Facebook Content Strategy: Socialbakers

October 29th, 2012 • Marketing Insights

Alright, a while ago I was told to audit the social media of some of the largest Indonesian FMCG brands.  I came across a Facebook analytic/listening tool powered by www.socialbakers.com.  The site has all sorts of bells and whistles however, the company I work for has not yet purchased an account – alas I am left only able to wonder what lies beyond the login page.

Slightly ticked off that I couldn’t open my shiny present under the Christmas tree early, I naturally decide to probe around.  It turns out that there is a section which lists all Facebook pages in order of decreasing Likes.  Here is the link to for the lazy: http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-pages/

Now, if you manage to find your Facebook page in the 33,195 pages on the list, you would find a handful of useful information such as: # of fans, # people talking about the page, fan growth by day/week/month, graph of the page’s fans (last 6 months), graph of the page’s people talking about (last 6 months).  Now the trick to find your page out of the pile is to simply search “social bakers [the exact name of the Facebook page]”.  Uncle Google will find that page out of the haystack for you no problem.

It might not be all the bells and whistles that the website has to offer, but beggars can’t be choosers!  Plus, with a little creativity and more probing on Facebook, you could theoretically deduce all sorts of useful information that can even get you started on developing more sophisticated engagement strategies.

** HINT: classify posts into content buckets + compare with talking about this graph

Facebook Analytics

October 17th, 2012 • Marketing Insights

Facebook Metrics Analysis

So a while back when Facebook launched its timeline format, a new metric was launched to help people/companies analyze what’s going on with their pages.  As I was researching the metric, I found that a lot of people are skeptical about its effectiveness in measuring what it was designed to, which is interaction.  I also found several applications of the metric on blogs and articles that are blatantly incorrect.  I made this little snippet of research on Facebook’s “talking about this” metric a while ago and figured I would share it.  The first thing to understand is that “talking about this” is a tally of the unique number of people that create a story about your page in a given week.  A story is created when someone:

• likes your page
• likes your post
• posts on your wall
• comments on your post
• tags a photo of you
• shares of a photo
• answers a question
• checks-in at your place
• recommends your place
• recommends you
• responds to your event

Many people wonder why the “talking about this” count is often so much smaller than the “like” count.  This is predominantly because of the measurement period, which in the case of the “talking about this” metric, is only a week.  This vastly differs from the traditional “like” button, which is a total sum of unique people that maintain a “like” status of your page at any given time.

What does this all mean to businesses that have invested money to maintain a Facebook fan page?  Well it means that people can now more easily see if your page is active and engaging your fans.  If you don’t make an effort to generate stories, one of the two numbers under the name of your page will look pathetically small compared to the other.  A fan page is a commitment, and this metric will clearly reveal your fidelity to that commitment.

Awareness: Tactical or Strategic?

October 8th, 2012 • Marketing Insights

You will hear the topic of awareness being thrown around like cigarette buds in the Indonesian advertising industry.

Whether the word materializes in the strategy of clients or planning of agencies, in my opinion, awareness as a goal is either used in excess or its purpose is misinterpreted and thus misused.  In an attempt to get to the bottom of this, I just want to talk about what I think its values are and how it can serve as a tool to achieve certain goals.

James Thompson, CMO of Diageo APAC, stated in an earlier issue of Campaign Magazine this year that “[he] expects a campaign to drive top-of-mind awareness, but if it’s not driving other specific attributes then it’s not going to lead to consumption”.  Thompson raises a good point about the insufficiency of awareness on its own.  No one pays good money simply to be known.  There is always a catch.

Thompson mentions top-of-mind awareness.  In marketing, this is a highly sought after characteristic which basically allows a brand to be recalled off the top of someone’s mind upon mention of a certain industry.  This I believe, is where the attractiveness of “awareness” stems from; because with TOMA, brand managers believe that their brands will continue to benefit through word of mouth.  Essentially, it is thought that when you are able to achieve TOMA for opinion leaders, you have a greater chance of increasing the number of nodes in your customer network.  What some forget is that even with all the awareness in the world, your brand could remain without advocacy.  Advocacy is a pre-requisite to fuel the type of word of mouth that generates a desired change in behavior, whether that be participation, education or purchase.

To many companies, the  goal in hiring advertising agencies is to drive up sales.  As Thompson mentions, to do this, a positive change in consumption is needed.  Now obviously, not all goals are related to sales.  For those that have a different goal such as participation, the approach to awareness may be different however, the end goal is still a change in behavior.  Some campaigns are very successful in achieving awareness but fail to convince their audience to take action.  Viral campaigns often have this conundrum, such as the KONY 2012 campaign.  The video has almost 90 million views on YouTube, however the action that it calls for in the video received a less than impressive result in real life.

I could argue that this was the difference between a tactical and strategic campaign.  KONY 2012, an extremely successful campaign in terms of reach, was a strictly tactical campaign.  It came out with one viral video and had “Cover the Night” merchandise, but could not achieve the result it called for because the campaign failed to achieve advocacy.  To my understanding, advocacy can only be achieved through strategic, continuous and integrated campaigns.  Once awareness is achieved, incentives and social pressures have to be mobilized to convert thoughts into opinions and eventually into action.

All I’m trying to say is that measures of success need to be focused on end goals rather than the means to that end.  Often times, awareness can be weighed too highly in KPIs and therefore distort perceptions of success.  That’s my 2 cents at least.

Facebook in Indonesia

October 2nd, 2012 • Marketing Insights

For those of you unaware, in addition to being my motherland, Indonesia is the largest archipelago, 4th largest country by population, and 18th largest economy by nominal GDP (G20 member).

If you put these facts in a meat grinder, the sausage of information that comes out is that Indonesia’s Social Media scene is exploding.  People here are fanatics about keeping in touch, sharing every move they make, and retaining high visibility.  As an everyday example of the growing platforms of social media in my country, I’d like to share the story of my “Ojek” driver.  An ojek is essentially a motorcycle taxi (some guy on a bike that’s willing to drive you around traffic), and as an indicator of their SES, you would be generous to pay them $2 USD to take you 25 kilometers.

So my story begins with a simple explanation of the nature of my agreement with my ojek driver.  He would take me to and from work everyday for a grand total of $2 USD per day; I would pay him at the end of the week in lump sum.  At the end of the first week, I paid the kind man and we agreed to exchange contact information.  His contact information: BB Pin 29C***** -_-  I was naturally surprised to see that he had a Blackberry, and I asked him how he liked his new phone (it was a newer model than mine).  He said he loved it, and told me that I should subscribe to his Twitter and Path (a local foursquare) accounts because he always posts where he is on those applications.

I found out the other day at work that Indonesia has the 4th largest number of Facebook users in the world, after the US, Brazil, and India.  One in every five Indonesians are active users; that’s a lot of folks plugged in once you realize that Indonesia has a population of over 250 million people.  Companies that are trying to get/maintain their competitive edge MUST consider social media platforms as channels that are unique to any other.  We know that mobile phones containing all of these channels are always being checked by their users in Indonesia, this allows companies to deliver messages to their followers at ANYTIME and ANYWHERE.

The parasitic addiction to our handhelds has in fact revealed itself as a vast and limitless opportunity for advertisers such as myself.  Guilt eludes me as I’m one who has always played the hands I’m dealt, but there are potential threats that come out of this.  But for now, let’s focus on this emerging opportunity under the bliss of ignorance.

Stay tuned for my take on latent hazards of “glued-to-screen syndrome”

Subscribe to the iCult: iPad 2

March 9th, 2011 • Marketing Insights

I was speaking on skype with my dad the other day.  The words following the customary hello were “so… can you buy me that new iPad 2 before you come back to Indonesia this summer?”.  My poor father- the most intellectually motivated man I know- the newest victim of the iCult propaganda.

When I asked him why he needed it, he told me that he wanted to write up his Word documents and use it to project  Powerpoint presentations at work.  I knew from that point on that he was mystified by the minimalist elegance of the product rather than its actual function.  How did I know this?  The iPad 2 doesn’t support Microsoft Word nor Powerpoint.  It can do a whole lot of other things that are great, but it specifically doesn’t support the 2 reasons that he had stated.  I eventually corrected the misinformed man and yet he was persistent in buying the new gadget.  He claimed, “whenever I  get my coffee from Starbucks, I can never look away at the hip youngsters that are fiddling with their apple toys”.

My father at age 54, way passed his midlife crisis, is still being sucked into the marketing tactics of apple that promises a youthful and trendy image.  I find it amazing how effective their brand is and will continue to be in the far future.  I only wish he asked me to buy one for myself as well.

Subscribe to the iCult: Macbook air

February 10th, 2011 • Marketing Insights

It’s been 4 years since I bought my current laptop from Apple.  This mighty Macbook Pro helped me get through the dullest rainy days, access translink when I broke my phone, and countless papers/assignments for school.  On one hand, I’m quite sad to part with such a reliable friend, but on the other, I simply can’t stand the thunderous noise the fan makes whenever I use it.  In addition, the keyboard is falling apart and the exterior is covered with more dents than the moon.  So I’ve decided it’s time to replace it.

When I mentally recognized the need for a new laptop and made the decision to get a new one, I instantly thought back to Apple.  I’m comfortable with the OS X interface and knowing of the new released products, I was almost gitty at the thought of having a better version of my current laptop.  I’m looking to buy the new macbook air 11″. 

Their marketing mix for the new macbook air is very competitive.  The product itself is an innovative  netbook that has advanced graphics and a sturdy hard drive with non-moving parts (and it’s bloody gorgeous).  Apple has done a great job by improving the product and decreasing the price since the last generation of this model which truly captures the value of the macbook air.  With the Apple Store which has been around for a decade, anyone in North America can get this product shipped to them for free, and for everyone else, there are Apple stores located world wide.  Every time Apple comes out with a new product, Steve Jobs hosts a meeting and presents the product himself, promoting it in all it’s glory.  To be frank however, the products promote itself.  I see about 50 shiny apples in every class I walk into and it constantly jogs my memory that I have to get a new one.

Friendly Competition?

February 3rd, 2011 • Marketing Insights

So when I first read about competitive intelligence in the marketing book, I was intrigued to learn the drastic measures a firm would go through to learn about their competitors.  I instantaneously got to thinking about the ongoing competition between Audi and BMW.  It seems that a lot of their ad campaigns are simply focused on attacking each other rather than promoting themselves.  Is this really an effective way to communicate the value of your product?

This video from Audi shows exactly what I’m talking about.   The video clearly takes a jab at BMW while showing very little about the Audi firm itself.  Isn’t the marketing mix supposed to create, capture, deliver, and communicate value of YOUR OWN product?  One could argue that it does that in comparison to another brand’s product, however Audi limits itself to just comparing it’s brand to another rather than the entire industry.

Audi is a huge firm.  They hire top dog marketers to come up with these campaigns.  I say they need to read chapter 2 again.