NYT's Facebook fan page

Last week New York Times president Scott Heekin-Canedy released an eight-page memo praising the success of the newspaper's Facebook advertising campaign, which went live in the days following the Presidential election.

"The goals […] were to increase our number of Facebook fans; raise awareness of NYTimes.com as an interactive news center; and engage the Facebook community in a conversation about the election outcome," Heekin-Canedy premised.

According to Nieman Lab, Facebook users were invited to answer NYT-sponsored question, "What should Barack Obama do first as president?" They could also send virtual gifts: a Times front page with "Obama Wins" headlined at top.

The gift was sent to more than 400,000 people. The exposure also helped quadruple the number of New York Times fans on its Facebook page. (As of this writing, the total number of fans is 183,913 from an initial 49,000.)

Heekin-Canedy said the figure "far exceeded our 2008 goal of 100,000 fans." But the "greatest success of the campaign […] is that our fans continue to rapidly grow […] into a powerful, free word-of-mouth network that we will leverage for future marketing messages."

As a final touch, the paper purchased exclusive ad space on Facebook's front page, featuring a video of Obama with an open comments section. The ad was viewed by 68.3 million users, and over 34,000 comments were submitted.