5 Innovative Facebook Campaigns to Learn From

The Social Marketing Series is supported by Campaigner. Campaigner email marketing enables small, medium and large businesses to strengthen customer relationships and drive sales by connecting to their customers quickly, simply and affordably. Visit www.campaigner.com to learn more.

If youve tried to run a campaign on Facebook and were frustrated by its poor ! results, youre not alone. Facebooks ads have a pretty poor performance record and its ads continue to be cheap, though plentiful.

The good news is that Facebook is working hard to improve its ads performance. The company continues to experiment with new ad formats and has lately cozied up to the ad community with Facebook Studio, a forum for new campaigns that features a directory of ad agencies.

The idea is that marketers can learn from each other as they try to navigate Facebook, which is terra incognita for everyone since its so new. In that spirit, here are five recent Facebook campaigns that offer some instructive examples on how the platform can be used to amplify a message or interact with consumers in a new way.

1. Infinity Batelco

Bahrain Telecommunications Co., a.k.a. Batelco, isnt going to give Apple a run for its money in the name-recognition department anytime soon, but for those interested in social media marketing, its the little brand that could. You may recall that Batelcos Infinity video made the short list of favorite TED ads earlier this year, but the Facebook aspect of that campaign is just as notable.

Batelco aired two trailers for the video in movie theaters and online in September 2010. To spread the video even further, Batelcos app included a prompt for users to activate their webcams and take pictures of themselves reacting to the video. The picture was then posted on Facebook (with the users permission). Next, the company and agency FP7/BAH disseminated information about the making of the video. Realizing that all the target customers were online, Batelco also set up kiosks in malls and airports letting consumers see the video. As a result of the exposure, Batel! co gaine d more than 200,000 fans on Facebook. More than 70% of Bahrains Facebook community are fans.

The Upshot: Batelco bet heavily on a viral video and it paid off, partially because the video itself is so compelling, but also because it provided a means for people on Facebook to add something to the experience.

2. Fashiontag Flair Magazine

Flair, a Belgian womens magazine, observed that women check out each others wardrobes in real life and figured that might be the case online as well. That reasoning prompted the creation of Fashiontag, an app that lets users identify their friends clothing in Facebook pics and ask a question about the item. The question also was posted on the friends wall.

Those conversations then ran on a Fashiontag Page on Facebook. The best ones ran in the magazine. According to Advertising Age, after the app launched on March 22, the magazines Facebook Page got a 35% bump in fans, to 23,000. Best of all, this was done on the cheap: The app only cost about $35,000 to create.

The Upshot: Flair created a genuinely useful app and one that tied in with its brand mission. As a result, the title not only got attention, but found a new way to interact with readers and create content.

3. Comida Kraft Kraft Foods

Kraft introduced Comida Kraft, a recipe website targeted to Hispanic consumers, in 2001. Nine years later it launched a Comida Kraft Facebook Page as well. Kraft stepped things up in May 2011, by enlisting Mexican celebrity chef Alfredo Oropeza, which boosted the Pages fans by 38%. ! But Orop eza isnt just lending his name. In July, Kraft is planning three livestreamed video chats with the chef, during which participants can ask questions in real time. In November, Kraft is planning to give Latina moms who subscribe to Comida Kraft recipes by email those who subscribe to the Comida Kraft Mobile Club will get free exclusive access to additional recipes and videos on their mobile phones.

The Upshot: Kraft, working with digital marketing agency 360i, has added new activities to engage its Facebook fans. The addition of a celebrity chef and exclusive access gives consumers a reason to become fans and gives fans special access.

4. The Squeezing Smiles Machine Prigat

The problem with a lot of branded Facebook Pages is theres nothing to do there. Israeli juice company Prigat not only gave its fans something to do, it put them to work. Prigat set up an app that let fans activate an orange juice machine by smiling. (The company used face-recognition technology to recognize those smiles.)

It turns out, a lot of users were up to the challenge. More than 20,000 users uploaded photos of themselves, which led to 30,000 likes, (a 300% jump in growth). More than 40,000 oranges were also squeezed during the effort the juice was given to charity.

The Upshot: Bridging the real and the online world can spark some interesting ideas. Asking users to smile also ensured that the program was fun.

5. Your Very Own Mad Men Ad Mad Men Season 4 in the Netherlands

Heres the pitch: Don Draper and his team have a new assignment an ad about you. But first they have to know a bit about you what kind of car you drive, whats your drink of choice, that kind of thing. Next, they need a picture of you. Then you get to see a few mockups of ads about you. When you settle on one you like, you post it to your site. The best ads will run in the Du! tch maga zine BLVD Man and on billboards in Amsterdam.

The campaign, from an agency called Greenberry, launched in June to promote the premiere of season 4 of Mad Men in the Netherlands. So there you have it: a promotion for a show about advertising that creates advertising about you that might actually run as a real ad somewhere. Is your head spinning yet?

The Upshot: This promotion stays true to the concept of the product it promotes, but involves consumers in the process as only Facebook can.

What other innovative Facebook campaigns have you seen? Let us know in the comments below.

Series Supported by Campaigner

The Social Marketing Series is supported by Campaigner. Campaigners Smart Email Builder makes it easier than ever to create professional looking email marketing campaigns and affords multiple ways to grow and manage lists, integrate with CRM, and utilize campaign metrics and reports to increase results. For more information, please visit www.campaigner.com or watch a product demo today.

More About: 360i, facebook, MARKETING, Social Marketing Series

For more Business & Marketing coverage: