Reklam på Facebook ska jämföras med Googles Adwords.

Det är inte ofta man hör något positivt om reklam på Facebook. Men med ett Facebook som har fler sidvisningar än vad traditionella reklamkanaler som Aftonbladet, Expressen, DN, TV4, SvD och DI har tillsammans, ja då är det ändå något som är tillräckligt intressant för att titta lite närmre på.

Många har talat om att Facebook är 2010-talets Google, och jag tror att det ligger mycket i det uttalandet. Vi beskriver detaljerat vad som händer i våra liv på Facebook, och givetvis är det en fantastisk möjlighet för annonsören. Inte nog med att annonsören vet vad vi är intresserade av, både i stort och i smått, nej på Facebook vet annonsören dessutom om din demografiska tillhörighet. En skräddarsydd annons för flytande alvedon till småbarnsföräldrar när du precis skrivit att du är hemma och vabbar, det borde vara rätt effektivt.

Facebook har onekligen potentialen att bli som Googles AdWords på steroider.
Men det gäller att behandla mediet rätt. Uppmärksamheten som ges till reklam på Facebook är försvinnande liten, så bilder och komplicerade budskap ska man nog undvika. Men lika lite som du bygger varumärke med AdWords, kommer du att bygga varumärke med Facebooks annonser som de ser ut idag (sen kanske du bygger varumärke på Facebook via Fansida eller applikationer, men det är en helt annan femma).

Nej, Facebookreklam är verkligen inte spännande. Men det är å andra sidan inte AdWords heller. Sannolikt har vi ytterligare en publicist med 1,5 miljarder i annonsintäkter om ett år eller två.

Generation Y regerar på Facebook

The brand-man skrev väldigt förtjänstfullt om ”västvärldens fem generationsmarknader”, och jag rekommenderar varmt hans artikelpost [hittat via Jardenberg, som vanligt ;-)].

Läsningen inspirerade mig att själv ta reda på lite mer om de olika generationernas användning av Internet. Två frågor kändes aktuella; Hur skiljer sig de olika generationernas internetanvändning, och är Facebook ett standardverktyg för den generation Y?



Det visar sig att generation verkligen har tagit till sig Facebook; Bland 15- till 24-åringar är 82% registrerade på Facebook. En fantastisk siffra. Är du under 25 så finns du med stor sannolikhet på Facebook.

Generation X skiljer sig så mycket åt mellan olika åldersgrupper att jag valde att dela upp den; Bland 25- till 34-åringar är en majoritet (63%) registrerade på Facebook, medan 35- till 44-åringarna bara har 36% anslutna.

För Generation Babyboom är Facebook-konto inte något som är speciellt vanligt; Bara 15% har konton.

Och som Brand-man själv konstaterar, den tysta generationen har inte riktigt anammat sociala medier; Bara 3% av dem finns på Facebook.

Så vad är slutsatsen? Internetmognaden är en tydlig funktion av ålder, och väldigt kidsen hänger på Facebook. En följdfråga blir möjligen om Generation X verkligen är en relevant etikett för en så stor grupp – Gruppen 35-44-åringar ligger närmre Babyboomers än 25-34-åringarna i andel med Facebookkonto. För en datormogen person som lever en stor del av sitt liv på Internet så är nog den skillnaden viktigare än födelseår.

Avslutningsvis så hänvisar jag till SCB för åldersstatistik och Facebook Admanager för information om storleken på målgruppen på Facebook.

Social networks of the future - personalized social networks...

In a near future, OpenSocial will come to a site near you. And this is how it will work:

1. You come to a social site because it's all about your niche interest. The site has great content in the niche, a professional editor picks the best of user generated content (blog posts, news, videos) and combines it with custom made material.

2. It's a great site, so you decide to join the network. When you join, you use your OpenId identity - no new password to remember, and you import personal data of choice from other sites that you use.

3. When your account is created, some standard third party applications are installed for you on the site. It's a messaging system, news aggregator, a forum, a niche marketplace, and a calendar, all picked out by the site editors.

4. Once in the network, you continue to take part of and create new niche specific content. When you create content, you can also share it on other sites where you are a member, but only if it's in the interest of that site and your contacts on that site. As you are registered, the niche site creates a profile for you, so that you get even better matched content (and probably better matched ads) each time you enter the site.

5. When visiting friends profiles on the site, you'll notice that some of the applications they have added on their profile page are of great usage for that niche. Some third party applications are used more broadly, and as on Facebook, you'll add some of them to your own profile. Applications spread viral, as on Facebook, but this time they are actually relevant to your interest rather than lowest common denominator applications.

Now the site is perfect for you, great content, relevant third party applications, and you only share with the crowd of your choice.

7. Four years later, your no longer interested in the niche (you don't play WOW anymore ;-)) and you choose to delete your profile from the site. You can save your settings to a private file, if you want to rejoin the site later without loosing your history. Your posts are still there, but once you delete your profile, the site owner can no longer access your personal data or email.

The next big thing - Not a single social network...

It's pretty obvious that Facebook has lost its charm of novelty by now. Superwalls, vampires and comparison tools aren't as interesting as they were for a few weeks back in 2007.

So what is the next step in social networking? Just as before, most people will continue to use Social networks based on the social site's niche. If you're interested in music, you'll go to a niche music site and communicate with your likes there, if you need to communicate to your real life friends, you'll be using a messenger service, and if you want to stay in touch with school friends you'll use a site as classmates.com.

What people don't want is to communicate to all contacts and friends in the same way. I don't want my professional contacts to see me in a picture drunk and I want to be able to create a online persona in my own niche not influenced on my status in say, High School. I also want to feel special and interesting, which I do on a niche network, but not on a very general network (lets face it, Facebook is as niched and interesting to be part of as the telephone directory). So the online behaviour of people will shift back to the one prior to Facebook.

At the same time Facebook and others has made us very spoiled - networks should be as easy to use as Facebook, people should be as easy to find as on facebook, and third party applications are great, even greater for a niched market.

OpenSocial and other related ventures are the answer - you'll get the best parts of the facebook / myspace phenomena, but you are the one in control. Simplicity with single login, single messaging tools, but different content, third party applications and active friends for each of your network. And even more important, not a single, powerful owner of all aspects of your social life!

To-Do list on Facebook

Dabble Do is a Facebook application for creating social to-do lists. It's a nice application, with all the features that you'd expect from a social to-do list.
With Dabble Do you can:

* Assign task to yourself or to a friend
* Check if your or friends tasks are completed
* Mark a task as completed
* Reject a task that someone assign to you
* Reassign a task to another friend

It's clean, simple and easy to use, and your tasks are presented in an intuitive manner so you know what to do. The only feature that I think is lacking is a pop up calendar so that you don't have to write date and time yourself. I hope they'll add that function later.

[Dabble Do Facebook link]

I've added Rebtel's Facebook application!

And I think this might have a big impact on Rebtel! It's a great feature and I now I'm waiting for the Rebtel blog application.

I will try it out for a while and come back with a somewhat longer report of my Rebtel / Facebook experience. To find the Facebook application, just grab it on from my Facebook profile.

Rebtel - cool guys doing social business

Today I found something really interesting: When logging onto Facebook a friend of mine had joined a group called EntRebEneurs. The purpose of the group is to bring "young people with entrepenuerial minds" together to be a part of the company Rebtel and steer its development.

Rebtel is a company that offers free or lowprice international phonecalls from your mobile phone. The product itself is good but not extreamly exciting, though the webpage is pretty nice. What is exciting is that they make use of the evergrowing social networking trend, not only spreading the word using it but inviting people to be a part of the development of the company. Apparently Rebtel has hired two college students to do this online social networking as a summer job, so they hang out on Facebook, writes a blog and invites people to irl events.

This is a sign of how the social networks becomes more important to business and my guess is that we will see a lot like this on communities like Facebook.

I like it and I like that the web empowers people! Good luck to Björn and Linus (the college guys) and good luck to Rebtel (to which I have already signed up, since I have a sister abroad) ;-)