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Bing Advertises On Farmville, Acquires 400,000 Facebook Fans In One Day

Posted by Neil Vidyarthi on March 4th, 2010 2:18 PM
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Bing FarmVille AdMicrosoft gained over 400,000 Facebook fans on their Bing fan page yesterday thanks to a single advertisement in FarmVille. The fan page, which grew by five times in size from around 100,000 users to now above 500,000 users, was part of a promotion by Bing, where Farmville users could gain virtual currency by becoming a fan of the Bing Facebook page. The ad was a clever integration, and users could join the Bing page without interrupting their game.

The big question is what kind of quality of fans does this attract? What’s the value of someone that just clicks on the “add as fan” button and then goes back to their game? Bing attempted to convince users that Bing should be their choice for finding tips about Farmville, and that Bing could help them succeed in their game, and while that’s true, how does signing up to become a Facebook fan relate to the activity of searching for game tips? Microsoft answers this question pretty strongly:

Microsoft’s social media team has crafted Facebook updates designed to cater to FarmVille users. Today it sent out an update reading, “Any FarmVille fans out there? Try using Bing to get the most out of your crops and animals.” It links to a Bing search result for “FarmVille animals.” The update drew 585 comments in four hours and 20,000 click-throughs.

20,000 click throughs is nothing to scoff at, and this really highlights the power of Facebook fan pages. When a user signs up as a fan, status updates from that fan page are shown on their news feed, so it gives them a directly addressable audience.  By making updates related to Farmville, they were able to hit their demographic the correct way, and succeeded in generating a great response from users.

The idea of incentivizing users to participate in actions to gain virtual currency has been a revolutionary one for FB, and the big question remains as to how valuable the actions are to advertisers. A recent discussion I had with Offerpal gave me at least a few answers.  Offerpal stated that for their ‘install’ programs, where users are asked to install a different application to get virtual currency, they use special technology to make sure the user who tries the new application stays for a bit before they get the currency.  This filters out people that don’t actually care to engage with the new application.  A similar technique could help on Facebook fan pages.

While this is only one example of a cost per action technique, the Bing example seems to have been a success, leading us to believe that only more will follow.

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31 Comments »

  1. Bing paid 400,000 people to fan them on facebook via "Farm Cash" for farmville.

    Comment by The Founder — March 4, 2010 @ 10:42 am

  2. Thanks for this well written article and worthy hint!

    Comment by Rainer Kormann — March 4, 2010 @ 11:51 pm

  3. hahahahahaha….farmville.

    Comment by james spencer — March 5, 2010 @ 4:54 am

  4. I had no idea you could advertise on Farmville. I wonder if anyone else can advertise with them?

    Comment by Wynne — March 5, 2010 @ 4:41 am

  5. Incentivising users to become fans of a fan page, isn't that something that's prohibited by the new rules for running sweepstakes on Facebook?

    Comment by Johannes Kleske — March 6, 2010 @ 12:27 am

  6. this sounds like something one of our national presidential candidates, manny villar, would do. as it is, i can't get away from his image on facebook or YouTube! help.

    Comment by maricel pangilinan a — March 6, 2010 @ 2:44 am

  7. What Bing did was smart. However, a good point was made in this article…What's the value of someone who just clicks the "add as fan" button? As most of us probably know, the key is engaging fans to get them to keep coming back to the page. And if a company or brand can do this without paying for advertising like Bing did, the benefits are endless. I work for a company named Bulbstorm; we develop innovative, game-like applications for Facebook, which not only promote the fan page but increase interaction, engagement and publish to wall events. Our client, Tornados brand snack food, has done a great job at engaging fans by using our applications, without paying for advertising. For example, we just launched a new application on Friday March 5 called Idea Challenges. Tornados launched a new fan challenge the same day with the new app, and within 72 hours of the app going live we garnered 5,000 new fans and over 20,000 active interactions. My point? These numbers evolved because of fan engagement and user generated content, NOT traditional advertising. And while the number of fans we acquired was far less than Bing’s, the value is worth a lot more.

    Comment by Jenna — March 9, 2010 @ 10:44 am

  8. hahaha because of farmville…. so be thankful to farmville hahaha…..

    Comment by wahaha — March 10, 2010 @ 7:54 am

  9. i love farmville on facebook

    Comment by Sayan Puangkham — May 23, 2010 @ 7:34 am

  10. i love farmville very much

    Comment by Ahmad Banyameen Kari — June 2, 2010 @ 9:54 pm

  11. We hope to see these results on how good the traffic is from this little bit of magic. Our company are always looking for traffic for our clients.

    Good luck and post results.

    Comment by phillip monk — August 3, 2010 @ 12:43 pm

  12. How would one advertise on Farmville?

    Comment by Bob Aycock — August 26, 2010 @ 7:07 pm

  13. i just found a legit website that is giving away free 310 fv cash in less than 5 minutes.check it out here http://bit.ly/zyngafvcashs its a great website indeed

    Comment by dipu — November 2, 2010 @ 3:51 pm

  14. i just found a legit website that is giving away free 310 fv cash in less than 5 minutes.check it out here http://bit.ly/fvcashzynga its a great website indeed

    Comment by sumo — November 5, 2010 @ 11:13 am

  15. i just found a legit website that is giving away free 310 fv cash in less than 5 minutes.check it out here http://bit.ly/fvcashzynga its a great website indeed

    Comment by sumo — November 5, 2010 @ 11:14 am

  16. i like farmville

    Comment by harold — November 26, 2010 @ 2:58 pm

  17. Farmville Related Fan Pages ??

    Comment by rodo — November 30, 2010 @ 12:26 pm

  18. i just found a legit website that is giving away free 520 fv cash in less than 5 minutes.check it out here http://bit.ly/h1BF4C also Watch the beautiful video

    Comment by malini — December 4, 2010 @ 9:22 am

  19. Lots of ways to get things done. Be open to your own creativity.

    Comment by Jim Campbell — December 27, 2010 @ 1:24 pm

  20. I got 100,000 FV COINS quick and easy from FARMVILLE GIVEAWAYS, check them out here — http://goo.gl/egWVh –

    Comment by PARMOD — January 8, 2011 @ 7:49 pm

  21. just 5 minutes , it’s here , check it : http://goo.gl/40KBe <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

    Comment by anna — January 15, 2011 @ 4:11 am

  22. I just got free 310 fv cash from this website http://bit.ly/f9OsCu

    Comment by mrthomasmathew — February 17, 2011 @ 5:38 am

  23. Thanks Zynga I CANT BELIVED IT WORKED !!! NOW I HAVE GOT $100 FARMVILLE cash and 99 million FARMVILLE coins ** FOR FREE ** GET YOURS NOW AT >>> http://bit.ly/FarmvilleCashCoin <<< BE QUICK – LIMITED TIME !!

    Comment by Lisa Anne Hampton — April 6, 2011 @ 12:07 pm

  24. wow, that is amazing. I wonder if Bing will ever be better than Google

    Comment by Web design Liverpool — June 30, 2011 @ 7:15 pm

  25. Is that true about bing purchasing fans on Facebook ?

    Comment by Online Media Direct — October 19, 2011 @ 6:01 am

  26. Thanks Zynga I CANT BELIVED IT WORKED !!! NOW I HAVE GOT $100 FARMVILLE cash and 99 million FARMVILLE coins ** FOR FREE ** GET YOURS NOW AT >>> http://bit.ly/qEyMfI <<< BE QUICK – LIMITED TIME !!

    Comment by mimi — October 24, 2011 @ 3:26 am

  27. Last call for ZYNGA Gifts 310 free fv cash Check This Site, Which is offering 310 FREE fv cash for Limited Time Period http://free310farmville.blogspot.com/

    Comment by dennis fernando — November 8, 2011 @ 8:49 pm

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    Comment by dennis fernando — November 8, 2011 @ 8:51 pm

  29. great info, wonderful information for myself..
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    many persons use facebook but just small number of persons right now depth feature of facebook.

    Comment by gadget | technology — November 16, 2011 @ 9:10 am

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    Comment by jaya — December 5, 2011 @ 10:56 pm

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    Comment by Benny — January 3, 2012 @ 4:02 am

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