I found this great cartoon on the HubSpot blog several weeks ago and thought it was the perfect example of how NOT to engage users on Facebook.  Users are generally involved in a nice conversation when some guy suddenly shows up to throw a sheep at them, completely derailing the party. How much sense does that make? Right - absolutely none, which is why we focus our advertising efforts on integrating brands into the natural user experience within our TVLoop and FanSection applications.

Most users go to Facebook to share content and interact with friends.  To be effective, brands must inject themselves into the resulting conversation in a relevant and authentic way.  That means becoming part of the product and adding value to what users are already doing.  That’s not always easy, and it’s a challenge we’re faced with every day when respoding to RFPs or implementing brand campaigns.  Luckily we have a very engaged audience of real fans - passionate sports and TV fans - to help us along the way.  It helps to have an audience that already has a strong brand affinity for your product - in this case Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, the Dallas Cowboys, etc.

What do you think? How can brands be effective on Facebook?

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