I’ve thrown a sheep or two in my day… a.k.a. the Facebook Revolution
An article at Forbes online has declared Facebook is the "It" company of 2007 and in the article, the application I used "could rake in over a million dollars in ad revenue this year for their shepherd, a company called Slide."
Facebook, a social networking application is all the rage, with marketing executives everywhere seeking to find a way to capitalize upon over 41 million pairs of eyeballs. Rex Hammock finds Facebook compelling — addictive even.
Nick O’Neil is so enamored, he has launched "All Face Book," a blog about…well… all things Facebook. He’s taken his obsession to the next level, launching a consulting firm to educate those who want access to those eyeballs on how to do so. According to O’Neil, the value of a Myspace user is MUCH less than the value of a Facebook user.
The Myspace vs Facebook debate is hotly discussed these days. At it’s core of the debate is the value of the structure. Facebook’s very infrastructure revolves around true relationships. Unlike Myspace, you can’t go out and "whore" yourself to a million users in Facebook. Facebook is also easier to use than Myspace. Which may be why Rupurt Murdock is reported to have said when asked if newspaper readers were migrating to Myspace, “I wish they were. They’re all going to Facebook at the moment”. (Thanks Trendspotting for that info!)
According to Javerty, who it appears got this from Boing Boing
The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other "good" kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we’d call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.
MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, "burnouts," "alternative kids," "art fags," punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn’t play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn’t go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. Teens who are really into music or in a band are on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.""
In the end, the lesson here is users of social networking sites are as varied as users of other media and they’re just as fickle. For a REALLY amusing illustration, here’s a funny video that illustrates the key differences between Facebook and Myspace.
ISO deeper customer relationships: a.k.a. Marketing via Social Networking
The underlying goal for ANY company wanting to use social networking sites as marketing tools SHOULD be to forge deeper relationships with customers and potential customers. By building "friendships" with customers, Myspace, Facebook and other social networking sites offer the opportunity to begin an open dialog with customers.
DIALOG… two way communication. You speak, they listen, they respond. They speak, you listen, you respond.
Whether it’s Facebook, Myspace or even Digg, if you want to the get most out of marketing via social networks, then you’re going to HAVE to participate in ALL of the discussions, not just the ones you can use to promote your business.
One time, I tried to purchase a product advertised on television. The company had set up an automatic order system so by pushing buttons on the phone, you could order the product without speaking to a live human being. Of course, there were the prerequisite upsells…. "Press 1 to add this to your order. Press 2 to skip this." When you pressed 2, you were greeted with a "are you SURE you don’t want this?"
I hung up the phone in disgust. I said NO! I meant NO! Don’t keep hammering me until I say yes!!!
I often see this same "style" of messaging going on in Myspace. No matter what the incoming message, the outgoing message is always the same. "Buy…Buy… Buy my product/service!"
That’s not the way to win friends and influence people.
Dale Carnegie once said, "The way for you to get what you want is to help other people to get what THEY want."
That is the key element in making social networking sites work for your marketing campaign. You’re there to gather information from your "friends"….. what do THEY want? How can you help them to get what they want?
Now Facebook is a player in the Social Networking Marketing Mix
I remember when my oldest daughter joined Facebook…. she had to have an .edu email address to be able to interact with her fellow college students. Ah, how times have changed. Now ANYONE can join Facebook and the rush of internet marketing "get rich quick" mentality may indeed lead to it’s demise.
Pronet Advertising writes:
Since the Facebook began this open platform approach I have been getting 5-6 friend requests per week. Even though most of these requests are from actual people who (though we don’t know each other) have added me for whatever reason, there are also countless more invitations from "fake" accounts and to join "fake" groups. These invitations are from people who have no display picture or network associated with them and no way to authenticate that they are legitimate users and not spammers.
It is a testament to Facebook’s growth that spammers are recognizing it as a viable resource that must be exploited. But the spammer problem doesn’t stop with these "invisible" requests. I logged into Facebook today after a week to see that a certain Jenna Hall had asked to be added as a friend of mine. The invitation seemed harmless enough since I’m no stranger to "friend request spam" and because I don’t know her, I decided to click on her name to see who she was and why she wanted to be friends with me.
Whether you’re playing on the Myspace field or the Facebook field, "friend spam" is rampant in social networking sites. Trying to leverage Facebook as a "freebie" form of marketing is NOT the way to win friends and influence people.
Facebook is still struggling with how to "monetize" all the eyeballs it has attracted…. but the internet marketing "get rich quick crowd" is already there polluting the waters. Porn sites have been quick to jump on this medium.
Social networking sites are a GREAT way to connect with your members of your target market. Identifying your target market is ESSENTIAL before you begin your social networking journey because otherwise, you end up looking like a spammer.
