Everyone’s been buzzing about Facebook’s potential for years. So why is so much of the marketing on there so bad?
One of the common tactics of marketers trying to build consumer engagement on Facebook is to demonstrate interest in important moments and big days.
From Pizza Pizza: “It’s NHL All Star weekend in Ottawa! Whether your at the event or at home be sure to grab your favourite pizza and 50 cent wings!” (Yes, “your at the event.”)
KFC was feeling romantic in early February: “A friendly reminder to our busy fans out there, Valentine’s Day 2012 is just around the corner. Get ahead of the game with this week’s Colonel’s Club Deal, the romantic 3 Piece 2 Can Dine for $11.99…”
Asking questions to encourage interaction is one of the strategies recommended by Facebook. Frosted Flakes wanted to be part of the excitement around the Super Bowl, and so: “Check the weather, double-check the lineup, then grab a bowl of cereal. What’s your family’s game day ritual?”
Groundhog Day was a big one, with a number of brands hoping to be a part of the buzz, including Sobeys and RBC.
“Whether it’s 6 more weeks of winter or not, let’s have some fun. If there was a day you could repeat, what would it be?” asked Sobeys.
“Happy Groundhog Day! The predictions are coming in—what are you hoping for? And early Spring Fling or more Winter Wonderland?” was the post RBC delivered to its 49,000 fans. (Yes, “and early Spring.”)
Over the last three years the industry has been Facebook-fixated. With print, radio and of course TV all reportedly in death spirals thanks to new technology, marketers and their agencies were positively giddy that technology would deliver them a new platform exploding with popularity where people would freely share information about their likes and dislikes. Mark Zuckerberg wants to make the world a more social place and people have proven they want to play along.
“Consumers have shown a willingness to share beyond anyone’s expectations,” says Niraj Dawar, a marketing professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business. A steady stream of press releases trumpeted new campaigns that “leveraged” Facebook, and marketers (and their agencies) proudly reported skyrocketing numbers to brand pages. Facebook was birthing a new era of engagement marketing in which brands would stop yelling at consumers (with ads) and start talking with them.
And now what are we doing? Celebrating Groundhog Day together. Is this what all the excitement is about?
Well, no. But for starters, let’s all agree that “There’s 800 million people on there!!!!” is no longer reason enough for marketers to jump into Facebook without a plan.
For one thing, Facebook remains an intensely personal experience for many and they’re not that interested in engaging with brands the way they do with friends and family. Even on important occasions like Groundhog Day.
A recent study from TNS seems to support the notion with more than half of respondents saying “social networks are a place where I don’t want to be bothered by companies/organizations.” In Canada, Facebook will tell you it has 18 million users and 12 million of them are on Facebook every day. Maybe, but it’s possible six million don’t want to hear from you, and only about 36% of online Canadians have become fans of a brand on a social network. Other research from Australia’s Ehrenberg-Bass Institute found that just 1% of fans of the biggest brands on Facebook actually engage with brands.
On the flip side, 44% of Canadians “see social networks as a good place to learn about brands” and that number goes up to 81% when a friend recommends a brand.
Which brings us to our next point: People are sharing more information and willing to investigate and even “like” brands. But after earning that “like,” a lot of Facebook marketing is just not very good.
Part of the reason people are reluctant to interact with brands is that they feel overwhelmed by content, says Ron Caughlin, vice-president, marketing and digital at TNS Canada.
“Everyone is rushing to get online, and there is all this content there that people don’t want to see,” he says. Asking random questions of your fans or constantly posting promos with badly written copy doesn’t help. “If brands are just pushing content and not engaging, they are not going to get noticed.”
Mitch Joel, one of Canada’s leading champions of social marketing, admits much of what brands are doing on Facebook is less than impressive. He likens it to teenage sex: awkward and embarrassing. “Marketers are taking everything we have done traditionally and putting it in a channel that is fundamentally different.”
“Go back to the early days of television and you will see ads that will make you puke now,” adds Dawar. “I think we are at that stage with Facebook right now.” But both believe that is changing already, best practices are emerging and the size of the return could be huge for marketers.
The assumption is that by now the Facebook community is representative of society as a whole. Whether or not that can be said of the people actively following brands and commenting on posts is another matter. (Fun challenge: ask agency execs if they are fans of Facebook or how many brands they follow.)
With tens of thousands of fans, any question posted to a Facebook page will draw some comments. But scan those threads on pages of big brands like RBC and KFC and you’ll find many people mocking the company or taking the opportunity to air a totally unrelated complaint.
“Consumers do share some experiences that they feel were not positive. I think that is what the dialogue should be about,” says David Vivenes, chief marketing officer for Yum Brands, including KFC, which attracts more than a few troll-like abusive posts. “Part of the magic of social media and community is that you have to let people express opinions.”
He says the company has learned a great deal in its 18 months on Facebook, though management of the community was recently given to its advertising agency Grip. (Grip didn’t want to say much about its plans, but expect an investment in community management.)
But despite the nasty comments, Vivenes says he’s never doubted KFC has to be on Facebook. “Having a sense of community is an extension of our brand,” he says. “A restaurant is a social place, a social place on Facebook is an extension of that.
“Our reasons have nothing to do with being fashionable.”
But is there such a thing as a KFC community? Can every brand really have a community revolve around it? Any brand can drive up “likes” by offering a coupon, but is that a community?
“I don’t think every brand can have a community built around them, but every brand can build value to a community that is relevant to them,” says Pema Hegan, national director of strategy at Rethink and an avowed believer in the potential of Facebook. “The issue is not a lot [of marketers] are approaching it that way,” he says. “We are stumbling along like toddlers.”
He recalls a Zuckerbergism about Facebook bringing “elegant organization to communities.” Facebook helps existing communities communicate and for some brands (think Apple or Nike) communities truly exist. People proudly include the brand as part of their identity. For others, the challenge is to find the right communities and gracefully add something to them.
This much is clear. Facebook is transformative in a societal sense. And for marketing? Well, clearly there is enormous value in the data that users are volunteering and much more precise targeting of ads. But it really hasn’t changed any of the rules of marketing. (Even if it’s only used as a direct mail and PR channel to deliver coupons and promos.) It’s only added new ones.
For marketers who think they can actually build their brands on Facebook, they’ll need to be even more transparent than in the past, with a brand story that people can actually love or proudly admit to follow, and an ability to produce content (not ads) that will truly engage consumers. Like it or leave it.
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