Smallbrain Solutions

Target got caught recruiting folks to evangelize it on Facebook, but asked them to not disclose that they were getting prizes, CDs, etc. for their work. Bad call.

“Your Mission: try not to let on in the Facebook group that you are a Rounder,” the newsletter read. “We love your enthusiasm for the Rounders, and I know it can be hard not to want to sing it from the mountaintops (and in the shower, and on the bus …). However, we want to get other members of the Facebook group excited about Target, too! And we don’t want the Rounders program to steal the show from the real star here: Target and Target’s rockin’ Facebook group. So keep it like a secret!”

Naturally, they got caught, which is what will happen most of the time. It is just too easy to track people down online. What’s more, it is actually almost better when you are working with candidates to let people know that you are connected with the campaign - since that helps it seem a little more organized. Oh well. Go read the rest of the article, though… very interesting. [via WOMMA]

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While I am still bullish on the Facebook ads in general, I think the platform needs some work. Fred Wilson points out some weird stats on his post friday and the test ads we put up last week aren’t performing well yet. But I still think they can make sense. Nick at AllFacebook.com isn’t so confident.

Basically, our test ads are targeting some very small groups - and they may be generating branding value without attracting clicks, much like paid search can. However, I think there may be some value shown if you can get it local enough and make the ask tied to a value-add like an action via an application. Heck, I even clicked on and ad for an apartment yesterday. And not even for research purposes… More to come, certainly. We have some requests to do some more testing for clients using bigger test groups - so our outlook will be changing based on those results.

Since I wasn’t blogging much this summer, here are some not-great stats-posts from Valleywag and Reach Students.

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So, I have been testing Facebook Social Ads. I have to say that I LOVE the targeting platform. You can do some really interesting breakdowns of the facebook universe like Patrick Ruffini did here and get your ads really well targeted based on gender, networks, keywords, employer, age, relationship status and what-not.

The one thing that makes me a little worried is there reporting. Currently they are showing 99 impressions on the 14th, which is impossible since I started the ads this morning (November 16) at like 12.38 am. Also, these ads are driving traffic to a Facebook Page and it is saying the traffic stats are going to appear 48 hours late. That is going to be problematic. I assume that is going to get changed soon.

What I do know is that for a couple very specialized niches - one I can’t talk about yet and one that is for a college alumni group I was able to target down to a universe of like 1000 people each - which is amazing. Since I went with Cost-Per-Click, I’ll only pay for actual clicks. It should be exceedingly efficient. More later.

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