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Best Facebook Campaigns; Lessons Learned

Not every company can market successfully on Facebook. Some pages are active and populated with conversation, while others sit idle, waiting for some attention. Here are some tips and examples of the best Facebook Pages/Campaigns:

1. Special Offers

Einstein's Bagels (2010): This company was not known for being 'cool' or attracting a large fan base from just being in business. This brand had to take it a step further by offering a coupon for a free bagel to any user who would join their fan page. For all of the poor college students and hungry kids out there, the offer was great enough to generate over 400,000 fans.

Einstein's capitalized on what they did best; bagels. They didn't try and promote a new product. They gave the audience what they wanted, a free bagel. Not only did this populate their Facebook page, but also got fans to visit the store nearest to them. The offer was definitely well worth it.

2. Varied Content/User Discussion

Adidas Football (2010): The sportswear and athletic shoe brand wanted to do something different for the start of the World Cup this year. Although they were familiar with Facebook advertising campaigns, Adidas took it a step further. They produced a short length series made to look like a movie, playing on several popular movie themes from the past.

This, along with engaging users with apps like "What is your player type," and allowing your friends to comment, helped Adidas cross several age groups and country lines. In addition, they fostered growth of the site by encouraging user predictions of what teams would win, and allowed users to air their grievances of losing and talk smack about other teams.

3. Custom Tools/Applications

Red Bull: This company is yet another who capitalized on market research with custom tools and games to enable the user to interact with the site and have fun while doing it. They have put together a collection of Facebook tabs that allow the user to watch TV, monitor a professional athlete news feed, and even listen to random drunk dials to Red Bull.

As the website notes, this is a procrastinators dream. Although targeted primarily towards men, these are tools that the online community wants to share. With 7 million fans, they must be doing their job.

4. Interactive User Experience

Adobe Students (2008): Adobe promoted a student discount for their products by engaging the audience with not only special offers, but by creating a game targeted not only at Adobe users, but potential users. They specifically targeted students by major with a Facebook Ad. Unlike Red Bull and Adidas, Adobe created a fun game that related specifically to their products. "Real or Fake" challenges users to label a set of photographs as real or graphically modified by and Adobe program. At the end of the game, the user was notified for the 80% student discount for the software.

Adobe illustrated an important facet of both social media and traditional advertising; getting the audience so engaged that they are automatically interested in what they can accomplish with the product, whether they immediately buy it or not. The game also is reminiscent of the 'find the missing things in the picture' game that kids used to play in Highlights Magazine. Although the end campaign garnered only 6% that purchased products, the game was played over 14,000 times, with 50,000 page views.

The major lessons learned for any advertiser or company looking to become involved with social media is that the more research you do and the more you know about your target audience, the better your site will fare. Additionally, fun tools and contests and offers that are in line with what users are already participating in the social media sphere will drive traffic to your Facebook page.

Blind Acre provides social media webinars and campaign programs to help businesses take hold of their target market and get people involved

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Best Facebook Campaigns; Lessons Learned

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