Want to increase brand recall and awareness? According to a joint Facebook/Nielsen study, social media networks are the place to go for marketers wishing to engage consumers who are nearing the “action” phase of the buying cycle.

Nielsen, citing that brand marketers have repeatedly requested a method to measure the value of social media advertising, made “a major investment towards helping advertisers understand how to achieve their brand goals in a social context.” And out popped the report: Advertising Effectiveness: Understanding the Value of a Social Media Impression, which includes information from Nielsen’s BrandLift that measures data for more than 800,000 Facebook users and their response to 125 campaigns run on the site by 70 advertisers. Nielsen’s BrandLift originated as a specific tool for measuring the effectiveness of Facebook advertising and was rolled out in September 2009 in the U.S. and in the U.K. in January. While many brands have already gravitated to social media advertising, others are hesitant due to uncertain ROI; Brandlift provides these advertisers with some assurance by providing quantifiable data that can be measured by established standards: Ad Recall, Brand Awareness, and Purchase Intent. Read the rest of this entry »