• All Facebook, Tuesday, July 21, 2009 1:45 PM

Many large brands are interested in growing their presence on Facebook. For those companies, All Facebook's Nick O'Neill says, the challenge is not determining whether or not to be on Facebook, but rather what the best approach is. O'Neill takes a closer look at four different branded opportunities on the world's largest social networking site.

The first type is Facebook Engagement Ads, which are displayed on the homepage. Facebook presents advertisers with a number of different types of Engagements Ads, including Poll Engagement Ads, Video Engagement Ads, Branded Gift Engagement Ads, Event Engagement Ads, Fan Page Ads and Hybrid Engagement Ads, which combine any two of the five types advertisements listed here. Each of these opportunities is fairly straightforward and can be effective, depending on your campaign goals, O'Neill says.

Other ad tactics on Facebook include News Feed Advertisements, Facebook Pages, and Facebook Applications. There used to be numerous ads in the news feed, but O'Neill says he hasn't seen a single promotion since the latest site redesign. This is probably because the news feed is no longer static for any period of time, he says, adding that Facebook has either temporarily or permanently phased these out.

Facebook Pages present brands with the best opportunity for engaging with customers. O'Neill claims that Facebook Pages have evolved into its own platform in the past few months. The only downside, he says, is that maintaining a brand's page is an ongoing project. The final opportunity is Facebook Applications, which can either contain advertisements or be advertisements themselves.

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