Tasha Harrison

Facebook have decided to take over the world. They watched Google do it and now they want a piece. They also watched Twitter rise from nothing and they want to reclaim their dominance.  If you are a Facebook user I’m sure you’ve noticed how many things have changed over the past year. It feels like everytime you get the hang of where everything is you have to learn it all over again.

Constantly Changing

In the more recent change I couldn’t find the pages I am a fan of. I could find groups and events, but I was having to search for each page separately. Eventually I found a list in my actual profile, under Info. How could Facebook have forgotten to make it easy for users to find pages?

Pages are essentially the way that Facebook could separate an ordinary user’s profile from a business or celebrity profile. This was great for businesses, because they now had much of the functionality of a group, but with their own profile. People became a ‘fan’, which enabled them to show their appreciation for a brand, while at the same time feeling like they belonged to the page.

I Don’t Want to Just ‘Like’ My Favourite Brands

In the most recent changes you no longer ‘Become a Fan’ of a page, but you ‘Like’ the page. Just as you ‘Like’ it when someone posts a picture of a cat standing on its hind legs. The sense of belonging is lost. Functionality is the same, syntax has ruined the effect.

These changes have made Facebook Pages, potentially a lot less effective. It makes it more difficult to give the impression of forming a longterm relationship with a brand. A user will still see updates in their news items, but I think they will be less inclined to contribute to the page, adding comments, photos and even video. ‘Like’ is a kind of take or leave it word, it has lost the emotion of ‘Fan’, it has ruined Facebook Pages.

Further reading:
Facebook Limits Fan Pages and Introduces Community Pages
Facebook Group vs Facebook Fan Page: What’s Better?

This is how far:

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Facebook is a lot more difficult than people anticipate for marketing. There seems to be a myth that you can simply create a fan page and people will come. The problem is that often there is no reason to become a fan. The page is never updated and once you’ve become a fan you never hear from them again. Often people don’t have time, but usually they aren’t really sure what to do with their page once it’s set up.

Now Facebook have created new rules regarding competitions. You can’t ask people to interact with you on Facebook in order to enter a competition, they can only interact with a third party application. Gone are the days of getting more fans by encouraging them to join you in return for maybe winning something. Now marketers have to be more imaginative in the ways they get fans to sign up. In fact this may not be a bad thing, because simply building up a large fan base and bribing them to interact with you isn’t going to build up a long term relationship.

A few brands that do this really well are Howies and Staples. Howies communicate with their fans, their entire wall is a constant conversation. The fan pictures are terrific, you can tell that the people have really bought into the Howies’ brand. Staples appear to have a really strong presence and you can really see the enthusiasm people have. They’ve built some excellent third party apps as well – I Shred U enables users to delete embarrassing pictures of themselves.

If you are going to embark on Facebook ensure that there is a strategy or some kind of purpose. Is there the possibility of building up a strong community based around your products or services? Or are you running a marketing campaign that will be strengthened by a presence on Facebook? Most importantly, do you have the time to really make it work for you?

We’re all busy people, always have been. The most overused excuse in business is that people don’t have time. Which is why social networking seems like it’s going to take too much time to be worth it. Many people read about Twitter and LinkedIn and learn how great they are for their business, which they can be, but, having joined up and filled out their profiles, realise they don’t have enough time to really make the most of them. It can be pretty intimidating when you first get on Twitter and follow a few people. You’re not really sure what you’re supposed to do and you quickly realise that it’s not just a load of people talking about making tea, as many people suppose.

The most important thing when joining an online network is to make sure you’ve got enough time to invest in it and to ensure that it is the right network for you and your business. This can be a matter of trial and error, but if you invest the time at the beginning you will find that the benefits far outweigh the time it costs you.

Just when no one thought technology could move forward any quicker Apple launched the iPhone. The effect of the iPhone on how we live can already been seen. It is crazy for me to think now that I looked online at Google Maps and printed out directions to where I was going. That’s almost as insane as me carrying an A-Z about all the time. Now I just happily type the destination into Google Maps on my phone, which tells me exactly where I am and guides me to where I need to go.

If I’m going to a party or a gig that I have been invited to on Facebook I don’t even need to remember the address, I can arrive at the nearest tube, vaguely in the vicinity and Facebook will conveniently link the address on the event page to Google Maps.

I’m off to see a new client and I never bothered to write down their telephone number, but I’m running late (not going to get lost because of Google Maps) so I simply visit their website and there is their number.

In fact, I never need to remember anything ever again. Aeroplane tickets are sent via email – on my phone. Train tickets – email me a number to use at the station to pick them up. Event tickets – soon to be bar code on my phone. Voucher coupons for my supermarket shopping – barcode on my phone. The possibilities are endless.

The most important point I’m trying to make is that my phone is now the centre of my entire existence. And thanks to apps (applications to download onto your phone) people are adding functionality to my phone everyday. This, plus the ridiculously easy to use interface, makes the iPhone probably the most useful item I have ever owned, by miles.

This is why we need to all take notice of how businesses can tap into this emerging market. How can marketers use this information to connect with consumers? By integrating mobile into every campaign and moving it to the centre of all of our thinking.

For further reading see:
Mobile Platform Status Report
Mary Meeker on the iPhone and Mobile Marketing