Marketing in Pakistan is now as easy as a single click of the mouse! Ever since the booming fame of social networking in Pakistan, marketers have found a niche to cover for potential customers and clients without leaving the comfort of their very office.

How do they do it? Simply by creating an advertisement page on Facebook, entrepreneurs, businessmen and owners of large and small companies manage to target customers simply by syncing the appearance of their ad with specific types of users. This is accomplished by noting the preferences and news feed of users provided by Facebook itself.

Here’s an interesting little tidbit: You may think your profile information (Asma Ali’s hobbies include cooking, internet surfing and journalism), statuses (consider the common occurrence: “Bilal Khan hates his internet speed!”), and wall-to-wall conservations are highly private pieces of information, but the feed eventually ends up in the main Facebook cache for all sorts of purposes, including marketing.

Facebook Marketing Techniques

In Pakistan, Facebook marketing is done in a plethora of interesting ways, from direct to indirect advertising and promotion to social networks. Here are some nifty methods:

  • Web marketing has been given increased significance simply due to the fact that over 2.3 billion people in Pakistan use Facebook on a daily, if not hourly, basis. It’s addictive!
  • Keeping in mind the addiction and attraction this domain has, web marketers create colorful banners, ads and texts for Facebook to pool in prospective clients and buyers. You have to hand it to them: What a sneaky way to gain your attention!
  • Consider the example of IT wizards who offer their expertise in creating and promoting your products and services on Facebook by reserving space on the right side of your homepage.
  • The revenue generated by simply clicking the Pakistani ads on Facebook is successful thanks to the submissions to popular search engines, yellow pages, directories and link pages all over the world.

How much does one marketer have to dish out?

Not much at all! Usually IT wizards commence their offers at fairly reasonable prices from promotion of services at Rs. 5000 per month with a 3 or 4 month contract. This includes promotion of services on Facebook by making ad pages and interacting with fans and customers.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is done for approximately the same price including services like meta tag descriptions, keywords and optimization for the sake of advertising. Several IT companies offer programs in learning the “Facebook speak” for better, more efficient marketing. These courses can be availed by simply paying Rs. 1500 per month with three hours’ worth training per day. Cheap and easy, isn’t it?

But how do they do it?

The method is simple. Multinational companies throughout Pakistan are making sure they “trap” customers for their vested interests by making them do something we all do on Facebook: “Like” a page. This “word of mouth” technique goes far and clients pool in to one page where status updates are given on a single product while other companies arrange “competitions” to compel users to fancy a particular brand.

Still not convinced? Consider other Pakistani products

Recent studies show that competitions once arranged and aired on radio and TV are now being surpassed by contests arranged on Facebook simply due to the comfort and convenience factor.

You will surprised to know that companies like PIA, Pakistan Wi-Tribe, Sooper Biscuits and Haier utilize the efficiency of web marketing to an extent where consumption of their products has doubled and tripled over the past few years. The technique is cost-effective thanks to the easily provided medium that is the internet. Take the instance of Wi Tribe’s fan page: Over 19,000 fans and still growing!

So now you know how marketing in Facebook is an easy business thanks to pop up fan pages and advertisements that hog half of our homepage. You have to admit it though: They’re attractive and worth a few clicks here and there.