Facebook Connect proves a major marketing driver for Campbell's® Chunky® MVC

Campbell's Chunky MVC: Most Valuable Coach launched for the second year on September 14, 2009 . the program is a call for Canadians to nominate a coach for the esteemed honour of being named the Chunky MVC. The winning Coach will be awarded $25,000 in prizing for their athletes and community.

The Chunky MVC site allows individuals to nominate, become a fan and/or and leave personal testimonial about their favourite coach. To help bring the program to life, Chunky partnered with the Coaching Association of Canada (www.coach.ca) and TSN.

TSN and Coach.ca have done a great job driving to the Chunky MVC website, but kudos goes to the website audience who have broadcast their social activities onto their Facebook profiles. Each time someone signs up for the site, becomes a fan of a coach, or leaves a testimonial about a coach the information is broadcast into the newsfeed on Facebook. Friends see the comment, and have the ability to click on what their friend is doing, which takes them out of Facebook and into the Chunky MVC website.

Coaches from all over Canada are eligible to be nominated. They can be found with the help of a map on the Chunky MVC homepage that showcases over 300 coaches.

In the less than a month since site launch over 100 coaches have been nominated.

Lets look at some impressive numbers. To date 26.86% of the visitors to Chunky MVC have come from Facebook . Of this group 75% are clicking on messages in their Facebook news feed, or from a friends profile. A further 5% have come from emails notifications that friends have sent from the Chunky MVC website.

By comparison , Coach.ca and TSN.ca have provided almost 21% of all referral visits (16.8% and 4% respectively) , and Google has contributed 4%.

Direct referrals have the single largest source of traffic. The direct referral traffic would include a) Un-tagged audience members, b) Users who have typed the URL in directly c) Ads that have linked directly to the website. TSN traffic would be understated as much of it would be included in the direct referral numbers.

With that in mind the Facebook Connect numbers stand out as the largest single source of traffic to the website.

People care about what their friends have to say! Word of mouth has always been and continues to be an effective way of getting your message out to the masses.(recall the 1980's shampoo campaign I told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on and so on and so on" )

Facebook applications attached to marketing efforts in effect work as a new channel of viral marketing. Instead of having to breakthrough all the clutter of marketing messages to the universe, the marketers pass on the work to a smaller segment of the universe. Through personal recommendations (newsfeeds etc), the Campbell's brand and the MVC contest is being presented to an extended audience that may of otherwise dismissed the marketing effort all together. Think about this when designing your next concept.

We believe strongly that brands need to own their online experiences. A brand needs to be abale to stand on its own and not be morphed into a sub-brand of a bigger brand (if it is only accessed through Facebook, it becomes a Facebook entity). As the owner/manager of a brand you want to be assure that you remain in conplete control of the messages, imagery, and client interactions associated with your brand. Social Networks don't offer brands these critical leve lss to control and protection. Facebook is a great opportunity for brands, to engage the Facebook audience in YOUR website via Facebook connect but should never be considered the only marketing tool in your arsenal.

Facebook Connect strikes the right balance between owning, controlling, managing and moderating a brands online experience with the marketing power of the largest social network on the planet. Facebook connect brings the audience, into the online experience, and lets the brand do what it needs to do for success. Plus the results speak for themselves? Are you looking to grow your audience by 25%? Consider a Facebook Connected Community powered by Filemobile's Media Factory. Filemobile allows brands to control and manage their online experiences, while leveraging the marketing potential of Facebook.

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