Facebook for the Internet Retailer

This is a companion supplement to my June 26, 2009 ClickZ article

To-Do List for Facebook and E-Mail Integration

Recently, Facebook began to give individuals the ability to replace their regular Facebook URLs, which show a user number instead of a name, with a "vanity" URL of their choosing. (For example, I changed my URL on Facebook to http://www.facebook.com/ed.henrich .)

Few of the Internet's leading retailers have taken advantage this opportunity. In this post, I'll cover a quick survey of the top 20 Internet retailers Facebook presence and websites.

Of the top 20, I found that 17 had a presence on Facebook, but only 8 have adopted the new vanity URLs that make it easier for customers to find these pages.

Most of these "microsites" are still small. Only Apple and Victoria's Secret have attracted over one million fans.

Home Page	Vanity URL	Facebook Landing Page	# of Fans
Amazon		Wall	58
Staples	www.facebook.com/Staples	Application	7,943
Dell	www.facebook.com/Dell	Wall	31,587
OfficeDepot		Wall	96
Apple		Wall	1,361,913
OfficeMax
Sears	www.facebook.com/Sears	Boxes	24,643
CDW		Wall	554
Newegg		Wall	2,056
BestBuy	www.facebook.com/BestBuy	Wall	20,163
QVC		Wall	15,596
SonyStyle
Walmart		Wall	677
Costco		Wall	52,480
JCPenney	www.facebook.com/JCPenney	Application	11,940
HPshopping.com
CircuitCity		Wall	4,559
Netflix	www.facebook.com/Netflix	Boxes	36,765
Victoria's Secret	www.facebook.com/VictoriasSecret	Application	1,428,143
Target	www.facebook.com/Target	Wall	451,528

If you'd like to compare the Facebook pages to the Home Pages of the top internet retailers check out these two albums.

Facebook Fan Pages - Top Internet Retailers



Home Pages - Top Internet Retailers


Email Signups on Facebook

The top ad on the Sears Facebook landing page says “Become a fan today. Click here to get your free $10 Sears coupon now.” Clicking on this add leads you to another page where they collect email address.

{Click on any screen shot or slide show to enlarge.}





Lenovo has email address integrated into their Facebook landing page.

Here's a demo for how to create an Opt-In form for Facebook.


Links to Facebook Pages on Home Pages
Of the 20 sites I checked, only two had links to their Facebook pages on their website home page.

• J.C. Penny in top nav
• Circuit City bottom right
  

Circuit City also uses their email to send consumers to their Facebook page.



SWYN - Share With Your Network

Within the top 20, only J. C. Penney and HP asked consumers to share the email with their network. (J. C. Penney coded directly, HP used 3rd party Share This), which allows the company to reach out to all of the customer’s Facebook “friends”. This reaches a much larger group than the usual “share with a friend” button.

Thank you Chad White and the Retail Email blog for sharing several emails.



J. C. Penney



HP



I've included several additional examples in this Picasa album.