Michael is the CEO of Buddy Media and will be presenting at the free LiveBar event in New York City that I’ve organized organized for LiveWorld for Wednesday, March 24 (disclosure: LiveWorld is a Buddy Media partner).

Michael has reason to be bullish, after all. Facebook boasts a massive userbase of more than 400 million and a robust toolset for targeted advertising.

As part of previewing the LiveBar event, I spoke with Michael about the state of Facebook marketing and advertising [Click if you can't see the video] and wanted to share his comments here.

* Michael fields a Twitter question from @EricSchwartzman about the state of Facebook analytics.

* Michael says that evaluating Facebook’s impact on a business is “very much a work in progress.”

* Michael offers several examples of successful brand efforts in Facebook:

• Anheuser-Busch in beer/alcohol vertical
• Southwest in travel
• Twilight in entertainment
• Pampers and Febreze (“Thanks, Mom“) from Proctor & Gamble (LiveWorld client)

* Michael argues that the companies seeing the most social media success are those that “fully commit.”

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The first centers on Dan’s continued thinking around the Facebook Effect: Just how do you handle those friend requests from people you barely know? And then this: “How do you create a private space in which to have deeper interaction while also simultaneously nourishing and expanding/growing your public persona and public interactions?”

This blurring of public and personal on Facebook is a subject Dan and I will cover at the 2010 SXSW Interactive conference–if our proposed panel is chosen (public voting now closed).

‘Attention Wave’ package

Dan, whose day job is as chief conversation officer at Voxeo, also has a lengthy post about creating what he calls an “Attention Wave” around the release of a new product or service.

The idea? To capture attention and interest, your business needs to do much more than send out a press release. Instead, that release is just one part of larger “package,” with other complementary components distributed around the web.

Here’s Dan’s proposed package:

• A traditional press release, with accompanying photo(s), videos, and screenshots
• A post on the company’s corporate blog
• One or more embeddable videos
• A “deeper dive” post with more of the nitty-gritty on the product or service
• Companion posts from other employees
• Companion posts on external blogs and/or media sites, including from supporters of the company (expect to do some good advance PR to coordinate this effort)
• (Implied): Tweets with relevant links

As Dan rightly notes, offering multiple content pieces across multiple channels makes it more likely the story/product launch etc. will reach more eyeballs; plus, the array of sharable components (images, videos, etc.) enables reporters, bloggers, fans to more easily tell the company’s story to their readers and followers.

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Take, for instance, this invitation to Social Media Breakfast Singapore, which is scheduled for Saturday, March 29.

It’s not exactly practical for me to travel halfway around the world to attend this first international edition of my breakfast series — for starters, airfare alone would set me back at least $1,482, according to Kayak.com — but it doesn’t mean I really, really wouldn’t like to attend. I certainly would!

In a case like this, choosing the “Not Attending” button in Facebook just feels so … insufficient. There’s much more I want to say in declining this invitation. The solution? An “If only…” option — something akin to the “Watching” button upcoming.

Here’s what “If only…” status might convey for this event:

• I’d sure as hell be there if I could!
• Although I can’t attend, you really should!
• Make sure you blog, podcast, and live video stream the event!
• Please make sure to invite me next time!

So, anyone want to build a Facebook application for this?

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