/delloutlet
After its launch in July 2006, Twitter’s first users were tech-savvy early adopters. Though the service is now used by a much more diverse group of people, it still has a strong technically oriented contingent, which makes it a good customer connectivity channel for Dell who use the service as an exclusive offers channel. While they do not follow many Tweeters, they do respond to their questions, maintaining the community feel. In fact, because they only follow 21 profiles, one is more likely to click to find out who they are….and it turns out they are other Dell accounts for different geographic regions and departments. Nice one Dell!
Tags: Branding, linkedin, Social Media Marketing, Twitter
In a previous post, I touched on which social networks dominate in different countries. This time let’s look at who social network users are. (according to a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.)
75 percent of online adults 18 to 24 have a profile on a social networking site and 57 percent of online adults 25 to 34 have a profile on a social networking site. Useage drops somewhat proportionately to increases in age.
MySpace is the most popular networking site with 50% of adult social network users having a profile. Users are more likely to be women, to be Hispanic or black, and to have a high school education or some experience with college; their median age is 27.
Facebook follows with 22 percent of the adult social networking audience. They are more likely to be men, with a college degree and a median age of 26.
Linkedin has captured six percent of adult social networking users. They have a median age of 40 and are more likely to be male and white and to have a college degree.
You can read the full report here.
Find more Social Network Statistics here.
For case studies on how Social Media was used by companies in 2008, click here. And to learn how to get in the social media game in 2009, click here.
Do you have any more social network statistics or outstanding examples to share?
Tags: linkedin, Social Advertising, Social Media Marketing, social networking, social networks
Advertise on Friendster and reach their 61 million unique monthly visitors. Using a self-service platform, you can create ads not only for the pc, but also specifically for the mobile phone. Friendster uses the Adbrite network to serve ads for PC viewers and the Admob network for mobile viewers.
With Adbrite, you can run text or banner ads by choosing your max CPM. With text ads you also have the option of selecting a defined time period to run your ad. The minimum is 1 day for $40.15. You can also choose 7 days or 30 days at slightly discounted rates. You can also run banner ads with CPM only.
Different social networks are best suited for targeting different markets. While Facebook and Myspace are big in the USA, Friendster is the number one social network in Asia. It’s biggest audiences are in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Friendster has kept its growth going by launching fan profile pages for Asian pop singers, launching four new languages since September (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish), and letting developers create apps for its site.
Tags: Mobile Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Media Marketing
Build your brand by creating your Facebook Page or re-ignite consumer interest in your product like Nutella did. Nutella is a feel-good product that people like to have an association with, and is perfectly suited to succeed in a social-network campaign.
You can use Facebook pages to build contact lists or ‘Fans’ who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer. You can then target these people with your messages, be it event invitations or competitions.
Facebook Social Ads offers a way to help people find your Facebook page. Once people start becoming fans, their friend’s see this in their newsfeed and may decide to become fans too. This means your social ad campaigns do not have to be expensive or lengthy exercises, since you benefit from viral gains.
You may however, decide to use Social Ads to direct traffic to your own website, in which case, you’ll want to make sure your ad copy and landing page(s) are optimised for converting browsers into buyers. One way to help assist conversions is to use Facebook Connect and another is to Use the Facebook Lexicon to understand who your audience is on this particular social network. This data may be useful in planning campaigns on other web channels also.
With Facebook Pages and Social Ads, you can narrowly target over 130 million active Facebook users, attach social actions about your business to your ads and create demand for your product with relevant ads.
Powerful reporting tools allow you to track your progress with insightful reports that tell you who is clicking on your ad allowing you to maximise ROI through optimisation.
Tags: Facebook, facebook connect, Online Marketing, Social Advertising, Social Media Marketing
Target the Myspace Community with banner ads that you can make using an easy to use creator, or just upload your own. You can target your audience by demograhics and interests just like on Facebook, but there’s only a CPC system in place (no CPM option.)
The minimum bid is $0.25 per click but you’ll inevitably pay more in order to compete with other advertisers for your audiences attention.Expect to pay more, the more narrowly you target an audience (Which should still be affordable because your conversion rate should go up – In theory.) MyAds is not dissimilar to Facebook Social Ads.

Myspace MyAds
Tags: Myspace MyAds, Online Marketing, Social Advertising, Social Media Marketing







Kunal Kripalani is a Social Media Strategist with a successful track record in online marketing. He helps online businesses become more popular and profitable.
Over the last 5 years Kunal has helped build the number one online retailer in Australasia: Fishpond.com.au, the number one daily deals website in New Zealand: Firstin.co.nz and The number one online invitations website in Japan: Yobu.jp
Kunal is a member of The Marketing Institute of Singapore & The International Internet Marketing Association.


















