



Facebook Fans: You Get What You Pay For
24 Mar 2010
by Rick

Take a look at the Facebook Fan Pages of some brands and what you see is not a
pretty picture. Oh, the numbers look good, but when you dig a little deeper a
different picture emerges. Walls filled with off topic conversations at best,
vile language and real antipathy for the brand at worst. What happened? Wasn't
having thousands of fans supposed to be a good thing?
Well, yes and no. Sure, it's great having several hundred thousands fans. But how
did you come to get those fans? Did you earn them through fantastic customer
service, fulfilling the brand promise, providing value to the community in an
authentic and passionate voice, or did you run a Facebook ad campaign and hit
the broadcast airwaves with a promotion?
Let's look at   my old favorite , TGI Friday's:
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Remember that ad? Pretty cool, right? In fact, as I recall, they got over 1
million Facebook fans. Google TGI Friday's Fan Woody and it looks pretty good.
But then something not so awesome happened. All those fans wanted their free
burgers and they wanted them now! TGI Friday's completely lost control of the
page and eventually doled out a lot of free burgers. Now from a short term
perspective I'm sure they did ok on the deal. People came in and ate their food.
But they could have accomplished that with coupons in the mail, the newspaper or
by an email list. But they decided to go the Social Media route.
Now, let's take a look at what the Friday's FanWoody Facebook page looks like
today:
Whoops! It's gone.
Apparently Woody and his
900,000+ fans went poof . How come? I'm guessing it had something to do
with the venom and general anarchy the page had created by buying fans rather
than growing them. A TGI
Friday's Facebook page does exist, with roughly a third of the fans they
used to have. TGI Friday's pretty much had to spray Agent Orange on
their relationship with 600,000 people.
It's easy to pick on TGI Friday's but they certainly aren't the only guilty
party. I think plenty of brands have heard the siren call of Facebook ads. The
ability to target your demo is really terrific, but you're in danger of creating
a relationship with fans that ultimately is built on a "what have you done for
me lately" foundation.
First, you essentially bought these fans. You paid Facebook for the right to
target them. Then in the case of TGI Friday's or other brands that offer free
product or discount coupons, you are essentially buying them again. This sets up
a pattern where the consumer now expects to be rewarded for being your fan with
a tangible item, that is, free stuff. That's not a bonus item, it's now a
standard part of the agreement. Want me as a fan? Give me free stuff.
The point of Social Media isn't to distribute coupons and a real fan wants to
engage with a brand for a whole host of reasons, often free / discounted product
is the least of these reasons. I'm not saying that special bonuses, or 'surprise
and delight' offers aren't ever a good thing. I think when used properly they
can be terrific. What do I mean by used properly? As a reward for people who
have engaged with the brand in a meaningful way. Send us a picture of you
wearing a brand t-shirt and sure, you've earned a free sandwich. Recruit some
friends and I'm happy to give you all some coupons. But when fans enter the
relationship feeling they are entitled to free samples and you're in
trouble.




 Kathy Sharpe says: April 18, 2010 at 1:02 pm

About time there was some acknowledgement of the true value of fans. Even if
you have 3 million+ fans and they are all well behaved citizens what is the
real marketing value?





