Facebook Revamps Brand Pages

Facebook has changed once again, no surprise there! But this time they made huge improvements to the mobile app. Facebook has been changing the design of its mobile brand pages. This new design has been focused around interaction instead of content, which is easily accessible at the top of the page. New changes to the Facebook web page are coming soon!

Facebook took a different approach by changing their site to be more mobile friendly. More than half of Facebook users access their profiles through their mobile devices, so the change has already proven to be more user friendly.

Super Bowl Ads that Confused Us All

BlackBerry and Best Buy are two struggling companies with a whole lot in common when it comes to their failing business models and slump in stock sales. Now they are also two companies who have recently given the world two terrible Super Bowl 2013 ads which don’t seem to have much hold on consumers.

BlackBerry’s recent introduction of its new Z10 smartphone, which was unveiled last week was intended to keep its current customers engaged with the brand while enticing its former customers to return. The product itself could be what BlackBerry desperately needs to get back on track, and with the right ad campaign, they could have done so. But instead of showing consumers what their product does, BlackBerry did a full 180 and gave us this monster of an ad.

Meanwhile, Best Buy featured an ad which portrays Amy Poehler as a shopper, harassing a sales associate with personal questions. The ad has hints of humor but confuses consumers with non-direct messages and endless questions on what seems to be hundreds of products. With the tagline, “Thousands of Experts Ready to Help,” One would think the commercial would showcase the expert actually answering questions, instead our expert stands dumbfounded and speechless in the wake of the inquisitive tornado that is Amy Poehler.

With Super Bowl 2013 ads being said to average $4 million dollars for each 30-second spot, big box stores like Best Buy battling online competition, and BlackBerry fending off the ever growing iPhone following, it is clear that neither company should invest in risky, unclear and confusing ads. Super Bowl ads have always stressed creativity but with BlackBerry’s flat out weird ad and Best Buy’s borderline obnoxious and aimless ad, it seems as if sense and logic are being removed from the process creating new ads.

Silly Social Media Mistakes

Making a mistake on social media can be seen by thousands, if not more, in the matter of seconds. Brands and businesses always need to be careful when monitoring and posting on these sites, such as Twitter. 

This infographic (created by MDG Advertising) shows examples of some social media screw-ups. To avoid these issues, always edit your tweets and make sure you know what's going on in the news and the world around you before you speak on it; or in the case of social media, "tweet on it". These types of mistakes are 100% avoidable when paying attention to social media etiquette. For now, check out these social media blunders for a good laugh, and hopefully to learn from others mistakes!

Facebook Testing Promoted News Feed Posts for Non-Fans

Companies may now be able to advertise in the news feeds of users on Facebook who are not a fan of their pages. Facebook revealed on Tuesday that it will begin testing promoted posts for brands so that they have the ability to reach people who haven’t become a fan of their page.

Facebook spokeswoman Annie Ta announced that Facebook will shortly be starting a very small test which will allow companies to promote posts to users beyond the fans in their news feed. The promoted posts will appear both on desktop and mobile versions of the site.

The promoted posts will look like typical updates in a user’s news feed, but they will be labeled as “sponsored.” As of right now, only fans of a company have the option to view their posts in the fans news feed. 

5 Hot Facebook Marketing Trends

Facebook has drastically changed in the past year, and marketing on it has changed as well. The image-heavy Facebook timeline has made many changes for how businesses market their products and services through the social media site.  There is an impressive amount of pressure on Facebook to be advertising friendly, and a lot of this comes from the fact that with its 133 million users, it can potentially have a bigger audience than the Super Bowl.

The first marketing trend the new Facebook has is the ability to post more and larger photos. Consumers are getting used to a more image filled web, so the new Facebook design features much bigger pictures than before. An analytics firm that measures brand performance, Simply Measured, confirmed a 65% jump for photos and videos combined that companies posted on their Facebook timelines. Sprinkles Cupcakes is a strong believer in the effectiveness of posting photos and videos to their Facebook page, especially with a call to action, seeing the number of likes and comments triple when one exists.

The second trend Facebook timeline has is tapping real-time data. Businesses now have the ability to immediately see the success of their campaign, while typically you have to measure the results at some point in order to see if the ads are working or not. This past April 17^th on Tax Day, TurboTax saw their Facebook post on “Most Common Tax Questions” doing well on Facebook’s “People Talking About This” page, so in turn they advertised on Facebook to increase the reach of the post.

The third trend is to use your Timeline cover photo for marketing. With the cover photo being a giant picture at the top of the company’s Facebook page, brans are realizing this photo can be a banner ad. The huge image provides instant exposure to all of the brands Facebook fans. Other brands are using the cover photo as an interactive photo for their fans. With different call to actions, such as posting a question on the image, fans can now interact with the cover photo.

The fourth trend the Facebook timeline creates for marketing is the gamification of posts. Coca-cola is a very well-known brand on Facebook.  Coca-cola has been posting URL riddles to its millions of fans. Along with them, JetBlue has also been posting more interesting and interactive posts such as “Fill in the Blank” status updates. JetBlue received 182% more comments per most than other typical brands with their post gamification method.

The fifth and final trend on the new Facebook timeline is creatively saying ‘Thank You’. By coming up with creative ways to thank your fans, you can single out and give your fans praise while entertaining the rest of the fans, who normally would have been uninterested in the post. Kraft Mac & Cheese did this by posting a 7-minute video thanking 4,800 fans who had “liked” a post of theirs. The video consisted of a song which included each of their individual names. The 4,800 fans were individually thanked, and the rest of the fans were still entertained in the process.