likes

What Hollywood gets wrong about Facebook marketing

Jan 092013

Some Hollywood executives are questioning the value of Facebook ads and fan pages, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The report says film execs “confide privately they are considering cutting their spending on Facebook ads,” though everyone on the record said the social network was still one of a number of important channels to drive awareness about upcoming films. The article suggests that studios, like companies in other industries, are skeptical of the returns on paying for Likes, especially as News Feed changes limit the organic reach of page posts.

But with the way most studios approach Facebook ads, it’s no wonder why they would think the cost is too high and the results aren’t there. That doesn’t mean Facebook is an ineffective channel; it means Hollywood isn’t using it in the best way for its business. Movie marketers are emphasizing Likes at the wrong point in the funnel, and they’re not using the right ad formats for their goals.

Facebook’s head of entertainment measurement Fred Leach told the LA Times that 99 percent of all films released in the past year advertised on the social network. Yet, when was the last time you saw a sponsored movie trailer in your desktop or mobile News Feed? Most people would say “never” because studios typically run ads in the Facebook sidebar — the unit with the lowest clickthrough rates and highest costs per click. Few studios, if any, are taking advantage of the more prominent placement directly in the feed. Not only are users more likely to click and engage with these ads, the branding is more significant even at an impression level. For Hollywood, which likes to wrap buses and buildings with promotional material and take over web homepages, it’s a surprise the News Feed isn’t regularly swamped with movie marketing.

Instead, studios often run marketplace ads with a small image, body copy and a Like button. First of all, it’s odd to ask users to Like a movie before they’ve seen it. Similar to many advertisers in other industries, studios are leading with Like campaigns when awareness and content marketing make more sense. For studios’ other online advertising, trailer views are typically the most important KPI, but often on Facebook they inexplicably run Like ads rather than video ads.

MORE: What Hollywood gets wrong about Facebook marketing.

Why Facebook “likes” are useless to brands

Internet News, Marketing, Your Brand 424 Responses »

Oct 032012

So has being “liked” become just a popularity contest for brands? Consider that while Crest has 182,912 “likes,” Slim Jim has 1,066,138 “likes.” Does that mean that Slim Jim has five times more sales than Crest? Not even close, as Slim Jim has approximately $200 million U.S. sales vs. Crest’s $400 million U.S. sales. Does it mean that Slim Jim has spent more resources to have more “likes” than Crest? Probably. Why would a brand do this? Because it is the “in” thing to do.

For those of us who are old enough to remember, in the late ’90s the “in” thing for every brand was to rush to build a website. Large amounts were spent out of marketing budgets for this “strategy.” Then once these sites were built, featuring a brand’s history, maybe a static coupon, a recipe or two, and some other features that quickly became dated, brands realized that a website without constantly updated information had no stickiness and thus became a non-factor for consumers. The technology to change content didn’t come for years, so brands sat with these big, beautiful, static websites that drew little traffic and did virtually nothing to drive sales.

Back in high school, the most popular kids did not automatically make the football team, score the highest on the ACT, or graduate at the top of the class just because of their popularity. Kids (popular and unpopular) achieved those accomplishments by working harder than the others.

Brands should think the same way. To put forth resources to solely be “liked” is not the best strategy. Is it more important to be “liked” or to generate sales?

MORE: Why Facebook “likes” are useless to brands – iMediaConnection.com.

How MTV Got to 100 Million Facebook Likes

Internet News, Marketing, Your Brand 292 Responses »

Apr 022012

In February 12% of all cable TV related social actions were MTV related and in a breakdown of Fall 2011 MTV shows and characters comprised 14% share of Voice in the Cable Industry. In August 2011 the VMA’s helped MTV dominate the cable category with 51% voice share which inlcluded a tweet per second records of Beyonce baby bump and a 30 year ratings , which was a record for the network.

SEE ACTIVITY CHART:

via Online Marketing Trends: How MTV Got to 100 Million Facebook Likes.

How to Get Users to Repost Your Facebook Page’s News Feed Posts Through the Share Button

interface, Marketing, Your Brand 16 Responses »

Sep 162011

Facebook news feed updates by both users and Pages display a “Share” button that lets users repost that update to their friends. Updates that have been reposted at least once display a count of how many times they’ve been reposted next to a link labeled “View Shares”. This link helps posts stand out in the feed and indicates to your audience that other users thought the update was important and its therefore worth reading, clicking or reposting. Its important for you to solicit Shares of your updates so they receive this distinction.

Here we’ll walk-through how the View Shares link works, and provide strategies for how you can attain Shares and the benefits they bring for your business.

via How to Get Users to Repost Your Facebook Page’s News Feed Posts Through the Share Button.

Inspiration! Top 20 Facebook page status updates

interface, Marketing 192 Responses »

Sep 082011

We have analyzed the status updates of all the pages with above 1 million fans, and have created an overview of the best status updates (text-only udpates) that these pages sent over the period of the last couple months, which you can see below.

via Inspiration! Top 20 Facebook page status updates – Socialbakers.