We as Interactive Marketing professionals, consumer market research professionals, and eBusiness & channel strategy professionals look for solutions that meet the needs of today’s online environment. When posed with this question, Facebook comes up over and over again. So what should we do about it?
As described by Forrester,
Facebook is a media, community, and application platform that offers an existing thriving ecosystem, scalable growth, and quick word-of-mouth marketing. The ability to understand users, their preferences, networks, and helps web applications to quickly segment and rapidly grow.
Wow, what does that mean? First off, as a community the opportunity to study your prospects are huge. Are they engaged on Facebook and/or Social Media as creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators, or inactives? I find this information to be surprising at times. If your market is using Facebook it provides a targeted advertising platform unlike any we have ever seen before, the ability to provide messages segmented by location, gender, and/or preference gives us the ability to accurately market effectively.
Ideas to be considered when evaluating Facebook Marketing
- Demographics and trend data
- Word of mouth and viral growth using Newsfeeds and widgets
- Groups, sponsored groups, and other community features
- Harness personal and network information
- Contextual and targeted advertising opportunities
- Monetizing your efforts
- Case studies of success and failure
- Understanding costs, and strategies to measure ROI
While this can seem intimidating at first, proven strategies do in fact deliver positive results. But a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.
Please provide your thoughts and impressions of Facebook Marketing.