I guess, the thing about Facebook marketing is, it is not merely about just posting some Ads on Facebook social ads. Facebook itself is a media categorised under Social Media.

Social Media.... the more important word here is Social, and not Media. Using traditional methods to mass market without establishing any relationship or engaging the prospects in any way will result to futile efforts.

The real thing that really needs to be learned is to be more social, not about technologies. Some of the social stuff include commenting on peoples walls, joining a group and participating in discussions, and generating content which is personal and eventful with life.

Hope this will generate some new discussion from the readers here yeah.

the problem about social is that by using facebook, some quarter argued that it is not really interacting with human being. because we do not see people in real life but however more on facebook or other social networking site. i understand that maintaining relation with customer is important that is why many companies especially the big one started to engaged in CRM.

vckloong, i hope you do understand that the way you address marketing is about discussion and so on. thus it is not facebook that is suitable but however a forum would be better. for your "marketing" discussion

Hi omniknight,

I totally understand your view.

Just to further clarify, there is a new term called Social Media Marketing, and this is a new term on the rise.

As Facebook is a Social Media which gathers many people to one place in Malaysia, it only makes marketing sense to engage them through Facebook, not forums, as forums may not hold a targetted or group of people.

As most people will naturally log in to Facebook, and may not always login to forums, therefore, it is also a perfect sense that Facebook becomes a natural starting touch point for any marketer, before moving on to more niche and targetted forums in your niche of industry.

What do you think?

I agree with what vckloong. Even in facebook, you can target niche market or group as well if u know the way. It is not limited to one usage, we have been given a brain, please make full use of it to come out with ideas for marketing in a huge market place which we can tap into. Even u can sell your idea for money there if u know how.

Thanks

Hi vckloong

i understand that people do log in to facebook, but whether it is a regular basis it is different for different type of people. for some people, facebook log in is not a daily routine at all but for others it is a must. it is very naive to assume everyone log in to facebook.

Even if people log in to facebook, people still might not be able to recalled joining the group due to the fact that people joined group on random basis but that of course is not everyone will randomly join any group as well. another thing is that, even people log in to facebook, it is not a guaranteed that people will go in to the group also. even so, that number is not big enough or so. but of course those reputable brands or product group might have higher volume due to established reputation.

i find your way of looking at this thing is very different and do not seem to be realistic enough, no offence...peace

Bro omniknight,

If u are to create a group and let it get rotten there, then for sure ppl wont recall they did join the group.
If u keep the group active by giving values to all members through messaging all member, then all your members will get excited and keep visiting your group. It is just how u make yourself popular here by typing words. However, giving values does not mean talk rubbish to your group members. If u do so, people will for sure leave the group. U know i manage to get 600 people listen to me in only 4 weeks.

I know people don't sign in facebook everyday. That is not the end. What u need to do is make sure they sign in everyday to visit your group. U know how to do it? The secret is give value to them. Once they sign up and find out that u giving good values, they will sign in everyday to wait for u.

This is exactly like when u are dating. u give your gf values so that she will wait for your call everyday even last time she didn't.

Bro, no offense here. Just to share. This is my way of expressing. Lol... Enjoy yourself in facebook.

Thanks

Hi omniknight,

I dont think making assumption is naive. See around your world, be it marketing, researches, survey etc, when it is at experimental stage (start point), we make assumption. You get what I mean?

As DeLoong said, keeping a group active is the key to hold people in your group. If you create a group and left it to dead, why at the first place you created that group? Just my lil opinion.

Hi guys,

You know every Facebook user is your asset. There are users out there in Facebook who are your targeted customer. There are actually a free seminar regarding Facebook Marketing teaching you how to reach your targeted customer in just 2 weeks. Please check this out! www.sales2marketing2.com/facebookRevolution

Sharing

Hi Omniknight,

I totally respect your opinion.

However, I guess, when the rubber meets the road, it is about implementation.

Your opinion really do reflect that what is happening in the other media. Think about it, assuming that you want to connect with your targetted customers through engagement marketing, you would have to invest time to connect and make them excited about your brand or your offerrings, and in this context of discussion, your group in Facebook.

It would be naive to say it is not practical without first trying it out, and message the members with good tips. Again, an example would be, if you said, you would want to start a group on Gaming in Malaysia, which we have started one at Malaysian Gamers Network at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=77154498779

You would then have to invest time to engage this crowd by organizing events and giving out DOTA tips on weekly consistent basis. Consistency and Engagement is the key to marketing successfully.

From what I see from your opinion, you may be looking for a magic bullet in marketing, whereby, you may not want to invest the time to engage the crowd, but still want to get the returns as soon as possible. This is no diffrent from the thinking of Old School Marketers, whereby, they think about Publishing and asking every body to buy instantly. Correct me if I am wrong.

I would suggest that, instead of questioning the methods laid out here, you might as well try it out, and if it does not work for you, you may want to move on and try another one. So far, it has worked for us, and we are talking to big brands like Dell, PC Gamer, GameAxis, Sony PlayStation, Nintendo and Xbox. Again, you can check the Facebook Malaysian Gamers Network group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=77154498779 to see its growth on a daily basis yeah, and hopefully will pick up some tips on how we run groups and networks to engage relevant markets.

Hope this helps and please continue to share your opinions.

Yeah, I agree. Everyone should give it a try.

Apart from that, Facebook should have Twitter as a combo tool for marketing

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Added on July 18, 2009, 5:36 pmApart from that, Facebook should have Twitter as a combo tool for marketing

This post has been edited by vckloong: Jul 18 2009, 05:36 PM

Thanks for sharing vckloong, but how do we use Twitter in combo with Facebook for marketing? Thanks in advance for sharing yeah.

First thing you need to do is to Add an Application call Twitter within your Facebook dashboard. Once you are done with that, you will be able to update both your Facebook and Twitter status to broadcast your message to all your friends in Facebook and Followers on Twitter.

Hope that answers your question. Please do ask more if you need more information on how to do that.

Very good example of using Facebook Marketing is the recent N97 pre-launch contest. I was never active in Facebook but because of wanting to get good tips, i had to join the group and stay updated.

I believe it all depends on the owner of the facebook how he manages his page & keep it interesting.

Once you have created the group/crowd, you have got to keep lauching new ideas/activities. Or you can even start developing your own facebook application *wink*

Correct Quinn! Spot on!

Many take Facebook as only a social tool, and even if they see it as a marketing tool, they lack the patience or endurance to churn out relevant engagement content, but just fall short by putting adverts that does not appeal to the crowds.

We have to constantly engage the crowd by giving them relevant stuff to read, see or even listen to, through audio, text, articles and videos. That is what we call as social media engagement.

Keep sharing please yeah!

agreed with u

Question to ponder is, if only you can capture 1% of facebook user to follow you / buy / or watever objective you have , how are you going to do it? what are you going to do? and if you do, would you youself be attracted to what you are doing? and if you have an idea, i would suggest you not to delay but kick them into action.

just my thoughts.

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Added on August 1, 2009, 7:49 pmWhy consider Facebook as a serious marketing tool?

When i am online and look at my personal webpage, every second, there is a new post. Even at early morning at 4am, someone's still doing something at facebook; posting pictures, playing games, try some quizes, ...

Question is, how do you turn these facebook fanatics into your advantage? Think about it.

This post has been edited by Quinn: Aug 1 2009, 07:49 PM

Thank you 2 everyone who has contributed to this thread especially the thread creator Vckloong for this detailed & lengthy discussion on the usage of Face book as a marketing tool.

Firstly I’ll like to state that, as what my avatar may suggest I’m actually a marketing personal for a startup company that I co-founded and this reply does not represent the company as a whole but from my own point of view.

To be honest, I spend a big portion of this morning digesting this mega thread and I find it VERY informative and beneficial, and below are my 2 cents.

As a generation Y myself, I see great potential in social marketing.

As what Omniknight has pointed out, the users who are tech savvy enough to be using FB (Facebook) on a semi -frequent basis are just a fraction of the general population; this may be true now, but what about the future?

I personally believe that we may well be at the turning point of a great change in consumer behavior and culture. As the old Chinese saying goes, “the back wave push the front wave, a previous generation is replace with a new generation”. There will come a time (and I believe very soon in Malaysia) where the late gen-X’ers and Y’ers will come into maturity and start to form the core of the society.
And when this happens, as a business man, I’ll follow where the customers go, if they are going to FB, I’ll definitely want to be there and try “to be a part of their life”, as what Coke has become in my life ^^. (Although I realized they probably spend like a gazillion marketing dollars to do this but they have succeeded: P)

In regards to selling consumer goods on Facebook and how it may not be worthwhile or at least ineffective; I would want to say that it is in my opinion, too early to tell at this moment.

What we are given now as a marketer is a platform that consist of 1.9 Million users (Malaysian, and that’s roughly 7% of the total population in Msia) that are actively consuming every bit of information on FB, from pictures, gossips, to games and etc. How we are going to utilize this to best achieve our goal as marketers are bounded by only our creativity.

Creating Facebook groups as what Vckloong has done for certain niches, such as booklovers, I can see why MPH would be interested to capitalize on this 800 members of booklovers. Let us not forget that these 800 members, does not only serve as your loyal customers, but also acts as an agent that helps promote the books that they have found interesting to their friends through their Facebook network. As what has been highlighted, one of the most compelling factor to a purchase is often from word of mouth; if a friend would tell me that this certain book is worth the read I’ll definitely go and check it out myself, and if I like it I’ll spread it further. (Viral marketing = win)

This of course could go both ways, if the book was a waste of my time, I’m likely tell my friends the book wasn’t that great and hence the negative comment would then also pass along the network.

Never forget that we are mere mortals and we have so much to learn yet so little time to do it, we are all students learning our way in life.
I still have much more to say but for now I shall stop wasting my company resources further on a Monday workday. (haha)

Cheers.

JoeKhoo

Thanks Joe!

Well, this thread is for everybody to share their views, and you sure have offered your wisdom and I have learnt from you ask well! Please do share more yeah!

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the good read and now I'ved started a Facebook group. Join and give me some suggestion and your comments to make it better.