Citizen Marketer 2.1

Aaron Strout

Facebook Fan: $136.38? $3.60 or $0.00?

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I’ve had this post in my head for a while. And given the fact that many of my Twitter friends were complaining about Facebook being down yesterday, I figured that this was as good a time as any to write this post about the value of a fan on Facebook.

Judy Shapiro of AdAge did a nice job this summer of summarizing the findings from two independent studies conducted by Syncapse and Vitrue (more on those in a minute). And my friend, Augie Ray who is a senior analyst over at Forrester has written a blog post about this. His assertion is that a fan is worth zero. It’s a conversation with Augie about this topic that was the original impetus for this post. And believe it or not I completely agree with him.

Before my fellow marketers decide to take me out back and shoot me, I should probably offer a little additional information. First, I don’t really believe that a Facebook fan is worth $0. And neither does Augie. In fact, it’s what the fan can do for the brand that actually makes them valuable. Without getting into all sorts of facts, figures and methodologies, let me paint a picture for you.

I’m a huge Starbucks addict. My wife and I both drink one of their iced venti Americano’s at least five times a week. Maybe more. Up until recently, both of us were mayors of two different Starbucks on FourSquare (I no longer own mine) so every time we go to the store, we let our social networks know we’re there. In fact, if you asked a number of my friends what my drink of choice was, they’d be able to answer without even thinking about it. BUT… I’m already a fan of theirs whether I’ve “liked” them on Starbucks or not. And yes, there is an outside chance I would buy more stuff from them if they gave me additional offers. But probably not.

Iced venti Americano

So I am a valuable customer. And I buy a lot of coffee from them every year. But I don’t by more coffee from them because I “like” them on Facebook. This is the fundamental “chicken and egg” problem I have with Syncapse’s methodology that pegs a fan at an average worth of $136.38/fan. I’m not valuable because I spend more money with Starbucks (my Facebook fandom is a by-product of my passion for the brand). However, I think I am worth something to them because of my network i.e. 1,700 people that I’m connected to on Facebook and 14,000 on Twitter and my blog. Especially when you consider that a lot of the people I’m connected to are like me… they too have big networks.

The tricky part is, it’s hard to put a price tag on what I or my fellow enthusiasts are worth because it all depends on how good a job the “brand” does to activate us and ultimately get us to amplify their message (or share our own versions of their message). Some sites like Atlantis Resorts (a Powered client) has done a nice job of activating their customers and the results are not only a steady growth of fans but a CEO that is now such a believer in social media that he is blogging about it on USA Today. Others like Expedia (a natural for social media) has a mere 12,853 fans (only 11K+ more than yours truly) and very little engagement on their wall. Right now, Expedia isn’t working particularly hard to engage or activate it’s enthusiasts. Instead, it’s more focused on a broadcast strategy… one that has obviously impacted their fan acquisition.

In the spirit of being prescriptive, here are a few suggestions on what companies SHOULD do to engage and ultimately activate their enthusiasts:

  • Post educational content vs. informercials. This means teach people how to scrapbook or how to take better pictures instead of telling them how great your products are.
  • Run fun contests. Black Star Beer did a fabulous job of this by giving away a dream vacation that focused on experiences versus cash value. Even I signed up for this and I NEVER sign up for sweepstakes.
  • Ask people for suggestions. My wife’s company, GenConnect, did this and they got some amazing responses on their wall.
  • Have some fun! When Dunkin’ Donuts is NOT allowing soft core pornos to post on it’s wall, they are actually doing an amazing job getting their customers involved in submitting ideas for their dream donut and submitting photos that might get them recognized as the fan of the week on DD’s Facebook fan page.
How about you? What are you worth? And are the brands that you love tapping into your full potential?

A Tale of Two CMO’s: Interest (Part II)

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If you haven’t read my blog in a little while (don’t worry, I forgive you), you might have missed the fact that I’m working on a five part series titled, A Tale of Two CMO’s: A Study in Contrasts. The goal of the series is to contrast the styles of an old school and new school CMO whose personas I’ve fleshed out in my original post. During last week’s installment that focused on generating brand awareness, James’ and Tessa’s responses sounded more similar than different. This week, you will start to see a more noticeable divergence in their positions (a trend that will continue as we move down the marketing funnel).

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What role does search play in fostering consumer interest?

James: For us, paid search (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) have become a major component of our day-to-day marketing efforts. To be honest, I can’t think of a better way to “fish where the fish are.” I just wish there were more relevant search queries to buy and page views to serve up. Right now, we max out our key search terms and as it turns out, we’re still only spending 3-4% of our overall marketing budget on SEM and SEO. Obviously product ads on television, print and online also play a huge role in driving customer interest. I don’t see this going away anytime soon.

Tessa: Yes, search is a great tool. And as James mentioned in his repsonse, our company also continues to use product specific advertising to drive consumer interest. However, we’ve been experimenting recently with our newly launched branded online community (four months old) and are starting to see some amazing results. In fact, where we are seeing the most traction is when we take a prospective customer from a paid search term to our branded online community (heavily threaded throughout our website). We’ve done a series of A/B testing using the same keyword and while the sample sizes are still small, the prospects we’ve surveyed post-community visit have shown a 3-5% increase in brand affinity and interest in a specific product vs. those that haven’t visited our community.

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Thoughts on a branded online community’s role in helping foster brand interest?

James: I 
About nine months, our director of digital marketing tried to convince me pilot a branded online community. While I am not opposed to the idea, investing another $500,000 to a million dollars in something in which very few companies have shown demonstrable success just seems premature to me. I’d rather reinvest that money in paid search or perhaps think about testing out a small ad buy on Facebook where there is some critical mass in the two to three hundred million users.

Tessa: As I mentioned in my last response, we are starting to see some real traction in our branded online community driving not only interest in our products but also creating a deeper level of brand engagement. It’s also starting to move the needle ever so slightly on the NPS (Net Promoter Score) front. My only complaint with the community so far has been a lack of critical mass. We’re starting to get there with over 150,000 members thanks largely to making the community more visible from all areas of our website and select Facebook ad buys. Ideally, I’ll really start to pay attention when we get north of 500,000 members.
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How about the greater social Web? Are you testing places like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn?

James: I know a probably seem like a dinosaur but I’m still not convinced that there is real upside to participating in the social web yet. Of course our HR department uses LinkedIn to recruit but beyond that, we haven’t done a whole lot. Our corporate communications people have started a Twitter and a Facebook account but mainly use it to post press announcements. To me, I see what’s happened with companies like Southwest Airlines, and Nestles and I think, “do I really want to open our company to that kind of criticism?” I’m sure we’ll get there at some point, just not until the rewards outweigh the risks.
Tessa: We are testing various outposts on the social Web like Facebook and Twitter to see if we can do a better job at engaging our prospects and customers. I’m not sure I can look at our Facebook Fan page and say, “wow, look at all the consumer interest we’re generating,” because Facebook doesn’t really work like that. With that said, if we can do a better job at providing valuable content to our prospects and customers while engaging them in meaningful dialogue, that looks like success to me. As for LinkedIn, that’s been mostly a recruiting tool for our company but I do see promise based on some of the conversational capabilities they’ve added over the last 6-9 months.

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As we can see, we’re starting to see a little bit of a divergence between the way James and Tessa view social to drive traditional marketing outcomes. Next week, I have a few additional twists and turns up my sleeve so don’t think we’re done just yet. By the way, if you have any questions for our two CMOs — trick or straightforward, let ’em fly in the comments!

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