How CMO’s Misunderstand Facebook’s Power

Written by Igor Beuker on June 14th, 2008 |

Facebook use has soared over the last year, and will soon be Britain’s most popular website, according to analysts. In an earlier post here, I called Google the cafeteria and Facebook the trendy restaurant of the Internet.

The latest figures from Nielsen Online, the internet research company, show Brits are spending 2.4 billion minutes on Facebook each month, a rise of over 1.9bn minutes on April last year.

Facebook is now the second most used website in Britain, behind instant messaging service Windows Live Messenger, previously known as MSN Messenger, which has fallen dramatically.

Time spent on WL Messenger, which allows users to chat online in real time, has dropped dramatically from 3.2 billion minutes per month in April last year to 2.4 billion this April. In the industry we call time spent on a website: the stickiness of a website.

Alex Burmaster, a Nielsen Online analyst, said: “Facebook will overtake WL Messenger very soon. There has been a seismic shift in a relatively short space of time. Social networks have fundamentally altered the way people communicate online.

Facebook launched its own version of WL Messenger in April, a move which analysts believe will hit the instant messenger service harder still.

Auction site eBay is Briton’s third most popular website, holding steady at 1.7 billion minutes a month.

Fourth was Google, up from 700 million to 900 million, and YouTube was fifth, up 200m to 600m. Facebook has more than eight million members in the UK.

With this info, can we conclude that social networks and video portals are stickier than search engines?

Can we then also conclude that social networks and social video spaces are great platforms to glue consumers to brands for hours a week? Especially if you understand that Google hardly knows its users, but Facebook knows more about its users (gender, age, interests, likes) than brands and media agencies together!

Could marketers and media agencies also start opening their eyes and embrace some new opportunities? Just try to make a mind switch. I don’t say stop what you’re doing today in media choices. I do say: information about media channels is not as important having detailed consumer insights.

Because for hundred years we have only known mass communications: to only count our reach.

Maybe it’s about time, that we should understand there’s more than massive reach. That we can also reach consumers that really count!

I really would like to help Chief Marketing Officers one more time:
A 25 year old media planner can tell you that it’s all and only about massive reach (as cheap as possible). That is the truth based on what we have learned for many decades.

But there’s another truth. When we graduated marketing, did our study books mention the internet? Did our marketing books introduce us how to deal with Google or Facebook>? No, SIR! They did not. So please discover another truth about marketing and media here….

In a new era, where Google and Facebook have disrupted marketing, please do think again for just a minute. Through social networks you can now also reach the people that really count: fans, ambassadors, people that like your products, people that are willing to buy services and people that are willing to recommend your brand to others.

So it’s not about massive (and cheap!) reach here. Here it’s about inviting and engaging people to/with your brand. And don’t shout in social networks! Certainly not through another set of intrusive banners!

Social networks are about participations, creating conversations, inviting product peer groups and listening to people that match your brand’s profile. Open up your mind, and seize the opportunities of a new era.

There’s more than one truth. The old facts we learned in old marketing were sustainable back in the old days. And even if there is no scientific marketing proof (books) yet about how to use Google and Facebook, think again if your young media planner says: it’s about counting the reach.

In the new era it’s also about ‘the reach that counts’. There are plenty of specialists around, that can help you learn to do it the new way. To fill the gap in your marketing education, to help you discover things that were not in your outdated marketing books. A young media planner will not be able to help you into the new direction. Sorry, that’s another new truth.

So seek help. You’re a victim too. You can’t help there’s a new world which your education did not prepare you for. But, it’s never to late to learn. Only thing you need is an open mind to discover new truths….

Source: Telegraph

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