I run a consulting business. For me, FB is a blackhole of advertising dollars.
I have an artist friend who draws robots. His advertising dollars on FB have resulted in 10’s of thousands of page fans, customers from Europe and Asia and a very significant bump in revenue.
FB ads are great for that type of niche player. The deep personal dataset that FB has about it’s users can identify jackasses who would buy robot paintings from across the globe, greatly benefiting my robot drawing friend. GM is getting shit canned for backing off on FB ads, but it’s just a result of the fact that GM knows FB ads don’t work for selling cars.
But, if you sell robot paintings FB is awesome.
Does that make a company worth $100 Billion?
On a related note, I caught up with a colleague I hadn’t seen in a long time. I asked how business was going and he told me he has switched jobs. He now does “Facebook consulting”. Intrigued, I sat with him for an hour and asked questions. He told me that being “liked” on Facebook is the best customer marketing drip campaign tool available. He estimates a “like” on FB is worth 10x the value of someone’s email address.
Here’s how Likes works as a basic formula. You are friends with “thefly” on Facebook. Fly likes the page of my friend who draws robots so now he receives robot updates in his stream. Fly then likes a robot drawing. You see that in your stream and since you know and like the Fly and have a passing interest in robots (I mean, who doesn’t) you are more likely to look at the pic, reshare, follow the link etc. It’s a 1+1=3 type scenario. Your friendship with Fly plus everyone’s passing interest in robots = 3x more likely to gain your attention. Add a request for action and that doubles. It all starts out with Fly “liking” the robots page. This is why you see LIKE buttons on every web page and at many local businesses. Look around, you’ll see LIKE logos/buttons are everywhere.
Additional FB marketing tips from our conversation. Using pictures in posts are far more valuable than a plain text update. If you can use a LOLCAT in your marketing or with your product, you’re golden. GM’s best FB tactic would be to poster their new cars in LOLCATs and put them on FB. They would get instant 500 Million “likes”. People fucking love cats.
Other stupid basic psychology, posting a pic with some text resulted in X number of “likes” and shares. A month later posting the EXACT same pic and text along with “Please share if you like this post” resulted in 10x the number of shares. People are really that checked out when using FB. A simple request results in high compliance. The Psychology of Facebook would be an interesting read.
I have bashed FB in several posts. I felt it was time to give them credit where it’s due. FB ads are very effective for the right niche. The problem with the IPO is that few people understand that niche and how to put a valuation on it.
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