Facebook has recently announced new analytic measurement platforms that will make it easier to justify the marketing power of social media.
Facebook Insights:
The new and improved insights platform for measuring the activity on your Facebook pages has added a few interesting points:
1) How many people have hidden your updates from their Live Feed?
2) Which websites refer people to your Facebook page?
3) How do people find out about your Facebook page?
In additional to these new statistics and the information already available it is now becoming easier to make calculated strategic decisions about how to market your brand inside Facebook
I am not sure Facebook is anywhere close to being a preferred online marketing player in the big leagues, meaning real exposure and not just eyeballs. The major difference between placing an ad on Facebook and placing one on Google is that nobody goes to Facebook to search like they would do on Google.
And amid the sea of demographics, psychographics, ethnographics, econonomigraphics and levels of technical competency I believe it is the hardest thing to try and position a brand using Facebook.
It is a lotta fun watching flat belly and LED TV ads thrown at me on Facebook though..
Hi Arthur
I decided to respond to your comment with another post. Your point is very valuable and I wanted to make the divide clear between social media marketing and Google advertising.
You can find the article here: http://www.mikesaunders.co.za/2010/05/social-networks-and-brand-value/