Facebook.com: Tapping into the Social Marketing Channel
This column was written in April 2009
A vice president at a local bank near Cincinnati told me, "I have to be in Facebook."
I asked the 40 year old executive, "Why?" Dressed in a blue suit with graying hair, I did not see him as a member of the now generation.
He leaned forward and said softly so others in the office could catch his remarks, "I heard from a couple of our new hires that younger clients looking for loans ask their Facebook friends for recommendations about where to get loans and whom to use. I want to work with these Facebook.com users. I'm not a tech gal and no marketer, but I know that my present sales efforts don't reach many younger home buyers."
Facebook.com is an online service that attracts more than 65 million users. More important, a significant number of these Facebook users rely on the free service for email, online chat, and information gathering.
Fonded in late 2003, Facebook.com has exploded in popularity and marketing influence. Students at Harvard University set up the company which has become one of the few companies to outflank Google.
Facebook.com is a social network. A user sets up a Web page and can then create, for example, a group of friends from high school, a group consisting of college contacts, and a group for business colleagues. A Facebook.com Web site acts like a broadcast channel with such communication extras as online chat, messaging, and information access. A Facebook.com site can be public or private. A business oriented Facebook.com page can present an executive and his expertise or it can focus on business products or services.
To get started, you can navigate to the company's Web site at http://www.facebook.com, sign up, and work through the page building process via a smart wizard. For most executives, the default settings will be sufficient. If you want to add extras such as Facebook software components, you may the the help of a computer savvy Facebook.com user. But the process is surprisingly easy. Best of all, there's no charge for the service. To maximize your Facebook.com profile you will need to update the profile as frequently as possible and spend some time every day or two responding to questions, accepting or rejecting Facebook.com users who want to be your friend, and using the site to generate useful contacts from among the Facebook.com community. You can set up as many Facebook pages as you wish. For example, you can create a Facebook page for a marketing event and add a different page for other activities. When you make a change to your Facebook.com pages, an update is sent to your friends which explains the social aspect of the site.
Why would an executive want to create a Facebook.com page? When Facebook.com was created, it was for college students. In the last year, its appeal has expanded. Women between the ages of 45 and 60 constitute one of the faster growing demographic sectors of the service.
Other reasons to invest time in a Facebook.com profile include reaching individuals who rely on Facebook.com for personal and business communications. Google indexes public Facebook.com pages. Links on a Facebook.com page to an organization's Web site may help generate more traffic and inquiries. Facebook.com users respond favorably to members who update frequently and respond to questions promptly. Diving into Facebook.com increases your chance of snagging a sales lead or making a solid business contact. You can also use your Facebook.com friends to locate vendors, get a recommendation, or locate hard-to-find information.
If you don't want to become a Facebook.com member, you can tap into this dynamic and influential social network. Facebook.com accepts adversing. You can buy traditional display ads and pay only when a Facebook.com user clicks on your ad or you can pay Facebook.com to put your advertisement in front of a specific number of Facebook.com users.
In the lingo of Facebook, you can Pay per impression or pay for click.
More information about Facebook.com advertising is located at http://www.facebook.com/advertising/
There are some considerations you may wish to weigh before diving into this powerful information channel. First, you will need to update your Facebook.com page frequently. Profiles that are created and then updated irregularly or not at all do not attract friends or traffic. A stale Facebook.com profile quickly becomes a liability.
Second, security for Facebook.com is good and improving. You will want to read about the Facebook.com security options. Get started by pointing your browser to this third-party tip sheet: http://www.sophos.com/security/best-practice/facebook.html.
Third, social networks work when a member participates. Most business professionals are poor candidates for Facebook.com addiction. You will want to set aside some time every day or two to cultivate your network and explore the nooks and crannies of this rich, diverse social environment.
Fourth, you will want to give your Facebook.com profile time to dig in and develop organically. Facebook.com users resist push-type marketing. Profiles pull inquiries and then friends recommend a person and a profile page to others. Facebook.com, therefore, is an embodiment of pull type marketing. Creating a Facebook.com page and then expecting a sales lead in 24 hours is unrealistic. You will measure your profile's success after three or four months of active participation in the Facebook.com community.
How important will Facebook.com become? No one knows. Some pundits predict that Facebook.com will be superseded by another even more innovative social networking service. BizTipBlog.com asserted that the Facebook.com user base will hit 200 million in the near future.
Facebook.com cannot replace traditional advertising. A solid Facebook.com profile and judicious use of its online advertising system provides an important adjunct to existing sales and marketing channels.
With the start up cost near zero, joining a social network is an excellent way to take advantage of the new messaging and information channels that are widely available.
Stephen Arnold
April 6, 2009