With 1.394 billion active monthly users, consuming 66% of all millenial’s across the world (Zephoria, 2015), Facebook has become an incredible tool for small companies to brand themselves in a way that’s cost effective and yet proves to be instrumental in the success of many brands. This blog examines the various reasons as to why any brand, whether it be small or large start using Facebook as a way of marketing such brand.
Interpersonal relationships?
The first pro to consider about Facebook’s marketing potential is Facebook’s incredible opportunity to create interpersonal relationships for its users, through means of poking, messaging commenting and sharing Facebook really provides a service unique to that of its social media counterparts. Using Facebook to create interpersonal relationships allows a brand to get to know it’s users, and thus its target market and its users/target market to get to know a brand. A real positive of this is that Facebook profiles can be seen to be fairly accurate depictions of the people they represent (Pereira, 2014), allowing a brand to get a much more personal insight into their target market. Of course this would require some amount of ‘Facebook stalking,’ of consumers, which would take a considerable amount of time, and is somewhat frowned upon, but then again, everyone does it, hey!
Additionally red flags arise as to how accurate someone’s Facebook profile actually is in regards to portraying the user, many Facebook users will often exaggerate certain aspects of their life, and withhold other information that they are less proud of. Thus perhaps it is more accurate to describe a Facebook profile as projecting the ideals that a user has, which may be more useful to a brand is it gives brands an insight as to how a consumer would like to be perceived. This bodes well for lifestyle or fashion brands, it gives them a chance to see what the customer what’s to be perceived as, meaning they can tailor their products/marketing to help the customer achieve this ideal.
One issue with the concept of creating more interpersonal relationships is that it takes time and effort on behalf of the brand, where there’s some doubt cast over how much an interpersonal relationship would actually boost sales (Pereira, 2014). InSite Consulting undertook a study in 2011, where they found that 22% of users who supported a brand on Facebook actually wanted to purchase the products promoted in the brand, however is this actually realistic and how frequently would they buy, suggesting that the interpersonal relationships will actually improve sales, contrary to Pereira’s doubt.
But does Facebook branding actually improve interpersonal relationships? You may ask, and the answer to that is yes. In that same study, mentioned prior, InSites Consulting identified that 50% of Facebook users were connected to brands, of this number 36% have commented on a brand, a further 42% had dialogued with a brand, 53% reacted to comments from the brand, meaning there’s a real chance of creating such links.
A great example of this is Qatar Airlines, who have identified through various research that many of their consumers are also big fans of football, in order to capitalise on this they often post about football, making their consumers much more responsive to questions and posts about the company.
For more examples of brands creating interpersonal relationships through Facebook, click here
Doubts been cast over whether Facebook actually increases engagement… In an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Elliot (2013) accuses Facebook of focussing too little on creating genuine engagement between companies and their customers. The reason for this was because Facebook only shows on average 16% of posts a brand will put on their followers timelines, limiting the relationships that actually are created from the use of Facebook. However, Owen (2013) argues that this is more to do with the advertiser and not the vehicle for advertisement, he argues that this may be down to poorly timed posts, or poor content. To some extent I can see where both parties are coming from, but ultimately Facebook is free to use and provides a unique way in which companies can connect with their customers.
Schaefer has an interesting article on why trust is important for social media marketers.
Facebook and its role in brand awareness
If this isn’t enough to convince you to use Facebook as a marketing ploy just look at the impact it has on brand awareness. The heavy use of Facebook builds brand loyalty whilst posing little financial burden (Coon, 2010), which is essential for a small companies who can’t afford financial risks. Not only this but the use of social media creates the aforementioned interpersonal relationships, creating a strong connection between customers and brand (Brexendorf et al, 2009). This results in more effective and accurate sales and revenue forecasts (Mehrabi et al, 2014). Mehrabi et al (2014) maintain that social media uses accrue the same advantages of face-to-face advertisement, however this claim appears unrealistic and perhaps far fetched. Ultimately such campaigns can make a brand viable in customers minds (Mehrabi et al, 2014).
What else can Facebook marketing achieve for branding?
A further study done by Business Wire (2012) examined what made users connect to a brand, – Being a consumer of the company (58%), seeking to receive discounts and promotions (57%) showing others that you like and support the brand (41%) being the first to have information about the brand (31%) and having access to online content (31%). With the amount of users who actually use the product it opens a brand up to a lot of potential criticisms along with a lot of potential praise, any criticism or complaint can be dealt with quickly and effectively, essentially nipping any potential bad press in the bud and keeping the customer base happy. A brilliant example of this is Next who successfully quashed any bad reputation they could have had with this disgruntled customer.
Conclusion
Omitting Facebook branding from your marketing strategy is a huge missed opportunity, Facebook provides the ability to understand how they behave, increasing knowledge; brand awareness; promotion of social responsibility, in a cost effective manner.
With the importance of Facebook marketing being stressed, it’s crucial that a brand has a specific strategy, or else you’ll just be wasting your time and money on this promotion… Don’t believe me, watch Baer’s (2015) rant on the matter.
If this interests you any further, Forbes has a brilliant article which you can access by following this link, detailing the dangers of focussing too heavily on Facebook branding.
References
Brexendorf, Z., Sharp, J.M., & Kagioglou, M. (2009). ‘Improving business performance through developing a corporate culture.’ The TQM Magazine, (9) 3, 206–216.
Business Wire. (2012, July 31). ‘Constant Contact and Chadwick Martin Bailey study shows word-of-mouth key to success of daily deals.’
Coon, O. (2010). ‘Organizational Culture and Climate.’ In I. B. Weiner (Series Ed.) & W. C. Borman, D. R. Ilgen, & R. J. Klimoski(Vol. Eds.), ‘Handbook Of Psychology: Vol. 12: Industrial and Organizational Psychology’ (565-594).
Butt, J.G. Phillips (2008) ‘Personality and self-reported mobile phone use,’ Computers in Human Behavior, 24 (2) (2008), pp. 346–360
Elliot. (2013). An Open Letter to Facebooks CEO Mark Zuckerberg.Available: http://blogs.forrester.com/nate_elliott/13-10-28-an_open_letter_to_mark_zuckerberg. Last accessed 21st April 2015.
InSites Consulting. (2011, September 14). Social media around the world 2011. Retrieved Arpil 8, 2014 from slideshare.net/stevenvanbelleghem/social-media-around-the-world-2011.
Mehrabi, A., Islami, H., & Aghajani, M. (2014). ‘The Effect of Social Media Marketing on Customers’ Brand Loyalty.’ International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 4(8), 480-495.
Owens. (2013). Forrester says Facebook is Failing Marketers, Here’s Why I disagree. Available: https://econsultancy.com/blog/63704-forrester-says-facebook-is-failing-marketers-here-s-why-i-disagree. Last accessed 21st April 2015.
Pereira, H., Salgueiro, M., & Mateus, I., (2014). “Say yes to Facebook and get your customers involved! Relationships in a world of social networks” Business Horizons, Vol 57, Iss 6, pp695-702
Social Media Examiner (2015). Available: socialmediaexaminer.com/10-successful-facebook-marketing-examples. Last accessed April 2nd 2015.
Zephoria. (2015). Top 15 Valuable Social Media Statistics. Available: https://zephoria.com/social-media/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/. Last accessed 21st April 2015.