What an excellent read thx for this !

well written article . much the same thing happened to me . I am in the holiday home business lots of clicks but no follow ons . the Facebook bubble and a lot of these marketing gurus who teach you how to optimize your sight will go out with a big bang real soon

Everyone knows that Facebook is not a B2B marketing tool. You wasted your cash there. Surprised that someone with SFA and ISME connections would make such s schoolboy error.

I’ve used both facebook and google for my ads and my results were the very same as peters. Actually my facebook ads cost me a lot more with less impact. At the moment i only use google

Your correct it does suit some businesses but to be honest I cannot fathom why you and your business decided to go this route and spend large amount of money doing so. No offence but you should leave the web and Web marketing to the people who know what they are doing. I must write an article on packaging and send it into thejournal.ie because like you and the Internet / marketing, I know feck all about that bar opening my box of corn flakes in the morning. Phew, I feel better after that!

I don’t know where you got the idea that facebook was a good venue to advertise your business. Google is ideal because if somebody is looking for a packaging provider that is the first place they’re going to go, and if you have the right adwords campaigns you have a good chance of being seen. Nobody is going to click on an ad about packaging while they’re browsing their friend’s status updates or photos.

Lucky man.Seems to have it all wrapped up………

Social Media/Facebook are not for every single business out there and it takes a LOT more than setting up a page and expecting miracles or dozens of enquiries regardless of the advertising spend. Setting up 2 pages is his first mistake, I’d love to see the page, there’s probably no posts, no photos, no interactions, no competitions, no custom banners, videos etc. He should have hired someone who has developed successful Facebook pages and done it properly, perhaps they would have advised him that his business is not appealing to a Facebook generation.

I think a lot of people are being duped into the idea of facebook marketing, based on the advice of friends and family. The first thing you need to think about when marketing is your target audience, in this case, facebook does not reach them. Any businesses on facebook tend to be contributors, not digesters (ie people who engage with content).

I’m sorry but as you said in the beginning Facebook is “social” ,, noone will continue to like your page if its uninteresting …. It has to be funny/topical and geared towards the right audience ! People “like” pages they have an interest in ( animals/fashion/food etc) so if I was you go back to how you used to drum up new business and don’t moan if something you know nothing about to begin with fails!

Well done to the author for embracing social media, I would hazard a guess though that you will see more action from the links at the bottom of the article than from fb. Fb is like the jersey shore of social media. If I were advising you I would suggest forget fb for business and go to LinkedIn.

The Emperor’s New Clothes” (Danish: Kejserens nye Klæder) is a short tale by Hans Christian Andersen about two weavers who promise an Emperor a new suit of clothes that is invisible to those unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. When the Emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, a child cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!” The tale has been translated into over a hundred languages…. Sound familiar!!!

Here’s a helpful comic from The Oatmeal

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/facebook_likes

In my opinion, Facebook would not suit business to business marketing. Firstly, as it’s actively blocked in many companies and using facebook at work is generally frowned upon, you’re depending on people bringing their work home with them to an extent. Secondly, continually monitoring it and keeping it up to date is quite time consuming and only worth the effort if you’ve got a significant number of people connected to you. Facebook works best (and indeed works very well hence it’s value) for consumer-end marketing

Bottom line is, on Facebook some twits will ‘like’ anything, and I mean anything! Including things/products/people etc they have never heard of/ are not remotely interested in! Anyone can click!

Every business spends considerable money finding out the best paying advertising medium. If you are not spending money , you are not finding out. Your article is excellent in making people realise its not a get rich quick scheme which some sales people will lead you believe. That said I know it works well for b2c markets where the market is female fashion based merchandise.

have you tried using hike those likes on fb, they are a page that link you with other pages to increase your likes and do likewise for you?

You should have advertised in Fishing Weekly.

I have used Facebook adds with no return having said that I have had business from my page which is free.I have a friends page and a business Like page getting Likes is so hard compared to the friends page.
The business page is http://www.facebook.com/weddingcar.ie

I wonder will i get more likes from this lol

Sorry your association with Facebook did not attract new business for you. Why don’t you enlist the help of a couple of the thousands of knowledgeable kids out there who know Facebook inside out. Pay them for results. ‘Happy Days’. Best of luck.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions.
I would like to post a clarification regarding the market and demographic targeted as some seem to be missing the point. We were promoting our specialist marketing products in the UK, not packaging, to those designers and specifiers involved in direct mail and promotions, we expected these to be more likely to be FB users.  The main point is that the alleged FB facility to target advertising at specific types of people is poppycock, FB is being oversold as a panacea for all businesses, which is clearly not the case. There are some great posts from those for whom it does work very effectively. No doubt the commercial evolution of these types of platforms will grow over time, just like the Internet itself has done over them past 15 years or so.
The small money spent was more than worth it, the time element and the evaluation of the results were good research exercises. I still think that ignorance of a topic such as this leaves one very open what always happens when the buyer know little and the vendors have all the knowledge, guess who gets screwed? 
The article was always just one mans view, if somebody got something out of it, great. If the debate/comments bring forward more understanding and knowledge, even better.

#facepoo #brewstersmillions #friendster ;-)

Social Media works when done correctly and some business probably won’t work on Facebook I think a packaging com pay might be one! We’ve had great results from social media and a great FB page with over 4,500 fans. We have great banter and people come to our page to have a laugh and discuss topics of the day, we probably only talk about meat 20% of the time!

I don’t think your experience gives SME’s an accurate picture of how social media does or does not work. We have great weekly special offers and people follow us to hear of our specials, as people want value for money. So from our point of view Facebook and twitter drive must of the traffic to our online shop and we now deliver to customers all over Ireland thanks to social media!

I think Facebook can work but it depends on what your selling. I think it’s a very handy tool for say, a restaurant or bar. But discount packaging? Nah don’t think so!

I am not a Facebook person but can tell you that it takes hours a day to get results on twitter, it is a fantastic tool but hard to get around for the new comer. You need to react on the spot. Smartphone needed.

I launched a new business a few weeks ago & got a little obsessed about fb likes! But you know what ive calmed down, my business will grow, i have faith & i dont want 100′s od likes from people who dont care, i’d prefer to wait 12 months and see it grow naturally (hopefully!).
It defo works for some businesses more than others, i have purchased lots if stuff thru finding companies on fb. And it is good if its suitable for your business. Mines mashngravy.com – like it if its your thing ! No charge!

FB pages in general are hard to get going whether for a business, band, actor etc. It’s really difficult to promote it as the only free option aside from paid advertising is to invite people through email which makes it difficult to attract the interest of people you don’t have email contact with. Unless you’re already famous in the case of a band for e.g. or come up with a perfectly pitched social media friendly company or business that goes viral, it’s definitely hard to get going. What you really have to have is a personal account as well + use that to add friends + then recommend the page to them. It’s a strange set up but works if you’re prepared to put a lot of time into it (initially anyway)

FB as a commercial entity is definitely a case of the Emporer’s new clothes.

I can’t believe those who just shelled out 38 bucks each for FB shares didn’t learn from the dotcom bubble.

If you have them, sell them now at a marginal profit – they’ll be through the floor in two years’ time when people come to their senses…

Looks like you’re getting more interest from your article here than on fb. Keep writing!

FB does work as advertising tool if you present interesting and keep following up on your side. It is all about brand awareness at the end of the day ! A stay home mum might not be your target customer but if she sees your funky , funny , witty post on FB every day she will remember you and refer you to someone who requires your services . I am recently made a little trailer on you tube “Greystones Curves” for my small business and only because of my work on FB I got 775 hits on my link. I am grateful for that because I would cost me a lot of money and time with commercial flyers door to door to get that amount of people.

I agree that Facebook isnt for every business. I can safely say that it has helped my business flourish. Go to http://www.facebook.com/travelcounsellorianwalsh

Just looked at your website and have referred you to a friend who is looking for a paper bag supplier. Would never have thought of using fb which is for fun not work!

What do people think of advertising on linked in?

So if someone is concerned about the NATO dropping bombs on civilians in Pakistan, killing innocent women, children and men (or about the western support for militants like Osama bin Laden from 1979-1989), that person is a “Muslim fundamentalist”?

So if someone concerned about 9/11 vicitims is a “Christian Fundamentalist”?

Did you know that far more Pakistanis and Afghans and Iraqis and Vietnamese and Koreans have been killed by US, Europe, NATO than were killed on 9/11 or on 7/7? It’s just that western media doesn’t give it a fancy name when white guy kills the colored people.

Did this comment just made me a “Muslim fundamentalist”? What did you call someone who was concerned about the napalm being dropped on Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos in 1970s?

Peter, thanks for writing this article – it was awesome. Being over 50 also, I have found the viral nature of social media hard to grasp. I’m not one of the social media lemmings so I find it almost impossible to reason like a lemming or to pander to the lemmings.

Having said that, you said:

“The main point is that the alleged FB facility to target advertising at specific types of people is poppycock, FB is being oversold as a panacea for all businesses, which is clearly not the case. ”

I have been in technology work my entire working life. I have found over the years that virtually ALL statements made by advocates on the positive value of specific technologies have to be understood in their intended context. In other words, if you are on the outside looking in and have little experience with a particular technology, the “fan boys” will give you a distorted and incomplete perspective on the tech in question. This has always been true with computers and particularly with social media. Nobody on the inside considers the challenges of anyone who is not a member of their cult. Fan boys (of Facebook, as well as all other technology niches) assume that everyone else should instantly enjoy and understand their own pet cause.

So you have a detractor in this thread saying: “Facebook likes are the first step, not the end. Now you have to develop a relationship and personality. …I’ve had huge success on facebook because my company is young and cool and can generate content my customers and fans like.”

He’s actually 100% correct. Younger users who live inside social media and base their social lives partially upon it will successfully comprehend how to use it as a marketing tool.

*If* you could create entertaining content revolving around packaging materials, such as a series of funny videos, then Facebook users would gravitate to it. Otherwise, B2B is a poor fit to mass social media.

Those of us who have lives outside Facebook will struggle to “get it” and it will seem quite Zen like and complicated. It’s actually not complicated but I have a hard time grasping how and why it is important in my own business, so I share your irritation.

Perhaps look into LinkedIn, which is the B2B “Facebook”.

Best wishes and good luck.

Fundamentally. I thought I was buying was buying advertising targetted at people in the UK in the Direct Marketing and Promotional industries. My efforts were thwated by inefficient Facebook aim. The remark was not intended to political or a moral judgement in any way, just an example of the crude weapon that is Facebook advertising.

Your kidding, right. NYTimes, how dare you write an article about a guy who spends a paltry $160 on facebook, a social network, for a bla bla packaging company. Facebook likes are the first step, not the end. Now you have to develop a relationship and personality. The fact that you broadsided facebook by choosing such a one sided example of their lack of success is appauling. Was this some form of google ad campaign where they pay you to smear facebook. I’ve had huge success on facebook because my company is young and cool and can generate content my customers and fans like. So please NYtimes, next time be journalists and be a bit more balanced. If you are a boring commodity where people just get online to find packaging, then stay in those channels. Leave the fun stuff up to people who have something fun to offer.

Facebook has a specific market – everyone uses it, but generally I’m not going to learn about packaging or building materials, etc., via facebook. I’ll use google to do ‘research’ while on facebook I’m having ‘leisure’ time. That’s the biggest difference. Is your product or service an item which might be used during ‘leisure’ time? If yes, then facebook might be a good place for your ad spending during a test campaign. If your product/service is something non-leisure, than you might want to stick with google and/or microsoft.
I also consider facebook/google+ a good place for a business to set up a page and then forgo the entire business website expense. Restaurants especially can benefit from a lot of the features facebook & google+ offer for free.

Digital is already huge and one ignores it at one’s peril, but it is only part of a marketing/advertising strategy. Just because a company is small does not mean it should not have a full spectrum approach to the various mediums. The budget by definition is also smaller and great care has to be taken to maximise returns from the available resources.
We are involved in Direct Mail/Marketing products and we use it ourselves, nothing like getting a sample into the punters hands. It is not widely known but Google is a very large spender on DM with a multi million dollar spend. We do some print advertising in specific journals such as Creative Review, every issue for the past 12 years, because it works. We also do occasional inserts in the magazine too. We do a bunch of Adwords campaigns and monitor the results and modify/tweak accordingly. We do email marketing on a regular basis using the ubiquitous ConstantContact, always striving to find the holy grail of getting our message opened by people who are genuinely interested in our offering. We segment and tailor our messages differently for each group, agencies, former customers, designers etc etc. We do the work.

I write SME opinion pieces for various magazines, blogs, online newspapers and the like which do deliver some decent spin off visits to our sites and consequent business. Something must have rubbed off along the line, My grand-uncle, Brendan Bracken, owned the Financial Times and was UK Minister for Information with Churchills wartime government, I am aware of the huge power of the wider media. I strive to find ways to harness any access to benefit my business.

I remain hungry to learn and understand how best to use Digital in all it’s manifestations, even if my efforts sometimes draw ridicule for that ” uncool sad old grey haired git” . I do love the arrogant innocence of the young, so passionate about their generational property, how dare I invade their space. You’ve got to love them, I was young myself once, which they seem to discount but they are the future.

Your facebook $ and your article got you an article on thejournal.ie and to the top page of http://news.ycombinator.com/ so that’s probably worth your €1,200 anyway

thejournal.ie has “reach” !

Some analysis and interesting comments on the topic from those who should know
http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/9949-facebook-s-real-ad-problem-addressable-market-size#blog_comment_92082

Peter, I sincerely admire your entrepreneurial spirit, but you can’t *always* do things yourself and expect success in something you don’t fully understand.

1. Facebook isn’t the appropriate platform for B2B marketing. People on Facebook aren’t looking for business solutions, they’re more successfully targeted as consumers.

2. Facebook–and all other social media platforms/channels–can serve as marketing *tools*; they aren’t advertising *solutions*. You need a strategy to make things happen.

3. Just because an overwhelming majority of Internet marketers are selling social media snake oil, or delivering no value, it doesn’t mean that honest revenue isn’t possible with the medium. Again, it’s about strategy;engagement.

Don’t be so quick to dismiss something as useless because in your circumstances.

As entrepreneurs, we sometimes want to be able to do more than we know how. It takes a serious tucking away of the ego to see clearly.

We had a similar experiece. The conclusion we came to was that Facebook is simply not an avenue for B2B sales or exposure. Which makes sense – it’s a social network for individuals, not businesses. In our case (wholesale jewellery), why would any of our customers or potential customers want their own customers to know who they sourced their stock from. In retrospect, it’s a no-brainer.

Retail sellers, selling to consumers (which is what Facebook is full of) may very well have a completely different experience.

This is exactly what happens when you go into something without any knowledge, no matter what industry or project, you must gain knowledge. There are many 7$-100$ courses on Facebook marketing that could have made things a lot different. Decide, Learn, Do, Tweak…

Please also see our page, it has been a great success driving traffic to our site and sales – http://www.facebook.com/dublin.meat.company

Peter, et al., there is another problem with Facebook’s clicks that exists no matter how skilled you are at social media advertising. Many of the clicks you get are meaningless if not invalid, especially ‘likes’ that occur early in small ad campaigns. In recent small campaigns my company (a mobile gaming company founded in San Francisco in 2012 ;-) found as high as 90 percent of the ‘likes’ came from profiles of people that click on dozens or hundreds of ‘likes’ in a day, often 4 or 5 unrelated ads within a minute – not exactly what we were hoping for when we put down a few hundred bucks to get those clicks. Whether they are bots or people with unusual behaviors matters in principle but not in practice. You can read more about the problem here: http://wahanegi.com/dont-believe-the-like/.

Over the past three weeks there has be no response from Facebook about the validity of such clicks paid for by my company, or for that matter the thousands of other large and small advertisers who appear to have paid for similarly odd ‘likes.’ After my initial inquiry I received a boiler-plate customer service email asking for more information, spent a day gathering the surprising data described in the blog above, and also sent two additional follow-up inquiries to them before finally deciding to publish the posting. Despite the lack of direct response, a somewhat unusually large number of folks with Menlo Park IP addresses read that blog posting last week, perhaps from FB HQ, who knows. In the meantime, when I find an insightful write-up about Facebook from a respected source, I let the readers know of our experience. So there you go.

A company shouldn’t have to be “young and cool,” establish relationships or generate interesting content to be successful on Facebook, if it is every really going to live up to its promise of effective, highly targeted advertising.

First of all Facebook is no longer filled with younger users. It has a mass audience of 1 billion that crosses all kinds of demographics.

Second, most Facebook accounts and company pages have long since past the highest number of connections with whom you can rationally expect to maintain engaged relationships. If you buy into the theory behind Dunbar’s number, then most of the relationships on Facebook and Twitter are quite weak ties. Weak ties shouldn’t be expected to deliver a significant return, unless targeted.

For these reasons, the quality of Facebook’s targeting capabilities should be such that Mr. Faulkner could reach sole proprietors or small businesses who in addition to having their own product or company page on Facebook (with a certain threshold of activity, as opposed to just indicating an interest in direct marketing) also have a shop on Etsy, eBay or Amazon and would see value in his Snazzy Bag product, for example.

Facebook has to get beyond brand marketing and inbound marketing that has a fuzzy ROI if it has any chance of meeting its revenue targets and living up to all the future potential factored into its current stock price.

there are some things people are looking at, and it is not only your product..
the product he is selling is a product we all need, but it is boring! but how can you make it more ‘cool’ as we say it..?

i checked the websites, and they are really boring.. if you had spend your money on making a good looking site, with great pictures of your product, and a great logo people will look at it..

Nobody wakes up in the morning thinking to themselves, “I’ve got to find some packaging company on Facebook to like. If there’s something interesting about your business though, pictures, funny stories, you can create some content that might have a shot at being interesting enough to like. Ordinarily the struggles of some packaging company to get online might not be interesting, but the story was well-written and engaging, and thats how you have to approach creating content online. The reason that so many brands are struggling with converting fans to actual activity and sales is that they don’t really get social media. Too many companies are of the mindset that all they really have to do to succeed is set up a Facebook page, throw a few bucks into Facebook ads, maybe use one of the types of companies at http://www.buyfacebookfansreviews.com and that will just automatically catapult them to success. Things don’t work out that way online. They have to be able to offer something to people that they value and listen to their customers. This is the best way to achieve long-term success. The additional factor here is that while Facebook offers features to increase engagement, those features are really only designed to increase engagement on Facebook pages themselves. You have to go out and offer people something of value on Facebook to really find a way to get success.

Well, the authors caution in experimenting with a very small investment paid off here.

Imagine if he’d done a Groupon, “packing for 10% of the price” offer. That’d sting.

That was a bad experience! I have never payed one dollar on adds!!

Great article and well said. Thank you for sharing Peter – businesses can’t just run on anecdotal evidence and hear’say – we need actual, real examples.

Your figures surrounding Google supplying up to 92% of traffic in Ireland are spot on. We recently looked at the Analytics stats for Irish websites across a million Irish visitors in 30 days and found the same. Facebook doesn’t create or send traffic. Forresters’ damning report that Social Media accounted for less than 1% of ecommerce sales should force people to develop something else other than “branding effect.” Most small to medium businesses don’t run solidly on a “branding” effect.

We’ve been working on a search-based internet marketing programme since 2002 ourselves and have been amazed by the amount of Social Media gurus who’ve sprung up since 2010. There are possibly more Social Media Experts in Ireland now than taxis….

What is the point of this story? The only thing I can get from this is that your ads and your content was probably painfully boring. Last month I spent $500 on Facebook ads – the ads drove people to a landing page on our company Facebook page – the call to action was to like our page and in exchange the user got a free eBook that was about an issue incredibly important to the demographic we drove to the page through the ads.

Our $500 got us 3,000 new likes which increased our friends of friends view base by almost 900,000. From that we’re not able to engage a wider audience with non-boring content and it’s turning into sales.

Moral of the story: don’t be boring.

Ahh the lure of easy money and advertising. Even well established businesses like yours needs some sort of a conscious or subconscious presence. Little league teams. Cricket team sponsorship.
Anything that gets your name out and visible is worth the money. You say you are in an industrial packaging sector of town? Is that your business?
You don’t say what your business is so we can only assume by the advertising failure rate you had that your name is not exactly a household name.

Remember this, if you are not a brand name you are just a commodity. You need to be a brand name otherwise you are going to be left in the dust and become one of those 100year old plus businesses that couldn’t change with the times.

The internet is all about establishing or becoming a brand name. That’s what drives people to your site or business.

Google is a much better efficient business model in driving people to your site because of add words (Meta Tags) Just because someone Likes you on Facebook doesn’t mean it drives people to your site. Facebook is about relationships that people have with each other. What that means is because I like your company doesn’t mean my social network of friends is going to go to your site because you package or bubble wrap hardware.

If you like sailboat racing does that mean your social network of friends like sailboat racing? How many friends do you have? Demographics of peers is also related to your business. or rather will drive people to your business.
Maybe it might drive people or maybe not.

Just like adding this comment to this section required me to be on Facebook or have a twitter account. I like Facebook for it’s social interaction but not as a business advertising model. I don’t have a Facebook account nor do I want one. I didn’t have a twitter account and so it was the least invasive to sign up for one which I did to post this comment.

I feel for you, but here’s what I suggest you do. Create some remarkable content, like a fun video for your customers, and share it on Facebook. Cost: Free. Then share it on Linkedin. Cost: Free. Then Tweet it. Cost: Free.

If you focused on creating and sharing great content rather than “buying” leads, you’d see much better results for less money.

Jeff Ogden, President
Find New Customers
http://www.findnewcustomers.com

Sorry, but your websites are very outdated! you need to redesign them all

Just saw your article Peter spot on, your late Dad said marketing (we called it selling then 1978) was all about leg work, so did mine – your old friend Joe Leech-

you can sell your product like apple, make people believe the need it very urgently!
how? great design!

It’s complicated. As with anything it’s about using the right tool for the job. FB ads can be really effective if you have clear calls to action on your landing page.

Gathering likes is like advertising to get people to sign up for an email list. It requires significant followup work in order to convert.

I think the confusion many advertisers are having is thinking that advertising for likes will equal more sales immediately. Likes can be effective, if you treat it like an online forum or email list, and build a relationship with your potential customers over time. It’s a great way to get repeat business through specials and limited time offers. It’s not that great of a way to get new customers.

You should try sending people to a landing page (whether in facebook or your own site) that is aimed at converting those clickers to customers, like you’d do for Adwords.

Or, stick with the likes and have someone sending out specials and interacting with fans on a regular basis.

Of course facebook wants you to get likes, as it keeps their users on their site. But, that’s not always what you might want as an advertiser. Especially if you’re looking for a gateway into the same funnel you use on your primary web site.

You said nothing concerning you method for engaging either network. You said nothing about the content generated for any of your pages. “If you build it, they will come”, is not the way this works. You can’t approach this new medium as a traditional advertiser. From what you described, this is on you.

Not to mention you’re already going to have trouble engaging social audiences as a packaging company

That was interesting.