For what seems like eons, though Oceanic Flight 815 was Lost well before, brand marketers and the agencies that represent them have been trying to find effective ways to tap into the Facebook audience. With 200+ million accounts worldwide and 50% of those users hitting the site daily, it doesn’t take much grey matter to see why.
Some firms have only dabbled in social applications, often with less-than-stellar results. (One infamous example was Burger King’s Whopper Sacrifice, which may have received more attention through PR than the application itself.) Clearly, some brands are good candidates for Facebook Apps due to the nature of their brand—such as how they fit into people’s lifestyles or have reached coveted cult-status—and some brands aren’t. (For example, who really wants to interact with toothpaste on Facebook?)
That leaves most brands with the option of advertising on Facebook, or creating Facebook Pages, which essentially provide the ability for them—entities that aren’t “people” per se—to create a presence on the site. While Facebook Pages have existed for some time, until recently they were pretty static—templated and limited in functionality. Back in March, however, Facebook launched an entirely new Pages strategy, making them more like user profiles, and equally important—much more customizable.
This new approach gives brands a greater presence on the premiere social network, and the primary reason to be on Facebook; to connect with others by letting people “Become a Fan” and following the brand through status updates, photo galleries, videos, widgets, apps, links, custom content, and offering the ability for fans to post their own content and comments (brands have some control over this). It’s starting to catch on.
For example, the other day I saw a TV spot for Vitamin Water, specifically advertising their Vitamin Water 10 products. Did they put a URL to the Vitamin Water website on the screen? No, they directed people to their Facebook Pages. (If you’re interested, you can see it at: http://www.facebook.com/vitaminwater10). I find this move telling, because the actual Vitamin Water site is beautiful. It’s a highly immersive whiz-bang Flash site that Vitamin Water undoubtedly paid handsomely to build—but really, it’s nothing more than an advertisement online. The Vitamin Water Facebook Pages? OK, I have to admit: they’re pretty well done. They could have created some custom pages, and touted their “Animal Attack” Facebook App a bit more clearly, but the presence is really pretty well thought out—there’s some Flash allowing users to learn about the flavors, watch videos, and do fun stuff. As of this writing they have about 22,000 fans (up from under 20,000 just last week), and seem to be updating their Wall posts fairly regularly with real people actually commenting and rating the posts. (And by “real” I’m assuming not paid agency people or Vitamin Water employees.)
Despite the naysayers, it’s easy to see that people do want to interact with brands on social networks—as long as there’s a story to tell and a reason to share it. While 22,000 Fans might not sound like much for a large consumer-brand, these represent the people who actually thought enough to follow the brand—actual visits to the pages are inevitably much larger. To that end, consider Victoria’s Secret’s PINK Facebook Pages, another consumer brand active on the site, at over 1.2 million fans. Now those are real numbers.
Will Facebook become the new home for brands? Or just a short-term fad? Are Facebook Pages the Golden Ticket to reaching a vast audience sharing and passing along brand info to their friends?
On second thought, maybe I would become a Fan of toothpaste. Aquafresh anyone?
(Note: as of this post, Aquafresh has 396 fans and hasn’t updated their Facebook Pages in what appears to be a little less than a year. Tom’s of Maine is doing much better…)
