Through what appears from the outside to be a small semantic tweak – changing the “Become a fan” button to simply “like” – Facebook has dramatically increased the versatility of its offering and made itself much more appealing to brands. Here, we take an in-depth look at the power of this new function and pinpoint the marketing information it can now give to brands. We also ask whether having cracked social interaction is Facebook now, despite the furore over privacy, setting its sights on cracking the consumer/brand relationship?
Facebook has been undergoing some major changes over the past 12 months. The site has nailed social interaction between friends, but is now setting its sights on nailing social interaction between customers and brands.
As an agency we have seen a big shift in the client space with regard to using Facebook as a marketing tool, and in the past six months we have seen it suddenly reach a tipping point in terms of brand adoption. Companies now see it as a key marketing channel and are prepared to make the investment.
Most of this change has probably come as a result of some very good publicity the channel has had; it’s done a very good job of marketing itself. It didn’t hurt when it overtook Google as the number one most visited site in the US for the first time in March 2010. Facebook has also been keen to push the fact that the 35+ demographic now represents more than 30% of the entire user base, that is over 5 million in the UK alone, which has made brands and marketers realise it is not just a platform for kids.
While brands may not have become completely convinced that Facebook is actually driving online sales, it is driving publicity and getting column inches, and the brands that are involved with it are still seen as being innovative.
However, one of the biggest changes that has occurred on the site, from the outside probably appears the smallest. By changing its “Become a Fan” function, to simply “Like”, Facebook has opened the market in terms of what brands can do. Facebook has invested a lot of time and money developing this, and while changing the idea of being a fan of something to just liking something may seem a semantic change, it is a very real change in the way people perceive it.
You no longer have to be a Fan of a brand like Kurt Geiger, for example, which can sound a little bit obsessive, now you can ‘Like’ anything from, the brand page itself, down to individual products or offers. This ability to be able to Like – and to comment on – individual products is where the real marketing power now lies within Facebook, and we are pushing this to all our clients, where relevant. Once you ‘Like’ a product, it will be displayed on your own wall, so instead of people seeing that you just like something broad like a brand such as easyjet, Virgin or Adidas, they will see that you like a very specific product or offer; whether that be the latest Tag Heuer watch or a £350 flight to New York.
The overall impact is that marketers can gain much more in-depth profile mapping of their customer base; knowing who their audience are and what they like. Such a simple button now means that fans are doing brands’ work for them, creating valuable buzz and word-of-mouth endorsement. Especially now that sites are able to display products that your friends also like (if you are logged in to Facebook) and also to display comments that these friends have made about those products.
This shift to more granular information is perfect for big brands as they don’t need their followers to be promoting them as a brand, they need them to be promoting specific things, such as individual products or offers. Indeed, clicks on the Like button have increased traffic to blogs by 50%, showing that people have really bought into this new concept.
Furthermore, without any particularly complex integration, brands can pull comments and other information from Facebook into their own websites. This gives them a very easy way of adding reviews to their own e-commerce platform, providing a link saying, “256 people like this product and here’s what they had to say about it”.
This reality does represent a whole new way for brands to market and promote products, and it even tackles key issues such as how to get people to link back to brand websites and keep the conversation going. The reality is that all the changes Facebook has made over the past six to 12 months have been about turning it into a place where brands can push their products.
Facebook has obviously realised its marketing potential and the whole platform has become much more geared towards businesses, it is now possible for brands to glean huge amounts of valuable data from their Facebook pages and followers. For example, if brands give users the ability to log-in to their e-commerce site using their Facebook log-in there is a host of information that can be pulled across automatically; from sex, date of birth and email addresses to what brands they like, what media they are interested in, what bands they listen to and whether they like sport.
While individuals can deny access to all this information, at its most open level brands can get access to unprecedented levels of information about their users, and pull this directly into their CRM set up to help build a much more accurate profile of their audience. This can mean fewer, but more targeted communications with that audience.
Of course, this new-look Facebook has not been without its problems. Recent issues surrounding the site and its new privacy settings have made headline news. But for the social media giant to offer brands the level of data exchange they need, the privacy setting need to be accessible. However, it has to be said that Facebook did not handle this particularly well, and could have given much clearer explanations as to why the settings were being changed.
Personally, I have little objection to letting third parties know more about me – within reason – if it means I’m going to get better and more relevant information and offers. But it needs to be sold in an open and honest way; customers need to see benefit.
In many respects this can only be a good thing for both brands and consumers, providing better and more relevant information. As things develop further and the tools become available, so users will have greater control over what information they receive and when. For quick communications such as special offers, Facebook is fast becoming the perfect mechanism.
While it may seem a small change, the new ‘Like’ button has had a powerful impact on Facebook’s offering, and you can guarantee the company thought this through carefully before launching it.
Mark Blenkinsop
Senior search marketing manager, Pod1
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Twitter: Pod1