Facebook as a Marketing Tool

Yesterday, I happened to attend a talk by Bronwen Evans, Associate General Manager of the Baldwin Boyle Group on ‘Facebook – Friend or Foe’. Not only was it a great presentation, it proved to be a great place to meet some very interesting people. Here are few of things discussed in the presentation.

Facebook is one of the fastest growing and most widely used social networking site around with over 230 million users worldwide. It provides the opportunity for endless networking and meeting people that you otherwise may not have. Brands have been utilizing the various ‘marketing’ features of Facebook quite successfully in the past and even more brands are getting in on the act.

Most brands use the Fan pages to create a profile for themselves and try to get a group of dedicated followers. Fan pages can be set up only by the people authorized by the brands/companies themselves. Individuals however, are free to get together with others and form group pages. What this does is provides brands with a some people who would be actively listening and more importantly, contributing ideas and feedback to the company. If leveraged effectively, this can be extremely valuable to them. Starbucks I think is the most cited example in this regard. They have managed to champion this technique and have reaped significant benefits.

News feeds is another useful Facebook feature. No two news feeds are the same and the best thing about these are that they can be customized to show news feeds about only certain areas of interest or from certain Facebook friends. This can be used as a great medium to inform people about new activities or events and have the possibility of being ‘shared’ by users for others to view as well.

There are certain precautions or words of advice however before indulging in Facebook.

1. Don’t use it to hardsell. Social media marketing is about creating conversations and developing a reputation for your brand. Most people don’t like to be sold things online. Engage them, give them something to talk about. The rest will follow.

2. Elvis Presley in one of his songs says “Wise men say, only fools rush in….”. This applies in this context too. Know your audience!

3. Be prepared to invest some amount of time and effort.

4. Be as transparent as possible. People hate pretenders.

Facebook can be really useful for large companies, SMEs as well as indviduals in terms of generating awareness and reach. It’s an excellent marketing medium and the sooner comapnies start using it, the sooner they will reap the benefits.