Social Media Marketing: Facebook and Nielsen Co. Partnership

Social media marketing platforms are continually rolling out new features to make their sites more user-friendly, such as MySpace’s 2-way sync with Twitter and Facebook’s new tagging feature, among others.

Now, those advertising on Facebook can expect an improvement on measuring how their ads perform because of a new multi-year partnership with Nielsen Co. that was announced today. The partnership has given life to Nielsen BrandLift, which is only being released to select advertisers in the U.S. right now. The product emphasizes the speed, ease of use, and accuracy with which it will analyze ad performance.

Advertisers using the social media marketing platform complained that they cannot properly measure advertising impact on the social network. Now, ad performance can be analyzed by surveys that Facebook will show users who have seen the ads. Facebook will package this data against responses for users who have not seen the ads. The surveys will seamlessly integrate itself into the current Facebook system, appearing in the same space where sponsored messages are today. Nielsen Co. also reports that no personal information will be collected from the surveys.

This partnership with Nielsen Co. is another recent “upgrade” for the social media marketing platform. The social media site is expected to earn a $500 million revenue for this year, nearly 70% more earnings than in 2008. Facebook’s partnership with a marketing industry research expert will most likely lure more advertisers to the social media marketing platform, advertisers who were already interested in Facebook’s 300 million strong userbase.

As of last month, Facebook had a 14.7% share of display ad views, compared to just 1.8% in January. In that same month, Facebook also had the 4th largest unique audience among all web brands. Advertisers have spent more than $1 million on campaigns on the social media marketing platform.

In a perfectly summed up quote: “Facebook is an increasingly vital link between consumers and brands,” said Nielsen online division CEO, John Burbank. The partnership will benefit both companies by deepening Nielsen's understanding of social media networks while simultaneously granting Facebook the advertising expertise it needs.

Written by Daisy K.