Facebook is the hot story in social media circles, so I went looking for a company that has successfully used Facebook to market its products or services. Thanx to an Adweek article I was able to find a successful Facebook marketer (Target) and an unsuccessful Facebook marketer (Wal-Mart). I will cover the problems that Wal-Mart faced in their campaign tomorrow.
Target took its first steps in social networking by sponsoring a page on Facebook as part of its back to school campaign. The Target social media campaign was run by AKQA and they made some very smart decisions throughout the campaign
Adjust Message to for Audience:
Target adjusted its traditional marketing approach from storytelling to make it fit better with the Facebook audience.
“Our attitude had to be that we were taking advantage of an environment that already exists; we aren’t there so much to tell a story, but to put on a party, giving the students a platform for social interaction,” says Mauro Cavalletti, Creative Directory at AKQA.
Pay attention to what is being said:
AKQA art directors and interactive designers visited Facebook and other social networks at least once a day. This is an often overlooked aspect of social networking. By visiting social media sites, AKQA became in tune to what the different communities were saying.
According to Jeremiah Owyang, a Forrester Research analyst who specializes in social computing, all brands should research the conversation and community before jumping in: “Just like going to a cocktail party, the savvy attendee will know how to dress and won’t jump into any conversations before understanding the context.”
Talk Like Your Audience:
Target made sure to talk like Facebook members and not like a typical advertiser. Charlie Taylor, group account director at AKQA pointed out that Target chose not to use its TV campaign’s tagline “Hello, Goodbuy” on the site. Instead, words such as “awesome” were used with more frequency.
Converse Don’t Shout:
To help create acceptance of its brand on Facebook, Target kept its online sales pitch low key. The ad campaign included the sponsored page and banner ads placed elsewhere on Facebook and everything linked to Target’s Facebook page, not its e-commerce site. Discounts and promotions were also kept off the sponsored page. “We learned that in this social environment we had to talk to people first, before trying to sell anything,” Taylor says.
Results
By Sept. 31, the site had attracted 7,176 members, 409 photos, 483 posts and hosted 37 discussion groups. Most of the feedback was positive and discussed good deals to be had in Target’s brick-and-mortar stores, from which had coffee shops to which had shorter lines, and gave kudos to the dollar bins of discounted merchandise.
Other Campaign Learning’s
A vibrant social network like Facebook has its own ecosystem that advertisers need to be aware of. In a social network, there are people who join to grab information, those who like to distribute material to others, those who want to simply look around and those who want to shape the activity in the group, says Cavalletti. By watching the discussion threads, Target could identify the people who tended to serve as mentors for future marketing efforts.
They also learned that networks are not the ideal place for its normally bold and stylish presentation. “Visual cues needed to show students that Target was respectful it was in the Facebook environment,” says Cavalletti. In Target’s traditional ads, “people expect to see design and polish, but on a social network the … site has to reflect the visual language of its members,” he says.
There are some great takeaway’s here on how to successfully market on a social networking site that are not specific just on Facebook. Common themes that kept popping up were:
- Adjust your message to the audience
- Converse and don’t shout
Read tomorrow how Wal-Mart failed to follow these points and how they failed once again at social media marketing.
Great Post. I don’t think what your saying is necessarily groundbreaking news as successful marketing whether traditional or online needs to always tailor its message to its audience. What I do think is helpful is your input on conversing/engaging versus shouting which is something most marketers generally don’t understand.
Hi,
I’d like to thank you for writing a great piece. I’ll be referring to this as part of my presentation to Facebook Camp Montreal presentation!
Regards,
Gabriel Goldenberg
Nice article! Interesting. But of couse this is often the same: MAke them a friend, then sell them something.
Thanks for share Successful Facebook Marketing Campaign
It seems as though when you’re “Target” people will probably be actively seeking you out anyway. They would still have a lot to learn from some of the more successful, significantly smaller businesses that have done well on the site.
I’m glad you posted about this. Target worked hard to be contextual to facebook page visitors. They bent over backwards and allowed the participants to be their champions. Facebook pages are the start to a fusion of effective target marketing using a social network, given the advertising capabilities to drive traffic to the page. But make no mistake, it is not easy to monetize these efforts as you do not have access to fan’s emails or easy ways to contact them 1:1, and fan behavior may not be what you think it is or could be.
There is no question that the launch of facebook pages was a watershed for using facebook for business, and being able to measure results. I have built a number of pages (with tens of thousands of fans) and have learned how facebook pages and groups are different and similar. Now that facebook is “opening up” their platform, we’ll see what the future brings!
Great article, but I guess my question is how do you determine the language of that social network site? Any tips or examples of how to determine from other sites?
Great article! Read it thrice! One minor comment though – you misspelled the URL of AKQA as http://akqa.com/) with a closed-parethesis “)”.
Good catch Raffy. Link has been fixed. Thanx David
great article! thank u for sharing
Thanks for this article mate, will start promote my website through facebook.
Social media has a great effect nowadays.. Can really help a lot.
Facebook pages are the start to a fusion of effective target marketing using a social network, given the advertising capabilities to drive traffic to the page.
Social media has a great effect nowadays.. Can really help a lot.