Facebook is for friends, but is it for brands?
Procter & Gamble, the world’s largest advertiser has been washing some of its laundry in the vast machine known as Facebook, hoping for a big load of crisp, engaged customers who can rhyme off the benefits of Cold Water Tide to anyone wearing a t-shirt.
Independent experts on Web advertising have been watching, however, and what they see is a list of difficulties in making brand advertising work on social networking sites. After all, members of social networks want to spend time with their friends, trade photos and update their status – not be brand ambassadors. At least that's what early campaign results are showing.
One of the potential benefits of Social Networking Sites (SNS) that the advertising industry has discussed is whether peoples’ connections (i.e., whom a user knows or is linked to) could be used to market to. For instance, publishers could show a car manufacturer's ads to a user's contacts because that user's online behaviour has indicated that she is interested in a particular brand of cars. However, this idea has not delivered. Of all U.S. Internet users, according to IDC, only 3% would allow publishers to use contact information for advertising.
What seems to draw more attention in SNS communities (and advertisers) is an element of the individual ‘helping’ the greater good. At least these are the campaigns that have attracted the most engagement in the form of ‘fans’ so far.
Take for example the Starbucks Coffee Company RED Campaign: They’ve added cause marketing to their site, and in just over two weeks generated a donation to the Global Fund will help provide 1.4 million days of medicine for HIV patients in Africa from the sales of the (STARBUCKS)RED EXCLUSIVE Beverages. The site has more than 631,000 fans.
Recently, The Great Schlep program. Comic Sarah Silverman created a video for YouTube (1.2 million views so far) targeting Jewish grandchildren visit their grandparents in Florida, educate them about Obama, and therefore swing crucial Florida vote in his favor. The page garnered 24,000 members.
It will be interesting to see what new advertising products the Facebook developers are cooking up for '09. But more importantly, to read case studies showing how companies used the best qualities of Facebook and its audience to crack the SNS code to achieve business results from this new medium.
That will be a status update worth reading.
