Strong mobile app with high level of mobile user engagement.
Incredibly diverse ways for consumers to interact with companies: messaging, reading posts, like/comment/share, follow posts, check-ins for physical locations.
Facebook FANS can amplify your marketing, answer questions from CUSTOMERS, and correct negative statements about your brand.
CHALLENGES: Facebook’s evolution results in frequent changes to the site, pages, and features. This can frustrate both users and social media managers and add unexpected work or costs to marketing plans.
Facebook’s algorithm (previously known as EdgeRank) ensures that only a small percentage of all FANS see your posts.
39 percent of FANS who “like” brands do not believe that “like” gives the brand the right to post messages to their News Feed.9
Without proper management, negative comments can overwhelm a company’s Facebook page, rendering it a liability.
Organic posts reach only a fraction of Facebook FANS, thereby increasing the need for Paid Media (advertising) via Facebook to reach all FANS.
Privacy concerns continue to flare up among users.
1. “Letter from Mark Zuckerberg,” Facebook, Inc. Form S-1 Registration Statement, February 1, 2012, www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512034517/d287954ds1.htm#toc287954_10.
2. “Facebook Find Reunites Mother and Son after 12 Years,” FoxNews.com, September 12, 2011, www.foxnews.com/tech/2011/09/12/mother-and-son-reunited-after-12-years-on-facebook/; “Facebook Reunites 50-Year-Old Long Lost Love,” KABC, July 31, 2010, http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/bizarre&id=7585869; Dixie Louviere, “How Facebook Helps Me Reunite People with Their Pets after Natural Disasters,” Huff Post Good News, May 25, 2013, www.huffingtonpost.com/dixie-louviere/how-facebook-helps-me-reu_b_3333778.
3. Ashwini Nadkarni and Stefan Hofmann, “Why Do People Use Facebook?,” Personality and Individual Differences 52, no. 3 (2012): 243–9, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3335399/.
4. Shea Bennett, “The Top 15 Social Networks Worldwide,” AllTwitter, May 14, 2013, www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/top-social-networks-worldwide_b42350.
5. ExactTarget, “SUBSCRIBERS, FANS & FOLLOWERS REPORT #16,” 6.
6. Chris Crum, “Oscars: The Social Network Wins 3 Academy Awards,” WebProNews, February 28, 2011, www.webpronews.com/oscars-the-social-network-wins-3-academy-awards-2011-02.
7. Donald Melanson, “Facebook Reports $1.81 Billion in Revenue for Q2 2013, 1.15 Billion Monthly Active Users,” Engadget, July 24, 2013, http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/24/facebook-q2-2013-earnings/.
8. “Facebook’s Growth in the Past Year,” Facebook, May 17, 2013, www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10151908376831729&set=a.10151908376636729.1073741825.20531316728&type=1&theater.
9. “SUBSCRIBERS, FANS & FOLLOWERS REPORT #10: The Meaning Of Like,” ExactTarget, 2011, http://pages.exacttarget.com/SFF10-US?ls=Website&lss=Micro.SubscribersFansFollowers.MeaningofLike&lssm=Corporate&camp=701A0000000Ov4UIAS, 12.
Chapter 11
Twitter: Real-Time Characters
We’re in the media business. We’re a distributor of content, and we’re one of the largest distributors of traffic. We’re trying to build a decades-long lasting business.1
—Dick Costolo
I haven’t conducted an official survey, but my guess is that most CEOs do not have background in improvisational comedy. Thankfully for Twitter, Dick Costolo (@DickC) is not like most CEOs. His Second City (@SecondCity) and stand-up comedy background are perfectly suited for Twitter, a channel that seems to evolve like the classic improv game YES AND.
If you’re not familiar with YES AND, its rules are simple. Never deny a fellow improvisational actor. If your partner begins a scene in a spaceship, you don’t suddenly say that you’re actually in a coal mine. Instead, you add to the scene by saying something like, “Yes, we’re in this spaceship, and . . . we’re under attack from a Flying Spaghetti Monster!!!”
Twitter’s YES AND evolution goes a little something like this:
Can you publish 140-character tweets to FOLLOWERS?
Yes, and . . .
Can you retweet or “favorite” the tweets of others?
Yes, and . . .
Can you search tweets via words or hashtags you use?
Yes, and . . .
Can you link to people, websites, pictures, and videos?
Yes, and . . .
Can you view embedded pictures and videos without leaving Twitter?
Yes, and . . .
Can you pay to promote tweets and profiles via paid advertising?
Yes, and . . .
Can you enable payments via hashtags on Twitter?
Yes, and . . .
Can you leverage Twitter Cards to embed pre-filled forms in tweets?