Social Marketing
Brands are seemingly stepping up their social media marketing, particularly on Facebook, and whilst increasing brand awareness is never a bad move, is there any real point to creating fan groups via social media? By looking at the two big hitters in social marketing – Facebook and Twitter – we can discuss their relevancy in online marketing at present.
Facebook users may well become ‘fans’ of a certain product for different rationales, one of the main factors will be for nostalgic reasons, yet this will mainly be for famous brands such as Coca-Cola, Adidas, Pringles, Gillette etc – global brands that do not need to target brand awareness.
According to research undertaken by socialnetworkmarketinguk.com (SNM Report) during 2008 only 12 per cent of Facebook users became a fan of a brand, and while this may well have increased in 2009 it would suggest that such an inferior statistic bares little when you consider that all it takes is a simple click to add a brand – and for what? To increase popularity like an attention craving teenager?
Facebook fan groups are simply a numbers game – how does that actually equate to increasing productivity? Brands would have to be pretty fickle to believe that because users are forever bombarded with sidebar requests to ‘become a fan’ of a brand that one of your Facebook friends is a fan of, that brand will then enter the subconscious psyche of users and they will head straight to the local shop to buy an ice cold can of Pepsi.
Paid Advertising
Paid advertising has also become more prevalent on Facebook and will more than likely hit Twitter in the coming year, if not months, but SNM Report statistics from last year suggest that, while pay per click advertising is an effective traffic generator the ads may not be as effective as others as only 17% of Facebook users were aware of brand adverts that had appeared on their profile page. At the end of September co-founder Biz Stone said that they had no plans to released paid ads, leading to speculation they might opt for monetisation through paid accounts.
That isn’t to say that social media is ineffective as a marketing tool because that couldn’t be further from the truth. At this stage Twitter has the upper hand on Facebook (although Facebook Connect will continue to improve brand awareness further when it continues to be utilised by more users) even though they have around 220 million less worldwide users. Twitter is ideal for interacting with ‘followers’, who for a brand will be current or prospective clients. It is a quick and easy way to advertise special offers, discounts, sales, new ranges etc
This kind of interaction offers a more personable approach and whilst increasing brand awareness also acts as an advertising tool and also a PR tool. Twitter is also ideal for targeting localised areas and whilst this kind of interaction can in theory be implemented also via Facebook in the form of a message sent to fans’ inboxes. This is more cumbersome than sending a generic tweet that users can either take note of or ignore in an instance.
There are obvious spamming issues with Twitter but this could start to decrease thanks to the recently installed ‘report for spam’ button that can be found on any users sidebar which will help to improve an ever-effective marketing tool that can most certainly prove to be more than just a numbers game.
Monetisation of Social Media
The web is saturated with webinars and top tips guides to building a brand presence within social media, however research shows that this is not being utilised by users of the various platforms. The monetisation of Facebook and Twitter will play a big role in how brands operate within their respective social media networks. For example if Twitter did opt for paid accounts then this would greatly affect how brands interact with users, as users who are paying for a service would not tolerate being inundated with ads or Spammy updates for companies.
The current state of Facebook paid ads also tells a tale. Facebook is inundated with weight loss, suggestive dating sights, teeth whitening and get rich quick schemes. This is not something that users will generally interact with in an open way and this ad culture personifies the archaic format of Facebook advertising, that of outbound marketing. Brands have to interact with users in a networking relationship which involves a two way dialogue, not just stating what they offer in a banner ad, enticing people to click through.
There are thousands of games and applications within Facebook like Mafia Wars, Farmville and My Zoo where users interact with each other. These are areas where Facebook could work with brands to develop useful applications that would benefit people in the everyday lives, supported by paid advertising within Facebook to generate interest. An obvious example is a search engine offering an application which utilises profile information to deliver more relevant search results.
The other major area that requires development is brand protection. The platform does not seem to accommodate a centralised brand presence, as many large brand names are fragmented and often not sanctioned by the actual company. For example, the application ‘My Google’ appears branded however has no apparent links to Google. It has been created by an independent developer that has no overt links to Google and therefore the company lacks any accountability to the quality of the app.
Social Media Platform
If social media platforms are going to deliver effective and measurable solutions for companies seeking to set up brand to consumer interfaces then the monetisation of the respective platforms will play a big part. It is important to remember what happened to MySpace as many believed its large scale monetisation lead to the migration toward Facebook. The monetisation has to be non-intrusive to user experience or people will find the next social media platform.
Currently people are attracted to creating brand presence within social media as it is sounds great conceptually, however in reality the fledgling social media platforms cannot support the four dimensional interface that is required to enable brands and users to form mutually beneficial relationships. The monetisation of the respective social media networks will hold the key to the future of social media branding.
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