Your Company Actually DOES Need a Facebook
Having recently read an article titled “Think You Need a Company Facebook Page? Think Again” by a co-worker of mine, I have to respectfully disagree with some of his bullet points. I believe that a strong, well thought out, and well maintained page on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social networking site can be an invaluable resource.
It doesn’t matter if you are running a local dry cleaner, local bar, nation-wide restaurant chain, or a worldwide brand. When properly designed, implemented, and executed, having social networking for your business can increase customer loyalty and retention, which in turn can lead to higher new customer acquisition, as well as becoming much more efficient at recovering from a service or product failure.
In my coworker’s article, he mentions “They aren’t there to buy things.” This is very true – which is why you should not focus your Facebook or Twitter account as a free way of a direct advertisement. When people log into their social media account, they want to see people, not products. So this is your first lesson – humanize your product or service.
Graco, a division of Newell-Rubbermaid, did an excellent job of humanizing their product. Back in 2007 when they first decided to start a social media campaign, they had a female member of their marketing team start a Facebook page talking about parenthood. Lo and behold, within a few months she and her husband were expecting a baby of their own. Therefore she started posting and blogging about her own experiences, and developed a very loyal following from expecting and new mothers.
Well, what if you don’t have a worldwide company like Graco? As my co-worker pointed out, “The greatest quantity of Facebook patrons are under 35 years old … College student’s won’t have cash to buy your stuff!” Identify your target market and do not over post. I remember there was a local restaurant up the road from Florida State University, where I attended for my bachelor degree, who did a WONDERFUL job of marketing to the college students.
The head bartender, John, headed up the Facebook page. John became the face of the restaurant, and would almost every day put out a special for Facebook friends. By making a very slight sacrifice off the top line, it greatly increased the bottom line due to selling complementary products, as well as higher quantity sales. For comparison, there was another restaurant I followed on Facebook who let any bartender post on there: they posted too often, and it quickly got annoying and they were deleted off my page.
Let’s look back at Graco and the following of new and expectant mothers. They had tens of thousands of followers – and they did so because they followed my next rule – Keep it relevant. Many mothers would read her daily blog postings about pregnancy and motherhood, and follow her on Twitter and Facebook, where she would post recalls for baby-related products, new research findings, and general parenting tips.
She would also talk about new and upcoming products that Graco was offering, but never in a direct marketing sense. She would talk about her own experience using it, and how much she liked it. What they found out was these new mothers were taking her recommendations as one would take a friend’s recommendation. This helped with new customer acquisition, and greatly increased customer retention.
Another interesting development that came about was feedback and customer retention. When mothers had a product fail on them, they would generally go to the Facebook, Twitter, or blog for this particular lady and complain about it – not to Graco themselves.
The lady then would immediately forward this over to the product development team, and they were able to take care of problems within hours or days, instead of weeks as it took before; this lead to an unbelievable increase in customer satisfaction. What’s the lesson here? Pay attention to your feedback on a daily basis (at minimum), and take all feedback seriously. John did a similar thing with his local restaurant, and the owner would quickly email back with a solution to the problem, thus retaining the customer.
So all in all, if you are willing to monitor and maintain your social media account, it can turn out to be the most efficient part of your marketing plan. However, if it is not utilized properly, it can be the most detrimental to your company’s image. So follow my advice – Humanize your product or service, Identify your target market (usually younger) and do not over post, Keep all posts relevant, pay attention to your feedback and take it all seriously, and you can develop your own thriving online presence.
This is a guest post by Russell who has a specific interest in social network marketing, and marketing in general using the direct response methodology. He works Response Mine Interactive, an e-marketing agency specializing in customer acquisition. In his spare time you can find him hiking, mounting biking, or entertaining friends and family.
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14 Responses to “Your Company Actually DOES Need a Facebook”
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Agree with all .. If you work right … good results …
Ps* fix the first link please
I can see both sides of the coin to this one. Its a lot of time and effort to compile what “could be” a customer list. However, its a hard thing to approach 400 Million people with something and come back with NO results. Its an avenue to reach a lot of people but its hard to stand out among just as many businesses with the same idea. I liken it to hanging a flyer up at a coffee shop that has 200 Million Daily customers. They aren’t there for you but just maybe a few of them will tear off your phone number.
David Reply:
August 28th, 2010 at 2:36 am
I like that analogy a lot David. I wouldn’t mind owning that coffee shop!
Wow Russell. You really went after me on this one
After reading your post, I realize that perhaps I’ve been a been pessimistic about the way firms have/are using their Facebook fan pages.
My examples pretty much assumed worst case scenarios. Partially based on personal experience and partially based on some educated guesswork, I figure that the people that are thrown in charge of social media functions for a firm will mostly (of course not all) fall into one of two categories:
1. Some young person fresh out of college who “knows this social media stuff” but is relatively inexperienced in traditional marketing matters, OR
2. Some marketing professional who has been in the industry for years and recognizes the need for a social media presence but has no idea how to upload a display picture.
I think in both cases, we’re heading for a disaster. One person can do all the techy stuff, but isn’t likely to be experienced in the ways of traditional brand establishment and management. The other person would know exactly how to go about leveraging their online presence if only their knew how to create an event.
Of course, if they could collaborate, they’d probably get a lot of good work done. There are also people in every shade of grey of the two extremes I’ve described, and that’s where I’m being a little pessimistic, in underestimating their abilities.
I’ve also felt, however, that you can never underestimate the ability of people to screw stuff up. I do it to myself all the time
My main worry is that for every well-publicized social media win, there are probably dozens of lesser-publicized fails. Videos that didn’t take off. Viral marketing ploys that backfired. Facebook fan pages that turn into complain boards. Absolutely, the Graco case is a great example, I just wonder how many examples there are of failures, of useless expenditure of energy and resources on Facebook fan pages.
As for your example of your friend John, I think I put local businesses pretty clearly in the group of exceptions that should always have a social presence. You won’t get an argument from me there.
I guess what I’m trying to say out of all of this is that I think there are way too many ways to get it wrong than get it right. Maybe my post should be “No You Shouldn’t Handle your own Facebook Fan Page (Hire a Company to do it For You!!).
I totally agree with the premise that all business looking to embrace this info tech world should look for a way to spread the news through Facebook. And it is important to note that it has to be Geo-related to their sector of business. For example i operate a business directory in Australia, though my niche market is in Australia, but i accept members all around the world to my facebook page because of their diverse experience and expertise from all works of life.
Personally I think its a necessity to own a facebook if you’re a business. You get a quality backlink, and you need to get your name out there. Its important to advertise your business in any way possible and facebook allows you to do that
David Reply:
September 7th, 2010 at 12:54 am
Facebook links are nofollowed, bud.
Alex Dumitru Reply:
September 8th, 2010 at 9:48 am
Did you even check the Facebook links ?
I definitely agree
Great Article, thanks Joe! RT @jpauldesign Your company actually DOES need a Facebook page (here’s why): http://bit.ly/93AeQD
RT @jpauldesign: Your company actually DOES need a Facebook page (here’s why): http://bit.ly/93AeQD
Facebook can also help a lot, only if you know how to use it… In my case, Im finding it really hard.
It is really interesting to read this, as although you better have a facebook, what does it actually do for you? Facebook traffic is currently ranked as some of the poorest converting traffic online. I guess it can help with branding, but do not blow your marketing budget on facebook as you will be broke.
Any company needs a Facebook page or rather pages in different social network sites. It is important because this is where you can find different type of people which means there is potential for a very big market. So long as you know the people you are targeting and in which area they are in then it can become quite easy for you to gain new customers or for you to acquire new readers to your blog.