AUDIENCE(45)

Facebook has enabled a form of FAN-to-FAN Customer Service where knowledgeable, engaged FANS—through no prompting of the brand itself—supplement the capacity of corporate social media and customer service teams. While this may seem like sacrilege to corporate command and control structures, it is a tremendous asset—especially when the volume of Facebook comments and questions may outpace your team’s ability to respond.

Facebook FANS also can take their responses a step further and challenge negative comments or assertions about your brand. I call this the “white blood cell effect” because FANS rush in to defend your brand from attack. FANS can do this because they are not bound by your internal rules or in-house lawyers. Yes, you will still need to weigh in to ensure that they don’t perpetuate falsehoods or devolve into a war of words. However, FANS’ ability to speak their minds is a great asset to have at the ready if and when trouble arises.

Facebook’s unique ability to provide marketers with options on both sides of the ball means that every part of your marketing department has a stake in the ongoing development of your company’s Facebook FAN audience.

The DNA of Facebook

I think it’s fair to say that no social network has been subjected to the kind of media scrutiny that Facebook has. It certainly is the only one with a major motion picture about its origin (The Social Network)—let alone one that won three Academy Awards.6

So, rather than rehash the various origin stories, let’s focus on something inherent in Facebook’s DNA: sharing. As stated in the company’s S-1 filing, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes that “personal relationships are the fundamental unit of our society,” and that “people sharing more—even if just with their close friends or families—creates a more open culture and leads to a better understanding of the lives and perspectives of others.”

Sharing is the social currency of your AMPLIFIER audience. If your company can inspire the consumer’s need to share, it can extend the reach of your brand, message, and products to people and places you never could have imagined. Which is why Facebook is so important in your AMPLIFIER development efforts; it aims to corner the market on sharing.

But don’t take my word for it; listen to Mark explain sharing:

We talk about the Moore’s law of sharing, but we never meant that all this will happen on Facebook—it will happen in the world. Our challenge is to make that happen on Facebook. I draw an analogy to Intel. Moore’s law was great for them, because they could point at the world and say, “Okay, in 18 months, someone’s going to fit this many transistors on a circuit board—we’d better be the ones to do it or else someone is gonna eat our lunch!” I look at this the same way. Three years from now, people are going to be sharing 8 to 10 times as much stuff. We’d better be there, because if we’re not, some other service will be.

“Zuckerberg’s Law,” as it has come to be known, states that sharing will double or more every two or so years—and Facebook obsesses every single day about what this means to their business. It’s why they bought Instagram, launched apps for Facebook Messages, and introduced Facebook Home, an app that effectively takes over your Android smartphone to encourage more social interaction. And it’s why they’ll do a lot more things in the coming years.

Now the question is, what is your business doing to benefit from increased consumer sharing? Is sharing in your DNA? It certainly is for Facebook and your potential AMPLIFIERS.



SNAPSHOT FACEBOOK

FOUNDED: February 2004

PROPRIETARY AUDIENCES: FANS but also SEEKERS and AMPLIFIERS. Also a place to acquire SUBSCRIBERS and FOLLOWERS.

EFFORT REQUIRED: Variable depending on volume of content and FAN engagement.

WHO OWNS THE DATA: You own your content but grant Facebook an unlimited license to use it. FANS are yours, but not directly portable to other channels.

USERS WORLDWIDE: 1.15 billion users with 669 million Daily Active Users (DAUs) and 819 million Mobile Active Users (MAUs) and 469 million Mobile DAUs as of June 2013.7

DAILY “LIKES” WORLDWIDE: 4.5 billion likes per day as of May 2013.8

SKILLS REQUIRED: Copywriting, authenticity, responsiveness, modest coding/design.

GATEKEEPERS: Facebook and its users.

STRENGTHS: World’s largest social network with multiple ways to build proprietary audiences through free activities and paid advertising.

Free to create company page, post updates, or build and interact with consumers. Near-frictionless sharing through ubiquity of like, comment, and share buttons both within Facebook and via social widgets installed on websites across the web.