Here on the FairWinds blog, we have written extensively about social media username squatting, and the importance of companies securing the proper usernames and handles on different social networking sites in order to protect their brands. Our message has been straightforward: companies should be diligent about registering usernames early, because the process to recover already-registered names can be tricky to navigate, if not impossible.

An article that appeared in Ad Age this week shed light on yet another facet of the challenge companies face with social media. According to the article, “Twitter identity theft” has turned its sights to brand mascots. Mr. Clean, Chef Boyardee and the Pillsbury Doughboy are among the famous brand characters who have found their corresponding Twitter handles registered by people outside the brands they represent. The Twitter doppelganger of the Pillsbury Doughboy occasionally tweets about Pillsbury products, but the Twitter Chef Boyardee is more or less just a foul-mouthed Charlie Sheen devotee. And Twitter’s Mr. Clean does not, in fact, appear to be bald.

Someone also went ahead and registered @Grrrrrrrrrrreat, Frosted Flakes mascot Tony the Tiger’s catchphrase. That’s a total of eleven Rs in that handle.

On the other hand, certain brand mascots have taken their rightful place in the Twitter ecosystem, including Quaker’s Cap’n Crunch, the AFLAC Duck and Smokey the Bear. There can be various benefits and challenges in terms of marketing a brand mascot on Twitter – the article mentions that many mascots are highly regulated, each tiny detail meticulously controlled – and it may actually be detrimental for certain mascots to delve into the world of tweeting. But regardless of whether or not a company decides to debut its brand mascot on Twitter, or any other social networking platform for that matter, it is wise to secure the most important usernames for these characters in order to prevent them, and the company’s brand message, from being hijacked.

Last week, Facebook and Bing announced a new facet to their partnership (if you use Facebook’s search bar, you’ll notice that the results page displays a section of “Web Results” presented by Bing).  For Facebook users, Bing will now incorporate information from Facebook into its search results.

Here’s how it works: first, Facebook users have the option to link Bing to their accounts on the social networking site.  If they choose to do so, every time they search something on Bing, in addition to the standard results, Bing will also display information from their friends’ Facebook accounts, such as how many of their friends “liked” the thing they searched or links that their friends posted about that thing on their own walls.

To use an example to illustrate, let’s pretend I’m looking to buy a car.  Let’s also pretend I know absolutely nothing about cars, but I know that since I live in a city, I want a smaller model.  I also remember seeing an ad for new Ford Fiesta recently, so to start my process, I head over to Bing and search “Ford Fiesta.”  Lo and behold, I see in the Facebook results that the cute guy who lives down the hall “likes” the Fiesta.  I also see that my super responsible friend has posted a link on her Facebook page to an article about the Fiesta getting good gas mileage.  The Fiesta is now starting to look like a great choice.

There’s been a fair amount of speculation that this move was meant to be a direct jab against Google, a mutual rival of Facebook and Microsoft.  But I’ll save the drama for Aaron Sorkin to use as fodder for “The Social Network” sequel.  What struck me as interesting about this development was what it could mean for brands and their social media endeavors.

In my opinion, the most significant aspect of this new feature is that it is now possible that Facebook users will encounter brand pages even when they’re outside of the Facebook site.  Going back to the car example, I normally would not seek out the Ford Fiesta page while perusing Facebook.  But after seeing that some of my Facebook friends have “liked” it, I will likely be prompted to visit the page and perhaps even begin interacting with the company through Social.  Indexing these results taps into the human element and can help to inspire a personal connection to a brand that did not previously exist.

If, on the other hand, I search for different car that has no Facebook page, this opportunity for a connection is lost.  I won’t get into the lengthy argument for why brands should have a social media presence; that’s been discussed extensively both on this blog and elsewhere.  Instead, I’ll suffice to say that the integration of personalized Facebook results into Bing ups the ante for brands.  It is more important than ever to make sure that your brands are accessible and findable for consumers who want to interact with them, because now, being “liked” will have an impact beyond the Facebook ecosystem.

It’s no secret that brands have been enthusiastically turning to social media as a marketing platform and an innovative way to engage consumers.  I have noticed that many companies are now advertising their social media pages in commercials or viral videos, often in place of their own website’s address.

One notable example is Best Buy: the retailer set up a Twitter account under the name “Twelpforce,” where representatives answer questions and concerns that customers submit by tweeting to @twelpforce.  The accompanying commercials feature the address for the Twitter account, twitter.com/twelpforce.

I think the campaign is interesting, and a good utilization of the interactive nature of Twitter.  But there are also potential risks in directing users to a social media site instead of a branded website.  One significant risk that may not be obvious is user distraction.  On social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, branded content is surrounded by links to other pages and other content.  While visiting a brand’s Facebook page, for example, an Internet user sees not only the branded content, but links to her profile, her news feed, her message inbox, friend requests and notifications, not to mention the profiles of numerous other users.  With all that information so close, it takes a lot to keep her on the brand page.

I don’t need to mention that there are also numerous benefits when engaging with Internet users via social media.  Even though companies typically cannot use social media sites in the same way they can use their own branded websites, where they have more control, marketers know that there is an enormous community of users just a click away on sites like Facebook and Twitter.  That opens up the possibility of reaching a great number of people who would not be as reachable via a campaign microsite outside of social media.

Both social media sites and branded sites have their pros and cons, but great marketing campaigns play to the advantages of each.  That is why it is crucial to own and properly utilize the best social media usernames and the best domain names for your brand.  Well done, Best Buy for registering twelpforce.com and redirecting it to the “Twelpforce” Twitter page.

Virtue, a social media management company, put out a study recently that revealed that Facebook fans have a value of $3.60 apiece for big brands.  The company based their valuation on how many impressions a wall post receives given the number of fans a page has.  For large brands, the average ratio of fans to wall posts is 1:1, meaning that if a brand’s page has one million fans, it gets an average of one million impressions per post.  Virtue took an average of two wall posts per day and applied a CPM value of $5 and used the following formulas to calculate the value of the impressions generated by a year’s worth of wall posts:

 
              (1M impressions) x (2 wall posts) x (30 days) = 60M impressions per month
                                    (60M impressions/1000) x ($5 CPM) = $300,000
                                        ($300,000) x (12) = $3.6 million
 
Divided by one million fans, this figure averages out to each fan having a value of $3.60.  Obviously, this valuation is an average – not all brands have a 1:1 fan to wall impression ratio.  (Brands can improve their ratio by posting relevant content, engaging with fans and customers and using rich media.)  But the most important thing to take away from this calculation is how important it is for companies to establish a strong presence on Facebook and other social media sites.  Consumers are there, and they’re clearly worth something.  And the first step in taking advantage of the value social media has to offer is to make sure a consumer can find and access the branded content they are looking for.