I am a frequent visitor to my
Linkedin groups, especially the highly moderated for spam group ‘Social Media Marketing.’ It’s actually a pleasant experience because the members are there to learn and share knowledge -- other than spam people with their horrible consulting services or company elevator pitches. So, a couple weeks ago during lunch, I visited the group ‘Social Media Marketing’ (Heidi, Dan, I only visit Linkedin during lunch hours ;)) and someone started a thread on “marketing through
Facebook.” Really nothing specific here, the question was, “how do companies market through Facebook?” It was a pretty open question.
Well, I love to answer social media questions and if you are also a member of ‘Social Media Marketing’ (chances are “yes” if you work at
Neighborhood America) you have the privilege of seeing my face everywhere! This reminds me, I need to get myself a glamour shot next time I’m at the mall. C’mon everybody’s doing it! Anyways, I’m getting off track, back to my answer on marketing through Facebook. I responded, “
Facebook is best used as an intermediary site to invite your audience. Not sure of your objective, but most commonly the goal would be to pull those people on Facebook back into your environment.” It was a short answer and to a very open question. But that’s how I view it, would you disagree?
My comment was immediately condemned by a fellow respondent saying that, “You should not use a Facebook page with the goal of driving traffic back into your ‘own environment.’ Facebook users are skeptical of anybody who's trying to lure them away from the environment they trust, and your goal should rather be to generate as much engagement as you can within the Facebook environment.” Then he went on to point out all the great things you can do on a Facebook page, even offered a power point on it. I agree with some of his statements above and I will highlight why.
Agree:
1. “Facebook users are skeptical of people/applications that try to “lure” them off Facebook, an “environment they trust.” True, some people are skeptical of this unfortunately because of the huge amount of crap that’s on the internet. This is unfortunate for those companies/organizations that actually have something valuable to offer or share.
2. “Your goal should rather be to generate as much engagement as you can.” True, it’s obviously smart to engage with your audience, that’s where good value takes place. From a PR perspective it’s a dream to find a large pool of audience members that can move your messages.
But let me point out before Facebook, organizations/companies were already leveraging meaningful conversations through their personal ‘networks’ using social applications. This was all done before anyone put up a Facebook page for their company.
Facebook is an environment with anything and almost everything going on. Ask yourself why do you go to Facebook? Your answer is probably for many reasons - there are multiple ways of answering that question. It’s very unpredictable. Facebook = Social, that’s it. It’s one big party.
So, am I wrong to think:
1. Most companies/organizations should spend more time leveraging their already existing networks using their own environment?
2. Use Facebook as an intermediary site to invite your audience, much like Obama did during the election?
What are your views? How would you best leverage Facebook or any third party social site with marketing?
