Live from OMMA Social: Brian Boland, Facebook

From the program: Over the past 18 months, the topic of social media has exploded onto the scene, seeing a roughly four-fold increase in the number of searches on the term "social media" (source: Google Trends). According to Hitwise, Facebook is now the most searched keyword on Google, and according to internal numbers has over 350 million monthly active users. With this explosion, marketers are naturally exploring the ways that they can use Facebook to connect with their audiences. Similar to the early days of search where people argued for SEO vs. SEM, similar conversations are growing about Pages vs. Facebook Ads. Today we will dive into Facebook Ads, share some early learnings on what we at Facebook are seeing, and discuss how pieces can work together.
 
As things are evolving in the social media space, we're learning in real time. What exactly is social media? Two weeks ago we saw what happened in Haiti, and before the news even had it, you started to see conversations going on around it on Facebook on Twitter, and you could follow it and see the news before anyone else heard about it. The first pictures came out via PicFog, and the first videos were posted to YouTube and on iReport, which really is a social media channel for CNN. ANd then the immediate connections: within a few hours, there was a Facebook Group called Earthquake Haiti, and within a few more hours that Group had tens of thousands of fans. As of yesterday, the Group had more than 300,000 fans, and on the discussions tab, people started to socially connect on different topics. When it began, it was people looking for missing loved ones; this week it's been more people looking for hospitals.
 
Amazingly enough, we've even see groups figure out how to connect with people at this time through advertising. WorldVision is on the ground in Haiti, and they were looking to see how they can engage with people more. So they started running ads in the past few weeks, and they were looking at how they could get people to connect with their Facebook Page, where people could figure out how they could find information and how they could connect.
 
There's such a broad array of social media -- Facebook, Bebo, Twitter, Ning, MySpace -- and people are amazing adopters of new technology, but if you take a step back, the challenge is when you put the list of social media platforms in the boardroom. It's a confusing landscape, and one of the questions they always ask is 'What is best?' This is where you'd expect Brian to answer Facebook, but actually, it reminds him of the old question, "Which is better, SEO or SEM?", which has evolved to the new understanding, "SEO and SEM, A Winning Combination". The answer to which social media channel is best is a much more nuanced answer. What mindsets are people in, and how can you connect with people at the right place and the right time? 
 
Facebook Mission: Give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.
Product vision to enable that mission:
3 key pillars: sharing (posts, pictures, comments, information, etc), connections (friends, businesses, celebrities, groups, causes), identity (safe and secure place to build identity)
Facebook marketing solutions (how we think about the market)

• Reach a large audience
• Target authentic users
• Measure quickly, accurately
• Make lasting connections
• Engage in 2-way dialogue
• Drive conversions

 
They have different products that target each phase of the standard marketing funnel, whether you're at initial brand awareness or you want to get a sample of Pete's Hot Sauce into someone's home.
 
Direct response: standard ads, standard w/social (see who else is a fan), event (RSVP for an event from the ad), fan (become a fan straight from the ad)
 
They've come a long way with the importance of targeting, and the standard ads allow companies to get very granular with their targeting: common interests, bands, books, etc. The other aspect that's unique is the social nature of these ads. As people connect with pages, events, etc., that social aspect becomes part of an ad and adds social proof to an ad.
Case Studies
 
CM Photographics
Target demographic: 24-30 y.o. women whose relationship status on Facebook indicated they were engaged. Over 12 months, CM Photographics generated nearly $40,000 in revenue directly from a $600 advertising investment on Facebook.
 
ShopLocal
Generating demand: potential customers viewed 120 million impressions at a cost to the retailer of just $0.25 CPM. Targeted reach: for example, one campaign reached 95% of female Facebook users aged 30-64 in NYC. 78,000 visits by potential customers to the retailer's online circular, where they viewed 2.4 million offers (31 each on average).
Facebook is a great place to test. They have ads with the exact same image in a different color, which resulted in a dramatic difference in response.
 
Zimmerman/ICED Media and QVC
Successful holiday campaign, increase QVC's fan base, drive QVC.com and referring site traffic, further engage QVC customers. Results: 30,000 new fans, Facebook referred sales increased over 200% from prior 8-week period. During the Bare Escentuals campaign, Facebook moved to 2nd top referrer of traffic to QVC.
Friends of connections is something they released this fall -- it allows you to target people who are friends of people already connected to a page, event, group or application.
Reports
 
DemographicsProvides information about the types of users who are seeing or clicking on your ads. Includes: countries, genders, ages and regions. More and more people are looking at these demographics to figure out how they can get more hypertargeted and build messages directly to that individual.
 
Responder ProfilesProvides information about the types of users who see or click on your ads based on interests that they have listed in their personal Facebook profiles. Includes: Interest, book, movie, music and TV show.
 
It's important to access the synergies across different channels. For example, when you expose people across social media, there's an aggregate lift in search.
 
Finally, he's been really moved by the response to the situation in Haiti across all social media, and he gave us a link: http://www.worldvision.org/OMMA, page where you can donate for Haiti; Brian will match the first $1,000 donated through this link.