Bing Goes Farming

O.K. – pop quiz: which social media game boasts an active fan-base of roughly 31 million players every day?  Here’s a hint: it’s a happy place where you can plant virtual crops that can be harvested, or ask your neighbor to chase away raccoons. If you guessed Farmville, then you’re correct!    

Earlier this week, we began an advertising pilot with Zynga, the folks who brought you Farmville.  For a short time, we invited some people who were playing Farmville to join Bing’s Facebook community by becoming a fan of Bing.  We also encouraged them to tell their friends about it.  In exchange, we provided some farm dollars, which is the virtual currency used to buy things to build and maintain a farm.  Here is what the ad looked like, once a Farmville user clicked on it:

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In a 24 hour promotion, we added 400,000 new fans to http://www.facebook.com/bing.  We were amazed by the response (and by how fast it went viral).  But we always have room for more folks in the Bing community, so stop on by and join the fun.

We are excited to have the opportunity to work with Zynga on this advertising promotion, as an interesting way of getting more people to experience Bing’s unique ability to help make decisions, whether in Farmville or outside in the real world.  We look forward to engaging more deeply with these users and helping them learn more about Bing.

Liz Tassey Gerber – Bing