There is much Gung-Ho about how brands can use Facebook. So much so that for some brands social media strategy is Facebook only. FB has given business to a lot of small tech-shops who once were doing sites, and now call themselves social media experts. Clients also have been swept by the FB wave. They also blindly & randomly use FB as their social media strategy.
I thought of putting my thoughts on how to avoid these mistakes. Hence, here are my points on ‘How & When’ not to use Facebook:
- If facebook is your only social media strategy, you must have a backup plan. Take a look at the following data pulled from comScore:
|
Media |
Total Unique Visitors (000) |
||
|
Aug-2010 |
Oct-2011 |
% Change |
|
| Total Internet : Total Audience |
39,958 |
45,930 |
15 |
| FACEBOOK.COM |
22,357 |
37,600 |
68 |
| ORKUT.CO.IN |
18,931 |
8,843 |
-53 |
At one point in time, Orkut was the market leader in India. But slowly, popularity of Orkut is waning, thanks to Facebook. Orkut has lost more than 53% of its visitors while FB has gained 68%. I am sure a lot of you either have unsubscribed from Orkut or you still have the ID but don’t use it. This makes my point. What if Facebook is no more tomorrow (not suggesting it is going anywhere). What if Google+ takes over (assumption) or any other site comes up? Users could be very fickle. You can always shift to new platform if at all the new platform allows it and whenever it allows (G+ has recently opened it for brands). But there is bound to be spillage. Hence, it becomes necessary to revisit the strategy and consider using other social media channels for your brands. You can use FB, Youtube, Twitter etc driving traffic to each other at times. This helps you to minimize the damage.
- Facebook is not a replacement of a microsite. Many clients have told me that they will not create a site/microsite but rather put an app on FB. I am not saying there is anything wrong in doing this. But one should know what’s one missing in doing so. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to reach users in social media space because of newer security settings. Also, it limits the concept to FB only even if you drive the traffic to FB page, thereby missing out on considerable traffic. Client’s logic behind this thought is that this will allow more VIRALability. Truth be told, not every concept/campaign goes viral. When was the last time your campaign took the web world by storm? If a concept/campaign is good, it will go viral itself, irrespective of whether it is there on FB, Twitter or on a microsite.
Have you experienced this? Do share!!
