facebook for business: is the juice worth the squeeze?
i realize that this might be contrarian to how many brands and businesses currently view facebook, but i think that facebook for business is totally overrated. over the past couple of years marketers have flocked towards facebook and employed a variety of different tactics in an attempt to gain “fans” or “likes.” most have been met with lackluster results, yet the madness continues.
as an advertising professional well steeped in interactive marketing, i tend to favor measurable results rather than hype or jumping on the latest trend. i try to set realistic goals in advance of a program based on previous benchmarks that i’ve set or results that others in the same category have experienced. as the program continues i monitor it’s success and seek answers to questions that address the product’s sales results, brand engagement, traffic, and conversion/fans.
- have sales increased since our facebook page was created?
- when special offers are posted is there a direct correlation and subsequent increase in sales volume?
- are our facebook friends posting favorable comments about our products on our wall?
- have any of our facebook friends become brand ambassadors?
- are our site traffic driving or cross promotional strategies working?
while some of these things are hard to quantify or measure, it’s much easier to gauge and monitor the activity on a brand’s facebook page. there are a few facebook brand pages like coca cola’s (http://www.facebook.com/cocacola) that have been phenomenally successful amassing over 25MM “likes” while hosting brand discussions on close to 1,000 different topics. however, the vast majority of facebook brand pages play host to crickets. as a result, if you aren’t moving more product and getting a measurable return on your investment, then why continue?
aside from jumping on the latest interactive marketing trend’s bandwagon, most marketers pursue social media due largely to the misconception that social media is free. setting up a page for your business may be free, but in order for it to be done effectively it requires a fair amount of time and “the right” resources to manage and maintain. in the world of social media, “if you build it, they don’t always come.” that said, why do businesses continue to deploy time and resources towards facebook in the name of growing a fan base? at what point does the juice not become worth the squeeze? i dont’ ignore the value in striking up a conversation on facebook to create engagement with a brand. however, ask yourself honestly if the value outweighs the associated costs?
in my career, i have utilized a myriad of different tools to not only create engaging brand experiences, but also drive measurable results. out of all the different tools that we have at our disposal to move consumers through the purchase funnel, facebook is probably the most ineffective of them all. yet for some odd reason, marketers keep enforcing it hoping that the result will change. agencies are being forced to keep trying things that aren’t working because their client’s have facebook on the brain. coca-cola’s success on facebook is an exception, not the rule. as time wears on, ask yourself a few easy questions and be honest in your response.
- is your facebook strategy working? if so, by what measure?
- more fans? more engagement? more likes? more sales?
i seriously doubt that most marketers are hitting any of these regularly, and hardly anyone is moving more product due to their facebook participation. plainly speaking, the only reason why most of us are employing facebook as part of our social media strategies is because our paying clients are demanding it. this is okay as long as we set the expectation that the juice squeezed may be a tad sour.
-
emergedmedia posted this
