Facebook Challenges

Facebook:
New challenges
for marketers
A collection of perspectives from icrossing
september 2010

Facebook: A collection of perspectives from icrossing

Contents
Introduction
– Antony Mayfield

Facebook vs Google – Is Facebook changing search or replacing search?
– Dr Jason Ryan and Antony Mayfield

Facebook backlash – Could users abandon Facebook en masse?
– Alisa Hansen

Facebook’s community pages and the impact for brands
– Heather White-Laird

When fans attack – Handling crises on Facebook
– Dana Mellecker

Earning your way to attention – Abandoning the ‘If you build it, they will come’ mindset
– Anne Steinhaus

Moving at Facebook speed – Coping with the pace of Facebook’s innovation is a challenge in and of itself
– Antony Mayfield

Ecommerce: The new benchmark for Facebook
– Heather White-Laird

Facebook centricty – Social Media Strategy beyond Facebook
– Alisa Hansen

About iCrossing

© COPYRIGHT 2010 ICROSSING LTD, HEARST GROUP 2
2


introduction

When Mark Zuckerberg recently said that Facebook would
reach one billion users there were few people who doubted
him. The social network has become a mainstay of people’s
web experience for many and is second only to Google in its
importance to online marketers.

While Google is becoming a known quantity, and search a
maturing marketing discipline, Facebook is still evolving at a
rapid rate. At the recent F8 Facebook developer conference
earlier this year the company announced significant innovations
on several fronts, adding new potential opportunities but also
complexity to marketers’ task of developing effective strategies
for Facebook.

This collection of articles from iCrossing e specialists gives our
perspective on some of the things brand and media owners
need to bear in mind when it comes to Facebook, as well as
approaches for developing successful brand profiles.

We hope it is useful - and do let us know what you think e

Antony Mayfield
svp, social media, icrossing



facebook vs. google:
is facebook changing search or replacing search?

By Dr Jason Ryan and Antony Mayfield

We describe iCrossing as a search and social media agency, creating Google’s evolution has recently leaned toward social, taking into account
connected brands. We see search and social both as the twin lenses the importance of people’s social graphs, their networks of friends, in
through which we can see and make sense of the web and as two deciding what pages will be most relevant to them on a particular subject.
interdependent facets of the medium. From the Vince update > onward, Google has been working hard to
make search results more personal, and for personal, read: social.
Increasingly, however we are seeing Facebook as a platform that may
challenge the established search engine paradigm - exemplified by Google The blaze of innovations from Facebook at the F8 conference earlier this
- of a service that organises the web, helps us makes sense of it, navigate it year, especially Open Graph > , begin to make the social network look
and get what we want. like a tangible challenger to Google’s monopoly on sense-making on the
web. Sitting alongside its page index is Facebook’s ‘people index’. The
We like to explain the difference between Facebook and Google as a tale pages Facebook can direct people to may be smaller in number but it
of two university start-ups that both set out to define the web in different could nonetheless end up being more influential.
ways. Google’s genius was to move away from the mental model of
information being indexed like so many library books and use hyperlinks For now though, the potential for Facebook to usurp Google is
to see the relationships between documents - pages on the web. theoretical. For all the excited talk of “Likes” being more important than
“links” Google is where most users go for finding things.
Making sense of the reputation system that was implicit in links gave
the Google algorithm the best way yet of divining relevance and what
pages would be most useful to the user. Google was the product of
a mathematical/engineering mind, an academic project of dazzling
brilliance that was then applied commercially with equal intelligence.
Facebook was the product of thinking about the social life of Harvard
students, a desire to make their network more efficient that was executed
with simplicity and elegance. Whereas Google made content something
that was defined by the document and the documents surrounding it,
Facebook made the content a facet of the individual and the individuals
surrounding them.

Recently, Eli Goodman of ComScore said that Facebook “not only has
the potential to become a viable search engine, but in fact it has a chance
to help redefine the way we think of search.” Google and Facebook are
not two parallel systems, alternatives ploughing their own course and
destined never to meet, they are intertwined and also competing.



continued ...

While the battle plays out though, marketers’ responses to Facebook’s
rise should include:

Dispute “either/or” strategies:
p
While search or social may be a priority, marketing plans, and
especially longer term strategies, need to ensure that both areas are
represented and adequately resourced.

Search and social literacy throughout the in-house and
p
agency teams:
While experts are a necessity for operating effectively in paid and
natural search as well as social media, cross-discipline knowledge
sharing and innovation is essential.

Stay close to users:
p
Maintaining the relevance of customer personae and keeping a keen
eye on how core customers are using the web via search and social
media will help prevent you developing approaches based on how
customers used the web last year. Web use is changing all of the time
for all demographics.

Visibility is about more than search engine rankings:
p
“Search visibility” has been a useful and measurable idea for brands for
some time. Extending visibility to include what people find when they
look for you in their social networks as well as their search engines is a
logical next step.



facebook backlash:
could users abandon facebook en masse?

By Alisa Leonard

We’ve been seeing it for a while now: Facebook experiencing quite A brand’s continued investment in Facebook should be predicated on
a bit of backlash in the media around their privacy policies and the solid research, strategy and experience planning. Rather than taking
subsequent exodus of users leaving the network in search of safer pastures. a site-specific approach to social media, whereby a social strategy lives
Unfortunately, this backlash has been aided somewhat by Facebook itself, and dies by a single network or service, iCrossing believes in value of
which addressed the issue with evasive, predictable corporate-speak. developing a federated content and community management strategy that
may be deployed across one or multiple social spaces.
This is a slightly ironic twist, given the “era of Facebook” and the new
transparency and openness ethos that brands, particularly those active This approach enables a brand to firstly, deploy new social spaces
in social spaces like Facebook, have adopted. However, shortly after the effectively, secondly understand how each branded social space performs
initial media firestorm, Facebook released another version of its privacy within a brand’s greater digital ecosystem and finally iterate and optimis
settings to help remedy the situation, giving users more granular control e efficiently.
over sharing their data. It is, however, important to keep in mind that
Facebook has not changed its Terms of Service (ToS), which still give To be clear, this approach does not advocate a “one size fits all” approach
Facebook significant control over what it can do with user data. to developing social spaces - we know that different spaces serve different
functions and are often managed under the auspices of disparate teams
So what does all of this mean for brands and those who participate in of stakeholders. We believe spaces should fulfill differentiated goals, but
Facebook? Is everyone really leaving Facebook? Should brands continue what this approach does advocate is the development of a universal set of
to invest in Facebook? tools, content creation capabilities and management protocol which lay
the foundation for a cohesive, integrated social media strategy.
Firstly, it is important to keep in mind that, generally speaking, those
leaving Facebook have tended to be either early adopters or much Through this approach, investment is largely made in developing social
younger users who prefer social gaming networks to Facebook. What currency - namely content (such as a brand video) and the “meta-
is important to keep in mind is that the growing user base for Facebook content” (comments, Likes for the video) which proper community
continues to be the 35+ year old age group, mostly “moms” and other management generates. With this approach, a brand may pull in and out
mainstream target consumers. of relevant social spaces when networking habits shift or evolve.

Unlike early adopters who can be fickle about their social network of
choice, and who get involved in the techno-cultural politics of social
networking platform wars, the average Facebook user is not leaving
Facebook any time soon. While the privacy concerns may have sparked
a media frenzy and led to some proponents of the open web leaving
Facebook, the majority of users will continue to use the service as their
primary social network.



facebook’s community pages
and the impact for brands

By Heather White-Laird

Facebook’s goal for the recently launched six million Community
Pages > is to provide users with the best collection of shared knowledge
on a topic. An altruistic goal for sure but one that has caused some
consternation for brands.

Currently these pages are completely controlled by Facebook. They
have no Wall where users can post comments and content is added
automatically when users update their own Wall with a relevant keyword.
Brands cannot add or edit any content either. And because there is very
little meta data associated with these posts, it may mean a brand’s name
or products can appear in a negative context. The best remedy for this
issue is an engaging authorized b rand Fan Page through which you can
contribute to your brand messaging.

Community pages have also created an avalanche of redundant and
confusing content. For example, there are now over 500 results for
Coca-Cola pages in Facebook’s search. A potential upside to this
over-abundance of content is that, because many of these pages contain
irrelevant and meaningless information, users may shun Community
Pages in favour of the more targeted, brand-owned pages relating to their
passions. Who’s really interested in seeing hundreds of thousands of posts
around coffee? More likely, it’s a new coupon offer from Starbucks that is
the desired result.

As always, brands need to be careful in this new and constantly changing
environment. Vigilant monitoring of key terms and conversations is
recommended and, as with all social media, active brand participation in
the space is a necessity



When fans attack:
Handling crises on facebook

By Dana Mellecker

Brand Facebook pages seem like a no-brainer today. You provide some
interesting content and people who enjoy your product or services will
signal their loyalty by joining your page.

Many companies, however, are finding that their low-cost social media
tool can turn into their worst PR nightmare. Some brands may even
question whether they should have a Facebook page at all given the risks.

Nestle is a typical recent Facebook casualty. Nestle’s undoing was a
poorly thought out initial response to negative comments following an
aggressive Greenpeace campaign. Nestle’s first responses were more than
a little snippy and went a long way to inflaming the fan base. My guess is
that the person in charge of managing their Facebook page is (or was) a
very bright but young staffer with little PR experience who was not give
much guidance in managing the page.

Think about it. Would you let the person responsible for communicating
to your Facebook page fans provide comments to the Wall Street Journal
on corporate policy without proper training and vetting of messages?

The potential for PR backlash alone should not be reason enough for
a brand to choose not to have a Facebook page. The most important
question is whether you have the resources and strategy to manage it
correctly. Is content approved by senior PR people? Have you established
a set of “best practices” to guide your Facebook page managers? Do you
have a specific Facebook plan in place in case of a crisis?

Like any good PR campaign, you need to prepare for the worst. Without
such preparation you are simply navigating the social media tightrope
without a net.

It is a bit unfair to single out Nestle. They just happen to be the most
recent Facebook casualty. All brands, however, should learn from their
mishaps.



earning your way to attention:
Abandoning the “if you build it, they will come” mindset

By Anne Steinhaus

Yes, the Facebook audience is huge, both in terms of sheer numbers and This might sound expensive, and may seem antithetical to the common
time spent on the site. And yes, of course it makes sense for your brand notion that Facebook is a “free” platform to build on. Maybe you want to
to have a presence on Facebook. But remember: Facebook is not a search dip your toe in the water, or maybe you need to run a small test to prove
engine. Facebook users are not there to actively search for brands or the value of Facebook to upper management. But look at it this way:
products and they need a compelling reason to leave the site. shouldn’t you be willing to invest at least a little bit in a site that has an
audience as big as Google’s?
Too often companies think that if they just create the right content it
will spread like wildfire. They’ve been wooed by agencies and vendors Over time (once you’ve reached a critical mass) you can rely more on
promising to make “viral” content that will instantly garner millions organic, or earned, impressions – those updates that are created when
of views; in reality there are few brands that have the recognition and users interact with your page, allowing your brand to appear in their
reputation to pull this off. friends’ news feeds. These carry with them an implied endorsement and
are key to increasing your visibility on Facebook.
So, if you would like to see any traffic to your Facebook fan page, you’d
better be thinking of ways to drive that traffic yourself… at least at the Of course, you don’t want to drive users to a bad experience. This is
onset. all predicated on a solid content and community management strategy.
But if you’ve gone through the trouble of creating useful, unique,
How should you support your Facebook page? There are obvious options relevant content for your Facebook page, it would be a shame for it to go
– Facebook ads (the simplest of which are relatively inexpensive), putting unnoticed.
a Facebook logo in the global footer of your dot com site, creating a social
media landing page.

What else is there? Well, why not start with your employees – they can be
a great way to seed your page with fans. Leverage your current internal
communications and encourage employees to Like the page and add it to
their email signatures.

Use blogger outreach to build awareness, send emails to your most loyal
customers and incentivize them to spread the word, create a display
campaign, put up signage in your retail locations… in other words, think
of this as you would any other marketing initiative.



moving at facebook speed
coping with the pace of facebook’s innovation is
a challenge in and of itself

By Antony Mayfield

The pace and scale of innovation coming out of Facebook is a challenge
in itself for marketing professionals. Just as we come to terms with the
social web, large parts of it seem to shift beneath our feet.

As Facebook celebrates the milestone of 500 million users, it is not
just the growth rate of the service which is dizzying to witness. The
innovations which are coming out of the company also seem to arrive at
breakneck pace.

We are becoming familiar with the idea of Facebook as an innovation
engine - its ability to produce new technology solutions at a rapid rate is
the key to its success so far.

Following April’s 2010’s F8 Conference digital marketers might
have been forgiven for wanting a couple of days to think through the
implications of the Like button (or “social plug-ins” alone). However this
was just one of a host of potentially game-changing announcements from
the company, including the Open Graph protocol, opening up its public
data for searches and adopting a new authentication standard.

All of this before we even begin to take into account developments from
third party developers and service providers in Facebook’s ecosystem.

Although, it would not be wise to equate social media marketing solely
with Facebook, it’s important that attention is paid to this platform at the
moment.

Due to its complexity, social media generalists may not be enough to be
successful in Facebook, and clients should insist on specialist support in
technical development, content, community management and analytics
in addition to strategic expertise.



ecommerce:
the new benchmark for facebook

By Heather White-Laird

While everyone has been up in arms about the loosening of the privacy
settings, Facebook is quietly making an assault on a much bigger
battleground: ecommerce.

When Facebook launched over six years ago, it was conceived as a
friend-to-friend system, where people felt comfortable sharing their most
intimate information. In doing so, they gained the trust of their users and
built a loyal and committed fan base of 500,000,000 people. And that
trust for “sharing” will lay the groundwork for trust for “buying”.

The 100,000,000 people who play games on Facebook are already very
comfortable paying real dollars to buy virtual goods, enabling companies
like Farmville to generate projected revenues of $450 million this year.
Not one to miss an opportunity, Facebook recently announced that
Facebook Credits would be the only virtual currency allowed and game
companies would have to pay them up to 30% of all revenue from these
transactions.

In addition, Facebook has developed their own ecommerce app, called
Payvment, that has already been rolled out to over 20,000 independent
retailers and will be available to the major players soon. The app is free
and takes roughly five minutes to set up.

Given that people spend over seven hours a month on Facebook and they
are already Fans of many Fortune 500 companies, why wouldn’t they just
buy books, clothes and movie tickets right there?

The only ones who might protest this new arrangement would likely be
competitors, such as Amazon, eBay and PayPal, but I don’t think there’ll
be much of a fight. The Facebook forces have already set the benchmark.



A facebook page isn’t a social media strategy:
social media strategy beyond facebook

By Alisa Leonard

We believe the web is social. Social media has fundamentally dislodged By first focusing on listening to the consumer conversation,
the traditional communications and marketing equilibrium. understanding consumer needs and expectations through deep analysis
and crafting an overarching engagement strategy which focuses on
We have entered a new world where content scarcity has given way to compelling content and objectives-based community management, the
content overload, fixed channels of communication have dissolved into focus shifts away from any one social space.
fluid and complex networks of information exchange and once-captive
audiences have now become active participants. This shift requires a Compelling content and objectives-based community management are
new course of action for brands, it demands a new marketing imperative: the true ingredients for social media success-- whether it takes place
Connectedness. in Facebook, Twitter, your dot com or some other new social platform
that may emerge. The key is to focus on the larger picture: engagement
Connectedness is a way of thinking about how successful brands do can happen anywhere, not just Facebook. Creating a multi-touchpoint
marketing. It’s about focusing on audiences, not targets; engaging in ecosystem for engagement is key to success.
dialogue, not shouting; and developing trust that is meaningful and
lasting.

Social media is an essential keystone in a connected brand’s strategy.
Facebook alone is not a social media strategy. Twitter alone is not a social
media strategy. Because “the web is social,” nearly all of your digital
touch points will impact or be impacted by your social media presence.
Ideally, your investment in social media means investing in objectives-
oriented social spaces, working in concert with a brand’s dot com, media
spend, PR campaigns, and customer service efforts.

There is a tendency for brands to focus solely on developing a Facebook
strategy. While Facebook is indeed an essential piece to the puzzle, it
is not the be all and end all of your engagement strategy within social
media.



About icrossing

iCrossing UK is a digital marketing agency that specialises in search and
social media.

We design and build search and social media strategies for some of the
world’s biggest brands, including The Coca-Cola Company, Toyota,
Virgin, Bank of America, and TK MAXX.

iCrossing UK is part of iCrossing, one of the world’s largest, digital
marketing agencies, which employs 600 staff in 12 offices around the
globe, including 100 staff based at UK offices in London and Brighton.
iCrossing has won numerous accolades, including the number one-ranked
agency for both paid and natural search in Forrester Research’s 2009
Wave report of US search marketing agencies, OMMA’s Search Agency
of the Year, Best Use of Search at the Revolution Awards and a finalist for
Revolution’s Agency of the Year award. We are also the only agency with
two Forrester social-media case studies to its name.

iCrossing is a unit of Hearst Corporation, one of the world’s largest
diversified media companies.

For more information please visit www.icrossing.co.uk > or contact us
at results@icrossing.co.uk >


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