Two trends within Facebook that I have written frequently about:

- Facebook Offers: which has morphed from a Groupon-like platform to an extension of their sponsored ad format

- In the River Marketing: which is particularly important for large products / platforms like Facebook (examples here: New Facebook Photos and Facebook Places)

Combine those and you have the following series of screenshots: Facebook’s In the River promotion of their new Facebook Offers product. When you visit your Facebook page, you are prompted with a takeover atop the status box:

“Welcome to Facebook Offers: Drive people to your busienss with an offer that people can share with their friends.” Various examples are cycled through – starting with Red Robin in this case ($5 off).

You can then “take the tour” and Facebook walks you through the various components and how to set up a campaign. Notably, its placed in-line next to the Status and Photo box…. that is prime real estate.

The walkthrough itself is not exactly noteworthy (write a strong headline! Choose a great thumbnail!) – however, the presentation of the tour and the location of the product is important. Furthermore, the final step of the tour is very interesting because it demonstrates the friction of online to offline content and commerce:

“Prepare your staff: Let your staff know about the offer so they’re ready to accept it from people who show it from a mobile phone, or in printer form.” Easier said than done as this is a far bigger problem than a one-line reminder to tell your staff about the coupon.

Not a ton to say here except that:

- I reached the New York Times paywall
- And it is visually very bold / intrusive
- But while it is disruptive – and that’s the goal of course – it is really not very actionable: The only part of the entire screen that is clickable are the two orange buttons.That is <5% of the screen's real estate and a wasted opportunity to users right into an upgrade flow. As it currently stands, I need to read the promotional box, click the orange button, land on an educational page and then choose an upgrade package. Too many steps and too much effort.

(Lastly, I am not entirely sure what constitutes exceeding the paywall... it says after 10 free articles but it appears intermittently)

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to watch the Facebook IPO Roadshow video. It’s fascinating and well done. There is a ton in there worth discussing / pointing out, but I wanted to highlight one of my favorite screens (shown below):

It shows Facebook’s growing advertising revenue and the four stages of advertising platform growth that have helped it grow (of course alongside monstrous user growth!):
- Reach (their userbase)
- Relevance (targeting)
- Engagement (like, share, etc)
- Social Context (sponsored, open graph, etc)

And what’s missing? How about off-Facebook advertising…

More here:
TechCrunch / Roadshow Video / WSJ

With the rise of Pinterest, I have enjoyed tracking the brands and campaigns racing to leverage the platform and be early movers. For instance, a couple weeks ago, I highlighted Harrod’s Pinterest / curator contest.

Here is relatively similar program from Jetsetter. Like Harrods, Jetsetter is using Pinterest to drive curation:

“Our fans ask us all the time how they can become Jetsetter curators. Now’s your chance to show us you have what it takes. Using Pinterest, create the ultimate destination pinboard…”

It is effectively a way to:

1. drive best-of-lists (ala early Yelp and eBay efforts)
2. understand data and users preference
3. and drive viral traffic by rewarding social sharing on Pinterest (“Pin it to win it in our Pinterest Giveaway”)

It’s simple, clever and amazingly low-cost. Furthermore, it seeds usage and drives followers on a growing platform where most brands are still slow to adopt.

Ever look at Facebook’s homepage and think about the ratio of content to advertisement? It’s easy to overlook it because the feed itself is infinite. But the new page layout combined with the new ad formats (Sponsored posts now appear atop the feed and below the ticker) – represent a very significant portion of the visible real estate. It is even more pronounced if you include the “Apps” section on the left and the “notifications” section on the right – both of which are monetizable aspects.

In this example, that ratio of content to advertisement is even more pronounced: I have one full post on the screen (a function of a photo album being displayed – takes up more space) and three posts in the ticker. You can also see the headline of a fifth feed post. If you include that: there are five posts on the page – one of which is prominent. And there are two ad-units – both of which are arguably equally or more prominent.

This is relevant to two posts:

- Yesterday’s on the value of being a first mover, specifically on Pinterest; and
- Porsche moving users between their Facebook and Pinterest pages

Well here’s another good examples: Harrods is allowing fans to help design their retail windows using Pinterest mood boards.

Clever:
It’s on brand.
It’s effectively free marketing.
It drives Pinterest activity far beyond the winner.
And it blends users across Pinterest and Facebook – both from the cross-promotion and Pinterest’s opengraph integration.

First movers get rewarded… just ask Spotify on Facebook or Loopt on iOS. This of course assumes that you are a first mover on a big, impactful platform.

There is little question Pinterest is both big and impactful. So Amazon is experimenting with it.

Here is a screenshot of the Pinterest button on an Amazon product page – beside email, Facebook and Twitter buttons. For e-commerce companies – Pinterest is arguably more relevant here than either Facebook or Twitter. It is probably most valuable to get a Facebook share – but users are probably far more inclined to post to Pinterest… and for many of those users, Pinterest will then post back to Facebook.

Fascinating to watch.

Interesting move by Facebook here. Basic Feed post about a user liking a fan page… in this example, Labatt Blue US.

It is a “Sponsored” post (as you can tell in the bottom right after the timestamp).

But there is also now a “Find More Pages” link. When clicked, it takes users to a page full of other brands / pages that can be liked with a single click. Think of it has Pinterest for fanpages.

Obviously the implication here is: can Facebook drive secondary likes beyond the ad unit? Can they charge for that? And does this Find More Pages concept (which launched a year and half ago) be a more meaningful finding / search experience?

In January I noted that Facebook was experimenting with ad placements above the ticker. This is obviously prime real estate for the ad – and inversely devalues the ticker’s prominence.

Over the last week, I have been seeing more and more of this treatment. A couple things to note:

1. Yes, the ad unit is above the ticker.

2. As I have written before – this is much more than an ad – it’s a mini Facebook page: friends, likes, comments, shares, etc.

3. When you scroll down the page, something new and interesting happens: the ad drops off the page and the ticker anchors to the top op the browser. It’s a slick animation (shown in screenshot two). Ultimately, this could also anchor for the ad unit – which would make the ad unmissable.

If you’ve been watching any television recently, you’ve surely seen the barrage of ad spots for Google Chrome, Google Plus, and Internet Explorer 9. I understand Google’s effort but am generally confused by advertising specifically for IE9… which can’t be as effective / meaningful as focusing on Windows Mobile.

Anyhow… the point is that Google took to ESPN.com yesterday to cleverly promote Google Plus alongside the NCAA Tournament. It’s well done because it’s relevant, good looking and ties into the product very well (circles!). Most interesting is how it ties directly into the product – each NCAA team is “followable” on Google+ and there are scheduled Hangouts with analysts, teams, etc.

Really well done and an interesting twist as they try to differentiate from Facebook and Twitter… and the two areas where they can stand out:

Hangouts (the star of the product) and
Media / Lists (something Twitter hasn’t nailed yet)