Facebook社群行銷的黑暗面揭秘

原文是在TechCrunch的How To Spam Facebook Like A Pro: An Insider’s Confession，由於苦等不到對岸以及各大趨勢專家的翻譯(更新：11/4 Mr. Jamie有相關文章介紹)，決定花點時間翻譯較有趣的部份。如果你還在老實的追著facebook行銷專家，問說怎麼樣經營好我的粉絲專頁，醒醒吧！阿宅。

前情提要

這幾天在TechCrunch上有著激烈的論戰，主要圍繞著Facebook上的一些新興公司，諸如Zynga、Playfish甚至是facebook本身，對於一些『詐騙形態廣告』的態度，幾近縱容或說同流合污。

可以想見的是，由於facebook這種較為新形態的平台，對於許多網友跟公司根本都是全新的經驗，所以藏汙納垢幾乎是不可避免的，有興趣的可以參考『Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell』理解較完整的事件始末，內容相當精彩，如果想知道social game操作的暗黑步，一定要了解一下。

翻譯正文 (不負責翻譯)

你知道在早些日子Mark Zuckerberg(譯按：facebook創辦人)在拿到創投基金前，是怎麼讓facebook撐過來的嗎？還有那些賣Acai Berry以及其他減肥商品的廣告業者，如何日賺超過$100,000(譯按：美金)嗎？– 這些都是筆者的朋友，新廣告通路的先行者，你會看到這些廣告寫著 “ 收件夾 (5). 阿宅, 台北市的某人正為你神魂顛倒！” (廣告上頭寫著你的名字、檔案大頭照與所在城市)，我靠著這些生意賺了上百萬元 -- 我不驕傲，但只是非常好賺的意思。(譯按：炫耀鬼…)

接下來我將會跟您說明這些在facebook以及其他社群平台的線上騙術 -- 錢怎麼跑出來的、哪些人有份、還有誰真的點了這些廣告。閱讀本文後，您就可以有機會避開這些垃圾廣告，但您應該更好奇誰上勾了。

在2007年6月，facebook開放了他們的應用程式開發平台，所以任何人都可以在這個頂尖社群網路上開發遊戲。透過取得使用者的資料，遊戲開發商可以快速的開發迷人且病毒式擴散的遊戲。評比誰是你最正的朋友、分享心理測驗、尬車、種菜以及其他許許多多的遊戲，全部只消按個按鈕。所有的使用者都直覺得按下『我同意』，允許遊戲開發商使用他們的個人檔案，而沒有任何遲疑。

Facebook沒有考慮過，如果遊戲開發商可能將使用者的姓名、檔案照片以及個人資料交給廣告商 以及那些可能是詐騙廣告的傢伙。(譯按：歡迎來到紅了再說的世界)

(如上圖)這些廣告把自己偽裝像是從Facebook官方來的 - 藍色按鈕、白色背景、同樣的字體，當然，以及你的檔案照片、你的名字，加上你的朋友們，全部都在廣告裡頭。如果你是一個15歲的女孩，你確定能夠分辨哪些是facebook、遊戲商或者廣告商來的？(如下圖)這類型的廣告一樣在MySpace上行之有年，利用類似假的視窗系統訊息或跳出視窗。(譯按：一堆下載網站跟色情網站也都一直這樣搞呀，還好這種招術在簡體站見多了~XDD)

 

最妙的一招就是能夠動態的把使用者資訊塞在廣告中，讓廣告看起來像是應用程式的一部份，缺乏管制的社群網站，最後的結果就是父母的手機收到一些錢，接下來會發生什麼事就可以腦內補完。

在2008初期，大學年紀的遊戲開發商，讓使用者互相戳來戳去、咬來咬去、呼巴掌、親吻、踢來踢去，為該平台每天產生4億個曝光數(impressions)， 這些開發商並不是專業的公司，而是一些大學生利用週末完成的遊戲，且他們發現他們可以藉由廣告收益每天賺超過$10,000(譯按：對，美金) ，對，我們做過些大研究。今天，這個數目更高。在賺錢與道德的天平上選擇，這些孩子在最近的例子裡都是選擇錢。

當Facebook平台最早問市時，開發商用的是Google AdSense,，eCPMs(譯按：有效每千次展示成本，網路廣告中常用的計算數字，有需要請洽您的Google廣告專員，或者我可以幫您介紹可靠的)大約是 10-15 美分，這代表開發商每曝光1000次廣告， 就可以賺到這錢。不過很快的，廣告聯盟，像是我操作的這個，就會湊上來，然後跟他們說怎麼利用社群網站的資料，放些小聰明廣告，就可以把這個數字提升到6塊錢美金，也就是大概比AdSense好個60倍。而AdSense只能弄到0.1% CTR(點擊率)，每一次廣告的點擊只能賺到15美分，而我們的廣告可以提升到4% CTR，而每個點擊還是賺15美分。算一下吧。(譯按：我算術不好，不過這樣看起來是40倍)

相信我，我試著去做誠實的最佳化 - 在情人節弄正常的花廣告，在Cyber Monday上放Walmart廣告(譯按：我懶得研究Cyber Monday是啥鬼)，在賽車遊戲裡放汽車險的廣告等等。幾個月過後，我透過一打以上的廣告聯盟，試過超過150種的方式，系統化的測試各種廣告、目標化、創意的版型等。沒有一個是成功的，我之前是在Yahoo!內部分析團隊 --工作是最佳化流量。(譯按：看來這才是問題吧……)

我最後了解到：在Facebook上的人並不會為了任何東西付費，他們沒有信用卡，他們不想用信用卡，而且對於血拼沒興趣。

(茲附上原文，以示我不是唬爛的打出這段文字，People on Facebook won’t pay for anything. They don’t have credit cards, they don’t want credit cards, and they are not interested in shopping.)

不過你可以用下面的三樣東西呼嚨到他們：

• 下載工具列 (Download a toolbar): 這可能會是種間諜軟體(像是Zango)或者其他合法些的東西，像是Webfetti Zwinkys。(譯按：記得你為了一些農民幣搞到電腦被裝了些東西嗎?我猜大概就是這些。)
• 奉上他們的email (Give up their email address): 您贏得了一台”免費”相機或者你被選為一台全新 Macbook Pro的測試者。只要告訴我們你要寄到哪去。
• 奉上他們的電話 (Give up their phone number): 你做了個IQ測驗，來，給我們你的電話，我們會告訴您的分數，可能接著就會被收取 20美金/月的費用，或者被設計邀請10個朋友來擊敗你的分數。(譯按，我英文不好，不過總之就是拿到電話以作為行銷之用)

第3個方式，取得他們的電話號碼，已經取代前兩年流行的那些假減肥商品，變成在Facebook上最賺錢的生意，身為一個廣告聯盟，我們已經比那些遊戲開發商仁慈多了，他們要的就是更多的錢。廣告聯盟的掙扎(原文在此ad networks struggle)，想辦法靠這些賺大錢的廣告撈一下，或者被其他願意走黑暗面的廣告聯盟給掃出門。

(好，我累了，今天翻到這裡，休兵)

發行商(遊戲開發者)選擇誰幫他們賺最多錢。所以這導致以下的結果：

在首頁(進入頁)就顯示個人資料：這讓一個折價券廣告聯盟被Facebook除名(couple ad networks banned)，他們取走使用者的名字以及照片，然後就放在進入頁，這可以讓轉換率提高，就好像在大聯盟裡打類固存一樣的效果。

隱形：透過辨認你的IP，顯示一個不同的頁面給您。我們以及其他大多數的廣告聯盟會過濾北加州的IP，也就是Facebook的員工看到的廣告跟其他全世界使用者看到的廣告不一樣。Facebook上的大廣告主之一用免洗帳號引入了此技巧，我們推是 斷因為他實在為Facebook賺了不少錢，所以無力去阻擋他。相信我，我們已經在許多場合試著讓Facebook正視這件事。實際操作此一方式的步驟 -- 他送出一個正常廣告去通過審核，一旦通過審核後就將其轉址到垃圾頁面。另一方面來說，像是Google AdWords的老手公司，對處理這一類狗屁事情相當有經驗

嗜血鯊魚：我曾經被每個主要廣告聯盟接觸過，去執行他們的廣告並/或協助優化他們的平台。其中一位的CEO 甚至以人身威脅來要求我們的合作。(沒法說出他們名字，但他們在Comscore列出來的前25大廣告聯盟之中，譯按：Comscore是美國著名的網路流量觀察單位之一，list of the top 25 ad networks) 。我知道你們不相信。這只是錢的問題，不論是在遊戲裡或者是在自身廣告平台上。

無法可管：Paul Jeffries在社交平台上強加出一種新的放任式的經濟(或沒有強迫，看你的觀點)，最後在他自己的客服中心被抱怨淹沒時才停止。他把我叫去開會，並告訴我說我的廣告造成的客服成本比我可能為他賺得錢多得多。當然，這是假設他知道我幫他賺多少的狀況下 -- 一天5位數的進帳，而且大部份是淨利，因為我們只付出一點點成本，記得，我們只要比  Google AdSense賺得多就好。

There was no way that Facebook—and definitely not the Federal Trade Commission—could keep up with the “innovation” happening. Witness the virtual currency scam, where users complete the offers mentioned above to earn points in a game. It doesn’t take a genius to know that the quality of such leads is garbage—these users are filling out forms just to get the points.

They sign up for Netflix, a platinum credit card, get an auto insurance quote, whatever. The industry term for this type of traffic is called “incentivized”. The underlying advertiser is paying for these leads much like they would if they were coming from paid search. They may be told they’re getting incent traffic—or maybe not. Or maybe the ad network, the middleman between the advertiser (company paying for traffic) and publisher (source of traffic) is mixing PPC, email, and incent (also called social) traffic to hit certain quality thresholds.

Either way, the advertiser is usually blind—they can’t see the referral data (which is understandably masked) and they probably can’t figure out what’s going on anyway.

The three major ad networks that deal in incentivized (or virtual currency) are OfferPal, SuperRewards, and Q Interactive.

OfferPal is run by Anu Shukla—she and I have sat down before, where she flatly claimed that most of her offer inventory was unique (it was actually brokered from MemoLink, a company down the street from us in Denver). Ms. Shukla also touted her optimization technology, but couldn’t discuss it because of the proprietary nature—I’m sure you understand. You can watch her video with Arrington to judge for yourself.

SuperRewards is run by Jason Bailey (aka ChickenHole), who was able to quickly morph himself from Millnic Media to this new company. This fellow would call me up and yell at the top of his lungs, as I wouldn’t refund his money for setting up multiple accounts to game our network. I did refund his money, only once he agreed to a ban on our network.

Q Interactive is the quietest, but largest player of the group. Formerly coolsavings.com, it’s run by Matt Wise, and is, in my opinion, the most reputable of the bunch. They have Fortune 500 clients and a more massive bankroll and sophisticated technology platform. You won’t find information on their virtual currency platform, as they work with large publishers only.

The offers across all of these networks are similar. There is a lot of money to be made if you’re a game developer on the MySpace or Facebook platforms, so choose your ad networks wisely. Ad Networks are not going away soon, as the big brands aren’t there yet and someone must fill that vacuum.

In case I have thoroughly disillusioned you of all social advertising, let me prognosticate about a slightly brighter future:

When any new platform opens up, the spammers are there first: Traffic is cheap and their untargeted offers are profitable. But as legitimate advertisers come on, they bid the price of traffic up and squeeze out the spammers. The most powerful bit of social advertising, unlike traditional PPC, is the ability to target by interest and by location. And local represents 74% of Facebook’s ad revenues in 2009. That’s a deceptive stat, as it likely includes dating, which is technically “local” – but the point still stands.

Facebook will either clean things up or become a MySpace: Users loved the “trust” and “clean look” of Facebook. I believe Facebook will put controls in place on their fledgling platform, as told to me by the executive in charge of their online marketing. I honestly believe from my meetings at Facebook, that they’ve all drunk the Zucker-koolaid and are putting the user experience ahead of earnings. That’s why, if you’re a UK resident, you’re not seeing those sexy Russian dating ads from a couple months ago—but man, were those profitable. But you may continue to see these girls:

Deceptive ads will be gradually replaced by trusted ads: The underlying premise of all the advertising techniques we’ve discussed so far is that trickery is profitable. Fool them into thinking the new friend request is from Facebook, lie to them that the miracle skin crème is actually free, tell them they’ll earn points if they just click this button – which then puts their email address on a list that’s resold to the top spammers in the world. Incidentally, if you hate someone, sign them up for one of those free offers – it will burn their email to a crisp. Just kidding – don’t do that.

The local and big brand advertisers are slow to react, but will eventually shift their ad dollars to Facebook, as they figure out how to advertise effectively. Facebook is the “other Internet” and represents 25% of all pageviews in the US. What’s possible right now:

Imagine getting an ad on your birthday, saying “Happy Birthday, Nick! Mention FBCAKE and get a free slice of cake today at Jim’s Coffee Shop” (yes, you can target people on their birthdays).

What if you’re a B2B company and want to hit small businesses? You can target by job title and company. That’s not possible in traditional PPC, where a search for “massage” can be a consumer with stiff muscles, a student looking for a massage school, or a practitioner looking to buy massage supplies.

What if you’re Maggianos and want to target folks who like Olive Garden? You can hit precisely those fans—and even narrow down to where they live, how old they are, and if they are married. Then send them to the nearest location to book their wedding anniversary party. Are you a Denver liposuction doctor and want to target middle-aged females in upperclass neighborhoods who watch “Desperate Housewives” and like to eat chocolate?

What if Farmville could be sponsored by Albertsons and offer real fruits and vegetables on sale? Wouldn’t that be more powerful than clipping coupons from the daily newspaper? (實際上美利果已經跟開心農場合作了…)

It’s going to take a few years, but these legitimate advertisers will push out the scammers and Facebook will put more rules in place. Enforcement will tighten, but spammers are clever with shifting their entities, enough to make us all “dizzy”. We said that when these platforms first launched, earnings were in the 10 to 15 cent range. Then spammers raised the bar and could afford to pay $6 per thousand impressions (or about 20 cents a click) for the same inventory. But when the legitimate guys come with the hyper-targeted local ads, they can afford to pay $10 or even $50 per thousand impressions for that inventory. The spammers will be forced out of this particular game and onto whatever is next.