The vast majority of content in most individuals' Facebook profiles is personal. Friends, family, pets, favourite things, they all represent a specific person's personality and as such, it makes sense that when brands have the opportunity to tap into all of that content, they do so to create a social object that is more relevant and personal to that user than the other digital content they have encountered in the past. It could be said that at present, it's the most personal form of engagement possible.
A number of brands (or possibly social media agencies working for brands) have looked to tap into this within their digital PR and marketing efforts, creating concepts that can capture users' Facebook information. They can then make it relevant to the brand and the user as part of their target audience, and produce an end product that incorporates as much of the users personality and relationships as possible. Below are a few examples of how this has been done well:
Perhaps one of the most innovative campaigns to date, Intel created the "Museum of Me", which took each individuals Facebook friends, photos, posts, videos and more, combining them all to create a virtual museum all centred on that persons Facebook network.
With over 100,000 users creating their own version within the first 24 hours of the campaign, the viral nature of the campaign was a massive success, even if the direct relationship between it and Intel's processors (which it was designed to highlight) wasn't immediately apparent.
Lynx' core target audience is likely to be males between the ages of around 15 - 30 (at a wild guess), and what better way to engage this group by creating a story centred around them and a bunch of beautiful young women? The campaign took the user's profile image, their friends' profile images, and added direct interaction to create a story highlighting the user as the one compatible match for "archangel" Kelly Brook, trapped alone in heaven. Almost every man's dream.
The campaign tied in directly with the preceding TV commercial, and created a great deal of buzz around the Lynx brand.
Sky Sports News' "Your Team Your Dream" (now closed)
In a Facebook campaign to promote Sky Sports to football (soccer) supporters in the UK, Sky created the "Your Team Your Dream" application, which took football fans' profile images and team preferences and transformed them into the star of that team. The app took users on a whirlwind adventure using newspaper articles, books and live coverage on Sky Sports programme "Soccer Saturday", showing them scoring goals against rivals, becoming the centre of media attention and star player for their club.
The app was hugely successful amongst the target demographic because it created a sharable video that was hugely personal to them, and made them feel special as part of their favourite football team. It also created a great deal of Facebook chatter or "banter" amongst their network, many of whom were also likely to have similar interests and be passionate about football too.
It could be predicted that the creation of such apps is in its infancy considering that there haven't yet been many brands to experiment with Facebook connect in this way, but with the now launch of Google+, this may be something that becomes more popular through the integration of multiple networks rather than just Facebook. I wonder which brand will be the first to create a bespoke social media experience incorporating Facebook Google+ and Twitter? Only time will tell.