Facebook - beyond advertising

After two years, over 100 Social Media campaigns across many industries including Banking, Insurance, FMCG, Motor, Mobile, Airline and more, we would like to share some of our experiences, good and bad, with Social Media and Facebook in particular.

It all started with a BUZZ, yes that's right, BUZZ is what started this business, within 1 week of launching the business we had our first client. A standard banner ad campaign on Facebook it was to be. Our client said “Yes but we had 14 Million impressions and only 4300 clicks” That's 0.05% CTR (Click Through Rate) - “Facebook is not for us”… and so this was the story of most early adopters. Then came along “Social Ads”, “Fan Pages” and with the opening of the Facebook platform a multitude of applications and developers who rushed to find out what was possible.

In the meantime, within 2 months the South African Facebook user base grew from 680,000 to 880,000. We learned that in order to run a successful campaign, a simple banner ad, or social ad was not good enough even though Facebook advertising may be cheap. What is more valuable, is the fact that users share information, pictures, videos and comments - All this information is consumed by a user through their “NewsFeed” - the page that is displayed as a user logs into Facebook.

And so, to access this rich channel of communication and tap into trusted referrals between friends we launched PIActionsTM - . This enabled our campaigns to achieve between 20% and 65% conversion from click to acquisition, and in some cases a ROI (Return on Investment) that achieved multiples above any TV, Radio or billboard spend. We even launched a new car on Facebook - yes that's right no TV. no Radio, no Print, just Facebook with PIActionsTM.

But that's not where the story ends, add to this customized applications; rich media; interactive widgets; mobile; how about your own Social Network around your niche interests? (Just ask Ellen DeGeneres); giving the customer live access to campaign metrics to make real time decisions; the 2 Millionth South African Facebook User; Twitter; the iPhone; Amazon's Kindle and… and… and what you have is a battle for consumer attention in this space. So what becomes valuable in today's fast paced world is“Beyond Advertising” - An ability to navigate through the BUZZ and innovate, move with the times, conceive of creative engaging campaigns across a multitude of platforms.

Popimedia Innovations, South Africa's predominant Social Media specialist, is a full-service online media company that focuses on social media and viral marketing. From creative strategy through to campaign implementation; monitoring and live feedback, we are able to formalise your online marketing requirements and ensure your objectives are met.

Contact us to help formulate a social strategy today - act on it!

www.innovations.popimedia.com or 011-268-2640