By Allan Maurer

Jeff Ragovin - Chief Revenue Officer, Buddy Media

NEW YORK – By now most big brands know social media can give them a boost or cause them trouble, but managing social campaigns can prove daunting without savvy help. That’s one reason Buddy Media has had so much success with its social media management system, which is already used by Johnson & Johnson, Borders, Crate & Barrel, Ford Motor Company, Donna Karan, Armani Exchange & GNC, among other top clients. Just today the company added an additional $5 million to the $25 million C round the company announced earlier in October.

The company is laser-focused on Facebook at the moment, says Jeff Ragovin, chief revenue officer, who is one of more than 100 top Internet thought leaders participating in the upcoming Internet Summit in Raleigh, NC, Nov. 17-18.

“At this point, we’re working with over 300 brands and in every vertical,” Ragovin says. They include universities, consumer brands such as Coca Cola, entertainment companies such as ABC and NBC, and many retailers and fashion firms.

Buddy Media, which launched at the same time as Facebook, has created a thriving niche for itself, Ragovin says, explaining, “We help brand marketers control everything in Facebook from a single platform. We help them schedule updates, track engagement, set up filters, and create customized tabs where people can engage with the brand.”

It includes a robust set of analytics.

Finding out what works on Facebook can require some expertise. Ragovin describes how an ABC soap opera, “General Hospital,” which he says “I’ve never seen in my life,” had made 30-40 status updates on its Facebook page without stirring any customer engagement. So Buddy Media suggested, they change the tone and talk about what was going on in the soap with status updates such as “Should Luke and Laura have had sex last night?”

That kicked responses up from about 10 comments to 10,000.

Buddy Media also helps brands use polls to test out certain ideas. Budweiser, for instance, asked fans which of three bottles for their Bud Light Golden Wheat they preferred.

One site Ragovin says is using Facebook well, with the help of Buddy Media, is Borders. We went to the Border’s Facebook page and “liked” it a week or so ago, and have received several enticing offers from the book seller since. “They’re training people to come to their page every week for those offers,” he says.

One Borders campaign that worked well, he says, was focused on National Dog Day, of all things. Borders asked people to upload a photo of their dog to the Borders Facebook page and within a few hours, 919 did. “They weren’t selling any books, doing that. They were creating a community,” notes Ragovin. Not to mention that their messages now go to 919 new Facebook feeds.

The average person may have about 130 friends on Facebook, each of whom may now see that Borders activity, with the potential of “Creating a whole new chain reaction.”

Buddy Media started working with Borders in July when they had 140,000 fans. “They just broke 400,000,” Ragovin says. “Their page is taking off.”

The Buddy Media platform costs about $3,000 to $5,000 a month and the company also sells strategic and creative services.

Ragolin says he’ll be talking about how people can take advantage of certain Facebook features when he attends the Internet Summit in a few weeks.

Southeast Venture Conference, February 29 – March 1, 2012 at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner, VA – Where Smart Money Meets Smart People.
www.seventure.org

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Tags: Buddy Media, facebook, Internet Summit, Jeff Ragovin, social media engagement