This was actually one of the more disappointing tracks from this week at SES 2009 so far.  I don't mean to complain about Facebook any more than I already have on my blog, but for a company that is being regarded as one of the hottest marketing tools today... this just felt unprofessional and for the most part worthless to anyone that was already familiar with the social platform.

Kasey Galang, Product Marketing Manager and Rebecca Sawyer, Online Sales Operations Manager at Facebook spent 30 minutes trying to guide us through the social graph and provide tips and tricks for leveraging and optimizing our advertising on Facebook.

Kasey isn't much of a public speaker, and the lack of fresh information coupled with her monotone and very unenthusiastic voice really got this track off to a slow start.  Rebecca was a bit more captivating but she followed up with information that I felt was mostly common sense.  The question and answer session was comical.  After each question the two girls would whisper to each as if they were contestants preparing an answer for the old Double Dare show. After each little secret session, one of them (usually Kasey) would pop back up to the microphone with an answer that revolved around the phrase, "Nothing I can report on today".

Basically the presentation broke down into these few useful bits of information:

• Facebook users spend and average of 3 billion minutes on the platform a day.
• The average Facebook user has 120 friends that they interact with on a semi frequent basis.
• Advertising on Facebook is a way to find your target audience before they search.
• With all of the personal information on Facebook, you can find out what people like, don't like, their activities, etc.  The market data is at your fingertips.  You can market directly to their interests.
• Target age, gender, education, and more with your Facebook advertising campaigns.
• Make sure the ad has an enticing image, strong CTA, and follow through with the intent of the ad.
• Once you find your audience, test multiple messages to find the best ROI.
• Refresh your Facebook creatives often.  Facebook is driven by fresh information.  Keep your ad content fresh.
• People on Facebook are already absorbing a lot of interesting and fresh information.  Make sure your ad will be noticed.

Basically, nothing new for me here, but maybe someone else out there will find some of this useful.  Personally, I was very unimpressed by the presentation put on by the people at Facebook.