Facebooking it

[Chamber005]

Oh-em-gee do I love me some Facebook ads.

I am literally having little kids sending me messages about how much they like the show. I just launched this thing today so I'll let you guys know how it works out. But MAN, talk about a resource for the little guy!!

I've used a multitude of extremely expensive ad programs in my real estate life, but it took me doing a little web project to find this little gem. You get 3500 impressions for a dollar. If you tweak your settings right, you can actually turn that into 10,000 views for a dollar regarding your product and use the impressions for your fan page (which is, in all essence, your product as well).

Right now I have 4 ads running. Three are for the fan page (2 are using a couple pretty girls from the multi-media piece to grab the boy's attention, as wel as one ad of Nathan in full costume with a sick green background). The caption? "There's a new mutant in town"

LOL! Oh yeah, I went there.

On the direct link side I have a pay-per-click ad running using the show's logo and a tagline that sums up the series (but is broken down into a kind of Haiku because of FB's set up) "You are the way the world ends."

See, the pay per click has had 10,000 views so far and only 3 clicks!! That means I got 5 dollars worth of exposure today (branding to a targeted audience) for 1.50!

My reasoning is to not make the flashy or sexy ads pay-per-clicks because more people will click on fan pages -- especially if there's a picture of a pretty girl there. They're much more reluctant to click on a true ad -- hence increasing your chances of exposure while ensuring that the person who clicks your ad is a real potential FAN -- who might then go out and spread the word.

Just a phenomenal little find. I know Facebook is pretty much worthless to a big company (a 0.2% turn over rate is horrible if you're looking for multiple clicks). But if you're looking to build a brand -- ESPECIALLY in something like real estate where you're working in only a few counties, Facebook seems KILLER.

And this, obviously, IMO, pertains to tiny no-budget productions as well.

Gotta love the FB, Gotta love advertising and promotion! I swear it's one of my guilty pleasures!!!

 

[JonathanLB]

Not a bad idea at all really, cheap advertising it seems for certain purposes.

I have to say I'm surprised it's not more effective for companies -- the targeting is excellent. I always get ads I'm actually interested in each day, not like every ad, but a lot of good ones I do click on. And I'm an Internet veteran, trained to ignore that crap.

Back in the day, when I ran my own online empire and made thousands a month on just advertising (ah the good ol' days), our ads were never that targeted and were 10-50 times more expensive. I got pretty pissed off if I wasn't making at least a $1 CPM but that was considered crap, I wanted $3-4. Back before me, it was the even better days, you could get $100 CPMs, so 1,000 views would cost a company $100. By the time I left we were fairly lucky for $1 per 1,000, which was sad for the time. Now it's even cheaper.

But back in the day there weren't as many good sites, so there was less supply basically. I also notice Google does a great job, like when I check my gmail I find the coolest little text ads up top -- found a guy renting the RED for $450/day with a great number of accessories, even lenses, I couldn't believe it. An absolute STEAL of a price.

I feel like banner ads used to totally suck and I never saw ads I wanted anything to do with, they were so hokey and retarded, but today they are doing a better job actually targeting users with things they want to see, which is ideal. I spend a LOT of money... you just have to find a way to get it

 

[mainstreetcm]

Thanks for posting this. I am getting my own web series into production as I write this and I am definitely looking for any information I can gather.

I do however, plan on spending quite a bit on advertising, as I want a full web assault like those recent "evony" ads did over the last month. Good to know utilizing facebook will be a cheap alternative to getting a viral audience.

As for advertising on your own webpage, do you have a plan to get that started, or are you just going to roll with a donate button at the buttom of the page?

 

[Chamber005]

Thanks for posting this. I am getting my own web series into production as I write this and I am definitely looking for any information I can gather.

I do however, plan on spending quite a bit on advertising, as I want a full web assault like those recent "evony" ads did over the last month. Good to know utilizing facebook will be a cheap alternative to getting a viral audience.

As for advertising on your own webpage, do you have a plan to get that started, or are you just going to roll with a donate button at the buttom of the page?

Yeah, since my project actually utilizes the site itself as part of the multi-media piece, I don't allow any advertising whatsoever. Heck, it's even password protected (which, by the way, EVERYONE involved was against -- but **** them, it's my thing, right?). The only place we could put advertising would be at that opening page and then over on The Great Independent side. Maybe eventually it will be worth it.

My main objective, though, is branding. Our first "season" takes place over the course of two years. If you look on The Great Independent side of the site under Multi-Media, The Overs: There is No Atlantis isn't coming until winter 2010. So, for me, at this stage, it's all about branding. EVERYTHING is branding. In business I spend money to make money, period. In art, I spend money to get people to know I exist.

I think there are much better webseries than mine out there -- but I believe in the unique format I've created and the characters and thier stories. What that means is that besides writing and shooting and acting and doing all of that, I spend four or more hours per day just on promoting. I mean, I have about 6 friends on the planet, I just started using Facebook ads, and already in its second week my video has 500 views and I've got about a 30% pull through to the website (which means people liked the video enough to then go on, type in a password, and look around the site).

NONE of those 500 were random youtube viewers. I gathered each and every one of them by talking to complete strangers.

If you do plan on doing something on YouTube, if you like my series (and I like yours), a good idea is to promote one another. The Guild, Dr. Horrible and Legend of Neil (them being the webseries that pretty much own youtube and all of whom I love) are strong because they exist as a whole. The Guild even tricked out their facebook page to support its fellow webisoders.

There's a guy here on DVX doing a series called Raising Kain which looks really professional and solid, but I'm concerned that he's not going to be pushing the YouTube side of things so much as trying to get people to his website.

But anyway -- yeah. Let me know when you post something and if you're wanting to be each other's shout-out buddies. YouTube is a lonely place for the newbie.

 

[Chamber005]

Not a bad idea at all really, cheap advertising it seems for certain purposes.

I have to say I'm surprised it's not more effective for companies -- the targeting is excellent. I always get ads I'm actually interested in each day, not like every ad, but a lot of good ones I do click on. And I'm an Internet veteran, trained to ignore that crap.

Back in the day, when I ran my own online empire and made thousands a month on just advertising (ah the good ol' days), our ads were never that targeted and were 10-50 times more expensive. I got pretty pissed off if I wasn't making at least a $1 CPM but that was considered crap, I wanted $3-4. Back before me, it was the even better days, you could get $100 CPMs, so 1,000 views would cost a company $100. By the time I left we were fairly lucky for $1 per 1,000, which was sad for the time. Now it's even cheaper.

But back in the day there weren't as many good sites, so there was less supply basically. I also notice Google does a great job, like when I check my gmail I find the coolest little text ads up top -- found a guy renting the RED for $450/day with a great number of accessories, even lenses, I couldn't believe it. An absolute STEAL of a price.

I feel like banner ads used to totally suck and I never saw ads I wanted anything to do with, they were so hokey and retarded, but today they are doing a better job actually targeting users with things they want to see, which is ideal. I spend a LOT of money... you just have to find a way to get it

The reason it sucks for big companies is the click-thru percentage. I have four ads running right now. One of the exposure ads is doing AWESOME (23 click-thrus now after one day! For one dollar!!) while the other three are doing just okay. Regardless, all of them are at percentages of .24%, .23% and .10% (the last one being the actual ad which is based sley on click-thrus. It's at something like 15K to 3 hits).

.24% click-thru is wretched if those click thrus are POSSIBLE sales and you are a major company. At least they seem to think so. They'd rather spend thousands of dollars on a commercial that's going to be fast-forwarded on DVR than enjoy the CONSTANT exposure of facebook. Big companies seem to feel that if it isn't MOVING it can't sell anything. I mean, I'm seeing some pathetic ads on FB, seriously. Bizarre new man soaps? LOL Seriously? I never see any name brands out there. They all believe you have to create some niche marketing campaign in order to pull the people in when all the people really want is a solid product that applies to their needs!

Back in the day people used to cherish branding, but now they act like it's nothing. Do you know how happy I was when I typed in The Great Independent into google's search engine and my site is the first thing listed and my MySpace page is the fourth?! I did no optomizing, nothing -- I just picked a brand name that I liked and that I hadn't seen anywhere else. That means all I have to do is let people know the company EXISTS. If they search for it, I am the first result they're given. Pretty amazing. Being listed first on google IN ANY un-quotation-ed search is amazing!

(THE OVERS, btw is a completely different story. Overs are a kind of score used in some English game -- cricket or something. So my show might as well be called "Free throws", right? lol)

Facebook provides clear, clean branding. None of that noisy MySpace crap. My ads are STARK and BRIGHT and COLORFUL or BLACKENED. They are in direct contrast to Facebook's look and appearance. And what I'm finding is that the MORE STARK the better -- the more clicks will happen. There's a reason why the ad with the girl in the green hair with the blue background is KILLING the girl with the red hair with the grey background.

I think in the end, the most important thing is to run SEVERAL ads -- not just one with more exposure. I can't explain why, but I don't feel like the .25% holds up if you list the same ad for longer. There's probably some metric involved, but I'm positive I would not have all the clicks I have right now had I done just Nathan (most clicks) without Ashley and Milly ads as well. IMO

Anyway, in week two the video is at 519 and the website is at 128 uniques (that's about a 25% pull-thru! Pretty awesome). And since launching the fan page yesterday I have 40 fans!

The challenging thing is making it truly viral on YouTube. Until you have subscribers and comments and ratings, all you have is viewers and fans -- which is AMAZING, but not in the eyes of the YouTube community. You can pay for promoted videos, but I'm not doing that until around the 6th episode. Webseries people want to know that you're in it for the long haul and will deliver a similar product month in and month out. Anyone can tell one story. Everytime you add a new video and become more prolific, people trust you more. In my mind I have to earn every single viewer. Nothing comes for free, certainly not in the Webserial community.

 

[Chamber005]

Man, my cost per click on the Nathan ad is at 6 cents per click! That is just unreal... KILLER ad if I do say so myself!

Ashley isn't doing too shabby, either. She's at 10 cents per click.

Milly was trailing way behind at 25 cents (still below the avg of 30 cents), so I moved her over to the girls side, see if she can spark some interest over there.

Our pull through (e.g. you became a fan of us after clicking) is at about 30%. You have to look at the number of friends who are fans and subtract that from the total to get your percentage.

Good times!

 

[Chamber005]

Wow! Bidding jumped to more than a dollar on CPCs! Must be a friday/weekend thing. Everyone pushing to get their little performance announcements out. Looks like my CPC campaign will be resting for the weekend!

CPMs are still running at 27-34 cents, so the other three ads are safe at 30.