The f-word in marketing

Thanks to the Habari Media Facebook Connects event held in Cape Town [on U2 Friday, 18 February 2011], those who attended should now theoretically know everything there is to know about writing a Facebook strategy!

Saying that, social media is a funny animal and it's the unknown quantity "just add fans" part which will be the deciding factor as to whether one will succeed or fail to deliver value to your product, service or brand.

Following some of the steps below, however, should help even the most old school marketers and PR protagonists look at the dreaded Facebook as a potential element in the marketing mix.

And why not? Local consumer brands such as Woolies, Spar, Huisgenoot, Big Concerts, Gautrain, AA Travel and J&B ,as well as a host of electronic and telecommunications brands including LG, TopTV, MTV, are building communities of brand ambassadors around their services by means of Facebook.

So how do you do it?

First, by taking deep breath and acknowledging that, as a reasonably competent advertiser or marketer, you probably mostly already know everything you need to know about approaching social media, armed with the irrefutable knowledge that, like it or not, a staggering 600 million people are more or less addicted to being in the Facebook space. Call it the new market square, piazza, plein or agora – people come here to find out stuff and to get some kind of personal acknowledgement, a sense of belonging or other reward – virtual or tangible into the bargain.

Jo Duxbury, Domino content strategist, offers that there are three major steps involved in a successful Facebook strategy:

1. Facebook brand objectives – a bit of a no brainer this, when it comes to creating a Facebook strategy your objective will probably be something like: "We need to build a core group of loyal brand advocates on Facebook by engaging them with all our good brand stuff."
   You don't have to be an intellectual giant to do this; America's favourite cookie Oreo engages its 16 million Facebook fans with conversation starters such as "If milk could talk, what would it say to an Oreo?" garnering 8300 responses and 19 000 additional "likes" in the process.
   
   If, for example you are an educational institution in the process of putting up an FB page, your objectives would need to be clear: are we a space where people can link to available courses and facilities, or do we want to create a space where a global alumnus can connect with each other? Two very different objectives.
   


2. Content strategy – the good news here is that you already probably have a whole lot of content that you can "repurpose" for Facebook. Your existing ads, promotions, industry events, accolades, brand vision and other initiatives - putting them up on Facebook to coincide with your existing promotional calendar will give people a chance to like them, share them, comment and give feedback on them. As a brand owner, you will now be seen to be doing the necessary for steering the impetus towards user-generated conversations (UGC) and getting people more deeply involved with what you stand for.
   As with any medium, you need to play to its strengths. The ability of Facebook to provide users with the space to share memories, to network, to find lost friends or to make new ones, provides the opportunity for engagement which an ordinary website will never be able to do.
   


3. Management or governance – this is the trickiest part: once you've started conversations, you have to sustain them, by responding and taking cognisance of comments or queries levelled at you or to weed out any undesirable content which may be damaging to your brand. Not only do you have to do this in a professional manner, you also have to do it in your brand's own tone.
   Tone is nothing new; it is a back-to-basic marketing technique to which only marketing practitioners who love, live and nurture their brands will relate. While it may not be a critical factor when creating a sexy ad campaign, it is the single most important aspect of any and all social media conversations. It is probably because they've already pinned down this elusive "tone" that only really well-managed brands are able to sustain a case-worthy presence on Facebook or other social media spaces.
   
   A great "how-not-to" case study in this regard is Nestlé, which responded to negative criticism about the use of unsustainably grown palm oil in its products with a knee-jerk reaction which did not endear it to anybody.
   
   In contrast, locally Kulula.com (also @kulula) has been impressing with its willingness to engage publicly with consumers who have experienced delays or other aspects of its service found wanting, in the friendly open manner commensurate with its brand positioning. You see, while Kulula may be able to get away with the sardonic tone it has spent years perfecting, people do not appreciate it when it comes their choice of baby formula. Tone is everything.
   

To reiterate, outsourcing your Facebook conversational requirements requires clarity of intention and a 100% commitment to delivering on the wants and needs of the Facebook segment of your consumer base.

I'm beginning to think that it might make sense if the person entrusted with this task were already a spokesperson in your organisation – someone who might normally field any enquiry or complaint with charm, grace and a deep understanding of brand values, coupled with the necessary techno-savvy.

Where Nestlé missed a real opportunity was in not taking an authoritative, informative tone over the criticism leveled at them, because the person tasked with responding to entries on its Facebook page did not have the necessary depth of knowledge about the company, it products or its values.

Social media is not all just milk and cookies, after all.

With many thanks to the organisers of the Cape Town event, Habari Media and Facebook in association with AdVantage magazine, for providing the impressive lineup of speakers who shared their knowledge and case studies:

• Adrian Hewlett, Habari Group MD, (@AdrianHewlett)


• Mark Cowan, Facebook head of emerging markets CEEMEA


• Sifiso Mazibuko, Habari Media Facebook national account manager


• Dan Pinch, Atmosphere Communications and +ONE creative director (@DanPinch)


• Nic van den Berg, Isobar head of digital media


• Paul Coetzer, Oscar Tango Marketing creative head


• Jo Duxbury, Domino/Peppermint Source content strategist (@JoDuxbury)

You can download many of the presentations at www.habarimedia.co.za/facebook-connects.