I squelched my way through the rain yesterday morning to the June DMI breakfast briefing to break croissants with Facebook. But it was worth it.

Andrew Weld-Moore and Neasa Costin were the presenters and the capable pair took us through the new timeline features for pages and went on to discuss advertising options. All along the way they threw out some impressive statistics – though once you get into millions and gazillions it’s all a bit like bank borrowings isn’t it?

But to give credit where it’s due, there are 901m people on Facebook and 526m users log in every day.

Facebook didn’t mention whether they were taking over the former Bank of Ireland head offices on Baggot Street, but with over 2m active users in Ireland the immensely bankable bunch certainly dominate the social landscape. And apparently us Irish are more sociable than other nations – the average number of friends per user generally is 130, but here we have more like 240. Angela Merkel thinks we’re at work once again. Interestingly, half of these users are logging in on mobile devices. But that’s no surprise to anyone who’s been on the DART.

Some of the newer features they discussed included:

• Timeline – a whole new look which does offer a better interface and presents posts chronologically.
• Messages – this one is particularly useful when you want to take an issue offline with a fan. It’s not always useful or appropriate to reply on the wall to certain issues that are raised.
• Pinned post – I like this one. It means you can raise the profile of a really good post to the top of the timeline. It lasts for 7 days.
• Milestones – these are key events that you can mark on the timeline. This can give a bit of structure to the content on the timeline and be more informative to new fans.
• Offers – these are vouchers that will be emailed to recipients and they can print off or show on their mobile at a store to get a reduction. They cited the example of Lifestyle Sports who used this quite effectively when they reached 100k fans. I went in to have a look at the page and couldn’t find it – I do wish Facebook would improve their search. I went to Google to find the page.

The presentation focused on how businesses could measure the effectiveness of budget spent on social. This has been a bit difficult for marketers, though in terms of Google Analytics the attribution of conversion visits is now more comprehensive with the recently launched social analytics report. (They didn’t mention Google however – perhaps they’re not friends..) Using the DMI page as an example, they analysed data using an internal tool and showed that 1 share on Facebook resulted in 13 clicks to the website.

General Tips for using Pages to create engagement

Both Andrew and Neasa emphasised keeping the business objectives in mind when deciding on marketing activities on pages:

• Focus on target market and who you want to engage with instead of numbers of likes.
• Photos and videos are the best for sharing.
• Post once a day as a guide and only when you have relevant content or conversation.
• Create a posting schedule to align with other marketing activities.

Advertising Options

For businesses the question is not whether your target market is on Facebook, because in most cases they are, but the challenge is in reaching them. And for most businesses right now it’s about reaching them on a limited budget.

In a nutshell, the Facebook team recommend using Ads to target new fans and the targeting options work really well for many businesses.  Then use sponsored Stories to reach fans and friends of fans.

This new sponsored stories feature allows businesses pay to push posts out to the newsfeeds of friends of fans. For example, if someone likes a Page, their friends may see it in their news feed. This is the way to get over edgerank and make sure your posts are getting into the newsfeeds of fans. When a business pays to promote this action as a sponsored story, the person’s friends are more likely to see it and engage. You need to have 200+ fans to run with this.

Personally, I’m not sure how well this will be received as placed in the newsfeed it feels like interruptive advertising.

But I suppose for Facebook it’s a case of test, gauge reaction and iterate. It should be noted that Facebook will be paying $10m in a settlement over privacy issues with sponsored stories.

Products coming down the line

They closed the presentation with a look at the new logout experience, LOX. This soon to be launched feature is advertising shown on the screen when a user logs out, as many users on shared devices do regularly. It is untargeted advertising and they compared it to a billboard campaign. It’s more relevant for bigger brands, but for Facebook it represents a way to monetise millions of monthly pageviews.

And one month after a troublesome IPO, I guess revenue generating features are what shareholders want to experience.

If you listen to the press at the press at the moment you’d be forgiven for thinking that Facebook were about to shut their doors and close up shop after the disaster that was their IPO. The thing that people are ignoring is that Facebook are fast approaching a billion users with their users more engaged than ever. The one area that is a worry/opportunity for Facebook at the moment is mobile. There has been all sorts of talk of a Facebook phone but today came a small hint about possibly the most exciting and logical move for Facebook…a deep integration with Apple’s iOS. Apple CEO Tim Cook was giving a major interview when he said about their relationship with Facebook that people should “stay tuned”. It is a small turn of phrase but given the hostility between the 2 companies in the past phrases like this make exciting times for observers like us. He continued with the following…

For us, we want to provide customers simple and elegant ways to do the things they want to do. And, Facebook has millions, hundreds of millions of customers, and so, anybody that has an iPhone or an iPad, we want them to have the best experience with Facebook on those platforms.

Like most people I love my iPhone and iPad but I always get the feeling it could be better. More social. I don’t want to have to fire up apps to feel like I am using Facebook on my mobile. Because the two companies have been at loggerheads up until now we have as end users had a sub standard experience on iOS. Facebook taking over 18 months to even get an iPad app out the door was a prime example of the poor relationship.

So why would the 2 companies suddenly be about to team up? Because it’s a case of the better the devil you know. Apple make the best hardware in the world. Facebook are by far the best social network. on their own they will have huge success. Together they could dominate the online communication world for decades to come. This relationship could crush Android. Apple wants to make their phones better and this could be a huge step in that direction. For all their success the competition like Samsung are catching up fast. Given their reliance on Android though an iPhone with a deep Facebook integration is something they could never copy. On Facebook’s side they need to move beyond just having apps. They need users to use Facebook as much as they do on the desktop. Knowing both companies they’ll do this very very well. The Twitter integration with iOS was poor at best but Apple won’t make that mistake again.

I’ve always thought this sort of link up was only a matter of time and now it looks like it could be about to happen. With apple’s WWDC coming up in a couple of weeks it could be upon us sooner than we all think. If I was Google I would be very very worried about this and that is probably why Apple and Facebook are about to make this defining move.

For the last couple of weeks, we have been constantly hearing about the Facebook IPO, but we wanted to shift the focus away from the business of the social network to sharing some useful video case studies from brands and businesses who have leveraged Facebook to their advantage.

There is a mixture of large campaigns from big brands using complicated apps down to simple campaigns that get the users involved and there should be something for everybody on the list to help you get inspired. We cover all the sectors including consumer goods, alcohol brands, food companies and retailers and if you can’t find a little something on this list to create your own unique Facebook campaign then there is something very wrong. Enjoy the list.

Heineken Beer Tender

A simple little app that lets you share a keg of beer with a friend anywhere in the world as a gift with you getting one in return.

iLike Diesel

This was one of the first campaigns that used Facebook in the real world bringing interaction and fun to Diesel stores.

KLM Meet and Seat

A fun little campaign from the Dutch airline KLM who wanted to start making flying more fun by having people network with each other.

Kraft Likeapella

Lots of brands have thanked their followers, but none have done so in a more personal way than this video from Kraft who thanked each of them personally with a song.

Citroen Car Crowds

Rather than rely on their own designers to build the next great car, Citroen are going to work with their Facebook fans to deliver a brand new motor.

Volkswagen Fan Wagen

One of the biggest car brands in the world kitted out a couple of their best known models to be themed in the same way as Facebook.

Heineken’s One Like, One Balloon

Heineken came up with a really cool way of engaging with their fans and getting more likes than ever by promising to blow up a balloon for every like.

Corona Light

Corona wanted to create buzz without a huge budget and they did it by giving their fans the chance to appear on a New York billboard.

What Zurich Needs

You don’t often see great political campaigns on Facebook, but this one changed the way people thought about voting and about their city.

Smiles Orange Juice

This brilliant campaign did a great job for an orange juice brand in Isreal by getting people to smile to juice their own orange.

Schweppes App

The drinks company provided a useful app that allowed people to change their photos on their profiles into a beautiful design.

Facebook Physical Book

A phone company wanted to create something special using Facebook and they did so by allowing people to download a physical copy of their profile in book format.

Playboy Video

The adult magazine created a smart campaign that used Facebook connect to personalize videos for users and create a special piece of content.

Take My Lollipop

This was probably the scariest Facebook campaign ever as it used Facebook connect to use your own photos and data to scare the life out of you.

Whopper Sacrifice

This is an old campaign, but it got huge attention at the time. Instead of adding friends, this smart app asked you to remove 10 friends to get a free whopper.

Balteco

This is probably one of the most ambitious Facebook campaigns ever created with a huge production budget and an engrossing story.

Flair fashion Tagging

This campaign used the tagging feature on Facebook and replaced photos with outfits to give their women readers a great fashion resource.

Trident Gum

This campaign from Trident was all about getting people on board, despite the fact that they were doing their taxes. It promised a fun audit of your Facebook profile.

Heineken Personalized Bottles

Yet another one on the list from beer brand Heineken who gave designers all over the world a great chance to personalize bottles.

Cadburys

The chocolate brand wanted to cash in on the Olympics so they allowed you to connect your Facebook profile and support the UK team in a virtual parade.

My Saddest Friends

People love to cheer their friends up and this simple app aimed to find your saddest friends and cheer them up via Facebook. Launching in Israel, it was a great way to make people happy and give the brand extra exposure.

The Museum Of Me

One of the best known campaigns of the last couple of years that turned your Facebook profile into a private gallery featuring all your content.

Subway Youth Campaign

When Subway wanted to tap into a youth audience, it turned to Facebook and a voting campaign that inspired the entire community.

Real World Renault

A motor show is not somewhere that you would expect to see Facebook, but Renault were able to use it to their advantage at their own stand.

Budweiser Canada

When one of the biggest beer brands in the world wanted to crack the Canadian market, it turned to this agency who created a first person hockey game.

If you’re promoting a product that prides itself on durability and protection, then challenging people to break your product is a sure-fire way to get the point across. After campaigns featuring bulletproof glass and dropping an iPad from 100,000 feet, this campaign is to show off the toughness of sports brand EVOC latest backpack.

Placing one on a billboard in Berlin and at street level, passersby were invited to kick, punch, smash, and headbutt the backpack and try to break it. Of course, nobody was succeeded, but the genius part was that with every punch and attempt, the impact would end up taking a photo of the person hitting the billboard and posting it up on the main site.

The result was that there were 97 hits recorded per hour, lots of coverage on both online and offline media and fan activity on its Facebook page increased by 220 per cent. The campaign works so well as it’s instantly accessible to everyone, it’s immediately sharable, there’s a gamification element as it records how hard you hit it and most importantly, it lets you hit stuff, which is the sign of a good campaign in our book.

The campaign was created by Publicis, an ad agency based in Munich, Germany.

The last few weeks have been dominated by coverage of Facebook‘s IPO in both the tech world and traditional media, but things have been taken a step further with the release of something called Facebook – The musical. It is a 12 act musical that is performed by a group of female signers and a pianist who are clearly trying to raise their own profiles off the back of the IPO press coverage.

There seems to be a lot of this going around, even the celebrity Katy Perry launched a Facebook timeline themed video yesterday. The story of the musical dates back to the early days of Facebook in 2004 and covers everything up to the IPO although they clearly performed it before Mark Zuckerberg got married on the weekend as that would have been the logical final act for a musical.

The video has close to 100,000 views and is starting to be picked up by blogs all over the world so I guess you have to say that this was a great way for the singers to raise their profile online and attract a whole new audience. We are not sure you will get through the whole video as you all know the story at this stage after a movie and constant coverage, but the singing isn’t half bad.