Many brands have spent the past several years getting consumers to ‘like’ them on the world’s most popular social network, Facebook. And for a seemingly good reason: when it comes to location, location, location in social, you can’t beat Facebook, which may surpass the 1bn registered user mark this year.

But after a recent lavish event Facebook held for brands in New York, brands may be asking whether Facebook is working for them, or they’re working for Facebook.

As AdAge details, Facebook used the event to remind brands that only 16% of their Facebook fans actually see the content they post organically on the social network. That’s because, in an effort to protect the user experience, Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm filters out content that may not be relevant.

But in the run up to the social network’s IPO, Facebook is willing to give brands a greater ability to ensure that their marketing messages reach a much larger audience. For a price of course.

AdAge explains:

Facebook unveiled a tool, Reach Generator, that will let marketers buy all the reach they want. Priced according to the size of a brand’s fan base, the tool is designed to take a piece of content and amplify its reach by resurfacing it as an ad.

The pitch is that just 16% of fans currently see organic content posted by brands: Most of it is weeded out by Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm, designed to enhance users’ experience by putting only the most relevant content in their news feeds. Using the paid ad tool could increase a brand’s exposure percentage to as high as 75%.

As PHD USA’s chief digital officer, Craig Atkinson, told AdAge, “Many [clients] have spent significant sums to generate these fan bases, and many of them thought of those people as though they’re an owned asset, almost like an email list … but now it looks like rented media.” Rented media indeed.

Brands really shouldn’t be surprised. After all, this has been Facebook’s modus operandi for some time. From the numerous privacy changes it has foisted upon its users to the promises it has made to developers and then broken,

Facebook rarely does favors for others. Now that it’s going public and needs to put the pedal to the metal in the drive for revenue, brands are being taken on a ride many of them didn’t see coming, or didn’t want to see coming.

More at: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/9211-with-ipo-looming-facebook-reminds-brands-all-your-fans-belong-to-us?

So Target started sending coupons for baby items to customers according to their pregnancy scores. Duhigg shares an anecdote — so good that it sounds made up — that conveys how eerily accurate the targeting is. An angry man went into a Target outside of Minneapolis, demanding to talk to a manager:

Target knows before it shows.

“My daughter got this in the mail!” he said. “She’s still in high school, and you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?”

The manager didn’t have any idea what the man was talking about. He looked at the mailer. Sure enough, it was addressed to the man’s daughter and contained advertisements for maternity clothing, nursery furniture and pictures of smiling infants. The manager apologized and then called a few days later to apologize again.

(Nice customer service, Target.)

On the phone, though, the father was somewhat abashed. “I had a talk with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of. She’s due in August. I owe you an apology.”

Target’s Andrew Pole (from LinkedIn)

What Target discovered fairly quickly is that it creeped people out that the company knew about their pregnancies in advance.

“If we send someone a catalog and say, ‘Congratulations on your first child!’ and they’ve never told us they’re pregnant, that’s going to make some people uncomfortable,” Pole told me. “We are very conservative about compliance with all privacy laws. But even if you’re following the law, you can do things where people get queasy.”

Bold is mine. That’s a quote for our times.

So Target got sneakier about sending the coupons. The company can create personalized booklets; instead of sending people with high pregnancy scores books o’ coupons solely for diapers, rattles, strollers, and the “Go the F*** to Bed” book, they more subtly spread them about:

“Then we started mixing in all these ads for things we knew pregnant women would never buy, so the baby ads looked random. We’d put an ad for a lawn mower next to diapers. We’d put a coupon for wineglasses next to infant clothes. That way, it looked like all the products were chosen by chance.

“And we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasn’t been spied on, she’ll use the coupons. She just assumes that everyone else on her block got the same mailer for diapers and cribs. As long as we don’t spook her, it works.”

via How Companies Learn Your Secrets – NYTimes.com.

So the Target philosophy towards expecting parents is similar to the first date philosophy? Even if you’ve fully stalked the person on Facebook and Google beforehand, pretend like you know less than you do so as not to creep the person out.

More at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

Foursquare has added another new feature to its desktop service – restaurant menus.

The update, which uses technology from start-up SinglePlatform, adds 13m food items from 250,000 restaurants in major US cities.

At the moment the menus are available on the desktop and mobile sites, but the company says it will launch them soon on Foursquare’s apps. 

This is the latest move by Foursquare to add to the number of services it provides to its users – last week’s addition of the Explore function to its desktop site means the company is edging towards becoming a local search engine.

Explore gives users data from 1.5bn check-ins in the form of recommendations when searching for a restaurant in a particular location.

By adding menus, restaurants can now give Foursquare users even more information by keeping these places’ details up-to-date.

More at: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/8737-foursquare-adds-menu-details-to-restaurant-pages

Tablet visitors to e-commerce sites spend 20% more than desktop shoppers, and twice as much as those using smartphones, according to a new report. 

Adobe’s Digital Marketing Insights report takes its data from 16.5bn visits to more than 150 retailers last year, and shows that AOVs from tablets are higher than from other devices. 

It also suggests that retailers should consider optimising the experience for tablet users. 

Percentage of visits from tablets

Before retailers get too excited by the figures, it’s important to note that tablet users make up a small proportion of total visits, just 4% on average. 

However, this is a growing proportion, rising from 1% in January 2011 to 4% in December. 

In stats from August, of the 1.57m sales generated by affiliates in August, 77,082 were made via mobile devices. 27,551 were via iPad, 26,360 on iPhone, and 13,862 on Android. 

In these stats, the iPad accounted for 0.9% of all visits, much lower than Adobe’s, yet contributed 1.75% of all sales. 

Many more tablets were sold over Christmas, so the number of people accessing e-commerce sites on tablets is only going one way for the moment. 

Smartphone use is also growing, doubling from 3% in January 2011 to 6% in December.

More at: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/8731-tablet-shoppers-spend-21-more-than-other-consumers?

Old but still totally valid.

Find the rest at: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/shopping_cart

Mobile discovery company Shazam announced Tuesday (11/8) that USA Network’s hit show Covert Affairs will now feature Shazam for TV. Covert Affairs joins several other “Shazamable” shows, which means it will include call-outs during the show for viewers to use the Shazam app to tag music in the show and gain access to special photos and video. This feature will be available beginning with the second season of the popular TV-drama. Shazam for TV is an innovative app that allows users to interact with TV shows and access exclusive content using their mobile devices.  When a user tags the episode, they will be taken to a unique Shazam mobile commerce store powered by Delivery Agent. Delivery Agent manages all commerce for NBC Universal and dozens of other entertainment corporations as well.  Viewers will also be able to use Shazam for TV to download wallpaper on their phone, share content on social media websites, “like” the Covert Affairs Facebook page, in addition to purchasing show merchandise.  One of the most unique features of this application is that users will be able to access and purchase fashion brands seen on the show. For example, if a Shazam user is watching Covert Affairs and they notice the main character is wearing an article of clothing that they want to purchase, they can simply tag the episode on Shazam and choose the option to “Shop Covert Affairs”. Users will then be able to purchase the fashion brands seen in the show directly from the mobile commerce store. As a new feature to the Shazam app, all merchandise will be available to purchase through a single-button buying process.

More at: http://www.zippycart.com/ecommerce-news/3145-shazam-integrates-television-and-mobile-ecommerce.html

As social media marketers become more and more accountable for the return on investment of their programs, some are also starting to see the long-term results of campaigns that work.

Beginning in summer 2010, BzzAgent, the social media marketing arm of dunnhumby, began studying the immediate and lingering results of several social media marketing campaigns involving consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands and brand advocates.

There was an immediate boost to advocates’ likelihood to recommend a product after being exposed to a campaign, with rates rising from 39% before exposure to 61% directly after. While the effect of the campaign diminished somewhat over time, 55% of brand advocates studied were still significantly more likely to recommend a product one year after their initial exposure.

When brand advocates studied were asked about their own purchase intent, the results were even more dramatic. Before the campaign, a similar number said they would purchase as would recommend the brand: 38%. Immediately after the campaign, the number shot up more than 30 percentage points and remained at 69% for three months. After a year, purchase intent was still elevated as high as 61%.

More at: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008764&ecid=a6506033675d47f881651943c21c5ed4

There used to be loads of ways in which you could use Facebook to create innovative campaigns but as it has evolved from a social network in to a fully fledged platform the organic opportunities have waned and it is now mostly a pay to play game. Ads come in all shapes and sizes and without them you are going to struggle to get much traction on your own Facebook page. There are still things like customer service, engaging apps, competitions and rich media content that can help you grow engagement but even those areas are having the squeeze put on them by the volume of ads on the site.

…

Pay Or Forget It

Basically if you want exposure on Facebook now you need to pay. Simple as that. Facebook have done a wonderful job of locking every area of the platform down so as they control most of the ad revenue that flows through it. Even the feed is getting harder to access and with ads coming there this month things will get even harder. A small minority of people will be able to get likes through innovative campaigns but those will need technical knowledge and will probably cost as much as advertising. The bottom line is that the quickest way to get seen these days on Facebook is through advertising.

More at: http://www.simplyzesty.com/facebook/facebook-is-now-pay-to-play-only-for-brands/

Repeat after me: Useful, Relevant, Timely, Useful, Relevant, Timely, Useful, Relevant….