Facebook Publishes “Insider’s Guide To Viral Marketing”

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1. Search - Harry Wang
   

   April 21st, 2008 at 2:05 pm

   Zzzzz. FB is getting more boring by the day…

   Harry “waiting for the NBT” Wang

2. Ryan Merket
   

   April 21st, 2008 at 2:09 pm

   Actually a pretty good read for anyone thinking about utilizing Facebook to export their brand to Social Media. I forwarded it on to Marketing at my place of employment.

3. Michael Arrington
   

   April 21st, 2008 at 2:10 pm

   It does seem rather stiff and corporate.

4. Mike
   

   April 21st, 2008 at 2:10 pm

   interesting that fb is the one publishing this document… All they want is more page views

5. ZiZi
   

   April 21st, 2008 at 2:10 pm

   Does anyone else hate the word “viral”? People love to use it and take pride in it.. it sounds worse than “spam” IMO.
   at least the word “spam” doesn’t mean infectious.

6. jenkins
   

   April 21st, 2008 at 2:16 pm

   this is all too self-serving and commercial to post. Facebook has too much still to prove before they can credibly publish marketing manuals.

7. Paly
   

   April 21st, 2008 at 2:20 pm

   At least Facebook is practicing what they preach.

   Also, at #5, viral doesn’t mean infectious either

8. MikeW
   

   April 21st, 2008 at 2:20 pm

   Ahh…docstoc.

   TechCrunch is equal opportunity…

9. Greg
   

   April 21st, 2008 at 2:34 pm

   Classy, Facebook. Classy.

10. Igor The Troll
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 2:37 pm

    Ha, Ha! First they Ban you for Spamming your Friends, then they give you a guide on how to do it..:)

11. Pat Gunning
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 2:43 pm

    The Viral marketing method, historically, has been responsible for many of the best marketing campaigns ever launched.

    Just because people overuse a term doesn’t invalidate the effectiveness of the concept.

    Viral marketing is genius and quite valuable for many marketers that rely on the internet for a full time income.

    Incidentally, viral marketing isn’t spam by definition. It’s the enthusiastic acceptance of the message that breeds the viral effect. It’s a general frenzy of excitement that spreads the message.

    That is clearly not the force feeding of an unwanted promotion that we so appropriately call spam.

    Viral Marketing is so successful because creates the curiosity and desire needed to generate the demand for a product or service. It causes people to seek it out. Think of the Blair Witch Project or some of the more famous videos on YouTube or think of HALO III they spent little on marketing and had record sales!

    Viral Marketing rules!

    Check out ViralMoneyList and see for yourself!

12. Web Design
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 2:44 pm

    I will give it a try..

13. I hate face book spam
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 2:50 pm

    I was able to click the “Report Spam” function to report this spam to facebook. Oh the irony!

14. EH
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 3:00 pm

    Step 2: Ignore everything in that document.

    Does Zuckerberg act like Ron Burgundy at all?

15. J
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 3:05 pm

    sounds like Sheryl’s handiwork

16. EH
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 3:07 pm

    Pat@11: Successful viral marketing may not be, in your book, but there are a kajillion failed viral marketing attempts that can rightly be called spam. Like when Facebook spams its users with a PDF in an attempt to piggyback on the buzz surrounding SixApart’s advertising acquisition. Heck, I can’t even find the “viral” in all of this and even the guy putting himself up as an expert in the field has the most spammy-sounding and/or least curiosity-inspiring domain name I’ve seen in months.

17. bernie lomax
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 3:14 pm

    This sounds like it was written by a third grader. Are you kidding me…

18. Igor The Troll
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 3:24 pm

    I think FaceBook lacks Brains! I call Michael Troll, he does not get upset, because he has Brains and knows that I am being Viral.

    FaceBook, get a Life!

19. Ron Shoshani
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 3:29 pm

    if it wasn’t serious, i would have put my money that it is a joke…. (april’s fool ?)

    Com’on, Facebook pages were launched EXACTLY on 7th, November 2007.

    Is it acceptable to have 5 months to release this manual ?
    I guess that the marketing writer was on XMAS vacation…..till now.

    1. Does anyone familiar with the term RTFM ?
    2. Would you buy a camera knowing its instructions would be delivered 5 months after ?
    3. Would you purchase any other product/solution where its manual will be released 5 months after its launch ?
    4. If you are a CEO, managing a startup, would you launch a solution without testing it before, without setting up the limitations and restrictions needed, without a closed concept, and finally with no instructions or manuals ? Do you think its serious ? What would your customers think about you ?

    well, nevermind….

20. Ryan Hupfer
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 3:34 pm

    “Facebook has too much still to prove before they can credibly publish marketing manuals.”

    Yeah, they only single-handedly created one of the most robust human networks, ever. I mean, they could probably do better but considering that they’ve gone from dorm room to a billion+ valuation in like 3 years, I think that they’ve done pretty solid job so far.

    Also, I think that all of us tech nerds (me included) forget that the majority of the world has yet to use Twitter, publish a blog or even know what the heck an RSS feed even is so something that seems elementary to us could potentially be very useful to the mass populous that’s on Facebook. I actually kind of like seeing that they’ve attempted to educate the audience and I think that many others should do this as well as apps on the web become more and more mainstream to the ‘common user’.

    Also - remember the Internet is serious business.

21. Igor The Troll
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 3:39 pm

    Sorry guys, we are living in an information super highway age! Traveling at speeds faster than light, warp speeds! We are in the Twilight Zone!

    You hot today, tomorrow you are history!

    FaceBook, don’t hoot your own horn!

22. JosefVirek
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 3:47 pm

    here’s a tip: eBay and Facebook should merge.

23. jenkins
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 3:59 pm

    We’re all painfully aware of Facebook’s early success. No one doubts that they’ve built a widely used service. That’s not the point.

    Building a marketing manual belies the fact that you have a seriously powerful marketing machine — something I’ve never heard any advertiser say about Facebook. Actually, I’ve only heard really really BAD things about advertising on Facebook. It’s very different from google. Remember how people used to talk about the effectiveness of AdWords? Yeah, me too.

    This all led to the incredible journey for Google from private to public company. They’ve done amazingly well in the aftermarket.

    I doubt facebook sees any of this happen. Why? Their ads don’t work and they’ve yet to prove a scalable, profitable business model. They will LOSE money this year after making money last year. This is HIGHLY unusual! Is something broken? Maybe.

    Anyway, I don’t sit around drinking other peoples kool-aid. You can if you want.

24. Chris
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 4:42 pm

    Maybe facebook should take a strong look at #2… can we say Beacon?

    Here is another piece of advice, try making a profit off of something or heck being good at it before you go around giving people advice that is more generic than they have become.

    Boooooring. Can we move on to an interesting company with a real profit center please?

25. Ryan Hupfer
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 4:50 pm

    @jenkins

    Great point, I see what you’re saying now - FB definitely hasn’t perfected their model as far creating a new profit center based upon marketing and advertising efforts on their network. Their self-serve ads are actually pretty effective if used correctly, but the problem is that they require a little more social media know-how and marketing savvy than a simple Google text ad. This is probably where the disconnect begins which really hurt their ability to capitalize on their ginormous network of super-engaged users.

    Also, remember that Google was just a really good search startup that was burning through a lot of cash before they realized that they could roll out the ad programs that they have now. I think that they’ve done ok since then.

    I think that Facebook just needs to find a way to monetize the product ina way that doesn’t directly effect the experience that their users have grown accustomed to. That’s why the Google model worked, even after they added the AdWords application to their product mix, it never changed the feel of their product. Sounds simple enough, right?

26. blackysky
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 4:52 pm

    ZZZZZZZZ boring come on any corporation can do so much more out of facebook.. Why because they will have control. They can use facebook to send people to their website that’s it… if facebook don’t give more control about the page .. they won’t be able to reach myspace.. trust me google is coming in this social world .. so give back more control

27. Igor The Troll
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 5:00 pm

    I think Wall Street needs to read TachCrunch, they have a lot to learn..:)

28. Sam Purtill
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 5:15 pm

    Slow news day eh

29. Ryan Hupfer
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 5:39 pm

    @Sam

    Amazing insight on the topic at hand…riveting, even.

30. Jeremiah Owyang
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 6:17 pm

    Great find, we’re going to discuss it in our Facebook panel at Web 2.0 expo

31. noobalicious
    

    April 21st, 2008 at 11:58 pm

    Clever. How are they making money again?

32. Pat Gunning
    

    April 22nd, 2008 at 5:17 am

    Many of the above comments prove why marketing is not an exact science. Viral marketing has been responsible for the most successful marketing campaigns in history.

    FaceBook has made an attempt to provide value to its members through an informative guide for new marketers. Most Social network members are not tech savvy nor marketing sophisticated.

    How brilliant was it outside of that? Well it certainly got you critics talking.

    To EH, who is another self proclaimed expert: My spammy sounding web site is keyword rich for SEO and PPC, be happy to direct you to some basic 101 on the subject so you can make more educated marketing evaluations in the future!

33. Mari Smith
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 11:04 pm

    Excellent primer for getting started w/ Facebook Pages. Kudos to FB - I hope to see many, many more guides like this from the horse’s mouth!!

    Facebook is *the* best website for professional networking & business building, in my experience. You have to train yourself to ignore 90% of the “visual noise” and just unfriend the spammers. And if you have a Group/Page/Event where peeps are spamming, have your assistant take care of the housekeeping & delete those kinds of messages.

34. Jeff
    

    April 25th, 2008 at 4:50 pm

    Both facebook and this website are a waste of time.

35. Brian2
    

    April 27th, 2008 at 12:32 pm

    @5 - Classy? Facebook UI is tacky and ugly from a designers pov. YAY that ‘classy’ blue bar and stiff corporate layout fits right in with Dean and Deluca. Maybe Classy means wal-mart to some people when you’ve shopped at the goodwill their whole life.

    @33 - Where is the networking credibility? Yeah, how about a social network that doesn’t whore them self out and filters the trash? - I am not saying all facebook businesses are trash, but where’s the credibility? b2b is not done this way, c2b maybe.