2. What To Expect from Facebook
Facebook has been attractive to marketers due to its unprecedented reach and scale.
But what does it really mean for your brand? While 56% of the Fortune 500 now have
a Facebook page, they continue to struggle with deriving real ROI from their Facebook
investments. Analysts remain divided on whether or not tangible benefits exist for
marketers in the Facebook channel.
Nevertheless, a Facebook presence has become
a destination for many global brands. To not Lithium defines social
have a Facebook page today means not showing success as driving real
up to the social party. Hence, Lithium has set business outcomes
out to help brands discover how to best address through social
Facebook marketing. customer engagement.
Here’s what we learned:
What Top Brands Are Doing on Facebook
With 600 million users worldwide, if it were a country, Facebook would be the world’s
third largest. Spots and all, Facebook represents an enormous opportunity for
marketers to engage with their audiences to build deeper and longer lasting
social relationships.
So, how exactly do companies go about engaging their Facebook audiences? What’s the
best way to get started? Who’s doing it right?
To answer those questions, we researched the Facebook pages of over 600 brands. We
looked at number of pages, fans, fan posts, company posts, likes, and custom apps
available, and we came up with the Facebook ACTivity Score—a comparative scale that
shows how brands are engaging their social customers on Facebook.
Here’s how we sliced it:
The Careful—Companies with a Facebook page and a few fans, but not doing anything
to drive engagement.
The Curious—Those who have devoted some resources to maintaining their Facebook
presence and are dabbling with customer engagement. Some fans, multiple fan pages,
a few posts from both fans, and the company.
The Invested—Brands with a clear Facebook strategy and in the early phases of
execution. The company is more engaged and posts often, the fans are more engaged
and post often. They’re exploring custom Facebook apps.
1
3. The Committed—Companies dedicated to growth on Facebook and have invested
significant resources to build a thriving fan base. Both fans and the company actively
post and a number of Facebook apps are offered.
The Obsessed—Brands who are in it to win it. Trail-blazers with a rich Facebook
engagement strategy, targeted, custom Facebook apps, a large and active Facebook
following. The FACT Score Chart shows example brands at each level of engagement
on Facebook, from the Curious to the Obsessed. So, this is what they’re up to. But are
they successful? What does success mean on Facebook?
Lithium defines social success as driving real business outcomes through social
customer engagement. So let’s talk about Facebook and outcomes.
2
4. What Works and What Doesn’t on Facebook
We looked to brands with deep experience engaging customers through a variety of
social channels to help us answer that question. We wanted to know how experienced
community managers, customer engagement, and social strategists saw Facebook
as part of their overall engagement strategy, so we asked our customers.
In a Social Customer Survey early in 2011, we asked leading marketers about their
expectations for Facebook, their successes and challenges with the channel, and how
their endeavors there compared with those in their Lithium brand community. Here’s
what they told us—they said that Facebook is:
1. Great for outbound communication. Indeed, the reach and scale of Facebook
provides a real benefit to marketers. When it comes to creating awareness,
Lithium customers say Facebook delivers.
2. The place to create social goodwill for the brand. Here again, for size and
visibility, a Facebook presence is a “must have” for presenting a sense of
social goodwill.
3. Not useful for gathering customer feedback. When it comes to keeping a finger
on the pulse on customer sentiment, gathering ideas for product innovation,
measuring customer loyalty, finding influencers and advocates, or conducting
market research, our customers told us that Facebook has room to grow.
3
5. 4. Lacking in opportunities for peer-to-peer engagement. Peer-to-peer engagement
is a driving force behind getting social customers to create the content that allows
brands to benefit from social media. When customers engage with each other,
they build the content that drives SEO, that can be used for unassisted customer
support, etc, and they become more loyal and more satisfied. With comments
and status updates disappearing from the Facebook Wall in minutes and hours,
opportunities for peer-to-peer engagement is limited.
5. Not a tool for building trust among social customers. Without peer-to-peer
engagement, there is no opportunity to motivate and reward behavior—two key
components of trust-building in social networks.
What Brands Should Expect from Facebook
Now that we know what top brands are doing on Facebook, what’s working and what
isn’t, how can we align our expectations appropriately for our Facebook initiatives?
Here’s what we think brands should expect from Facebook in the current environment:
Expect your customers to want you to be on Facebook.
Most industry analysts and social media thought leaders agree, Facebook is a platform
not to be dismissed. If you have no Facebook presence at all, get one. Average
Internet users spend more time on Facebook than Google, Yahoo! Wikipedia, Amazon
and Microsoft combined according to Altimeter Group’s Jeremiah Owyang. Social
customers especially expect brands to engage them where they already are, and they
are already on Facebook in droves.
Expect Facebook to help expand your reach.
For its sheer size and viral features, Facebook is generally considered a smashing
success at the dissemination of marketing messages. Our customers tell us Facebook
provides them with real awareness benefits and the key channel for demonstrating a
posture of social goodwill.
Expect to participate—often.
We all know by now that jumping on Facebook or grabbing a Twitter handle for your
company isn’t a social strategy. Frequent posts, lots of sharing and liking—even custom
Facebook apps—are in order if you hope to get the most benefit from Facebook page(s).
New visitors want to know your brand is present and existing followers need to hear
from you in order to stay engaged. Consistently updated, fresh, and timely content are
especially crucial as Facebook Wall content decays very quickly.
4
