Hi Vckloong,

Thanks for your elaborate answer. To further probe in detail, are there any functions or features, or even the application of the Fan Page has a difference over starting a group instead?

Hi Joanne,

In terms of application, my humble opinion is that Groups are Benefits Centric, and Fan Pages are Brand Centric. This means that, setting up a Fan Page may not gather a lot of users or members as your company brand, assuming ABC Sdn Bhd, is not well known, and people may not find a reason to join your fan page.

On the other hand, if you set up a Group, let's say Malaysian Gardening Group, rather than ABC Gardening Sdn Bhd group, there is a higher chance that more people will join this group than a Brand centric group or fan page. Remember to think about people's benefits and needs first, before putting forth your brand.

Further to that, Fan Pages has an extra feature, whereby you can Message to a particular country whereby a Group does not have that feature.

My humble suggestion would be to setup a Benefits Centric group, and gather members, and once you hit like 1000 or 5000 members, you Message all of them to join your fan page.

Hope this answers your question and also the questions of the other reading Malaysian members in this forum.

Hi vckloong,

Thanks again for the elaborate answer.

Another question which may not only come from me is, what do you think of Facebook Social Ads?

Hi Joanne,

Thanks for the question again. Here is my humble opinion.

First and foremost, I would like to illustrate the difference between Advertising and Marketing.

Advertising is the process or strategies in getting the word out on your product. Very much like dumping money on radio, TV and Newspaper, or even Pay Per Click and now, Facebook Social Ads. It is just paying money, and getting your creative advertising piece out there. Advertising is actually a subset or a subcategory in Marketing.

Marketing on the other hand, is all the processes you gather to enable modification of prospect's behaviour to purchase from you. It includes follow up phone calls, educating them about the benefits of your products and services before even performing the closing sales pitch.

Many marketers out there thinks that putting an Advertisement out there will be enough, very much like what we see in Facebook Social Ads.

What I am trying to say here is that Facebook Social Ads in itself is not enough to influence conversion rate. An example would be, putting up an Ad and sending them to your website which does not even have an opt in mechanism or registration module, will render the waste of Advertisers money.

Facebook Social Ad is just another channel to gather the crowds, and I think it is good, but it has to be coupled with a website which has a blog, education, and also opt in/registration with strong and prominent Call To Action (buy or purchase or sign up buttons) to make the money's worth. Having the database, the work of a marketer does not stop there, as you can do two things, either send newsletters to educate the prospects who have not bought from you, or send the existing clients promotions of your line of products and services.

Hope this answers your question as well as the readers questions yeah.

Hi vckloong,

Thanks for your elaborate explanation.

One thing which I noticed in Facebook is something called the Marketplace? Can you share some thoughts on this feature in Facebook?

Hi Joanne,

Good observation!

Many Facebook members do not know this function, which is an application powered by Oodle.com.

It is pretty much like Lelong in Malaysia or Ebay engine within Facebook. Only difference is that you get to publish your feeds of your listing of your marketplace (whether renting out, selling or buying) and your circle of friends will be alerted.

It is actually a good marketing tool as it helps you sell to the masses and within the Facebook community, starting with your friends, as when you list, you are given a choice to publish your listing on your news feed, rendering it to be able to be viewed by your First Degree Friends.

I personally use it to sell of my used items or unwanted items in my home store room to fellow Malaysian.

Try it out!

It is not an perception as we had said, when i said Youngster i mean it is ranged from 18 to 30 years old or known as Young Adult. as a marketing person, we need to understand that people from this group are a bit similar one way or another which is one of the basic knowledge in marketing. Yes, i do agree that such group exist and there are some activities being carried out but however do noticed that the group created is more or less an organization or a focus group of people, you cannot compare marketing of a company product with marketing of an non-profit organization, the concept is totally different.

We need to understand that what are the target population that you are targeting, if you are targeting anything beyond the age of 35 it is recommended that you do not use facebook as your marketing communication tool.



highly agree but as i said before using cyberworld ads you need to have strong brand foundation in the real world first, at least in the case of malaysia where e-commerce is still very less being used, i am glad to discuss more about marketing with you here.

Hi Omniknight...

Will you be so kind to show the success stories you have with Facebook to prove your point? Further to that, have you actually researched the numbers before placing forth your opinions?

I hope that you understand this is not about a competition of how much a person knows, but it is about what works and what does not. I would strongly disagree with your facts as you may not have used the Facebook Research Tool in the Social Ads to check your "Youngster" definition.

Again, i would like to remind you, that Malaysia currently has 2 million users on Facbeook. Half is above 30 years old as this is a fact and figure in Facebook Advertising tool. To further assist you in understanding Facebook, you may wanna read up on engagement marketing and also Social Media Interactive Marketing.

Let's not talk about big brands, if you are a new startup business owner, without any brand foundation, how would you do it on Facebook? I am curious to learn, and also find out your background in marketing to support your opinions yeah.

Do understand that, first of all age in Facebook can be fake. we need to understand that certain percentage of data might be fake, in field of market research it is usually 5%, lets assume 5% is a fake data then it discounted a lot. i am not here to show how great i know, i just post my views here. if you can't accept my criticism i shall stop it anyway.

knowledge in marketing does not coincide with number of background you have in marketing. presume you have a new business, still you haven't provide a data such as what kind of business? what nature is it? what product? pricing? where you sell it? and so on, all this have to be a part of consideration before embarking on FB marketing. since you do not provide any, i can't said much. by the way, product is a fundamental and a big part in marketing decision...brands alone can't said much

Hi Omniknight,

I totally agree with your views and would not be disputing any of it and you are entitled to your opinion, and please continue to share your views here to make this thread lively, and I accept all your views and opinions as I think it is valid.

My view is this, if we always think about the negative stuff in life, whether it is 5% fake ages, how about the 95% true age people that you missed out? Let's say, if we go by th 80 / 20 rule, whereby 20% of the age reported is fake, then the question now is, would you not want to take a shot at the 80%?

Even if 100% of them are fake, let's say, by having a group called Malaysian Business Network, it is definitely a self explanatory group, which does not really care about age, but the INTEREST and BENEFIT of the group. By joining this group, it is of natural thinking that you would be joining a Malaysian Centric Business Interest Group right? So age is not really a factor.

Even if age is a factor, then the next question is, are these people business students? or people who wants to start a business? a person who is a manager who is a business development manager in a corporation which you may want to engage and do business with? Even if most of them join for fun, and not into business, don't you think, using the law of Six Degrees of Separation, whereby every person at least will know somebody in business, which they may refer to join this group, and in that, generate some prospects which is relevant to your niche.

Based on my Facebook marketing experience, and not my credibility as a partner with Branding Association of Malaysia, or Institute of Marketing Malaysia, I have found that, through offline events which I have invited this members of Malaysian Business Network, that most of them are really the age and business people which they said they are. Again, if 80% is fake, and the 20% is true, that means, and if 20% of 3000 members of Malaysian Business Network is business owners, then, we will be having 600 business owners to do business with right? And if, out of the 600, only 50 end up giving your business a profit of RM 1000, then you will be looking at potential RM 50,000 revenue, which you would have otherwise missed out, just by brushing Facebook marketing away. As of present, through Facebook itself, I have successfully Joint Ventured with MPH and GSC, Mobile Money, Norton Symanted, Holiday Tours and Travel as well as MamyPoko. This is a testament that no matter how many fake age registration, there is still opportunities.

I would again sincerely want to ask about your background in marketing so that we can discuss further as my suggestion to you is to look on the potential and positive things of life, rather than looking at the things which you think that is cannot be done. By focusing on the potential, you will pursue it, by focusing on the fake IDs, you will just sit there and do nothing about it right? Just my 2 cents, hope you understand and not take it personally, but take it as an advice to begin doing something about it yeah.

Cheers.

Hi Omniknight,

It would be great if you can share your marketing background so we can learn from you yeah!

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Added on June 20, 2009, 10:19 am

Hope you can share some of your Facebook marketing case studies yeah, Omniknight.. hoping to learn more from you!

This post has been edited by joanneqpk: Jun 20 2009, 10:21 AM

Agreed... Omniknight, it would be great if you can share about your case studies so that we can learn from you yeah, and I am sure other readers would like to learn from you too.

Hope you can share some success stories on marketing on Facebook so we can model after and implement it for our business and website marketing strategies yeah.

Great. I should have stumble into this topic earlier. Now i have to read thousands of words to catch up.

Will reach the same page as you guys one day. Keep the thread going.

something to share Twitter Business Model Revealed?

This post has been edited by Nels: Jun 20 2009, 10:54 AM

i agreed that facebook marketing can perhaps be implemented for Young adults, you spoke about the law of six degrees and referral is being taken place but however again the question on whether such impulsive link to the facebook group can happened or not i.e whether people be able to remember your group that is the question. i like to stress that i am not against online marketing but however i strongly believed in used of other marketing tools beside what facebook has. for me facebook marketing can only act as a sub communication tool or supporting tool it cannot be the main communication tool. the reasons being that:

1. in relation to facebook, the number of click to advertisement had fallen. Facebook has continuously produced less than stellar results for advertisers. With historically high CPMs and historically low click-thrus, Facebook is facing a challenge. Their new ad system has significantly reduced the CPM for those that opt for the cost-per-click (CPC) model. The only problem is that there are no clicks. While the targeting is phenomenal, Facebook users are more engaged by the content within the site rather than the advertisements.

2. Malaysian user however are more or less the same in the patterns which i mentioned above. raising brand awareness using facebook is not a easy task and almost impossible to rely on it. as a businessman, what i want is a reliable and effective marketing tool. the chances of engaging people in group might be possible but however for business purpose the response rate is too low for such an effort.

i do not understand why background in marketing become an issue here, for what i said it is true. i do not take things personally.




your answer are mentioned above. i do not know why i have to show my background in marketing? to show how pro is it? a good point is a good point, no matter how inexperience the person is

Hi Omniknight,

I am really really happy that you are responding in positive and lively manner in this forum thread to make it an educational platform on Facebook for other readers as well.



Good observation on the Six Degrees of Separation. I guess at this point, to convince you, or to share with you at a deeper level, it is best to bring up real life case studies that has worked for us in Malaysia right? We have built Malaysian Business Network from ground up, first by creating the group, then to take countless hours to send out Malaysian relevant newsletters to the 3000 strong Malaysian Business Professionals , and have gotten tonnes of customers and Joint Ventures from there yeah. Again, the link to Malaysian Business Network is at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=60937662428 . Some of the more prominent good leads and branding positioning case is that San Francisco Coffee Franchise owner actually approached us for business purposes, University College Sedaya International Blue Ocean Regional Center approached us and sponsored venue for all our events and meetings, Miss Indian Malaysian Global is also our partner, which has a first degree relationship with Astro, and so on an so forth.

Maybe, and I am just guessing, that you may have taken it in another perspective, that Facebook marketing is about putting up and advert and hope that this in itself will be just enough. I would like to dispel that thought if it is true yeah.

Again, marketing on Facebook is not about just putting up a Social Ad, and hope fore the best. It involves an integrated strategy, first with the setting up of a meaningful Group, set up events for the Group members to connect with each other, send out genuine and sincere newsletter centered to the needs and interest of the group and also having conversation like chatting with the members of your group when they are online. Apart from that, you would need to talk to sponsors to get benefits for your group members, Facebook message them to maintain the relationship and keep all communications online. As of now, we are at a stage that we have built Malaysian Business Network Social Network at http://www.malaysianbiznetwork.com so that all Malaysian Business Professionals can connect further and self organize, resulting to the increase of relationship depth and matrix to strengthen the engagement level of the group, not only between the brand and the members, but also between members and members to create a deep branding and engagement experience.

I must agree with you, that Facebook is another tool in the marketing toolbox, therefore, that's why we are discussing it in relevance to the relevance to the thread, which is Facebook Marketing. If you find that Facebook is not a major part now in communication, at least you may have to agree, it is the best tool to engage the crowd as at of this writing, we have 2 million Malaysians, and it is the best and fastest media now for publishing content to garner interest, unlike having to go through traditional media like newspaper, radio and TV, which is slowly losing its foothold.

Again, Facebook marketing involves a lot of work, and it has worked with a live case study right here and Malaysia, and I hope that you begin to see and use it for your business or your services.




Again, the advertisement is actually one part of the integrated strategy in marketing on Facebook. If you are launching an Ad that sends them straight to your Brand Centric Website versus sending them to your Benefit Centric Group to follow up later with them, I agree with you, advertisers has wasted their money with that tactic. Marketers should learn how to invest time in creating an interest centric group, not a brand and/or product centric webpage or Fan Page, to engage the crowds with long term branding and engagement mindset, so that they may reap a higher ROI, not just blasting an AD and hope for the best yeah.



I agree totally with you, but it is not impossible. It is just that you may not have done it properly, or you may have not experienced it yourself or have done it. It needs engagement, you need to send out periodical newsletters centered on the members and communities needs, not think about your own brand or yourself first. As a marketer, we cannot think about our product first, as the web is now a 2 way communication channel. We need to think about the consumers needs first. Again, I would disagree with your unsupported views, Omniknight, unless you are able to reveal your campaigns, then I am more than willing to assist through this forum.



Having points without substance and justification is the challenge here. If I may answer you, having a background in Marketing is the most important point here, as at this moment, all of the opinions you have presented is solely based on theory without implementation. Don't get me wrong, by knowing your background, we will also be able to help your campaigns.

YOu see, like you said in your previous post, having a brand foundation is important right? And branding is divided into 3 areas:
1. Branding Identifiers - the logo and color scheme that identifies your brand
2. Branding Attributes - the features and products and services of your brand
3. Branding Association - the feeling and the vibe people are having towards your brand.

First thing, the avatar which you are currently using may not be a good identifier to establish branding in this forum. Apologies, don't get me wrong yeah, I am just taking you as an example to make all of us understand a little bit more about branding. On my end, I am putting my picture as the avatar so that instantly it identifies me as a person. Of course, you have every right and reason to maintain your avatar.

Second, the Branding Attributes. I have actually did a background research on your blog and found out that you may be a student in INTI. On the other hand, I come from a background of marketing, with experiences and hard knocks to prove my points versus your "perceived" good points which is not supplemented with any case studies. Again, don't get me wrong, I am not here to attack you, but to actually let all of us understand branding a little bit more in online communications. Would somebody believe an unsupported personal opinion versus a proven experienced case study? What I am saying here is, this is the real world.. therefore cold hard facts is still needed whether in everyday life, or even in a legal court right? Please do not take offence.

Third, the Branding Association. When people are having a gut feel that you may be a student with your own unsupported opinions, and you are not there to support it with facts, don't you think that the feeling or vibe that people have for you begin to slide and bias to the negative? Negative, in this case, is not personal attacks, but in this context means, the confidence level drops, and people may just think that you are rambling it off your own self perceived opinions, without even trying the strategies and tactics shared. How would you expect people to believe in such an effortless opinion and your good self.

After careful research of you, I have found out that you may be a 23 year old Law student or a Lawyer by profession, and may be active in Student Councils (correct me if I am wrong yeah). Or you may be a Press and Journalism student or professional. A branding of a lawyer or press is that they like to vent out their views, and the primary difference is that lawyers need to supplement their points with facts in court, and press need to supplement their facts on their publications right? Maybe, because you may not be from the field of marketing (correct me if I am wrong), you may not have the case study which you have performed yourself to supplement your views.

The very justification that when you say your views are good is solely based on your own judgment on your own views. In Facebook marketing or any marketing at all, this may not bode well, because, as marketers, we are supposed to look out for the interest of the audience first, not on our views.

Having said all the above, I would humbly say, that I could be wrong in all instances, and please do not take offense and that I am just trying to share further so that the readers of this thread will still be inspired to perform Facebook marketing for their products and business, so that all of us can generate some leads and profits in this time of crisis. Remember, looking at the negative will never get us anywhere, but keep trying and you will see results, as of Facebook marketing yeah.

Again, apologies if I have said something wrong or offended anyone.

This post has been edited by vckloong: Jun 21 2009, 09:24 AM

you do not understand the real meaning in marketing, based on what you had said above. your "marketing" is about promoting a group only, just like in the real world where people send letter to our house to some focus group on activities or news that interest them. the only difference is that you are doing it online, which save money. why i disagree is that you keep on using the wrong phrase, where you mentioned marketing..marketing and marketing but you do not market anything but you are promoting a group...that is the main difference. in theory i called that" marketing of non-profit organization" which i had mentioned before it is just that you had ignored my statement.



you applied many theory here as well, i do not have an campaigns. just like before, like what you and i said if it is interest group then it can be done successfully but if marketing of consumer goods i do not agree reasons is because i had said many times i do not want to said it anymore, please refer to my previous post



first of all i would like to thank you for your interest in me what you had said regarding the three things in branding is correct. but however what you said is contradictory to your point, you said create a group of interest group which send out newsletter. so i assume the groups are those group where businessman gather and so. this is where they share their business though and perhaps in one day give business to members. although that involved marketing, but however a small scope of it only.

what you said regarding me is correct but i am also a marketer, i do not look at thing negatively from the starting until now i do not reject your idea but i am debating it. i agree that interest of the viewer is important but however you failed to understand one thing, it is very different at marketing of a FOCUS GROUP than marketing of a CONSUMER PRODUCT. if you failed to understand this, i think our conversation here is no longer valid because you do not understand the fundamental of marketing. from start until now, you still mixed MARKETING OF FOCUS GROUP WITH MARKETING OF CONSUMER GOOD.

i am not flaming anything, i hope we can have a healthy discussion

This post has been edited by omniknight86: Jun 21 2009, 01:54 PM

Hi Omniknight,

I apologise if I sounded that I do not understand your views.

Can you please enlighten us with your views of Marketing of a Focus Group and Marketing to Consumer Goods? I am all ready to listen.

Another thing is, since you may sound like you have done something on this topic of Marketing to Consumer Goods, can you share out your Facebook case studies so we can explore together?

Again, I thank you for sharing and am all ears in listening your point of view yeah.

By the way, are you a student or a marketer?

Hi vckloong,

Can you elaborate more on Benefits Centric Group vs Brand Centric Groups or Fan Pages?

Hi joanneqpk,

Brand Centric group are FB groups setup by companies to sell and position their brand. It may not work well for Small businesses who just started their business, just like if your company is ABC Sdn Bhd, it is no point to start a Group call ABC Sdn Bhd Group, cause no one is going to join, unless they are your friends and employees.

To target the masses, you need to set up a Benefit Centric group. Assuming ABC Sdn Bhd does gardening as their business, it is better to set up, Gardening Lovers Community versus ABC Group. As the name Gardening Lovers Community is self explanatory, and highlights the main activity and interest of the group, it will definitely gather more like minded gardening fans, and thus increase the exposure your group. And from there, as an Administrator, you can begin to position your ABC gardening company for selling your products and services yeah.

Hope that this simple explanation is enough to give an understanding to you and the readers.

that would take a long long time to explained that to you but however i will do it in a simple way. Marketing of a focus group are more simple than market to consumer goods because in terms of focus group it is a bit of "Non-profit" but however in an indirect way it is "Profit" group actually. Focus group can be marketed by occasionally post useful links or useful information to the members, the group may however organize some sort of event and so to attract more interest and engagement from the members making it an interactive group (two way communication)

on the other hand, Marketing to consumer goods are more complicated because first of all profit and brand awareness is the ultimate goal of the marketing, we need to study who is our target market, how many segment are there and so on then we do marketing accordingly. it is complicated because in terms of consumer goods the market are make up of different people and thus harder to be studied whereas for focus group, members somewhere or another share common interest thus making the job of marketer more easier.

As i had said, discussing the two can take pages and pages of typing. i make it simplified here first.

I am a student for now A future Marketer