Category Archives: digital media

October 10, 2012 · 9:21 am

Inappropriate Brand Behavior

The folks at Lab42 put out a piece of research concerning how consumers interact with brands on Facebook.

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

I find it illuminating although not particularly surprising. Let’s see what you think.

As reported by the Media Post folks:

Nearly one-half of social media users have liked a brand without ever having intentions to buy from them. Among those 46%, more than one-half say they were motivated to like the brand by a freebie, and 46% simply wanted to associate with the brand, even though they couldn’t afford the brand’s products.

As they say on Facebook, OMG!  People have ulterior motives, although I’m not really sure that wanting to save a buck or seeing certain products as aspirational are exactly out of the norm.  In fact only 14% of social media users who like brand pages say they do so out of loyalty to the brand.  What’s even more interesting are the reasons people gave for un-liking a brand:

73% of social media users have un-liked a brand, citing a high frequency of brand posts, no longer liking the brand, or a bad customer experience as reasons for doing so.

In other words, the brand is using Facebook (and probably other social media as well) as yet another marketing megaphone rather than as a way to conduct conversations with consumers.  In fact, there is a segment of the Facebook base – 15% or so – who just don’t like brands at all, mostly out of privacy concerns and not wanting the clutter in their news feeds.  Of course, communication from a brand is only perceived as clutter if it has no value to the recipient (and for the record there are certain people who are guilty of doing the same thing to their friends’ feeds).

All of this makes sense.  Facebook and other social media are not where people go to interact with brands and brand messaging – that would be a brand’s website.  Obviously social media is a place brands need to be but they need to respect why users are there and interact appropriately.  Giving something of value is clearly appealing – cluttering up news feeds is not.

What are your thoughts?  Do you like brands on Facebook and other social media?  How is their behavior?  Have you un-liked any?  How come?

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September 19, 2012 · 10:08 am

Should You Abandon Your Website?

I came across an interesting article on Marketing Profs the other day.  Called “Four Reasons to Jettison the Traditional Website and Go Social it advocates a point of view that I’ve discussed with clients and would like to throw out to you today.  The author puts it out there like this:

Everywhere around me now, I see companies dispensing with the traditional website in favor of integrating the most popular social networks right into the website and communicating with customers in real-time via tweets and Facebook posts. Big players like Skittles and Coca-Cola have completely bought into social, as have savvy small mom-and-pop shops.

He then goes on to explain why brands might not need websites any more, including reasons such as “it’s fresh, it’s affordable,” and others.  I disagree with his point of view.  First, brands need a home base.  As you might have noticed, the social world isn’t exactly a unified place.  Sure, Facebook is the main place consumers go, but they don’t really go there to interact with brands (and as we discussed a while back, brands haven’t figured out how not to behave like brands).  How many companies took a step back in their social effort when Timeline was deployed?  That’s an example of why you need to control the platform as well as the content.

The author also does a disservice to his readers with this statement: “Compared with the cost of building a website from scratch, plus maintaining it, establishing a business presence on a social network is ultra affordable.”   This perpetrates a mindset too many clients have about social – it’s cheap and easy.  Neither could be further from the truth.  Sure, anyone has access to Facebook for free, but many of the support tools needed aren’t free and you still need humans to support the effort.

The gist of his argument is that big brands are very focused on social and they don’t do anything without testing and retesting to make sure it works so you should do it too.  Putting aside the “follow them off the roof” mentality, I agree that everyone needs to be including social elements in their marketing although I don’t think we can simply say get on Facebook and Twitter and be done.  A well-designed and supported website can accomplish a lot more for your brand than can a social front door.

I won’t be advising my clients to shut off or redirect their web efforts any time soon.  What about you?  What do you think?

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September 13, 2012 · 9:25 am

First Impressions

I almost called today’s missive “Don’t Shoot The Messenger.” As a person who has had hundreds of meetings in which the efficacy of advertising is discussed at length I’ve noticed an ongoing theme.  Clients (or their agencies) sometimes complained that they weren’t getting any sort of decent return on their media investment.  In their minds, maybe TV or the Web or (now) Mobile just aren’t worth the investments and perhaps they’d be better served trying something different.  My response usually involved a reminder not to shoot the messenger.

A “medium” (and I’m not writing about psychics here) is an intervening substance, as air, through which a force acts or an effect is produced.  TV is a medium, as are radio, the Web, and others.  Their job is to deliver the advertising message.  To be blunt about it, if the message – the ad – is crap, so will be the response.

In the digital world, there is a lot of literature on the size of ads – size, format, content, design and type – and not surprisingly they generally find that bigger advertisements are more effective in attracting attention which increases response.  On the other hand, other research found that design and content of the
advertisement have an impact on Click-Through Rate (CTR) and increases the interest in Advertising.  The reality is if advertisements, regardless online or offline, don’t catch your attention within seconds they are considered to have failed.  I’d add to that if the intrusiveness of the ad pisses off the consumer, it’s failed as well regardless of the brilliance of the creative.

There is a movement in the digital ad world to move towards a “Cost Per Viewable Impression” model which I’ve said before I think is dumb on web sellers’ parts to encourage unless TV, radio, and other media can fall into the same model (good luck with that).  Regardless of impressions or medium, bad creative equates to bad responses.

You agree?  What creative have you seen lately – good or bad – that really got your attention?

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