White Paper Wednesdays: Facebook Marketing 101

Vidar Brekke, formerly of Linkstorm and now CEO of Social Intent, put together a short 'n sweet preso on Facebook Marketing 101 that is definitely worth a read.

Facebook Pages 101

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: socialnetwork viralmarketing)

Their company is interesting in that it is focused on integrating brands into the social media environment organically.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

LinkStorm and Coke Make a Marketing PowerHouse With CokeTag(tm)

It's that time again. My every three monthly post about the wonder that is Linkstorm. You may remember my dulcet toned post in April, and then in June. But if ya don't Linkstorm makes these very cool Flash/DHTML marketing things -- ads, widgets, etc. that allow users to offer indexed content within a very small space. They can drive great increases in banner click rates AS WELL AS conversion rates because they get consuemrs to exactly the content they want. Here's a picture. You'll get it instantly:



You should get your tush over to their site and check it out.

But this post is about a very different offering -- a content widget that they developed for the fine people at Coke called CokeTag(tm).



Basically, this is a deep experience unit that allows you to select and promote content online to friends and connections in social media. Add your blog links, your favorite charities, the home page of your favorite Presidential candidate ;-). Whatever floats your boat. Then invite other FaceBook users to check out your stuff.

Here's how Coke describes it on the CokeTag minisite:

A CokeTag is a fun, personal widget for packaging and sharing links to content across the Web. Use CokeTags to promote yourself — your blog, work, interests, team, band or whatever you like or care about — and then track how influential you are!

The CokeTag editor lets you package your links into a personal widget that you can immediately send to friends. Then sit back and use the CokeTag click counter to track who's looking at your CokeTag, see where they click and find out how popular your links are!

The Coke branding is prominent but not obnoxiously so. And I think this is EXACTLY the sort of thing that a lifestyle brand should be doing. Coke makes social expression possible, yet the responsibility for the content of the links, which might weird out weaker marketing concerns, is clearly on the user. So all good warm fuzzies, no backlash.

I'm telling you, this is a marketing Tsunami -- something that is flowing across FB and leaving its delightful wave ribbon on the pages of delighted users.



One more reason to seriously consider Linkstorm in your next effort.

And NO, they are not a client. I actually DO like them this much.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Linkstorm Redux

Those who are regular readers of this blog know I am a big fan of Linkstorm, and the recent interview of David Sidman, their CEO, had an interesting new take on the company -- at least it was new to me. In the interview, conducted by Phil Leggiere and still available on MediaPost, Sidman posits that their product is a different take on BT. Their DHTML banner product lets consumers find what they want rather than us trying to surmise their wants via past/predictive behavior. (The interview is from April, but in case you didn't see it, give that link a click.)

Wait, that is in incorrect simplification of their view. Not only does he communicate that their menu banners are a form of BT, but also he explains that they can be a complement to BT. Rather than me paraphrasng the content, here's an interview excerpt:

So, to use a football analogy, behavioral targeting will get you into the red zone — but no farther. We don't do our own ad placement. However, if a customer already using BT has the data to know you are a certain profile, we can take that data and further customize the way menus are structured. If you know from their browsing that a customer, let's say, is a bargain hunter, then you can organize your different offers by price range.

Nice POV.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

AD TECH DETOUR

So, I am interrupting the gaming week festivities on OLDMTA to report on the coolest thing I had never heard of before that I saw at AdTech.

It's Linkstorm, a DHTML banner platform that delivers menus that give users a way to drill down to get exactly what they want from an advertiser. Imagine a PC banner. Roll over and DHTML offers a menu of choice like choose by price, choose by speed, etc. Roll over price and you see 6 PCs at various pricepoints. This is all on the content page you were visiting. When you finally click, you are redirected to a page specifically about the PC you were most interested in. It gets the consumer what they want without making them find their way via site nav. And more importantly for DR purposes, gets you several clicks closer to the buy button.

It's simple. It's not some 4 billion data point data base that tracks my blood corpuscle count and the way it reflects my desire to buy Roma versus beefsteak tomatoes.

But I really liked it. I like simple best. http://www.linkstorms.com/ NOTE THE S AT THE END.