Mashup Marketing on Facebook

The Facebook API clearly offers an incredible opportunity for creating potentially viral digital marketing ideas.

As this article in today's Guardian points out, the API allows developers to create small applications for distribution within Facebook. The API hasn't been up for long but already the WSJ reports that developers are flocking to this new platform despite the inevitable teething troubles.

Facebook is an innately viral platform. Any Facebook user that has asked to be updated on what their contacts are up to (the default) will be notified when they add an application. Moreover, once you've launched your application, you can easily keep tabs it's progress and profile your users.

Applications that have an obvious utility are already spreading well (iLike, Virtual Bookshelf etc.). Fun and frivolous applications and collaborative games are also doing well. Eric Kintz at HP points out that Red Bull achieved notable success in June with a version of the game Rock, Paper Scissors / Roshambull developed by Craig Kohtz (Flickr, Blog).

We've already started developing Facebook application ideas for clients and have already scored a notable pitch success (sadly I can't talk about it yet) using a Facebook app idea.

For me this is part of a bigger picture -- I believe marketers need to need to abandon their highly controlled microsite environments and embrace what I call "Mashup Marketing" - fusing together content and services and piggybacking on platforms created by others. I wrote an article on the subject for Contagious magazine a while ago. In the spirit of sharing, I've attached it here (PDF).

Comments

[neilperkin]

Excellent point Lee. I'm sure we're going to be seeing more and more of this sort of thing. Hadn't seen your article but will take a look.