Okay, let’s continue our series of the “whys” of social media.
This series assumes the following scenario: Your website is in order. Your brand is consistent. Your offers are converting. Your conventional media is efficiently deployed. Now, you have the time to explore what social media might do for your marketing. Or you’ve been told, point blank, to find out.
Given that, why would you engage with one social media outpost over the next? About a month ago, we covered Twitter. This week, we’ll cover the 800-lb gorilla of the space: Facebook.
Facebook
Facebook is the juggernaut. 300 million members strong, with an app platform that boasts some of the most successful social games on the planet, and an advertising network that is beginning to generate a profit.
Seems like a likely space to reach out and engage prospects, doesn’t it?
Well, in short: maybe. The thing to remember about Facebook is that people are there to meet, interact with, and keep up with the friends they like and the causes they believe in. It’s not a place where people are allowed to hide behind aliases. It’s not a place where a brand can pretend to be a person. In Facebook, everything is tightly controlled–and most of its users like it that way, because their news feed is one of the most important aspects of their day. And they don’t take kindly to it being overrun by overtly commercial messages.
So . . . why would you want to get into Facebook?
There are a myriad of opportunities. Here are just a few.
To connect with fans. If you already have fans–in other words, you’re an entertainment property, or a niche company with a rabid group of followers–you should set up a Facebook fan page. It’s going to be one of the best ways to aggregate your fans and give you a direct way to talk to them. But don’t think your responsibility ends at the fan page setup: fans want to hear what you’re doing, and what you’re planning, on an ongoing basis. Fans will ask questions, and they’ll expect answers. And fans sometimes get rowdy. So expect to spend some time managing your fan page.
To create a truly useful or entertaining app. Facebook’s apps platform allows you to create embeddable applications that reach out to friends through the power of the Facebook database. This has fueled some spectacular successes, most notably that of Zynga, a social game provider which has eclipsed every MMO, or “massively multiplayer online game”, in a few short months on Facebook. But beware: there are hundreds of thousands of apps. Unless yours is truly useful or entertaining, it’ll end up on the app scrapheap in short order. What can you do for people that nobody else can–and you’re comfortable with offering for free? If you have an answer to that question, it may be time to develop a Facebook app.
To simply advertise. Often overlooked is Facebook’s ad platform. Facebook ads can be micro-targeted to reach hyper-specific segments of the population. Want to reach only fans of The Family Guy? No problem. Want to target all the iPod Touch owners? Sure. This opens the opportunity for extremely specific offers that drive excellent results. Best of all, Facebook ads run at less than $1 CPM or CPC.
To run contests or sweepstakes. Social contests are great ways to build a contact base, and spread the word about your company. Facebook has a well-integrated contesting platform that makes running contests relatively simple and painless. Beware, however, of becoming a contest-only company.
To get meaningful feedback. Create a Facebook group to have greater interaction with your customers and prospects, use simple polling tools to get a read on what you’re doing, and invite a select group to preview products. Facebook’s demo is broad enough that this kind of ad hoc research is surprisingly accurate when compared to “the real thing.”
However, you may notice that we didn’t say Facebook was a great place to set up a fan page and wait for thousands of fans to simply show up. And that’s absolutely true. “Build it and they will come” hasn’t ever worked, and it doesn’t work on Facebook either.
But if you take the time, and build the base, Facebook can be a great place to launch your company into effective social media.
