Facebook marketing: Effective but picky

We recently administered a Facebook campaign for one of our clients with a social ad directing users to a fan page and a microsite. The results have been terrific.

But getting the thing set up was a bit of a comedy of errors.

When I first submitted the social ad copy, I was told it was awaiting approval. I was worried it might get rejected because it had the word "sucks" in the headline. It did get rejected but for an entirely different reason. This particular client spells its brand name in capital letters as a point of style. But apparently this is not allowed by Facebook.

I received the following e-mail from the Facebook Ad Team said:

The text of this ad contains excessive or incorrect capitalization. All ads must use appropriate, grammatically correct capitalization. The title of your ad, as well as the first word in each sentence, must begin with a capital letter. Lastly, all proper nouns and acronyms should be capitalized. As per section 4 of Facebook's Advertising Guidelines, all ads should include standard and proper capitalization.

I resubmitted writing our client's brand name with just a single upper case letter. But again, the social ad was rejected. This time the culprit was a period I had placed at the end of a URL.

The text of this ad contains improper or unnecessary punctuation. All ads must end with a form of punctuation. As per section 5 of Facebook's Advertising Guidelines, all ads should include logical, correct punctuation.

I removed the period and the ad was accepted.

For those of us who live and breathe social media, Facebook is viewed as, like, soooo 2007.

But the truth is that - despite its pickiness on points of capitalization and punctuation - it remains the most important social network for Canadian marketers by a massive margin.

Happy Easter all!

Does your job suck?

We've been crazy busy here at com.motion over the last few weeks. And now we can talk about why.

We're helping STAPLES Business Depot to launch Staplesville.ca, an online recruiting Web site that is totally unlike any other.

The launch is being supported by a social media release, a blogger relations campaign, a Facebook fan page and a YouTube video.

The following video features Ben Miner, a Toronto stand-up comedian who hosts a XM Satelite Radio's Laugh Attack channel:

"YouTube no place to discuss ideas"

What do you get when you take a land claims dispute, a politician, an iconic Canadian doughnut shop and mix in a little social media? An innovative if somewhat hokey YouTube video.

Here's one of a series of five videos released last week by Michael Bryant, Ontario's minister for aboriginal affairs, to mark the two-year anniversary of the Six Nations dispute in Caledonia.



And here's what NDP Leader Howard Hampton had to say about it:

YouTube is not the place to communicate either policy or to communicate government messages.

To me, Howard's comments show a complete lack of appreciation for the social media and the cultural revolution behind it.

Joseph Brean, a fine reporter at the National Post, called me up to get my thoughts on the tactic and did to me what I did to hundreds of others in my years as a reporter -- he boiled our ten minute talk into a dozen or so words.

Fortunately, I got the chance to expand on my views in the latest Inside PR podcast, which will be released tomorow. After 100 episodes, co-hosts David Jones and Terry Fallis have turned the show into a round-table format and invited me, Julie Rusciolelli and Martin Waxman to join them.

In episode 101 we discuss the thorny question of why PR people are somtimes seen as slimeballs and the Bryant YouTube video.