It used to be much easier planning your marketing budget. X goes to this demographic with this ad, Y goes to this demographic with that ad and we save up all this money for our million dollar superbowl ad! So much traction is acredited to all the different social media sites and the free exposure they can give you, now whats it all really worth? It's almost like the standard has gone from gold bouilion to whatever's trending on the commodities market today but i'm really not buying it.
I decided to follow 3 of the most trending brands on facebook; Converse, Pepsi and Coca-Cola in an attempt to develop some kind of formula to make it all make sense. What's the attraction to following a brand and allowing it to post advertisements all over your personal page? Want to know what I found? Nothing! The only direct correlation I found is that people like football. No seriously they really do! I chose Converse, Pepsi and Coca-Cola because the level of popularity between the three brands to get an acurate sample and to see what content gets the the most engagement and resulted in the most likes and comments and it really didn''t come down to what you might think. Before even considering this sample I automatically assumed it would be multi-media that attracted the most eyes, I was wrong!
Converse really stayed true to what one of my professors calls the i-Content Management Strategy, which is really just a bunch of words that begin with the letter "i" to get the user involved and ingaged ( just play along-yes I know the word engage starts with an E!) in your page and not completely overwhelm them with advertisements and/or constantly aggrandizing your own product. Converse posted about special concerts, free music downloads, as well as coupons for the sneakers and special store promotions as well but it was well balanced with cool news and interesting posts, not just one advertisement after another. Converse was interesting because the focus of theirs is more about what you do/ have done in the shoes with their "make your mark" campaign. Two of there most poplular posts were simply pictures of the original throwback hightops with 190,000 likes between them and almost a thousand comments all referencing how long this look has been popular, how long people have had the same pair (or even 2-3 of the same pair!). It was so very interesting how many people were so excited to share all of the miles they have traveled in those old shoes.
Pepsi and Coca-Cola were very differant. 80% of the posts on both pages were one advertisement after another disguised as pictures and media but they didn't fool me! Whether is was a cooler of Pepsi or a Grate Dane with can of Coke hanging from its collar the intent is obvious. While Coke dwarfed Pepsi in its followers(50.6 million to just under 9 million), the content was so similar that it left me wondering why? Is it the product that makes the difference or is it the page that attracts the fellowship? On both pages the posts that attracted the most comments and likes were somehow in one way or another related to opening weekend of the NFL, either pictures of crazed fans holding their preferred beverage or a stocked cooler packed with the ice cold refreshments it was obvious the "likes" may have been on the facebook pages of Coca-cola or Pepsi, but what the user was really saying was "man I like football!"
So whats it all mean? Is all of the money you spend on advertising in the standard mediums wasted? No not at all, I believe the best adverting that comes from these posts are results of reinforcement rather than acquiring new customers. All of the people on your pages posting and sharing are your customers already all your doing now is keeping them involved! With well played content your message can be shared and re-shared and results in very good earn promotions but it all starts with that original consumer. That first "like" is the precipus of it all, but you can't get that if you don't get his or her attention first!
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