In one day, a Facebook page of ours went from 11 fans to 3,440. How did we do it? Well it's another benefit you have access to if you're willing to spend some money that earns you a relationship with the Facebook team. From there, all you need is an existing fan created page. Unless it's already being well managed (see how Soap approached the Bubble O'Bill page) a dead community on an inactive page is a waste. As it stands, these fan create pages are technically not allowed and are a breach of copyright/trademark/legal stuff. Facebook will delete the page and migrate the fans across to yours. You can expect a small drop off from fans who haven't heard from the page in potentially years, but also a fantastic response from a now ignited community who have been otherwise dead. And that's the quickest way to grow your fan page....

As a blogger, I don't think about keywords enough. Yet somehow I still sleep at night. But as Josh explains, maximising their use is important for business. However something I wouldn't recommend is a concept called black hatting; unethical search engine optimisation techniques. This includes the use of hidden keywords or links in order to improve your search engine rank. Particularly not good if you're a reputable businesses like Endota. Check out this page on their official website and view the source code. Below is a screenshot because I imagine they'll remove the code in the next few days...

As I've said before, Facebook can continue to push users around with design changes and even privacy and get away with it. My opinion is that if you don't like it, don't use it. However they're in one of those unique situations where they have such a critical mass and consumer investment that no one is going anywhere fast. This is why they'll last far longer than MySpace. However, the people you can't push around are the advertisers, those that fund the social network. Facebook recently decided to make some significant changes to official page structures, and were fortunately forced to revoke them immediately due to backlash. And at some point in the indeterminable future, they're going to adjust the width of tabs. Nearly every brand will be caught out, and the agencies will be forced to fix them on their on dollar. While Facebook is happy to deal with those willing to spend some solid dosh, everyone caught in between aren't getting the love. And they may just think about asking their clients to invest elsewhere....

Regrettably, once again this blog turns into some kind of sharing of advice or knowledge that I've acquired recently from my life in the adland.Chokito is a chocolate bar. Naturally I despise it because Cadbury Boost is a client of mine.But if you were to jump into the DeLorean, travel back in time a week and look at their Facebook page, you would notice the name of the page was Chokito says No No No. However if you take a look now, it is simply Chokito.This is interesting because changing the name of a page is not something Facebook do.Unless of course, which is what I'm slowing learning, you're spending money. By investing in a shit load of media on Facebook, you can get away with much more.So use it to your advantage....

Here's a slide from a marketing unit I took this semester. You'll have to ignore the death by PowerPoint. I'm sure you've seen similar statistics before. Generally taken from the Fortune 500 or similar, a survey that demonstrates how poorly senior management consider marketing. At least that's how it's explained in lectures. But that's not right. If these managers are running the most successful businesses in the world, why is there an assumption they're wrong? One would think they're doing a pretty damn good job as it is. Maybe that's exactly where marketing should be. ...

In my last post I blamed universities for creating bad clients. But maybe I could blame the industry.When I started my undergraduate degree at the tender age of seventeen, I had no idea what marketing was. Neither did any of my mates. We were all under the impression that marketing was advertising, and I'm sure many would argue this perception often doesn't change, even after you graduate.Our dream of working on ads was soon crushed by crippling numbers and boring accounting lectures. But maybe the reason we have bad clients is not because of the way marketing is taught. Instead perhaps all marketers inherently want to be advertisers, a misconceived possibility pushed upon them before OWeek due to ignorance.Is the marketing industry not marketing itself appropriately to high school students?...

In at least two of my units throughout my marketing degree I've been asked to develop a marketing plan as a piece of major assessment. This degree, for the most part, and particularly these units, is designed to teach people how to be marketers. Or as I prefer to call them; clients.But in both cases, the assessment involved putting together a campaign. Any assignment that said, "We'll get our advertising agency to develop and build a creative strategy" would have failed, Instead, students were required to develop creative (as the client), and in most cases without any kind of strategy.Coming from the arrogant advertising side, is this not giving students the wrong idea of how things work?Do these students go on to become that client who gets way too involved with the creative? Or comes up with an idea early on and pushes it from the start? Or perhaps they'll simply be unwilling to pay for strategy because they've never heard of it before?Anyway, I think the way marketing is taught is the reason to blame for poor client behavior. Ironically, the poor campaign that results is usually blamed on the agency.And on a side note, I wonder if media peeps have similar feelings....

Brands are quickly jumping on Facebook in massed. And most of them are putting a some money behind media and these pages to build strategy, content and a well managed community.Sooner or later though, there'll be too many brands on Facebook. There's only so much room in one's consideration set for brands they'll follow on Facebook, before they say no more. The quality of content, freebies that are given away and innovation will make a difference. So will the degree of how rad your brand is (banks and life insurance companies might struggle). Above all, I imagine given how lazy consumers tend to be, it will be survival of fastest. Those brands that get in early will probably succeed simply because people can't be bothered deleting them....

Okay, the last of my #firstworldrants. For a while.If someone writes a post about you or flames you in a comment, don't reply. Don't add fuel to the fire in an attempt to explain yourself or start an argument.It's like playing in a game of women's hockey. You might win, but at the end of the day you're not really a winner, are you?It doesn't look good.If you can't post your response in a witty comment that is no more than two sentences, don't do it. Write a response on your own blog sure, but don't be a woman who plays hockey for anything more than fun....