Facebook Fan Pages, Twitter and "Pay-Per-Fan"
Facebook and Twitter are fantastic mechanisms to communicate with your friends, customers and potential customers. At Shipwire we use both. Honestly, we have seen more traction with our Twitter account (http://www.twitter.com/shipwire) than fan's and conversations on Facebook. I think companies that work with businesses (b2B) may not get good use out of Facebook at this point. I've seen very good success with consumer oriented brands. Coke is famous for having loads of fans. I personally follow bands, some yoga classes and a couple consumer brands.
Curious about the fundamental differences between Twitter and Facebook for user interaction? Here is a smackdown between the two in the travel industry. It boils down to Facebook being better for long-term brand engagement; while Twitter is better for immediate communication. Makes sense.
The great thing about both Fan Pages and Twitter is that once somebody fans/follows your brand you can communicate with them in near real time...assuming they are listening. We'll talk about that in a minute.
There are tons of articles on how to build your fan/follower base; but, Facebook is pioneering a new advertising model that has been called "Pay-Per-Fan". You may have seen their "promote your page" banner when you log into your Facebook fan page admin console. The allure for marketing types is that once you have the fan/follower there is no cost to reconnect with the user.
Assuming you want to build your base of fans/followers - should you buy them? Should you advertise to build a fan base? For me the jury is still out; but, for your brand it may work great.
Facebook used to market a pay-per-install advertising model for "in" Facebook applications. In this model application advertisers paid each time someone installed their application. However, there was no guarantee that the user would ever re-visit or open the application after the initial install. This means that often, rebranding and reconnecting with your users, reminding them that you exist, is futile and impossible.
However, when you pay-per-fan, your fan page automatically shows up in users' streams on their news feed. This is similar to Twitter. What does this mean for e-commerce solutions? It means that you can constantly reconnect to your fans through updates. You can measure response and feedback and push thoughts directly in front of the people you are trying to reach.
There is a major issue in this. You may be able to market to your "fans", however, are they listening? Facebook's "Newsfeed" allows users to "hide" future status updates from fan pages. You can expect people to quickly hide brands that they have no real association with. In many ways it is easier to hide future status than the couple clicks it takes to unsubscribe to the fan page. This is similar with many client Twitter applications which make it very easy for somebody to remain a follower and never actually see your tweets. Facebook lets you track subscribes/resubscribes...but, not "hides" yet.
Clearly, the odds of your real "fans" hiding your status updates is lower. This is because they know you and your brand, they have an association with you. However, for fans that you "bought" or brought in from advertising may prove significantly less sticky long term. You may have loads of fans with no activity.
I'll be curious to see what happens with the pay-per-fan model. If you are a consumer focused e-commerce company you should spend a small amount of time on exploring these social networks. See my previous blog post on automating your blog into Twitter and Facebook so you can keep content up to date.
Please comment on your own experience with Facebook/Twitter. Have you advertised for fans/followers? Are you considering it?
Nate Gilmore, VP Marketing | Shipwire product fulfillment | Print Internet Postage Free | order fulfillment free trial.
2 Comments
Josh Breinlinger says:
Good points and imho, the notion of "pay-per-fan" is a little outrageous. Kind of violates the meaning of "fan."
I think marketers would be better served by focusing on customer experience. Deliver things that turn your existing customers into fanatical supporters of your company. Make them want to follow you and read everything you have to write by producing informative, helpful, or funny content. Make them thrilled with your service. If you haven't already adopted NPS and things like Uservoice to gather customer feedback, do it and act on it.
Also, take lessons from Zappo's.
ikhalayi says:
I don't have an idea what we would do without facebook and twitter fan pages.
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