No Man’s Blog

I couldn’t say it better than Iain and Richard but I want to add few random thoughts on the current neurotic herd-like rush of brands and marketers to get a presence on facebook. It feels like a deja-vu from the past years, first myspace then second life - like flies to honey - I guess it is a natural instinct of brands to want to be where loads of people are.

But as someone (I think it was Faris but not sure) once said, emerging platforms are spaces to learn not spaces to invade; this is oh so true especially in the context of facebook. While personally I’d prefer marketers to stay out of my playground, if we take a more realmarketik (i just invented a word and i like it! it’s a twist on realpolitik) stance, there are some good reasons for brands to be there. If facebook is indeed going in the direction of a killer social utility platform thats about to suck the whole internet like a black hole and we are about to handle our social lives there, then brands have every right to take part - just think about all the deserted flashy concept shops in second life before you open one on facebook.

It would have been easy if they just stick to the easily ignorable display advertising but in their ambitious attempt to take behavioral targeting to the next level with their beacon and social ads, I think they might be crossing a line. Only the (near) future will tell if this is indeed the new holy grail after ad-sense or whether people will find it too creepy and opt out of this. Personally I think that eventually we will grow blind to the social ads like we grew blind to banners and ad-sense on our gmail.

The most annoying thing for me on facebook and I truly hope will backlash soon is what you can call the forced virality of our actions on facebook. This is most visible in the apps field where you cannot see a stupid message on a fun wall or receive a damn booze mail without installing it first. This is the big scam of facebook - much of our actions are made viral and social and visible not because we chose to tell our friends about it but because we couldn’t have done it otherwise. I’m so certain that if people had a choice to get the message/gift/high-five without installing the app they would do so. (Read more here)

I don’t want to hollowly repeat the mantra that in social media in general and on SNS in particular you have to create value in order to get value (damn I just did) but we are just about to see a flood of lame branded groups and pages that judging by the current offers they are simply advertising/promotional spaces and people become members just to get the freebies. The best sponsored groups I’ve seen to date are Ernst & Young recruitment center and O2 party campaign. While completely different in nature both are simple and smart use of the platform.

One very good reason for brands to be there is to open a customer service center. Most people, if had a bad or good experience with you wouldn’t bother to call your 0800 number or log on to your website to tell you about it. But if they’d knew that one click away from their profile and they can leave you a message on your facebook shop, it can be brands best talking point with consumers.

Finally when you have an idea for a facebook campaign, you should look at the 4 principles of participating in social media:

1. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
2. Never crash on someone’s party with a funny hat.
3. It is not about you, it is about them.
4. Ask yourself: would you become a friend with this brand / add this branded application?

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