In your FACEbook – Day 95/139

Everybody knows Facebook. Very few people know what it’s good for. An increasing number of people are calling themselves Facebook marketing experts.

But what is successful Facebook marketing?

I think two recent campaigns answer this question quite well:

1. Audi Finland got 52,000 (declined from the peak) fans by promising to give out a prize car to one of the fans (on condition that at least 50,000 fans join).
2. Kaivurimies got 82,000 (still increasing) fans by promising to drive 1000 km with an excavator for fun (on condition that at least 50,000 fans join).

Which campaign was more successful?

If we ignore the fact that Audi probably paid a bunch of money to an ad agency that came up with their campaign idea, there’s still quite a huge difference in the effect of these campaigns. Audi Finland’s fans joined because they wanted to win a car. There was hardly any reason not to join, you had a chance to win a car doing nothing.

Audi Finland’s end result: 1 winner and 50,000 disappointed fans. With the cost of a car (something like 20,000 €). To cover up this marketing expense, Audi Finland should get dozens of new customers that wouldn’t have bought an Audi if it wasn’t for this campaign.

Kaivurimies on the other hand paid nothing for his campaign. Not only did he pay anything to get his fans but some of the fans actually buy his merchandise. He’s made the headlines on several newspapers and can expect to get sponsorship deals along the way. Even in the worst case he’d end up paying a few hundred liters of gasoline and some other minor costs along the way.

Based on the assumption that his almost month-long journey is sort of summer holiday road trip that he anyway would’ve done with his family. In matter of weeks he has become the best-known excavator entrepreneur in the country.

Which campaign would you rather do for your company?

There’s a page called Fanilista for Finnish fan pages where you can see what works and what doesn’t. It isn’t up to date, but you’ll get the idea. Very few companies have managed to do anything of value.