Ok, first off, I am self-admittedly a gossip queen. I like to know about other people's lives, I like talk shows and I love entertainment news. I don't know if there's anything wrong with this or not, but at the end of the day I am nosy. Which is why the introduction of Facebook was so wonderful to someone like me. (And Myspace and Twitter and ....)
Facebook is really just a tool so people can be involved with the lives of those from the past (and present) without having to actually talk to them. You can find out where someone works, what they like, what they hate, if they're married, look at photos of their kids and all without ever having to say Hi. All of this and more is within a finger tips reach with one single friend request. Don't deny it. We all use Facebook to be nosy. Yes, there is the occasional "Wow, I haven't seen you in forever. Let's get together." that takes place, but I still argue we enjoy it so much because we get to all be legal "life-peepers."
And as far as using Facebook as the social media mothership, it can be a very powerful social media tool (if done right), but marketers who continually decided to hop on board the Facebook train with ads featuring insurance, new printing techniques, vacation spots, etc. are missing the point. I don't want an insurance quote when I'm looking at my old college roommates Halloween pictures. And for the love, please stop making fan pages and thinking that because your organization has 33 fans that your organization is a cutting-edge social media giant and sales are going to soar in the next quarter. It's just not going to happen. Use Facebook how users use it and you'll see success.
For example, the Burger King application that encouraged people to de-friend people (sin by the way) to receive a coupon for a Whopper. Ingenious. People join Facebook to have friends. So, use Facebook to exploit the reason why people join: Friends. And then give them a benefit for your organization (coupon) and THEN watch sales go up. It was ingenius. In fact, de-friending took off so much so that Facebook forced Burger King to shut down the application. See...use the tool why people want to use it and you see engagement. My Burger King crown is off to you.
Check it out:
De-friend for a Whopper
Facebook De-Friends the De-Friend for a Whopper (But let's call it for what it is. Facebook got pissed because people were getting de-friended, numbers and stats were going down and advertisers might have started pulling money. At the end of the day involvement was so high Facebook started suffering. And I never even had a chance to get my coupon.)
I like Facebook. You like Facebook. We all like Facebook (most of us anyway). But let's call it for what it is and as marketers, start using it the way it was designed. Otherwise, our customers are going to de-friend us.
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