Live: Facebook Marketing Tactics

Below is live coverage of the Facebook Marketing Tactics from the SMX East 2009 conference.

This coverage is provided by Keri Morgret of Strike Models.

We are using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage, please excuse any typos. You can also interact with us and while we are live blogging, so feel free to ask us questions as we blog. We will publish the archive below after the session is completed.

Facebook Marketing Tactics

(10/07/2009)

9:07

Keri Morgret: Sorry for the late start, the wifi isn't reliable yet in this room.

Facebook Marketing Tactics – This session takes a close look at Facebook and how search marketers can tap into the opportunties it offers.

Moderator: Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land

Speakers:

Rebecca Kelley, Director of Social Media, 10e20
Will Scott, President, Search Influence
Marty Weintraub, President, aimClear
Dennis Yu, CEO, BlitzLocal LLC

Facebook is NOT adwords.

Facebook lexicon is one way to look for keywords.

There are gender and demographic differences based on keywords being used. "playin" is more likely male, "playing" less like male.

Profile Attributes as Keywords
Use profile attributes as a proxy for keywords. Here are the top dozen Facebook Keywords

1 Simpsons
2 House
3 Family Guy
4 Music
5 Barack Obama
6 Dormir
7 Grey's Anatomy
8 Chocolate
9 Friends
10 Nutella
11 Sleeping
12 Pizza

Facebook is great because you have more demographic information.

9:07	Keri Morgret: Facebook: It's for Demand GENERATION not Demand HARVESTING.

9:08	Keri Morgret: FB local advertising 74% of FB advertising in 2009 will come from Local. Traffic is cheap. Some of this is misleading because it's dating ads.

9:09	Keri Morgret: Discussion of CTR versus CPM basis. He prefers CPM. Use images. Bigger the boobs bigger the CTR.

9:09	Keri Morgret: May have been CPC vs CPM. My apologies.

9:09	Keri Morgret: FB = Adwords, Circa 2003

9:11	Keri Morgret: FYI, Dennis Yu from blitzlocal is current speaker.

9:11	Keri Morgret: There's not a good external editor for FB. No concept of an adgroup.You have to manually create variations of ads. There is a bulk upload tool if you're spending a couple of thousand of dollars a day.

9:12	Keri Morgret: Girs with pink have better CTR.

9:13	Keri Morgret: You can have ad burnout in terms of hours. If you're targeting narrow group and lots of volume burnout can happen quickly. Check back often, esp if bidding CPM, to make sure CTR isn't real high.

9:14	Keri Morgret: The big secret? Facebook is a giant email autoresponder. Send people to Facebook page. You want them to be a fan. Viral loop -- people join, others see they join.

9:15	Keri Morgret: Even though email addresses burn, you can still reach via FB.

9:15	Keri Morgret: FB people give a lot more accurate information than in many other areas.

9:15	Keri Morgret: Don't send people to the wall by default.

9:16	Keri Morgret: In the next 12 months they're going to be improving their UI, make it more accessible to agencies.

9:17	Keri Morgret: Shows fun lexicon result for part tonight vs hangover. If you target hangover meds, go for sunday morning!

9:18	Keri Morgret: Marty Weintraub is up now, and way too enthusiastic for this hour of the morning.

9:18	Keri Morgret: Marty's focusing on search via FB.

9:19	Keri Morgret: Today’s Program FB Search Update & Implications Anatomy of Facebook SERPs When Is Someone Gonna’ Make Some Money?

9:20	Keri Morgret: Facebook is Almost Unimaginable Well-Laid Play For Internet Domination

9:20	Keri Morgret: I’m a Search Marketer, and I Smell Fresh Meat

9:21

Keri Morgret: FB is a Massive Walled Garden Parallel Internet.

Closed Loop Members-Only (Over 300 Million)
120 Million Users Login Every Day
1 Billion Pictures & 10 Million Pictures Monthly
Billion Content Blocks, Blog Posts, News Stories & Links Weekly
45 Million “Active” Users Groups
Walls, Chat, Tagging, Groups, Pages, Profile

9:22	Keri Morgret: No External Search Engines Allowed! Just Facebook Internal Search Facebook Search has Always Kinda’ Sucked Until Now…Sort of Smart to Understand & Monitor as Develops Immediately Useful (though kind of an Easter Egg)

9:22	Keri Morgret: What Does Facebook Have to Index? Insight as to What’s Searchable in Settings / Privacy/Search

9:23	Keri Morgret: Users Data Available Facebook Wide Even If You’re Not Friends Links, Status Updates, Wall Posts & Notes

9:23	Keri Morgret: Links, Status Updates, Wall Posts & Notes Internal Community Search Newly Expanded From People/Groups Search Search Last 30 Days Of News Feed Status Updates, Photos, Links Videos & Notes Pages Of Which They’re Fans

9:24	Keri Morgret: Anatomy of Facebook SERPs Pages and… …Groups Usually Top Popular Apps’ Can Trump Pages or Groups Posts by Friends Almost ALWAYS web results last

9:25	Keri Morgret: Still (Classic) Facebook People Search Suggests Mutual Friends First Then Extended Network and Geographic Proximity For Common Names Then Anywhere (Long Tail Names) That Many Guys Named Waldo A?

9:26	Keri Morgret: Pages SERPS Fan Count Main Correlation Not the Only Factor Tested Freshness, Proximity, Phrase Density, Completely Weird

9:26	Keri Morgret: Tested to See if Users’ Interests Impacted Pages SERPs. Nothing in Page SERPs

9:26	Keri Morgret: Groups Crawl Groups Titles & Descriptions Mostly Based on Member Count Group Listings in “All” Search More Erratic

9:27	Keri Morgret: Cool Group Search Filters How Users Search Facebook “Should” is a Signal regarding the FB DB.

9:27	Keri Morgret: Applications Straight Up Popularity Contest Monthly Active Users (not downloads, installs, etc) Keyword in Name First

9:28	Keri Morgret: Events Geo-proximity. Clearly Other Attributes Indexes GEO & Title

9:29	Keri Morgret: Web Results Bing is Official Facebook “Web Results” Search Engine One Click Takes Users to Bing Consider Implications of Bing / Yahoo Deal ONLY Indexes EXTERNAL Bing SERPs in FB Not Geo Savvy

9:29	Keri Morgret: Posts By Friends Strictly Chronological Not Hierarchy, Rankings BS, How Long It Lasts Determined Speed of Space

9:29	Keri Morgret: Posts By Everyone Liner Fire Hose Effect Not Personalized Speed of Indexing = 30 Seconds Was the Fastest. Timing is Speed of Space

9:30	Keri Morgret: Open up privacy settings all the way if you want people to find you.

9:31	Keri Morgret: Best Use is Crowd Mining The Same as It Ever Was Expanded Social Graph, Includes External Channels Geographic Insight By Classic Search Geo-Suffixes Engage, Friend with Purpose

9:31	Keri Morgret: Leverage Trust Delicately Find True Connections Friends, Friends of Friends, Networks & Networks of Friends Find Users Chattering About Specific Topics Get Around Limitations of “Pages” With Ambassadors Make Lists! Make More Lists..

9:32	Keri Morgret: Don’t Pee in The Pool Leveraging Friends is Sticky Business Give Much More Than You Take Unselfish Recurrent Content to Serve Holistic Self Promotion Support the Community First

9:32	Keri Morgret: Optimization Tips Share Links in FB to Optimized Content Put Most Important Information in Title Tag Drop on Walls, Status. Updates & Notes Optimize Photo Album Titles

9:33	Keri Morgret: Optimization Tips Gain FB Organic Prominence With App’s Bing Serves Double Duty "People" With KW "Names" Can Index Easily Whatever it Takes, Lift Group & Page Fan-Count Gain Immediate Prominence by Paid FB Search

9:34	Keri Morgret: Marty gave a great presentation and ran through a bunch of slides. I had his slide deck in advance, so this is mainly a copy of his slides, but didn't have time to add much more information.

9:34	Keri Morgret: Next up is Will Scott. Glad he talks slower than Marty!

9:35	Keri Morgret: He's speaking mostly about local traffic

9:36	Keri Morgret: Sneaky FB opportunities Target just your fans or people coming to an event with ads. Cool, not mind blowing. Birthday Targeting. This one is fun! 1:1 communication with event attendees/maybes.

9:36	Keri Morgret: Birthday targeting: if you're a coffee shop, tell them to register now because it's their BD and come in any time this month for a free coffee.

9:37	Keri Morgret: Happy Birthday Beat banner blindness with hypertargeted message BD-only offer amplifies immediacy of call to action "offer" redemption often include complimentary sales Great way to attract new customers Excellent for retail/service businesses

9:38	Keri Morgret: He shows a screenshot of a really interesting invitation.

9:38	Keri Morgret: If you respond maybe/yes to event, advertiser has explicit permission to contact you via inbox.

9:39	Keri Morgret: 1:1 communiction with event attendees/maybes For groups/businesses with fan pages vs groups inbox access is limited.

9:39	Keri Morgret: FB advertising ROI We've seen huge savings on a cost per lead basis with FB Leveraging advanced targeting increases likelihood of conversion Get 'em where they live

9:40	Keri Morgret: Rebecca Kelley is now up.

9:40	Keri Morgret: She's speaking on marketing on FB using pages and groups.

9:41	Keri Morgret: 10e20 provides services for publishers, businesses and fortune 500 companies. Specialize in viral marketing and other stuff I missed.

9:42	Keri Morgret: FB Groups Groups were pre-pages pages (before pages came around, you could do a group) Analogous to a forum http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-New-Facebook-Group

9:43	Keri Morgret: Why join a group? Can find tons of groups related to your business Find target users/demographics/potential customers Promote your brand via comments, shared links, new connections, etc.

9:43	Keri Morgret: Why start a group? You can run it like your own forum To help people out and answer questions Traffic baby! Subtle branding and interaction

9:43	Keri Morgret: She shows a FB group example

9:44	Keri Morgret: Admins on group: one admin can boot another out.

9:45	Keri Morgret: Be careful who you give admin status to

9:46	Keri Morgret: Showing a triathlon group. People are asking for advice regarding training partners, wetsuits, etc. Good opportunity for people offering those services.

9:48	Keri Morgret: Best practices for groups Choose your group name wisely Address a need Be mindful of the size of the group (over 5,000 makes it harder to email) Participate and be helpful; don't join stuff you're not going to genuinely care about/contribute to Update frequently

9:48	Keri Morgret: FB Pages Set up for "fans" of something Consist of pretty much anything -- causes, corporations, actions, objects, people

9:49	Keri Morgret: Why create a FB page? Branding (can be overt or subtle) To find/communicate with an appropriate audience of like-minded individuals Traffic Stickiness Reputation management

9:49	Keri Morgret: Reputation management -- one more thing in SERPs to rank for your name.

9:50	[Comment From Scott Clark] Wish they'd talk about converting old facebook groups/profiles into pages. Best practices.

9:50	Keri Morgret: Page example of a non-profit cancer center vs Cancer Sucks. First one is too much talking about themselves.

9:52	Keri Morgret: 700,000 fans of the Laughing page. Good at cross-promoting (comedy.com), showing their twitter account, links to other properties at the bottom of the page

9:53	Keri Morgret: Shows page example of ShoeMoney Tools. Implemented fan page widget on his profile, helped increase fans. Then he sent some promotions in Septembber to fans for a tool, resulted in a 20% conversion.

9:54	Keri Morgret: Great because these people are already relevant to you.

9:55	Keri Morgret: Best practices for creating and marketing a page. Think branded vs. non-branded (Black and Decker vs. "I love girls who use power tools" Be "n on-commercially" commercial What appeals to a broad range of people (I need a vacation, I need a glass of wine) Customize your URL

9:55	Keri Morgret: Think about the URL, may be able to change it once but that's all. Think about keywords in URL.

9:56	Keri Morgret: All of these slides are available at the download location, look in the conference program front page for where to download.

9:57	Keri Morgret: Q&A time. Missed first question.

9:58	Keri Morgret: Marty uses FB for B2B lead gen.

9:59	Keri Morgret: Converting groups to pages