Socialnomics by Erik Qualman

Author:Erik Qualman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Published: 2012-11-05T16:00:00+00:00

Advertising within Social Networks Is Actually Effective

Because social media lends itself to unobtrusive advertising, that advertising is effective. In a 2008 survey done by Razorfish—“The Razorfish Consumer Experience Report”—76 percent of the 1,006 people surveyed said they didn't mind seeing ads when they logged in to Facebook, MySpace, or other social media sites. Razorfish also found that 40 percent of the respondents said they made purchases after seeing those ads.24

Intuitively this makes sense because social media can accomplish things that we weren't necessarily able to do in the past. For example, when my friend changed her status from “in a relationship” to “engaged,” she started getting ads for wedding photographers, DJs, and so on. This was information that she didn't necessarily view as advertising, but rather part of the experience—and a helpful part at that.

Smart companies like TripAdvisor understand this technique and approach the market from an outside-looking-in viewpoint rather than from the old inside-looking-out paradigm. Acme Travels was using inside-looking-out thinking and old metrics. Acme incorrectly approached the opportunity of Facebook from the perspective of “How can we grow our database so that we can mail potential customers brochures and send them e-mail?”

The question that companies should ask first is: “What do we have to offer that is unique and valuable to our customers and potential customer base?” Also, engaging in role-playing in which you put yourself in the shoes of your users is always extremely beneficial. As a user, would I take the extra step of giving you my personal information? Only if what the company is offering is valuable enough to me that I choose to share my personal information.

Users generally want to be communicated with through the medium in which you met to begin with. In this example, TripAdvisor knows that they will be communicating through the user's Facebook inbox or Facebook news feed, not via traditional e-mail or brochures. At some point during the relationship, if the user wants to sign up for an e-mail distribution, then TripAdvisor will be more than happy to accommodate them.

A few months after the travel application battle, Acme Travels was discussing a different Facebook tactic, establishing a fan page. A fan page is usually for your company or product home page within Facebook. Facebook users can select a simple “+” symbol, and they are added as fans so they can receive updates in their news feeds for anything going on with that product or service. There was a heated debate about what adjustments should be made to the fan page prior to a large e-mail drop that was going to deploy later that week.

For several weeks, Acme showcased two products on its fan page. The various product managers were arguing about which product should be placed higher on the page and how many outbound links they should have driving to lead forms. This is a classic example of a traditional marketing pitfall: people arguing for months over the color of a car to be featured in an upcoming commercial, or disputing if a URL should be printed as www.

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