Week 7 Facebook & Google +

Effective Use of Facebook for Marketing

The first site I will use in my comparison of Facebook sites used for marketing is the site for Pretzel M & M's. This site sent a free sample to anyone who liked their page and filled out a very short name & address form. Everyone LOVES to get stuff for free, ESPECIALLY CHOCOLATE! I did this and within about a week my free sample came in the mail. I would rate this Facebook marketing site very high because they gave out free samples to let everyone try their new product. It's not like M & M's are going out of business anytime soon or need heavy marketing to become successful, they are already there. But when they roll out something new it's important to get the word out and offer something for free to people who may be skeptical about paying money to try something they might not like. They got me to try them and I happen to LOVE the new pretzel M & M's.

The second site I would like to use in my comparison of Facebook sites used for marketing is a site one of my Facebook friends uses to market her business called Conquer Entertainment. In my opinion this is not a good marketing plan because she is using her personal Facebook account as a personal Facebook account AND as a marketing tool for her business. I feel the two should be separate. I don't think it's fair for her to be pummeling all of her "friends" with business information against their will. I am friends with her on a personal level, but have no interest in her business venture. She is constantly sending out messages for people to come to this seminar or that presentation and I got so frustrated I changed her setting so her stuff no longer shows up in my news feed. That kind of sucks because I am interested in her as a friend and am interested in what's going on in her life, BESIDES HER BUSINESS, but now I will not see any of it unless I choose to go to her site and weed through all of the solicitation BS she has posted. I would rate this very low, probably the lowest because I don't think it's fair to put your friends through that. If she wanted to promote her "Business Facebook Page" as a separate site and then her friends could CHOOSE to go like it and be involved that would be different but I don't feel I should be subjected to this unsolicited.

The third site in my comparison is The Chronicle Telegrams site. I really like this site for marketing because they publish a lot of great information & news and they also take comments from members of Facebook. Having that voice is a very valuable asset in a customer. It makes the public feel empowered & like their voice & opinions are being heard. That will keep people coming back for more. I would rate this one as pretty good.

Out of these three sites I would say Pretzel M & M's is first, The Chronicle is second and my friend's site is third.

Facebook & Google +

First off I must say kudos to you Professor Zellers for getting the word out. I'm very familiar and used to Facebook, but have only heard of Google + in passing so this assignment has given them the opportunity for me to check it out. I don't really know much about Google +, but according to this site, "Facebook may still have a significant edge over Google+ when it comes to personal pages, but Google+ is gaining on Facebook when it comes to business pages, according to a recent article by MarketingProfs." 

The site also has a list of the top 10 brands using Facebook & Google + and the amount of +1's on Google + and the amount of "Likes" on Facebook. Android is brand #1 and it has more +1's than "Likes", but to me that's not surprising since Android is a Google brand. The Google + page for Android looks sorta similar to a Facebook page, but to me it looks less familiar. I know that isn't supposed to play into this comparison, but it's hard for me to be objective when I'm so familiar with Facebook and all of its elements & content. Even from a business standpoint it's hard for me to look at them both as equal because I have greater knowledge of one and not the other. Anyway, based on my research Google + is gaining ground on Facebook for brand pages.

One of the main reasons Google + is becoming more popular for business is the prospective possibility that brands that have Google + pages will get higher rankings in Google searches based on that information. That is an advantage Google has over Facebook. To me that doesn't make the pages themselves better when it comes to business, but it does give the businesses a reason to sign up and use the pages.