Ad.ly Adds Facebook, Completes Beta On Alpha Network

Ad.ly, a marketing platform that matches brands with celebrity endorsers on social networks, has quietly completed a beta on alpha network, Facebook, and is rolling it out to marketers and agencies. Based on results of the beta, Facebook appears to be as much as twice as effective as Twitter in driving actions, including "likes" and comments among social network users.

Ad.ly began launched with Twitter in 2009, and has dabbled with other networks, including MySpace.com, but had yet to integrate with Facebook until it began the test during the 2010 holiday season.

In retrospect, Ad.ly CEO Arnie Gullov-Singh says the relatively stronger performance of celebrity endorsements on Facebook should not come as a surprise, noting that Facebook currently has about six times the monthly uniques of Twitter, which explains the higher click volume of users.

Beyond that, Gullov-Singh says Facebook has simply invested more to optimize its users experiences around newsfeeds, including celebrity newsfeeds driving traffic and actions around the brands they plug.

By comparison, he says, the Twitter experience is a "strictly linear timeline," which can be overwhelming for users to follow people who tweet frequently.

"Social actions happen more naturally on Facebook than on Twitter, because as a consumer, you can easily see who else has liked or commented on a piece of content, which makes you more likely to join in the conversation," he explains, noting based on the beta, Facebook generated 50% to 100% more actions per celebrity endorsement.

The results are based on a test of six marketer's brands involving 12 celebrity endorsers. Ad.ly did not disclose which brands were used, but said the categories involved retail clothing, jewelry, consumer electronics and games. It currently works with about 150 advertisers, including such high profile ones as AT&T, Best Buy, Old Navy, Microsoft and Sony.

During the beta, Ad.ly compared results of comparable endorsements on Facebook and Twitter and found that, on average, brands generated 49,000 consumer visits (clicks) per campaign, and an average of 500 actions such as comments and "likes" per post.

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