Archive for the ‘Facebook’ Category
Is Facebook the future of PR?
Facebook had a ‘do’ on the roof of their Palo Alto offices last week, specifically for PR people, imparting useful information such as how to “like” any article online, use a Firefox plug-in and tips on live-streaming.
They’ve set up a PR page too (of course) which now has 3000+ fans and perhaps have started to take PRs seriously as future partners. There’s no doubt the interest is reciprocated, though most big brands are proceeding with caution.
Ford has just made a bold move however in eschewing the traditional auto show and advertising biltz, to launch their new Explorer model on Facebook.
They’ve used it a a kind of hyprid press room/consumer information hub, containing several video interviews, pre and post ‘reveal’ photos, a competition to win a new Explorer and a schedule of live city events.
Posted by Ross Furlong , 28/07/10,
Facebook revenue close to $800m in 2009
Facebook revenue may have neared $800m in 2009, almost double previously estimates, according to a report from Reuters.
Last July, Facebook board member Marc Andreessen told Reuters the company was on track to surpass $500 million in annual revenue for 2009. In September, Facebook said that it had become free cash flow positive, meaning that the company was generating enough cash to cover its operating expenses as well as its capital spending needs.
Estimates in various media reports had previously pegged the company’s 2009 revenue at $550 million to $700 million.
The two sources said revenue in 2009 was in fact $700 million to $800 million.
“They are downplaying their performance,” one source told Reuters, adding that 2009 revenue was more than double the previous year’s total. “There’s no upside in getting people’s expectations high, it’s always better to go low.”
If Facebook eventually seeks to go public, unveiling financial figures above expectations could help bolster investor interest. Read the rest of this entry »
McDonald’s Facebook fans worth $159.79 more than non fans
The value to brand marketers of attracting consumers to sign up to their Facebook pages has been calculated in a new survey from Syncapse.
They found Facebook fans spend $71.84 more per year on brands they ‘Like’ and they are 28% more likely than non-fans to continue using that brand.
In addition, fans are 41% more likely to recommend a fanned product to their friends. Amongst the 20 top brands* measured, the average value of an individual fan rises to $136.38.
Among the 20, McDonald’s registered the largest variability in annualised spending between fans and non-fans, with fans spending $159.79 more per year.
In contrast, Oreo registered the lowest variability in spending between fans and non-fans, with fans spending $28.52 more per year.
The five measured variables that contributed to the study were product spending, brand loyalty, propensity to recommend, brand affinity, and earned media value. Read the rest of this entry »
Top ten countries on Facebook & UK demographics
Top ten countries on Facebook, with growth figures, to March 31st 2010, from Nick Burcher’s blog and UK Facebook demographics from Inside Facebook
Icelandic government asks entire population to use Facebook today
The Icelandic government has called for all 320,000 of its citizens to use Facebook at 2pm GMT today to promote their country in an emergency move to try and repair damage the ash cloud has had on their main industry – tourism.
“It’s a worldwide campaign to let the rest of the world know that Iceland isn’t completely covered in ash,” Icelandic tourist board director of marketing Jon Gunnar Borgthorsson said.
“The eruption has indeed had very little effect here in Iceland, it’s only about three to five per cent of the country that’s been affected by it,” he said, adding “the volcanoes are all far from urban areas, and anyways, we are well prepared for eruptions.”
A Facebook page ‘Inspired by Iceland’ has been created along with a Twitter account, a Vimeo video upload page and a dedicated website. With fours hours to go to launch, Facebook fans stand at 10,847 and Twitter followers at 466.
Iceland’s government said in April it would provide 300 million kronur (£1.6 million), in aid to the country’s tourism industry, which was bracing for mass cancellations due to the ongoing volcano eruption.
Iceland’s move is the most dramatic example to date of tourist boards using social media to promote tourism, following last years Best job in the world from Queensland and Philadelphia’s announcement of a Foursquare promotion this month.
Source: heraldsun.com.au
McDonald’s signs up for Facebook’s geo-targeting service
Global fast food giant McDonald’s has reportedly signed up to leverage Facebook’s imminent location-based status updates, which will allow brands to target consumers with geographically relevant marketing. The new location feature could launch as soon as this month in the US.
George Nimeh, Managing Director of agency Iris Digital told Brand Republic this week that the service was a natural fit for Facebook and a big draw for brands – as long as they keep the service fun as well as functional.
Karsten Weide, Research Vice President for digital media and entertainment at consultancy IDC agrees, adding: “Being associated with brands can be cool… Whether a lot of people think it is cool to be associated with McDonald’s is a different question.”
Whatever the result, the fast food’s giant foray into location-based advertising will make a great case study for our tolerance of this type of advertising. Read the rest of this entry »
The wildfire growth of social media in 4 minutes [Video]
Erik Qualman’s music-enhanced, statistics-based video of social media’s wildfire growth was one of the B2B viral video hits of last year. With social media moving so quickly, he’s already updated it for May 2010 with yet more revelatory intelligence, including that Facebook has now overtaken it’s own country of origin as the third largest by population in the world, behind India and China. When Zuckerburg was programming ‘the facebook.com’ – as described in David Kirkpatrick’s new book, he knew he was on to something big, but this!?
BP leads with social media in Gulf of Mexico crisis
BP is using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube & Flickr, ahead of traditional media, to publish updates on the Gulf of Mexico clean-up and organise press calls.
News that the massive containment dome to be placed over one of the leaks had arrived above the leak off the Louisiana shore appeared first on the popular social media sites. So did word that controlled burns of the oil slick would go ahead on Wednesday after a week of bad weather.
A Facebook page launched by the joint U.S. and BP spill response team, has more than 12,000 followers.
They have access to photos, spill-trajectory maps generated by the government, video on topics including the controlled burns by BP, and summaries of daily news briefings.
BP America’s Twitter site, has over 2,800 followers.
“We want to ensure that we can get out information about the response to this incident and spill as rapidly and widely as possible,” David Nicholas, a BP spokesman wrote in an email.
Last night, pictures of the containment chamber BP has developed to plug the spill, being lowered into the water, were released on their Deepwater Horizon Website.
(source: Reuters)
UK parties fail to emulate Barack Obama’s marketing blueprint, says Sorrell
As the final week of campaigning draws to its close, WPP’s chief executive, Sir Martin Sorrell, has told The Financial Times that none of the UK’s political parties have managed to balance old and new media in their election campaigns as well as Barack Obama.
Highlighting once again the fact that this election race has proven the power of traditional media, Sorrell also stressed that the televised debates were often viewed through the prism of social media.
“Our attitude to the performances on these programmes has been conditioned by the polling, tweets, Facebook and Google responses we have seen as a result,” he said. “None of these elements can be isolated anymore.”
According to the Financial Times, the Liberal Democrats have had most success with new media channels: “In their most enthusiastic moments some Lib Dems believe that they can replicate the surge of voting by young people that helped Barack Obama win the White House in 2008.”
The Lib Dems now have more than 59,000 Facebook members, compared with more than 58,000 for the Conservatives and about 28,000 for Labour.
Jimmy Choo social media campaign kicks off
Jimmy Choo has pioneered a location based social media campaign around London, using Foursquare, Twitter & Facebook to promote their new trainers.
The concept, developed by FreshNetworks, is that you can follow a pink bag of Jimmy Choo shoes around a variety of smart locations in London, and if you manage to intercept them, they’ll give you a pair of trainers free.
While Foursquare is relatively unknown in the UK compared to the US, the resolutely upmarket locations are also posted on Twitter & Facebook and have ranged from Harvey Nichols and Sloane Square to the inside of a Bentley.
The ‘CatchAChoo’ campaign currently has 408 Facebook friends, 825 Twitter followers and around 585 Foursquare friends. No doubt the most marketing benefit is to be had from publicity about the campaign itself, which has been reported over the last couple of days. Read the rest of this entry »
