Launching a product using social media provides multi-media rich global platforms that makes it easy for each social network community to share the message and let other people know about your brand.

Promoting, marketing and launching any product globally was usually left to multi-nationals with big budgets and access to prime time TV and other expensive mass media and to be effective required multi-million dollar budgets.

Here is a case study of Guy Kawasaki’s launch and promotion of his book ‘Enchantment  The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions‘ and how he used a multi channel social media marketing strategy and tactics that can be applied to any product.

This approach or a subset of his campaign can be applied by anyone with the right discipline and appropriate resources and ‘yes’ you will need a marketing budget but it will not need to be 6 or 7 figures.

Guy Kawasaki is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist (Garage  Technology Ventures), a well known blogger and also famous for his RSS aggregator “Alltop”

He was involved in launching and marketing the Apple McIntosh in 1984 and has written ten books with ‘Enchantment’ being his latest.

So how did he launch and promote his book using social media?

1. Facebook

The Facebook fan page was built specifically for the book and its main aim was to provide a community site on the largest social networking community on the planet that would engage and then share. To build up the fan base that provided critical mass to share an incentive to “like” the page was achieved by giving away a free book. In this case it was his first book “The McIntosh Way”

Primary Goal:

Create an incentive for people to “like” the page by providing a free product and so grow his fan base

Cost: Approximately $2,700

2. Website and Blog

He realized after 2 months that Facebook was great but limited and needed a site he owned that was not restricted to the whims and restrictions of the Facebook environment and its terms and conditions. He built the site which was part of his own website.

Primary Goal

To make it easy for his book reviewers to obtain information and images necessary to review the book.

Cost: Approximately $4,000

3. Book Reviews by Other Bloggers and A-Listers

Building a tribe before launch becomes very apparent here and with Guy’s access to his Alltop data base of 20,000 bloggers he was able to offer a free review copy to all 20,000 and from that he attained the following traction. He used eCairn to indentify the social media movers and shakers to find other bloggers outside of his own database listing.

• 1,300 requested a copy
• 150 interviews
• 200 reviews

All reviews appeared on his website which gave visibility to all the reviewers as a way of saying thank you.

Main Goal:

To provide 3rd party credibility authority and social  proof that was widespread and ubiquitous

Cost: $16,000 (but this was borne by the publisher)

4. Email

The shiny new toy ‘social media’ is not the only marketing tactic that he used and they knew that a 160,000 emails (130,000 acquired over 30 years of making contacts including his blog and website) would be highly effective.

The numbers and results for this

• 30,000 extra email from AlwaysOn
• 3.75% click through rate

Primary Takeaway:

Again it is the building of a marketing base via email prior to launch that is vital to have in your tool kit and assets to ensure launch success

Cost: Approximately $4,500 set up and $1,000 per month (allow 3 months) for the email campaign (Total $7,500)

5. Banner Ads

This was a 6 week campaign on Google AdWords, Facebook Ads and Twitter (Promoted Tweets). They used Clix Marketing for managing the campaign. Both Google Adwords and Facebook ads are easy enough to do your self

Primary Goal

To get access to potential buyers outside of his sphere of influence and use the power of Google and Facebook to target the rightaudience.

Cost: Allow $2,000-$3,000

6. Photo Contest

Every one loves a contest and they work well on Social media. He offered 5 cameras and an Apple iPad. He had a Facebook contest app designed by Strutta.

Results

• 1,150 entries
• 35,000 visits
• 70,000 entry views

Primary Goal

To create ‘Buzz’ .

Cost: Approximately $6,000 (App $2,000 and prizes $4,000)

Major Takeaway: Start a tribe before even writing that book or product so that when you launch you have a a fan base that will be ready to buy and spread your message for you whether that is on Facebook, Twitter or Blog. Guy used his blog, website and his social media community on Alltop as his primary platform for marketing his product.

7. Quizzes

He took a quiz he had in his book and took it online and provided it in two channels (Facebook and his website). The surprise here was that the website version results far exceeded the Facebook results.

• 700 took the Quiz on Facebook
• 2,900 took the quiz on the website

He used Wildfire which costs $400 per month to create the self-serve quiz and used Electric Pulp to create the website version ($3,000)

Primary Goal: To engage and also create more buzz.

Cost: Approximately $5,000

8. Infographic

The popularity of the infographics was taken into account and  resulted in reviewers and bloggers embedding it in their sites. He hired Column Five to create the graphic which provides an overview of the book in one image.

Primary Goal: To provide a media that could go ‘viral’.

Cost: Approximately$2,000

9. PowerPoint

He had created a PowerPoint presentation  that would not only be used at key note presentations but would also be published on Slideshare and spread the brand and buzz.

So far it has been

• Viewed over 40,000 times
• Favorited over 180 times
• Embedded in over 90 websites
• ReTweeted 81 times
• Shared on Facebook 126 times

Primary Goal: Placement on the Slideshare social networking platform to make it easy for people to share and embed

Cost: Approximately $3,600

10. Slideshow on YouTube

Thank you is a small phrase that produces big results and as a way of saying thank you to all the companies and people involved in the book project launch and promotion he created a slideshow on YouTube. They used Animoto to create the slideshow.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Primary Goal: Provide another online digital property that spreads worldwide and as a minimum will be shared by the all the parties mentioned

Cost: Approximately$1,000 for design and $50 a month for the software (professional edition)

Total Cost: Approximately $50,000

(Including $16,000 for books from the publisher and $34,000 by Guy)

This could be reduced significantly by doing some of this yourself and also focusing on the channels that provide the greatest leverage.

The major takeaway is that you need to build a tribe before you launch any product or book. Guy Kawasaki has worked over the years to build his tribe and here is a snapshot of its size.

• Twitter: 351,000 followers
• Email subscribers: 130,000
• Bloggers: 20,000
• Facebook: 52,000

Have you started growing your tribe?

This case study was sourced from Guy’s own article about his book launch on Mashable.

Image by KEXINO

Facebook has rolled out a series of changes to its 50 million Facebook ‘Groups’ as well as announcing the ability to include a ‘Send’ button in your website or blog that is an addition to the Facebook social sharing ‘button’ family.

The new button allows you to choose a subset of your Facebook friends to receive a link. In essence it’s the ‘like’ button’s private baby brother and it’s part of Facebook’s goal of transforming web messaging  including email and chat that I covered in a recent blog post titled “Facebook Announces a New Messaging System“.

The new ‘send’ feature is designed to be a private sharing option rather than a public message and mass news update function provided by the ‘like’ button.

50 websites who are included in the launch have a send button integrated into their features and functions. These include the Wall Street Journal and People.com

So the battle for the social web ratchets up another notch with this news that closely follows Google’s announcement  of a new social button ‘+1′.

This feature I am sure will be another tool that Facebook afficiandos and ‘fanatics’ will gladly embrace and will provide another means of low friction sharing in an increasingly social web.

The battle for social share button real estate on web properties is certainly heating up as now you will need to consider whether you want to include another button at the top the side or the bottom of your articles.

If you want to some guidance and a link to assist you in adding the button to your site now click here.

Would you include a Facebook ‘send’ button on your website or blog?

Image by MrTopf

Some bloggers wonder why they have no one reading their articles. I sometimes wonder how some blogs are ever found in an ocean of over 200 million blogs.

Writing a blog is both a joy and frustration as you try and work out the ways to let readers on the world wide web discover you and let them know you exist.

So the challenge is that the writing is just the beginning and promoting your posts is the next step in driving readership and building a loyal following in your industry or niche.

So what are some of the common  mistakes that a lot of “newbie” and other bloggers slip into?

1. Poor Headline

You have only a few seconds to help the reader decide whether they want to read your post or not so a headline that compels and teases the visitor to your blog or who sees your headline on a Tweet is a must in driving readership. List posts such as “10 Ways To..” or The 5 Top …” are always effective. These might seem redundant and overused but the fact remains they work.

2. No Other Media

In a media rich web that we have all become accustomed t0, maintaining attention and capturing interest requires a blog that mixes good images with other media such as video. Mix up your text posts with images, screen shots, graphs and online videos but remember to not make it too cluttered or overdo it.

3. No Bullet Points

The snack that you serve up to readers to consume needs to be easy to quickly scan, don’t make it hard to get your point across by making the post too text heavy and the important information you are trying to convey buried in a sea of words. Academics quite often slip into this mistake in a blog post as this goes against their essay writing paradigm and rules that have been ingrained over many years of study. You are writing for a web audience not for a professor.

4. No Sub Titles

This is important because these provide teasers to keep the reader willing to investigate the next part of your post. They are like mini headlines that continue to provide enticing morsels to keep them reading

5. Writing About The Wrong Topics

A lot of bloggers can go off topic by forgetting to write about the topics that readers want to hear about, this will continue to change and sometimes you will not notice. Reading other top blogs in your industry will keep you in tune with the heart  beat of your industry. Also keep an eye on what resonates with your readers by measuring the popularity of each post you write by the number of retweets and pageviews.

6. No Additional Reading Resources

Keep your readers on your blog by offering other post relevant to the topic either at the end or littered throughout the post as hyperlinks.

7. Not Promoting the Post on Twitter

So you have written the post and hit publish and expect readers to rush in from all over the world wide web to read it. The challenge is that your blog is only a solitary planet in a universe of galaxies. Promote and hustle your blog.. let everyone know you have arrived and continue you remind them

8. No Share Buttons

This is vital and making your readers cut and paste to an email, Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin to share your post with their friends and colleagues will limit your content being spread significantly. Make it easy with a prominent two click share button at the top of the post for the major platforms where your audience is hanging out.

9. Too Long

Two thousand word essays on a post can work but it is better to keep it around the 500-800 words to make sure you don’t make them click to some where else after getting half way through. If it is going to be long then bullet points and sub-titles become absolutely mandatory.

10. Too Short

I have turned up to blog posts that are a couple of paragraphs and wonder why I bothered. Seth Godin is maybe the only blogger that can pull this off. Chris Brogan tries to do this but quite often fails. Provide some substance.

11. Too Fluffy

“If you want fluff go and pat a bunny“. You  need to offer real solutions and answers to problems and a good blog needs to have substance…offer useful tips readers can take away and apply.

12. No “About” or “Bio” Tab

Blogs still are personal unless you are Huffington Post or Mashable. Readers want to know who you are and what you have done.. they want to identify with you and start to connect.

13. Missing Credibility Evidence

Readers are still impressed by numbers and evidence that you are intelligent and that what you write will be worthwhile. As your subscribers build start publishing the numbers so that people will realize that you have an audience so you are credible. Awards that you have won or books yo have written  all add to the “expert” mix that positions you as a thought leader.

14. No Integration to Other Social Media On-line Properties

Provide links to your other “online properties” such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn or other social networking sites that you are a member of. If you are a photgrapher blogger make it easy for people to subscribe to your Flickr account and encourage to have them subscribe and follow you there as well.

15. The Subscription by Email is Missing

Subscribing by email is till vital in a social web. Delivering your daily post into their email inbox is still one of the best ways to build a loyal readership base.

16. Subscribing by RSS has been Forgotten

Bloggers and readers will go and check their RSS readers such as Google Reader most days and often first thing in the morning to get the latest updates and news from other bloggers they have subscribed to. Make sure you are pushing your latest content out to those readers by having a “Subsrcibe by RSS” button.

17. You Don’t Update your Latest Post to your Blog’s Facebook “Page”

Facebook is important for bloggers not only in the “B2C” sectors but also for “B2B” industries. Posting your blog headline description and link to your news feed is vital. Facebook is where most of the planet is plugged into and making it easy for your ideas to spread on Facebook is now essential not optional.

18.  Your Comment System only allows Login via Email

Implementing a comment system that also provides the feature to post a comment by using Twitter or Facebook is increasingly important in a social web.

19. Categories Are Missing

Make it easy for people to read in the categories they want to read about about by using the feature that is available to most blogging platforms and is included as standard in the WordPress.

20. Popular Posts Feature is Not Visible

Popular post provide a guide for readers that turn up to your blog about what your blog is about and why readers are turning up. It can also provide additional page views as they click through.

I promise you if you just some of these you will be surprised by the increase in the traffic and the the interaction and engagement that results. Happy blogging

More Reading

• How To Write A Mind Blowing Headline For Twitter So People Will Read Your Blog
• 90 Tips To make Your Blog Rock
• 40 Tips On How To Be A Social Media Rockstar

Traditional marketing is still a powerful marketing medium and email is still one of the best ways to get someones attention. The challenge for email is that it is much harder for it to be shared compared to new emerging low friction social marketing channels such as Facebook and Twitter. Many well optimized blogs including the biggest blog in the world Huffington Post (recently sold to Yahoo for over $300 million) understand this intimately and  include options to content share  by providing buttons throughout the site to “like” and “share” on Facebook and “retweet” on Twitter as well as email a friend.

Even Lady Gaga knows the power of Facebook and at 32 million fans she is leveraging the social web to make sure she is not forgotten. One of the tools in her marketing armory is FanBridge that integrates email with social marketing and provides a range of application sets to make it easy to create marketing campaigns and provide incentives for signups.

FanBridge is a “Fan Management” technology start up which provides an environment that allows you to build your Fan base by providing a platform that:

1. Gets more Fans
2. Excites Fans
3. Keeps Fans Engaged

How does it do that?

Getting More Fans

• They start with your existing email list and will import it into the platform
• Provide fan customized signup forms that can be embedded into websites, Facebook or blogs
• Create incentives to join your list such as a free song, exclusive photo or even a video file (incentives are also automatically integrated into signup forms)
• Free custom simple microsite for informing fans

Excite You Fans

• Campaigns and Promotions can be created that turn interest into purchases with links directly to your point of sale sites
• Provides analytics that allows you to adjust your marketing campaign and keep them excited
• Tour calendars can be added be added to newsletters so fans don’t forget the important dates
• Integrate “best practice” viral marketing tactics such as contests and prizes

Keep Fans Engaged

• Email management tools including templates to make your emails looking good, targeting as well as unsubscribes, and bounces.
• Collection of mobile numbers from fans so you send last minute SMS messages as well as scheduling messages to automatically send in the future.
• Manage multiple social networks from one platform and track the effectiveness of each

At this stage the platform is primarily for musicians but there is nothing stopping this type of technology being applied to speakers, writers, filmmakers, sports people and teams in fact anyone with a fan base.

How could you apply this type of platform?

Twitter is maybe the most misunderstood and under estimated social media marketing tool in the social media top 5 including Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. Most people still think it is just about superficial conversations, insignificant daily events and news.

The reality is that it is a much sharper tool than Facebook in one very important area and that is creating a large database of followers (subscribers if you like) without having a large marketing budget.  On Facebook you have to drive people to your Facebook page to get them to “like” your page so that you can then provide updates that they will find interesting and engaging.

This requires 2 key elements to really scale

1. You already have a lot of organic traffic to your blog or Facebook page that have heard about you and your business so that you can get a small percentage to click the “like” button on Facebook or click on your “like” button on you blog’s Facebook social plugin.

2. You run an advertising campaign on Facebook to drive people to a landing page that provides an incentive for people to “like” your Facebook page

The challenge with Facebook is that this can cost you a lot of money to run a marketing campaign to grow your fans and this requires budgets that is only available to large companies and that is why you are seeing major brands with tens of million of  ”likes” such as Coca Cola. (view some these companies at “The World’s 20 Most Popular Facebook Pages“)

The Power of  Twitter

The power of Twitter is that you can “pull” people to follow you on Twitter by following them.

Why does this work? ..well there is a largely unknown secret Twitter rule or “etiquette” that most newbies don’t understand and that is when you follow someone that a certain percentage will follow you back. Now that percentage may be only 20%  or it may be 50% but once you have them following you on Twitter your updates will now appear in their Twitter “stream”.

If you follow 100 people then you will find next day or in few hours when you check your follower count that  you will have increased your followers by 20-30 people.

The Challenge

Now the challenge here is not just getting a large quantity of people to follow you whose interests are wide and diverse eg.. there is no reason people who are interested in “cars”  are going to want to read your updates on “wine” if you are a wine retailer or producer. You need to get followers who are interested in your topics and this is the “quality” targeted component of creating a following on Twitter.

So how can you as a businesses or personal brand attract followers that are interested  in your industry so that you can then amaze them with your unique and fascinating insights and news that is relevant to your industry and start engaging with them.

The Twitter Tool To Gain Targeted Quality Followers

One Twitter tool that I have found useful is Twellow.com, a free tool which has 30.5 million  Twitter profiles in its database sorted into a vast range of categories.

Using Twellow you can

1. Search and then

2. Follow people

Twitter Tactic

This “following” tactic is based upon their interests in their Twitter profile. You can enter a key word such as “wine” and up will come companies and people with large Twitter followings that have indicated their interests when registering on Twitter in their Twitter profile, you can then follow them within the tool by clicking the blue “Follow” button.

This tactic will assist you in starting to build a targeted following on Twitter that is interested in your Tweets and content.

The thing to remember though is that once you have people following you that your tweeted “Headlines” and “links” to articles and YouTube videos needs to be interesting and topical to keep them clicking on those hyperlinks embedded in your Tweets. These links does not have to be only your own content but should also include other websites and links to content that add value and solves problems for your followers.

So start building a following that is interested in your topic of choice.

Image by YAPixel

Facebook marketing is the topic that is igniting the topical nerve of social media and digital marketers worldwide.

So here in one spot are the the top 10 most popular Facebook posts on my blog.

1. 30 Fascinating Facebook Facts To Tell Your Friends

Facebook’s mindshare of popular culture and it’s goal of world domination is now becoming apparent …don’t laugh, I am sure that a Facebook TV channel is not far away, a movie about Facebook is about to be released and I am sure that branded pens and cups are also around the corner!! Farmville is the maybe the most loved and hated game on Facebook but that is another story. Most of you who read this will be on Facebook and may want to bore your friends and colleagues at your next dinner party or water cooler meeting with some trivia.. here is your chance. Read more

2. The World’s 20 Most Popular Facebook Pages

Facebook’s strengthening grip and integration with popular culture is very evident as you go through this list of the world’s top 20 most popular Facebook pages and realize between them they have over 315 million fans. That culture reflects our movie, TV shows and music tastes including Michael Jackson, Eminem, Lady Gaga, the Twilight Saga, The Family Guy and even Justin Bieber. Read more

3. 10 Best Facebook Campaigns

Facebook marketing campaigns seem to be going all warm, caring and fluffy recently as brands realize that solving problems and helping those in need can be a very effective marketing tactic.

Three of the Facebook campaigns in this list have an altruistic reason behind their campaigns, from donating $500,000 each to 20 schools to raising funds for the “Make A Wish Foundation”.

The marketing goals for the Facebook pages vary but quite often the simple goal of just increasing their fan count to their Facebook page seems to be top of the list as brands have worked out very quickly that being able to communicate to 1,000′s or even millions of fans via a simple status update is very efficient highly leveraged marketing. Companies have also realized that people’s main reason for becoming a fan for the most part is not so charitable, but is about having access to the latest special offers and freebies. Read more

4. Will These Competitors Slow Facebook’s Growth?

Facebook is battling with an awareness that it takes it’s users for granted as it makes changes that both infuriate and frustrate its subscriber base. There are user groups springing up such as QuitFacebookDay (23,000 members) asking members to close their account on May 3 FacebookProtest (3,000 supporters) that is requesting a one day boycott on June 6 Facebook Group with 2.2 million members protesting recent changes to privacy and layout These movements are an indication of the level of discontent especially on its privacy controls. There are also people inceasingly having their accounts hacked and hijacked with spam messages and links being sent to users friends (that happened to me only this week). Will this stop Facebook’s inexorable march to global social media domination? Here are some competitors continuing and starting to nip at the heels of the 800 pound gorilla. Read more

5. 11 Ways To Lose Your Job On Facebook

Facebook has become the social media channel everyone loves and loves to hate. It is a powerful platform to share your content as well as being a soapbox to post your feelings and thoughts whether they are appropriate or not. Social media seems to have hit such a nerve with people sharing anything and everything online with such gay abandon. It continues to provide great online fodder that keeps us amused and entertained in an almost voyeuristic fashion. Read more

6.Is Facebook Killing Off The Company Website?

The popularity of Facebook is reverberating through the entire web ecosystem and changing interaction and the way we communicate online.

There are many consumer brands and musical superstars that measure their fan numbers on Facebook in the tens of millions. This rapid increase has only happened in the last 2 years and for some Facebook pages that phenomenal growth can be measured in months. Here are some headline numbers.

• Coca Cola – 22 million Facebook fans
• Starbucks – 19 million plus fans
• Oreo – 8 million Facebook fans

While Facebook is becoming the biggest relationship marketing tool for brands, it seems like that instead of increasing traffic to the company website, Facebook is actually absorbing it. Marketers across the globe are wondering whether their brand websites will disappear and if there will still be a need for an official website in five years. Will the users still visit the company websites or will they only use Facebook and apps to check the news and offers? Read more

7. The World’s 10 Most Popular Company Facebook Pages

Facebook pages work best if you are a major retail B2C brand or company. In this list I have not included musicians, entertainers, actors & actressess or movies which we covered in the last post the “The World’s 20 Most Popular Facebook Pages“. Like Twitter the top ranked on Facebook are celebrities who attract passionate fans to their sites. Here we look at the Top 10 Global companies or brands that are not a rock star, movie star or a musician. Starbucks has pursued a focused social media and digital marketing strategy including making broadband wireless free in its stores and also adding value by providing digital content free.. Read more

8. How To Increase Your Facebook Page Fans By 1,000%

Facebook’s rise as “the” social network has taken it from the college campus to the company boardroom in less than 2 years. Major brands have embraced it and the power of the Facebook social network with its ability to share your updates instantly in real time globally with your fans without buying a large database of email addresses is unprecedented.. Read more

9. How To Take Your Company’s Facebook Fan Page from Zero to 40,000 Fans

It was last year that I met a Facebook marketing specialist, Mike Watkins at a marketing event. I was impressed by his story about how he had taken the SUPRE’s fashion brand’s Facebook page from zero to 40,000 fans shortly after Facebook released the “Page” option to add to its “Profiles” and “Groups” membership options. I met him again recently for a video interview that I will be publishing in the next few days, in the meantime I would like to share his story.

Facebook “pages” have only been around for 2 years and in that time we have seen major global brands embrace Facebook for engaging and interacting with their customers with some major brands Facebook pages fan subscribers now approaching 40 million and providing another way to communicate that goes beyond traditional media and email.

So what were the key elements to acquiring the 40,000 fans and what strategies did he use to continue to engage and nurture the Facebook fans for SUPRE’s fashion brand? Read more.

10. What Is A Facebook “Like” Worth For Your Business?

I have recently integrated and optimized my blog with my Facebook page with a social plugin for Facebook with a “like” feature at the top right hand corner of the blog and I have already seen positive results with traffic increasing by over 60% in the last 2 months. The reality is that traffic is great but at the end of the day the real objective is to turn a dollar. Eventbrite has just unveiled a new report that measures what a Facebook “like” is worth in real hard cash after analyzing over 11 million tickets that the company sold in 2010…Read more

Image by Eveline314

Facebook provides a powerful marketing platform for musicians to promote their songs, albums and connect with fans in real time within a multi-media rich Facebook ecosystem.

Musicians do not have to wait for the weekly TV show or breakfast TV appearance to broadcast their latest video clip and live performance… it can be posted instantly to Facebook.

So how does Facebook “Pages” digital social marketing transcend traditional mass media marketing?

1. Facebook pages are a more effective and intimate direct marketing channel
2. It is instant and up to date whereas printed and traditional media is usually out of date quite often before it hits the street
3. It is a real time research tool
4. You create a long-term relationship between the consumers and the brand that creates a digital asset with longevity
5. You create a highly leveraged channel that distributes your brand and message by “World of Mouth” as updates to the Facebook “Page” ripple and spread through friends updates and news feeds. This is an incredibly fast and effective organic brand distribution vehicle.

What are some notable Facebook marketing features of these major music brands that you should take note of ?

• Facebook stores where you can buy music videos, albums and individual songs
• Charitable promotions
• Mobile “apps” and “marketing” starting to make their presence felt.
• Email marketing is not “dead” with several music brands offering email newsletter subscriptions
• You don’t have to be “present” on this earth to make money with two musicians making the top 10 without being able to turn up to “live” shows

So with 3 of the top trends on the web being

1. Social media
2. Mobile
3. Online shopping stores

These musicians are on top of the latest marketing game and trends and are leveraging and spreading their “brand” with “World of Mouth” with very cool and trendy marketing that Gen Y can’t get enough of!

Who are the Top 10 Music “Brands” on Facebook?

1. Eminem

• Fans: 30,875,000 million
• Gain Today: 51,357
• Feature to note: YouTube Views of  ”Love The Way You Lie” with 306 million plus views!!!

2. Lady Gaga

• Fans: 30,492,997
• Gain Today: 43,642
• Feature to note: F-Commerce capability (able to buy the song on Facebook)

3. Michael Jackson

• Fans: 30,097,692
• Gain today: 28, 848
• Feature to note: “Store” on Facebook (check out the tab on the left column)

4. Rihana

• Fans: 27,719,524
• Gain today: 54,641
• Feature to note: (Promotes fans by making them famous)

5. Linkin Park

• Fans: 24,566,915
• Gain today: 35,912
• Feature to note: Charitable promotion with “Haiti Relief” as a custom tab on left side column

6. Shakira

• Fans: 23,762,549
• Gain today: 50,722
• Feature to note: You can buy the album on Facebook – click to buy

7. Justin Bieber

• Fans: 23,335,536
• Gain today: 45,763
• Feature to note: Email is still important in marketing with a newsletter sign-up form as a tab

8. Bob Marley

• Fans: 21,461,577
• Gain today: 34,905
• Feature to note: Marley shop on Facebook

9. Lil Wayne

• Fans: 21,345,545
• Gain today: 26,068
• Feature to note: Sign up to receive updates on your mobile also on the site is the link to download his “app”

10. Katy Perry

• Fans: 20,838,198
• Gain today: 50,424
• Features to note: Facebook store and able to buy from iTunes

Source: Insidefacebook.com

Image by Oceania Rock (Ocquo.com)

I have recently integrated and optimized my blog with my Facebook page with a social plugin for Facebook with a “like” feature at the top right hand corner of the blog and I have already seen positive results with traffic increasing by over 60% in the last 2 months. The reality is that traffic is great but at the end of the day the real objective is to turn a dollar.

Eventbrite has just unveiled a new report that measures what a Facebook “like” is worth in real hard cash after analyzing over 11 million tickets that the company sold in 2010.

Eventbrite is a new digital age social commerce event ticketing company and the social business concept is very strong especially for this type of industry, because when you are going to or planning to attend an event, you are very likely to tell your friends online and offline.

They leverage social media centric tools to tap into the world’s overlapping social graphs to spread event news and purchase behavior and demonstrate maybe one of the best practice examples of  a social business.

If you visit their site you will notice that they are encouraging not just buying the tickets but sharing them on social media channels.

Last year they released a study that revealed that sharing on Facebook is worth 6 times more than a Twitter tweet.

This new report delves deeper into the numbers.

The 7 Key Findings

General

• Over the last six months, 40% of sharing through Facebook occurred on the event page (pre-purchase) vs. 60% of sharing which occurred on the order confirmation page (post-purchase). This shows that the motivation to share is higher once the purchase is made and the attendee is committed.
• The BSR (browsing share rate), is 1% — meaning that of the people who look at an event page before purchasing a ticket, 1% of them share that event. Conversely, the TSR (transcation share rate) is 10%, which means 10 times more people share an event from the order confirmation page.
• Not only is the motivation to share post-purchase higher, that share is more meaningful than a pre-purchase one. A post-purchase share on Facebook drives 20% more ticket sales per share than a pre-purchase one.

Facebook vs Twitter

• Sharing activity on Facebook equaled almost 4 times the amount of sharing on Twitter. This is attributed to Facebook’s reach (right now there are simply more people that use Facebook than Twitter (600 million vs 225 million) and the fact that connections on Facebook more closely mirror real-world, personal relationships.
• A Facebook “Like” (the closest comparison to a tweet) drives on average $1.34 in ticket sales, compared with a tweet that drives on average $.80.

Sharing by Event Type

• Networking events had the highest share rate, followed by business events and conferences and seminars.
• When they look at dollars per share by type of event, they found that shares are most valuable for music events and concerts, at over $12 per share. Next most valuable are shares for fundraisers, social events and mixers, and food/wine events. When we look at the bottom line of social commerce, it’s social events that represent the highest DPS (dollars per share). So while people are more likely to share business-related events, sharing information about social events drives the most sales.

So the value of the Facebook “Like” is steadily increasing as adoption of it has taken off and I am seeing its value for my blog. Facebook has recently changed the way “Likes” display in the news feed, and I’ll be watching closely to see the impact of this new presentation of “Like.”

So there you have it, for Eventbrite a Facebook like is worth a $1.34 a ticket. What is a Facebook “like” worth for your business?

Image by MailChimp

To date, Microsoft has amassed 463,353 followers on Facebook – and that’s only counting their main company page, not the separate pages they have dedicated to their products and services including Windows, Windows Phone, Bing, Office, Internet Explorer and Xbox. There’s little doubt that Microsoft has achieved additional success by using Facebook as a social media marketing platform. But is it the best social platform for your company? This depends on your goals, your traffic-handling capabilities, your audience and your resources. There are many social platforms to choose from aside from Facebook, including:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• MySpace
• YouTube
• FourSquare
• Blogger
• Flickr

…and it’s possible, sometimes even preferable, to choose more than one.

What Exactly Are You Trying to Achieve?

Before dedicating your resources to a social platform, it’s important to define some goals. Your company’s goal might be:

• More traffic.
• More sales.
• More inbound links.
• A viral marketing campaign to increase visibility.

Of course, you might want to achieve all of these things, which consequently work hand in hand: a viral marketing campaign can lead to more inbound links, which subsequently leads to more traffic for your site and ultimately to more sales.

A typical scenario might look like this: Your company produces a viral marketing campaign with clever, humorous YouTube videos designed to subtly advertise your products or services. The goal? More inbound links, more traffic and more sales. This is exactly what Levi’s did with their famous viral marketing campaign, in which they uploaded YouTube videos of people backflipping and leaping into a pair of jeans. Estimates indicate that this campaign reached out to nearly 100 million people, undoubtedly increasing denim sales for Levi’s.

How Much Traffic Can You Handle?

Different social media sites bring in different levels of traffic, and this can vary heavily according to your company’s niche. As of April 2010, Facebook was towering over other social media platforms in terms of total unique visitors, with 500 million as opposed to under 100 million for both Twitter and MySpace. In less than one year, however, Twitter has increased to 190 million users (nearly doubling) while Facebook now has 600 million users (20% growth). Of course, these are only raw user counts, and they don’t necessarily indicate how much of this traffic will actually see your company.

The traffic handling capabilities of your company’s site are important as well. Even the biggest news and entertainment sites can be bogged down by excessive traffic after breaking a big announcement, and your site is no different. A successful social media marketing campaign can generate a lot of traffic very quickly (Levi’s, for example, didn’t expect their YouTube campaign to be nearly as successful as it was), and investing in a robust business web hosting service can help to prepare your company’s site for massive amounts of traffic.

What Are the Daily Online Habits of Your Audience?

In 2010, Chitika (an online advertising network) conducted a study to determine where exit traffic ultimately ended up after leaving major social media sites. The results:

Facebook:

• News – 28%
• Tech – 7%
• Celebrities and Entertainment – 9%
• How-To/DIY – 13%
• Community – 17%
• Shopping – 9%
• Other – 17%

Twitter:

• News – 47%
• Tech – 10%
• Celebrities and Entertainment – 10%
• Movies – 6%
• How-To/DIY – 4%
• Other – 23%

Although many of the categories have similar statistics, the study indicates that news sites are better served, to an overwhelming degree, by Twitter marketing, while How-To sites may gain a slight edge with a Facebook page. The exit traffic from MySpace, on the other hand, was primarily focused on celebrities/entertainment (23%) and video games (28%), with little interest in news. Other social media studies reveal important traffic information as well, such as the fact that 28% of adults in America say that they provide advice about buying products and services on social media sites, and that the Facebook community is predominantly female (albeit by a small margin).

How Many Resources Can You Spare?

Since most social platforms can be used free of charge, time is the primary resource to concern yourself with when choosing one. When creating a Facebook page for your company, for example, you must examine the individual time sinks:

• Creating the page itself
• Regularly updating it with quality content
• Promoting the page on your company’s main site
• Interacting with fans on your Wall (optional)

The fourth time sink is optional because it largely depends on the size of your company. If you own a very large company with tens of thousands of fans, it may be acceptable to allow fans to post on your Wall without actually replying. Fans of smaller companies, however, generally expect a higher level of interaction.

On Twitter, a higher level of interaction is often expected of all companies. This can lead to an ongoing time sink: crafting thoughtful, meaningful tweets while adhering to the 140-character maximum post limit. Of course, the initial time investment with Twitter is smaller than with Facebook, since little more than a name and a brief bio will do. Twitter can require more ongoing maintenance overall, since your image on this social media platform is largely dictated by your tweets as opposed to a profile page.

On Social Media Management Tools

You can greatly reduce the time required for social platform marketing by utilizing social media management tools. Some of the best include:

Spredfast or Google Analytics for metrics and analysis such as determining ROI and whether you’re reaching your target audience.

HootSuite for identifying followers and fans that are worth further engagement.

TweetDeck for simultaneously updating multiple social platform statuses and monitoring interaction across multiple accounts.

Patience

Regardless of the social platform you choose for your company, building a large group of followers will take time and patience. There are two exceptions:

1. Your company is so large and successful already that a social media presence is merely icing on the cake.

2. Your first attempt at a viral marketing campaign absolutely blows up, leaving you with more traffic than you can probably handle.

This can actually be dangerous if you don’t have the resources necessary to keep up with huge traffic and high demand for products and services.

Guest Author: David Murton

F-Commerce is a word you will hear more of over the next few months as Facebook commerce or online stores embedded within Facebook become popular and widespread.

F-Commerce will become another online channel for businesses to sell products and services with all the marketing power that Facebook provides.

Facebook’s ecosystem evolution is naturally extending to online shopping where you can buy your favorite brands products and services while using Facebook. As outlined in a previous article F-Commerce: Is Facebook The New Shop of the Future? the revolution has commenced whether you have noticed it or not.

Pampers Facebook Shop is integrated into it’s Facebook fan page using Amazon’s web store which keeps you within the Facebook environment right up until checkout where you are then taken offsite to Amazon’s shopping cart system, breaking the Facebook experience.

Why Set up a Shop In Facebook?

Well here are the compelling facts and figures if you haven’t already heard them before

• 600 million users
• Average of 130 friends each to share your latest shopping experiences especially how much you have saved
• 14 minutes per day on-site (the average total time on Facebook now exceeds Google)
• 40% of people use social networking sites when shopping online
• 68% of fans visit retailer pages to keep up to date with sales and promotions
• Fans are 41% more likely to recommend a product
• For some businesses 20% of sales are through their Facebook store
• Cart values are 7-10% higher via Facebook
• The number of transactions in Facebook stores is increasing 10% per month

If you have all these advantages then it is only natural that F-Commerce is set to transform retail.

So what would a great F-Commerce store application(s) require to make it a success?

10  Tips For A Successful Facebook Store

1. Choose a shop application that is easy to set-up and you can customize your Facebook shop store
2. Tell your customers where to find your store and how it works
3. Import your email into your promotions app
4. Actively promote your products, promotions and discounts using email, Twitter and Facebook
5. Use great high definition photos and images
6. Use your wall like it’s your shop window
7. Reward your fans with exclusive discounts and promotions
8. You stay within the Facebook ecosystem from  product browsing to checkout
9. You can measure with inbuilt analytics and tools but also be able to add Google analytics and Facebook Insights to your toolkit analytics tools.
10. You don’t have to be computer programmer so you can make your own changes quickly and efficiently to your design and F-Commerce landing page

These will all be available with a new Facebook Fan Page Toolkit soon to be announced that will provide 3 Facebook apps that allow you to set up and run your Facebook store without having to know programming or computer coding.

Fanpage App:

• Design and set up your Fanpage Facebook store front window without being a programmer or designer

Promotion App:

• Promote your store by allowing importing of emails and integrating Twitter and Facebook messaging to take full advantage of Facebook and social media’s marketing leverage.

F-Commerce App:

• Setup your store with products and images with many features and functions including inbuilt analytics, which will assist you in making changes to your marketing tactics so that you can improve your stores performance

Here is a sample screen shot of what is coming.

Is that something that might excite you?

I will keep you posted with this total “Facebook Fanpage Toolkit”  being launched and available in the next few weeks for you to set up your own F-Commerce store on Facebook.

This will be game changer for small to medium businesses that want to set up a shop online but thought it was too hard.

What do you think? Could you use this for your business?

More Reading:

• F-Commerce: Is Facebook The New Shop Of The Future
• 30 Fascinating Facts To Tell Your Friends
• How To Increase Your Facebook Page Fans by 1,000%
• How Effective Are Facebook Ads?