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Facebook: It’s More Than Just Social Media

April 7, 2011
Posted by Candy Chen Shuhui

Last week’s Social Media World Forum Europe attracted 4,000 marketers, consultants and social media enthusiasts to the Olympia Conference Centre in London on March 29 and 30. Our very own Joshua March, CEO of iPlatform, chaired the events on the 29^th. Themed “Social Media Marketing within a 360 Digital Strategy Framework”, Josh kickstarted the day’s topics with the outlook that 2011 will be the year of tools and processes which link social media engagement to real customer value and purchases.

Coming into 2011, companies are beginning to understand what their goals should be in social media. Fans and followers give brands a potential base of supporters, but it is only through driving engagement that you can turn them into loyal customers, spreading your marketing messages throughout the web. David Parfect, Facebook’s UK Sales Manager, said in his speech titled ‘Facebook: It’s More Than Just Social Media’, “Don’t think in campaigns - it’s about long term relationship marketing.” Give people engaging content and they will share marketing content for you!

Here are some of the main points I took away from Parfect’s talk.

Tailored Content

When commuters stream through stations each morning, armed with whatever free newspaper they’ve collected at the entrance, they’re all essentially consuming the same content.

Social media enables tailored content, where a person’s activity on social networking websites and elsewhere on the web influences what adverts they see and what recommendations they receive. This in turn promotes virality – the more relevant content a user is subjected to, the more they will engage with it and the more this information will be passed down the line to like-minded friends.

On Facebook, it’s all about real people with real identities. It shows who we are and what we do. And Facebook’s algorithm looks to match your top/most relevant stories up to show what your friends are and what they do. Because of this relevancy - that trusted referral you can get through your friends - Facebook allows you to do personalised marketing on scale. Conversations are happening with or without the brands’ participation. But successful engagement brings further work – interactions are not just a stimulus for visibility, but from real people who want you to speak back.

Branded Communication on Facebook

As shown in the chart above, people interact in multiple ways. Great brands integrate various forms of media together. Build social into the wider strategy and link with offline media. Use Facebook to link back to your website and drive traffic back through. But remember – it’s creating relationships, not marketing. Brands use Facebook to get their message out, and users are also using Facebook to get their message out to the brands. Be human and hang out with your audience. Amplification will be far greater in that sweet middle spot.

Future Trends

Mobile will be massive on Facebook. There are over 10 million users in the UK that connect via Facebook Mobile - that’s a third of the total number of Facebook users in the UK. As we saw with Alton Towers’ check-in deals in February 2011 that drove 5,200 people to the amusement park, the collective power of smartphones, social networks and e-commerce will prove too much for brands to ignore.

Leveraging e-commerce through social channels will also increase. Levi’s uses open graph to track and show users what their friends might like, allowing shoppers to like, view and filter products based on social input/preferences. Shoppers can either view top products from “everyone” or specifically visit the “Friends Store”, a storefront with content chosen by Facebook friends.

The growing volume of public customer support through Facebook and Twitter is a challenge for businesses, who are still trying to work out how marketing and customer service can work together and share social channels. Integrating social media into the traditional business organisation is a big challenge. As social media professionals, we now need to help companies work out the real ROI from their social media activity. This is difficult, but doable – and I believe that brands and consumers will communicate together to leverage an open and connected world.