I'd be really interested in tales of how social media is working for people in real, measurable ways, particularly for folks who do not sell to the usual suspects.
I'm of the impression that my market is on Facebook these days, or I would not have to spend so much time squashing cow requests from great-aunts, but all my attempts to use this to the benefit of my business have been crashing failures. I'm not sure if that is because my customers just aren't there yet, my implementation(s) of these campaigns has just universally sucked, or there is too much of a mental disconnect between Facebook and my problem domain for my users.
The success stories I read about are generally techy-focused or, ahem, perhaps more enthusiastic than is warranted by measured results.
My impression, after watching my brother who runs a chiropractic office in San Francisco which has had a heavy internet presence for years, spend thousands of dollars hiring kBuzz to create a Facebook site/campaign, is that Facebook users simply aren't in the mood to be marketed to in the traditional sense.
The mindsets that you have when you're checking up on your friends versus when you're searching for a product to buy, are almost mutually exclusive.
That's just my two cents. I also felt that his Facebook campaign relied heavily on give-a-way's which don't jibe with what people are looking for in a doctor, namely authority, trustworthiness, and warmth.
That's a pretty good description of the mindset and the focus on the user's intentions also explains why adwords does so well. You intend to find something when you're searching and are receptive to ads that help you do that, whereas you intend to check up on friends and have fun when you're on a social network. It's why ads that tap into the same intentions do well, like games, shopping, conferences, etc.
It depends very much in what is being marketed to them - there's a big difference between niche alternative health services and entertainment, branded FMCG or fast food.
I know of franchises enjoying excellent ROI in the latter sector, which was driven by coupons and spur-of-the-moment peer encouragement long before Facebook...
Thinking of BCC in context of Facebook (and Farmville), maybe a better than usual (pages/sharing) approach would be to create a Facebook game of bingo (eg. one person "creates" the cards, invites friends, and they all play online somehow ..), which you could then tie in with the real BCC ("wanna play with your friends IRL?"). Especially if many of your target users are of the type that's probably using Facebook for casual gaming ala Farmville. OTOH, building this is quite an upfront cost.
Maybe you've already considered approach like this (and decided it wouldn't work for some reason). But in general, I've a feeling that grabbing people's attention on Facebook is via some other interaction (e.g. tie-in games/apps) that just pages/groups/link sharing.
Hopefully that would also be measurable (how many people tried the game/app on FB, vs. how many people actually clicked on the real thing and bought it afterwards). It'd be interesting to find out if someone has already done something similar on Facebook.
I'm of the impression that my market is on Facebook these days, or I would not have to spend so much time squashing cow requests from great-aunts, but all my attempts to use this to the benefit of my business have been crashing failures. I'm not sure if that is because my customers just aren't there yet, my implementation(s) of these campaigns has just universally sucked, or there is too much of a mental disconnect between Facebook and my problem domain for my users.
The success stories I read about are generally techy-focused or, ahem, perhaps more enthusiastic than is warranted by measured results.