Facebook announced this week the first of it’s kind engagement advertisements. What are engagement ads?  Forrester goes into the full details but the gist of it is they are ads that people can do something with. Traditional banner ads are designed for people to click on and then they are taken to the landing page the brand wants them to see. Engagement ads are designed so people can take some sort of action with the brand. There are 3 different type of ads; comment style ad, virtual gift ad and fan style ad.

Comment style ad’s allow viewers to comment on the product right in the ad for other people to see. This is an interesting idea, but in my opinion pretty risky. I’m thinking about a GM ad where environmental groups could really go to town on bashing the gas guzzling trucks GM is selling. Any type of company that is at all polarizing (and I work for one) should think about how they are going to monitor these types of comments.

Virtual gift ads seem pretty straight forward. If you haven’t used Facebook before virtual gifts are ‘pretend’ items friends can virtually throw at each other for fun.  I’ve been telling everyone I know that I would love to see a virtual Ugg so I could throw it at my friends. I’m a big fun of Ugg. This is a fun, easy engagement ad that gets people using their network to promote their favorite products to people they know.

Fan style ads will be great to build awareness for fan pages in Facebook. Rather than sending people off to the brands corporate webpage off Facebook this ad would link to the brands fan page.  This ad requires the brand have a fan presence already established on Facebook.  This would be a great way to make more people aware of a brand’s fan page. We are working with an MVP partner on our Vista fan page which has tripled in members over the last 3 weeks. I would definitely consider buying fan ads to send traffic to my Vista fan page.

Very interesting concept. I think Facebook was the right social network to lead the way on this. Will be interesting to watch.

Monday was the launch of our Windows Live community. The whole experience has been amazingly positive along with huge lessons learned. I figured it would be valuable for readers of this blog who are interested in how to build a community to hear some of the biggest questions I get asked. I’ll continue to update this blog as the community grows. To start here is a list of the most frequently asked questions I get:

Q: How did you recruit the community?

A: First we send out an email to our 10,000 most engaged Windows Live users. We got a good response from this but with email open rates being as low as they are we didn’t feel like we reached enough people with this initial outreach. The next thing we did was put a post on our product blogs. The post on Spacecraft got picked up by LiveSide and between the traffic from the blogs and the mention on LiveSide we got a lot of interest.

Q: How did you communicate with the community?

A: We set up a private Space then community members ‘friended’ the Space and all updates and correspondence with the group was through the Space. They would get updated on the What’s New feed in Spaces so they would know when there was new content to look at.

Q: Will Microsoft censor any content created by the community?

A: There is a terms of use statement that all community members agree to. This terms of use covers guidelines against inappropriate and disrespectful, offensive material. Other than respecting those guidelines Microsoft will not edit or remove any material by the community regardless if it is less than positive for Microsoft products. This is meant to be an open conversation with our most engaged users about the great things they like as well as opportunities we have to do things better.

Q: How will you handle offensive material?

A: As part of the design, the community has the final say in what content gets pushed live to WindowsLive.com. The community votes in the Clubhouse on content created by members and content that gets 3 good ratings gets pushed live. Any content that is offensive or not appropriate for WindowsLive.com as decided on by the community will not ever be seen by the public. There is also an offensive material button in the Clubhouse so any members can flag content they feel is offensive. Offensive content will be pulled down and the community member warned.

Q: What platform did you use?

A: We didn’t. The technology is built on an aggregation model. Our agency Avenue A/Razor Fish built the web site using  RSS feeds to pull content directly from community members Windows Live Space. Anything community members post to their Space and tag with the appropriate tags will show up in the Clubhouse for the community to vote on. 

Q: Why the confusing tagging? How do people know what to tag?

A: Tagging isn’t always the most intuitive thing but it was the only way we could pull content directly from people’s Space. It seemed a better trade off than having to ask community members to re-create content on a separate domain. We have a detailed tagging guideline document that outlines the steps to take posted in the Clubhouse as well our community manager Marcus  helps members one on one when they need it.

Q: What is your goal for the community:

A:We really want to connect people who are doing cool things with Windows Live to other people who may be inspired to try creative things of their own. By giving engaged customers a place to share their experience and knowledge we hope to inspire others while recognizing those that have been great customers. In addition to inspiring people we will look to the community for product feedback to help us continually improve our products. The main goal is to simple get closer to our customers.

The big day is finally here, and I’m excited and a little nervous, because now it’s time to let go. With today’s re-launch of our revamped WindowsLive.com we’re sharing control of the site’s content with the people who know our services best - our customers.

As I've mentioned many times on this blog, I am a true believer in the power of community, participatory marketing and giving customers a voice. I agree wholeheartedly with a recent Conversation Agent post : “People will gravitate towards peer-to-peer communities to get advice and information. Peers first, experts second.”

Our community members are creating much of the site’s content, usually by showing how they are using various Windows Live services in everyday situations (read here how Windows Live Messenger saved someone’s life… sort of). We’re also making it easier for members to share their experience. Once they join the community, all they have to do is post on their Windows Live Space where they’re already spending their time, and tag it for the community. Their multimedia stories, tips, advice and comments are automatically aggregated by an RSS feed into the community, where it’s shared with, and rated by, members. Content with the highest ratings is then showcased on WindowsLive.com.

We began developing this community-driven site about a year ago with some pretty basic questions: How can we help our customers help each other? How are they using Windows Live in creative ways that make their lives better and more fun? In the process, what can we learn about making Windows Live better?

We think we’re on the right track with the new site, but what’s your opinion? Got any ideas or suggestions to take this even further? Love to hear them!