13% of Facebook users login from mobile phones

[Hostels]

Facebook is huge on mobile phones:
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/02/11...-mobile-blitz/

Facebook strategists clearly see the potential for growth in the mobile sector, seeing as 13% of their users log in from their phones.... [They're] hoping to bring more Facebook to more handsets, including Palm’s much-anticipated Pre and hopefully a whole bunch of Nokias.

At over 220 million users, Facebook’s growth may be starting to slow down in the traditional browser-based arena, but a couple real mobile clients included on major phones and backed by the likes of Nokia would be a huge shot in the arm.

[aboriginalhostel]

There was few interesting paradoxes to discover during the Hostelworld conference in Dublin. One of them is about the growth of Facebook was mentioned versus the backpackers opinion we could interview and they said they never used Facebook for looking for hostels.

Is there any hostel which would recommend Facebook as a marketing channel? Would you spend any money effectively for Facebook ads?

[Envoy Hostel]

Originally Posted by aboriginalhostel

There was few interesting paradoxes to discover during the Hostelworld conference in Dublin. One of them is about the growth of Facebook was mentioned versus the backpackers opinion we could interview and they said they never used Facebook for looking for hostels.

Is there any hostel which would recommend Facebook as a marketing channel? Would you spend any money effectively for Facebook ads?

We use also Facebook for our marketing and promoting Envoy. We made really great friends and new contacts but we haven't spent any cent on that. I just voluntarily use my profile as Envoy Hostel's and as well as we have our group and page. I always analyze if that helps to our website traffic and it seems we could double that for this season.

[Hostels]

One thing I found interesting about the article is that so many people use Facebook from mobile phones. If Facebook keeps pushing to get on more mobile phones it might help to get people used to using the Internet on their phones. Using Facebook from a phone probably requires a data contract, so more people will have the capability to surf the mobile Web.

There was few interesting paradoxes to discover during the Hostelworld conference in Dublin. One of them is about the growth of Facebook was mentioned versus the backpackers opinion we could interview and they said they never used Facebook for looking for hostels.

I don't think that social media marketing leads to many direct bookings. Social media is useful for sending a message out to a core group of tech-savvy, social media influencers who can then take the message to others. I think social media marketing is part word-of-mouth, part PR, and part SEO -- but it usually doesn't involve a direct sales pitch.

[EuroHostels]

We have just launched (a week ago) into Facebook advertising and are already seeing great results. With just a "toe in the water" approach (£50 budget) our ROI and ecommerce results recorded from Google Analytics is as high as any Adwords campaigns we have run, and is cheaper.

The beauty of FB advertising is that it can be extremely targeted. There is far more control over who sees the ads in comparison to Adwords. For example, we have an Oasis gig coming up in Glasgow soon. They are not playing anywhere else in Scotland. For this we can target our advertising to people who live in Edinburgh, Inverness, etc and who have Oasis listed as an interest or favourite band. That way, of course, we are not wasting Adwords PPC costs on people that were say, wanting to buy tickets (although you can do that from our site as well).

We are going to run a bunch of simultaneous generic 'Hostel in Glasgow' FB ads to ascertain which works best for us. We have also set up a Facebook discount (15%) that can be claimed by anybody that simply signs up to become a Fan of our page. We have seen fantastic FB sign up results for this (of course... it's a free discount) and will continue this until we have a large FB fanbase that will, in essence, then self-perpetuate itself by sheer numbers of referrals (we hope). It is also important to keep adding notes/wall stories/pictures to the FB page to keep it 'fresh'. Something that I have got to do over the next week really, I've fallen a little behind in that area.

Please join up here http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref...el/21544177856 and see explanation of discount here http://www.euro-hostels.co.uk/great-...us-on-facebook.

Cheers,
Steve

[Hostels]

Thanks for that writeup -- very interesting.

[aboriginalhostel]

Another interesting article has been published today, called Facebook Photos Pulls Away From The Pack

If Facebook has one standout application it has to be Photos. Measured on its own, it is the largest photo site on the Web. A full 69 percent of Facebook’s monthly visitors worldwide either look at or upload photos, based on comScore data. And more than 10 billion photos have been uploaded to the site.

Full article is here:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/22...from-the-pack/