When we think of social media marketing, Facebook goes hand-in-hand.

Fan us on Facebook

Like Twitter, online marketers viewed Facebook as a primary source for generating traffic. As such, most marketers reported using Facebook to send users to marketing Web pages and they seemed to be pleased with the results.

Source: MarketingProfs Fall 2009 Survey
Created a survey of fans

B2B – 37.1%
B2C – 37.9%

Surveys are an effective way to garner feedback to continue to earn ongoing relevance. Surveys can range from satisfaction levels, behavior around the prospect or act of referrals, votes towards new policies and services or simply used for entertainment. At the very least, surveys inject variety into the Facebook stream to foster new opportunities for engagement and communication.

“Friending” recent customers with corporate Facebook profile

B2B – 34.4%
B2C – 26.3%

It should not go unsaid that this activity goes against Facebook’s Terms of Service. But with limited and hierarchical functionality of Fan Pages, creating a branded profile is one worthy of consideration. The interaction that fosters in profiles is radically different that those within Fan Pages. It’s the difference between peer-to-peer conversations and top-down broadcasting. Until Facebook realizes the value of commercial accounts, you must tread carefully. Facebook arbitrarily flags and deletes the branded profile accounts as they’re discovered.

Used Facebook user data to profile customers demographics or interests

B2B – 33.5%
B2C – 30.5%

In social media marketers experiment with programs that balance demographics, the categorization of people by age group, gender, education, income, etc, and psychographics, the grouping of people by interests, passions, and connections. Believe it or not, there are services that exist today that can mine data on Facebook to help marketers profile prospects. Outside of those services, many marketers also manually examine the individuals within their social graphs to garner insight into new initiatives and potential trends.

Created a Facebook application around the brand

B2B – 33.1%
B2C – 41.9%

Facebook applications are not guaranteed to earn an audience simply because they’re created. Users are overwhelmed with options for applications and their adoption of new apps are related more to the activity of their friends than to their allegiance to any particular brand. However, they are not ineffective either. According to the survey, MarketingProfs learned that applications were among the most “successful” tactic used by B2B and B2C companies.

Driving traffic to corporate materials through status updates

B2B – 29%
B2C – 28.4%

Eventually users engaged in social networks will click through to something, whether it’s something you shared or a social object they discovered. Where are we sending them? Chances are that they are landing on a message-rich, usually lifeless and generic web page or even worse, the company home page. Essentially we captivate people in a highly interactive and social environment and direct them to a static dead-end where they are left to define their next clicks without a renewed sense of creativity.

This tactic was reported as the most common tactic.

Buying targeted CPC ads

B2B – 24.5%
B2C – 27.1%

Targeted CPC (cost-per-click) ads on Facebook are only as effective as the intention and experience to which they’re tied. Many businesses use these ads to increase the number of fans on a fan page or also to promote corporate material. In my work, they have offered a minimum impact on increasing fans and delivered notable results in driving traffic to pre-defined experiences.

Marketers claimed that buying ads is among the least effective of the mix