Web Business by Ken Burbary

The Complete List of Facebook Social Ads for 2011

Facebook continues to experience explosive growth, recently pushing the total number of worldwide users past 610 million, according to checkfacebook.com. An incredible accomplishment considering 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day.  Facebook revenue continues to climb with its user base, surpassing expectations by finishing 2010 at $1.86 billion, largely credited to a boost in growth between August and the end of the year. Some people may be surprised to learn where all that revenue is coming from…….Advertising.

A few interesting statistics about Facebook Advertising:

• Approximately 60% of revenue comes through their self-service advertising platform – http://www.facebook.com/advertising/
• Facebook is now serving more than 50 billion display ads per month
• 60% of advertising revenue in 2010 came from SMBs (small & medium businesses)
• 740 million in 2010 revenue came from big brand advertising (companies like Coca-Cola)

Facebook has gradually increased the different types of social ads that companies can choose to run on their platform. Currently, here is the run down of different social ad types for 2011.

• Standard Ad Unit – This basic ad unit can be used to drive visitors to either a page within or outside of Facebook.
• Like Ad Unit – This ad unit can be used to drive engagement to pages within Facebook and visitors to owned media properties outside of Facebook. It provides social context to the user, indicating any friends that have already liked the brand. If none have the total number of Facebook users that have liked is shown. It increases the likelihood that the user will trust and engage with the ad/brand.
• Poll Ad Unit – This ad unit can be used to capture user feedback on any desired topic, while then driving traffic to any page within Facebook. The poll generates a story on the poll’s brand page, and can appear in news feed of the users that liked the brand. When a user engages with the ad, the poll story can appear on the user’s wall and in their friends’ News Feeds.
• Event Ad Unit – This ad unit is used to increase awareness about events created in Facebook. Friends who are attending the event are listed in the ad unit, as well as the total number of Facebook attendees. Responding will automatically create a story on a user’s profile page and may also show the story in their friends’ News Feeds, increasing distribution and reach.
• Video Ad Unit – This ad unit is used to drive user engagement. It allows for users to watch a video inline, read and share comments, and even like the video. The interaction (commenting or liking) is public and automatically appears on users’ page and may also show in their friends News Feeds.
• Gift Ad Unit – This ad unit can be used to increase user engagement, and drive visitors to pages within and outside of Facebook. It allows users to send a gift to a friend within Facebook, along with a custom message. Messages are public and can appear on the user’s page, as well as in their friends’ News Feeds.
• Sampling Ad Unit – This ad unit can be used to drives product trial and adoption. It prompts the user to provide information to receive product samples, and then publishes a notification allowing the user’s friends to see they have requested a sample, which increases trust and likelihood of further sampling.
• Sponsored Stories Ad Unit -This ad, the newest, has raised some controversy by turning user interactions with brands into ads. Currently defined into 4 different types: application plays, likes, location check-ins and page posts. It can be used to drive engagement and visitors to brand pages within Facebook. It can best be described as taking the interactions happening across Facebook every day, and extending the life and distribution of them as display ads.

This is the most comprehensive list I could find to date. I would like to segment spend by ad type (if you’ve seen such data, please share below in the comments). Or if you’ve seen an ad unit/type not listed here, let me know and I’ll be happy to update the list (which is bound to happen eventually as Facebook is constantly changing the platform). Which ad units are you using? Which have worked best, or not? Feel free to share with the community.

Has Quora Added Business Accounts?

A coworker pointed me to what seems to be an interesting change on Quora today (h/t Donna Tocci). Lowes is the first “business account” sighting I’ve seen on the platform, and one that if confirmed, would be a change in direction from their previous statements about supporting businesses on the Quora platform. Take a look at the screenshot below, which I took from this URL: http://www.quora.com/Lowes-Home-Improvement

This is relevant for a few reasons, all which benefit both consumers and brands. This gives Lowes an opportunity to collaboratively build a knowledge base with consumers about their products, services, and the category they serve (home improvement). In a way that continues to get better, optimize and more answers are contributed and shared. As a homeowner, I can think of the usefulness of this when tackling home improvement projects. Ask questions here, and get answers from both Lowes and community experts on relevant topics. For more information on the uses and benefits of Quora, read this post by Lisa Barone at Outspoken Media.

Have you seen any other businesses on Quora? Any news from Quora directly? If so, please share in the comments below.

UPDATE: Robert Scoble chimed in with this response.

Social Media Listening Still Needs to Grow Up

Social Media participation continues to mature and evolve the ways in which we connect and deepen relationships with one another, and the brands we choose to let in our life and interact with. However, despite all the efforts thus far, our ability to monitor and understand what happens in social media isn’t keeping pace with usage.

eMarketer recently published findings from a InformationWeek Analytics survey of Enterprise professionals about their current Social Media Listening efforts, and the results were disappointing to me.

The most common method of monitoring is to rely on basic notifications, like Google Alerts, as a rudimentary brand monitoring solution. Despite the shortcomings of this method, 44% of respondents aren’t even doing this, the most basic form of social listening.

After this comes outsourcing to a full service vendor or using specialized social media listening tools (like Radian6, SM2, ListenLogic) with internal resources at 16% and 15% respectively. A full 40% of all respondents didn’t know what, if any, approach their company is taking when it comes to social listening. Either the survey respondents aren’t plugged into what’s happening in the company in this area (a possibility), or there is evidence of a problem within the organization (most likely in my experience).

The survey also looked at a company’s process for responding to specific types of online responses by consumers. Unsurprisingly, the number of organizations that have developed specific processes and capabilities to handle online responses like customer complaints on social networks, inappropriate employee comments, comments on official owned-media sites is also very low. Just 14% of companies have defined how to appropriately handle a negative customer comment on their Facebook page(s). Only 12% have done so for Twitter (probably something Kenneth Cole could stand to do given the uproar over their recent tweet).

What does all this mean? Several possibilities:

1. Companies still lack the necessary education and knowledge of how to leverage the wealth of listening solutions to accurately monitor and understand online customer interactions and responses
2. Companies still lack the resources required to properly staff and implement adequate listening capabilities
3. Companies are struggling with “shiny object syndrome”. There is no lack of social listening solutions/providers (full list here at the SMM Wiki). Understanding listening goals/objectives, needs and mapping them to the potential set of listening vendors requires time and effort. It’s much easier to sit through product demonstrations full of social metrics eye candy, and be wowed by their reporting and analytics capabilities rather than do the less glorious but essential planning work.

Fear not though, there is light at the end of the social listening tunnel! Creating a strategic listening plan isn’t impossible, nor difficult if the right steps are taken. Adopt a comprehensive framework to guide your social listening efforts across the company. Several options exist, like the Social Analytics Lifecycle.

The most important point I can emphasize to get social listening to mature within your organization, is to start with specific business processes that listening will support and improve. Almost every organization has sales, marketing, customer support, human resources, etc… Each of these departments can benefit from social listening, if done correctly. Want examples? Check out the 6 Areas of Your Business That Should Be Listening post by Amber Naslund over at the Brass Tack Thinking blog. It will help set you out on the right direction to  get started, but what if you’re already doing “something” and want to optimize or improve it. Then go read Six Steps to Better Social Media Listening by Chuck Hemann at the Analytics is King blog. Finally, THEN go down the tool path if you’re going to take on social listening yourself, or find a full service partner that has the diversity of experience in platforms and top notch analysts that deliver meaningful insights and information (remember data is worthless unless it is transformed into insights through analysis).

What is your organization doing in social listening? What are your most difficult obstacles to overcome?