buzzmarketing daily

Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer at Facebook, is speaking today at Advertising Week in New York. She is expected to make a major announcement about a partnership with Nielsen to create a program called “Brand Lift”  that was first reported yesterday in the Wall Street Journal and covered by Mashable and AllFacebook.

Sandberg’s entire speech, entitled “Knowing is Better,” will be live-broadcast on Facebook Marketing’s Fan Page, and we’ll have live updates and analysis here @ Buzz Marketing Daily as well.

Stay tuned – it should be an exciting day in social media marketing!

Update: 11:20 AM Sheryl has just begun her presentation, which ran late because of an earlier presentation at Advertising Week from Reverend Al Sharpton.

11:30 Sheryl has covered the basics of marketing on Facebook, which all of our readers know already.

11:45 Sheryl has introduced the CEO of Nielsen, David Calhoun, and Michael Lynton, CEO of Sony Pictures and announced that Facebook and Nielsen have entered into a relationship.  Times to update their relationship status. Nielsen will help to verify the effectiveness of brand advertising on Facebook and provide real-time feedback to client advertisers.

11:55 All 3 are answering questions now about the partnership. Someone just asked “How do big brands connect with their fans on Facebook?” Sheryl answered “Authenticity.” We 2nd that, and we’ll add: Call theKbuzz.

12:00 The presentation just concluded. We have to say, aside from the Nielsen announcement, there wasn’t much new to us or social-media-savvy readers. I will say this: The Facebook/Nieslen partnership does have the potential to legitimize brand reach advertising, not just online on Facebook, but online in general. Still, we can’t help but think this still misses the point of the real promise of social media advertising and marketing. The 2 best uses of advertising on Facebook are:

1) To build up a huge, targeted fan-base after which companies can then have “free” engagement, forever

2) To use the unparalleled, robust hypertargeting keywords feature to target customers based not just on demographics, but on keyword targeting (which Sheryl surprisingly didn’t really address at all).

While Fortune 500 companies may want costly reach blocks on Facebook, targeting millions of people and verified by Nielsen- the vast majority of the millions of global small businesses and non-profits can utilize Fan Pages alone and the self-serve Ad Platform to better build their Fan base.