eric whelan

A new report from Constant Contact claims that 37% of small organisations who said they were using Facebook as a marketing tool don’t think it has helped them at all. No sales, no exposure, no extra traffic through the doors. And it’s not really surprising.

As a digital media trainer, the look of shock on trainees’ faces whenever I mention that I don’t think Facebook is that helpful in engaging new audiences never ceases to amuse me. Amongst the gasps and confused stares, someone always blurts out “then what are we here for?!” which is an understandable question. We constantly hear about how Facebook should be your number one tool for capturing new audiences, how it is a place to showcase the brilliant work you’re doing.

But that’s simply not true.

Recently I led a session training some very big-name organisations in using digital tools for corporate responsibility and this point came up again. While I’m sure some people in the room disagreed with me, I put forward that Facebook doesn’t offer you the tools to find and engage new audiences. You can’t search for topics that people are talking about. You can’t message people as an organisation. You definitely can’t drop in on interesting conversations to encourage users to talk about you or your services. You can’t even see the details of people that have Liked your page on Facebook anymore.

But you can with Twitter. The simple fact is that Twitter is a far superior tool for engaging audiences which is why it is seeing ever-growing engagement while engagement on Facebook seems to be stalling. You can search for topics that people are talking about. You can drop in on conversations and engage people that didn’t know you existed.

Facebook seems to finally have worked out what it’s trying to do. Early users will remember when it was a requirement that status updates began with “Joe Blogs is…”. Since the verb was removed in late 2007, we’ve seen Facebook focus more and more on what Joe Bloggs was doing. It’s no longer about what’s happening now; all Facebook cares about is what has already happened. We only need to look at Timeline – which was introduced earlier this year with an invitation to “tell your life story” – to see that Facebook is becoming somewhere to reminisce rather than reveal. The death of Facebook Places, which allowed users to tell their friends where they were at any given moment, is another sign of a shift in focus.

Digital marketing and community engagement is all about the here and now which is why Facebook marketing just isn’t working for the smaller businesses in Constant Contact’s report. It’s a great tool for talking to people who have chosen to connect with you but again, this goes back to something that has already happened. Chances are, these users are established customers so it’s no wonder these organisations aren’t seeing jumps in revenue; they’re preaching to the choir.

If they really want to grab the attention of new audiences, these companies will have to look elsewhere. Twitter is where people are talking about what’s happening now, what they’re interested and what they’re going to do in the future. These are the people that can be engaged and these are the people that you can entice through your doors.

We need to stop selling Facebook as the be-all and end-all of digital marketing. It’s a great tool - especially for established, high-profile brands - but it’s not going to give you the amazing results so many organisations are expecting.

In the third of what appears to be an ongoing series, yet another organisations has proved how  oblivious it is of what Twitter is used for. A few months ago, I wrote about how a Twitter account for an in-production BBC 3 TV show was spamming anyone and everyone on Twitter to try and find people to take part. Not surprisingly, it ended up that The Year of Making Love was a disaster, with only 300 out of 1000 contestants turning up for recording and a good number of those that did eventually walking out.

Now a production company, again producing a show for BBC 3, have taken the same approach to finding subjects, spamming accounts looking for retweets to help find people to take part. The only difference this time is that the company seemed to be approaching other companies as opposed to going directly to potential subjects, but that’s a very minor difference.

While @YearofMakingLuv got away with it, Twitter were having none of it from @BoomTownTVShow, whose account was quickly suspended. What’s the lesson? Twitter’s a place for conversation, not for spamming. It’s good to see that Twitter themselves have started to crack down on accounts that don’t understand that.

A few weeks back, I tweeted about Timeline coming to brand pages on Facebook. A friend who works for a digital agency had just come from a meeting at Facebook during which they were told that Timeline would roll out to brand pages in late February or early March.

Exciting info directly from FB on #Timeline for brands - They’ll roll out soon, announcement from FB at end of Feb. Won’t name source! #sm

— Eric Whelan (@ericwhelan) February 2, 2012

Mashable are now reporting the same story so with the roll out looking more likely, I wanted to point out why Timeline will make such a big difference to marketers.

The most obvious addition to Timeline is the large cover photo which can be added to the top of the profile. This is one of the features that has been heavily reported since Timeline was originally unveiled in September and its merits are fairly obvious; Heavy branding and a more personalised feel to the page.

But there are two other additions to the Timeline that have generally been overlooked. It’s these tools that got me interested in what was displayed on my Facebook page again as I was finally able to paint a proper picture of myself on the social network. For brands, they offer a way to highlight important stories and events in addition to their day-to-day updates. The first one of these additions is the event adder.

This option allows you to add significant events or dates to your Timeline. It’s a way of displaying important stories that otherwise may not make their way onto Facebook - for brands, this can be awards, major product launches etc. One brand that I work with was recently awarded a Blue Plaque, and an award like this is a perfect example of one that could be highlighted using the event adder. These events are highlighted differently than standard updates or statuses, with their own icon depending on what kind of event it is (the above event was sports-related, hence the trophy) and are mentioned in your followers’ news feed. They are also highlighted when visitors scroll backwards through your timeline, grabbing much more attention than, say, a status update.

Secondly, there is the Feature function. Whereas before on Facebook, stories were all given the same priority regardless of their importance and there has been no way of curating what stories are highlighted on your page, this new function allows you to pick and choose which stories get the most screen real estate.

Using this feature allows you to create a hierarchy of stories and ensures that your followers will find the stories you want them to. When used, the story you have chosen to highlight spreads across the page. In the case of an image or video, this is displayed in full size which not only breaks up the page well but gives the Timeline a much more interactive, media-rich feel.

For marketers, these tools are going to be invaluable. Up until now, we have been forced to adopt the reverse chronological display that Facebook has given us. But now, for the first time in Facebook’s 8 year history, we are being given the opportunity to curate how our content is displayed. They’re such simple tools that it’s surprising that they’re only being integrated now. But I guarantee that anyone who uses Facebook professionally will start to rethink what content they’re putting out based on these new tools.

In January, an Israeli anti drug group used the Timeline to brilliantly highlight the difference a year on or off drugs can make. This page may have since disappeared (deleted for breaking Facebook’s ToS, most likely) but it’s a perfect example of what’s possible using the Timeline and I believe that this is just the beginning of a fantastically creative time for brands on Facebook. 

*I’ve used images from my personal Facebook to illustrate this story since there are obviously no brand pages to screengrab just yet.

Some organisations just don’t get how Twitter works. It’s a place for conversation, not a place for spamming and this is why it has grown to level that it has. A few months back, I wrote a very short post on how not to engage your new followers on Twitter, but it’s not just new followers that you will alienate by spamming; it’s any potential followers too.

An account being used to find people to take part in a new BBC 3 dating programme, set up by Fever Media, is a perfect example of how not to engage an audience.

And so it goes on. In the time it’s taken me to write this post (less than 10 minutes) they’ve posted another 13 updates. Spam, spam, spam.

If I were to take over this account, I’d approach the audience in a completely different way. A quick search for “date” or “dating” on twitter comes back with a huge list of people who’re talking about dating. Directly getting in touch with these people means that you’re much more likely to find people interested in taking part in the show, rather than throwing out a really large net in the hope of catching a single fish.

Twitter users don’t react very well to this kind of “conversation”. They’re also well skilled in the art of clicking the Block button, which I’d guess many people have done to @YearofMakingLuv. And that’s before even mentioning their awful username, generic stock photo avatar and horrendous grammar.

As a digital marketer, there’s one thing that you have to always remember; the difference between marketing and spam. It’s not difficult. Simply think “if I was receiving this many updates to my personal account, would I be annoyed by it? Would I feel as though I was getting the hard-sell?” If the answer is yes, then you’re spamming your audience.

If this is the conclusion you come to, then it’s easy to stop huge numbers of people unsubscribing to your updates. You simply don’t send as many updates! Specifically here, I’m talking about direct marketing - emails, newsletters, digital updates. Social media is an entirely other ball game.

Since the start of December, I’ve received no less than eight emails from language organisation Rosetta Stone. On Dec 13th, I received two emails, and on Dec 19th, three. 

I wasn’t the only one that noticed either. Callum Raines had made a complaint about it on Twitter. Our comments got the attention of Rosetta Stone who pledged to reduce the number of mails they were sending out.

But for myself, and I’m sure a lot of other people on their mailing list, it’s too late. I have unsubscribed despite being interested in what the company have to offer. Their messages were complete overkill and while I’m sure their direct mail outs got them some good Christmas business, I’d bet that it is negated by the number of unsubscribes.

The lesson? Keep your updates regular but don’t over do it. Fortnightly or monthly is plenty and only update when you have a story to tell. Otherwise, your audience will feel like you’re only interested in their money rather than their support.

Nokia and 1000 Heads, a rather brilliant word-of-moth marketing agency, have unveiled their project for Social Media Week, which takes place in Glasgow this week. 

The Nokia Gift Machine integrates with Foursquare, dropping out one of 1000 gifts when you check in to the machine. Prizes range from chocolate bars to the odd new phone.

I’d like to know how they’re going to stop people checking in several times to grab several gifts though. I’m sure they’ve some code written to prevent it, but it would be interesting to find out how many people actually attempt to do it.

The Nokia Gift Machine from 1000heads on Vimeo.

If you’re looking to advertise to a large audience, anyone can go and buy ad space on Facebook (even if it is getting more and more expensive). Or you could try and hijack the comments on an already established brand’s page.

Today while checking out the HTC page on Facebook (which has over 700k followers), I came across this post and its attached comment:

I have to give it to “Mahnoor” and “Zeshaan”. This isn’t something that I’ve seen before. I’ve often come across very obvious links to spammy websites, trojans etc, but to try and hide their motives by having someone under another account responding is pretty brazen. The posts were added several hours apart too, another move to try and convince readers that it was indeed a real question and a genuine response.

There are a couple of things that gave it away; the language, the fact that neither of the posters have a genuine photo (which is rare enough on FB) and, of course, the fact that the question had nothing to do HTC or its products. But I can’t help but wonder if this approach would have seen a larger click-through than if the website had simply bought advertising space on the site.