kopia lustrzana https://github.com/thinkst/zippy
67 wiersze
3.7 KiB
Plaintext
67 wiersze
3.7 KiB
Plaintext
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Facebook Fans: You Get What You Pay For
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24 Mar 2010
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by Rick
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Take a look at the Facebook Fan Pages of some brands and what you see is not a
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pretty picture. Oh, the numbers look good, but when you dig a little deeper a
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different picture emerges. Walls filled with off topic conversations at best,
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vile language and real antipathy for the brand at worst. What happened? Wasn't
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having thousands of fans supposed to be a good thing?
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Well, yes and no. Sure, it's great having several hundred thousands fans. But how
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did you come to get those fans? Did you earn them through fantastic customer
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service, fulfilling the brand promise, providing value to the community in an
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authentic and passionate voice, or did you run a Facebook ad campaign and hit
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the broadcast airwaves with a promotion?
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Let's look at my old favorite , TGI Friday's:
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If you can see this, then you might need a Flash Player upgrade or you need to
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install Flash Player if it's missing. Get Flash Player
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from Adobe.
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Remember that ad? Pretty cool, right? In fact, as I recall, they got over 1
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million Facebook fans. Google TGI Friday's Fan Woody and it looks pretty good.
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But then something not so awesome happened. All those fans wanted their free
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burgers and they wanted them now! TGI Friday's completely lost control of the
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page and eventually doled out a lot of free burgers. Now from a short term
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perspective I'm sure they did ok on the deal. People came in and ate their food.
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But they could have accomplished that with coupons in the mail, the newspaper or
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by an email list. But they decided to go the Social Media route.
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Now, let's take a look at what the Friday's FanWoody Facebook page looks like
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today:
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Whoops! It's gone.
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Apparently Woody and his
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900,000+ fans went poof . How come? I'm guessing it had something to do
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with the venom and general anarchy the page had created by buying fans rather
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than growing them. A TGI
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Friday's Facebook page does exist, with roughly a third of the fans they
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used to have. TGI Friday's pretty much had to spray Agent Orange on
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their relationship with 600,000 people.
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It's easy to pick on TGI Friday's but they certainly aren't the only guilty
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party. I think plenty of brands have heard the siren call of Facebook ads. The
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ability to target your demo is really terrific, but you're in danger of creating
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a relationship with fans that ultimately is built on a "what have you done for
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me lately" foundation.
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First, you essentially bought these fans. You paid Facebook for the right to
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target them. Then in the case of TGI Friday's or other brands that offer free
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product or discount coupons, you are essentially buying them again. This sets up
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a pattern where the consumer now expects to be rewarded for being your fan with
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a tangible item, that is, free stuff. That's not a bonus item, it's now a
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standard part of the agreement. Want me as a fan? Give me free stuff.
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The point of Social Media isn't to distribute coupons and a real fan wants to
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engage with a brand for a whole host of reasons, often free / discounted product
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is the least of these reasons. I'm not saying that special bonuses, or 'surprise
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and delight' offers aren't ever a good thing. I think when used properly they
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can be terrific. What do I mean by used properly? As a reward for people who
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have engaged with the brand in a meaningful way. Send us a picture of you
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wearing a brand t-shirt and sure, you've earned a free sandwich. Recruit some
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friends and I'm happy to give you all some coupons. But when fans enter the
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relationship feeling they are entitled to free samples and you're in
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trouble.
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Kathy Sharpe says: April 18, 2010 at 1:02 pm
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About time there was some acknowledgement of the true value of fans. Even if
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you have 3 million+ fans and they are all well behaved citizens what is the
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real marketing value?
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