By Wendy Chou Le, Director eBusiness Strategy
“Social Media is hot, but does it cool off in the world of direct response?” As an interactive media agency using direct response metrics as a key performance measurement, we have been working with clients to develop direct response (DR) opportunities in the uncharted social network waters. Through numerous campaigns implemented on various social networks, we were pleasantly surprised to find Facebook to have consistently emerged with positive results.
Founded by Mark Zuckerberg, the second famous Harvard drop out, Facebook overtook its main competitor, MySpace, in April of 2008 internationally, and just 8 months later in the US market. While the element of “buyer intent” is absent across the board on all social networks, Facebook seems to have a few things going for it in that when mixed, produces the magic response potion.
Genuine Application
Well, as genuine as it gets from a self-proclaimed “jerk”. Concocted as a way to get a girl off of his mind, Zuckerberg compiled photos from the online “facebooks” of nine sorority houses, placing pictures two at a time asking users to vote for the “hotter” person. The popular site evolved into an online address book for Harvard students to interact with each other, and soon membership was expanded to other Ivy League schools. It’s the perfect garage operation, certainly not initiated with venture capitalists in mind. Much of that genuine silliness still exist today (such as poke, super poke, tag photos, etc.)
Trusting Mindset
I am more inclined to have a trusting mindset when my new friends are John Ammussen, Lee Lanselle, and Mary Barton, as opposed to Piscesgirl375, Debi’s a Care Bear Lover, and Miss Polly Prissy Pants. It also doesn’t help that every other message I receive in MySpace is from some musician soliciting for my ears, some guy who wants to detail my car (excellent targeting though, but too close to home to be unsolicited), and of course, tom.
Open Source
Virtually anyone with the time and skills can build an app for Facebook through its open source model. This means the Zuckerbergs of today can build their “who’s hotter” application on Facebook and tap into its 200+ million existing active users. This helped to establish Facebook as THE centralizing force of social networks.
Page Layout
The simple, clean (or boring as some would choose to call it) design on the Facebook layout makes it much easier for ads to stand out. The unconventional ad specs also make it less “banner-like” therefore users have yet to learn to “tune out”.
In campaigns we ran we discovered that while we encountered challenges in MySpace to even pick up traction for impressions, we were able to generate sales at a CPA better with Facebook than contextual placement campaigns with Google. These are outstanding results considering the fact that these conversions took place without intent or even relevant context.
Inevitably, the future of social media marketing will involve a blend of brand awareness and direct response. Burger King’s Whopper Sacrifice campaign was the first to marry the two objectives. The campaign asked Facebook users to “sacrifice” ten friends for a free Whopper and would publicize the action in its news feed for the friend (now defriended) and their friends to see. 233,906 friends were “sacrificed” by 82,771 people in less than a week. “He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare.” Might Ralph Waldo Emerson consider monetizing a few into a free burger?