This is Part 1 of a 2-part series on socialTNT where we review a recent study of Facebook by Fleishman-Hillard's Matt Dickman, evaluating the platform from a marketer's perspective. In today's installment, we'll discuss the overall findings of the study, rationales for engaging on Facebook, important trends to consider, and a shortlist of what avenues can be used to interface with users.
Facebook is a hot topic among social media gurus, newbies, and wannabes, but often companies jump on the bandwagon for the sake of doing so without much thought to strategy. As social media's buzz factor wears off, it will become increasingly more important to reference marketing-related studies like the one Matt Dickman, a VP of digital communications in Fleishman-Hillard's digital practice, has compiled and made publicly available for free on his blog, Technomarketer. The full study is available here.
Matt has repackaged Facebook statistics and other data into an eBook that is helpful for both PR and marketing folk when evaluating Facebook as a social media tool for engagement. Hat tip to the For Immediate Release podcast and Luke Armour for the heads up.
Why should you use Facebook?
Based on Matt's interpretation of Facebook's user data, it is a valuable social media tool for companies that want to reach the following audiences:
- Consumers under the age of 30
- It's no surprise that Facebook's largest population is the 18-21 demo at more than 10 million users. Following that are the 22-25 post-college crowd at around 7 million, followed by the 13-17 pre-college set at around 5 million. If you're looking to reach a younger, more tech-savvy demographic, Facebook is a valuable tool in engaging with that audience.
- Females from any age group
- According to the study, women outranked men across all age categories in the US.
- A specific subset of the population
- Facebook's demographic targeting allows marketers to reach consumers according to sex, age, keywords, education, workplace, relationship status, and romantic interest (men or women). You can also target all US users, or more narrowly target by state/province and city.
Don't succumb to the temptation to "be hip" by jumping onto Facebook unless you have a strategic business rationale to accompany it.
Trend to Watch: The older demographic is becoming more of a force on the Facebook platform
Another important consideration that Matt highlights in an update from yesterday is that certain age groups are experiencing explosive growth on Facebook and may prove to be important target groups as they continue to grow in influence on the Facebook community. Matt's observations:
- "The 30+ audience is the fastest growing segment of Facebook"
- "Over the past month...the 30+ segments have the first through fourth top spots"
- "Overall the 40-50 segment is the most explosive of all"
- "Growth in the 50+ segment was close to the 26-30 segment and surpassed all segments below 25″
Not only does this signal a shift in influence from the "digital natives" who have grown up very familiar with technology to an older demo, but it also signifies an opportunity to hit a more mature crowd given the right approach and messaging - typically known to be loyal and repeat customers, older demos are not as finicky as the new generation, making them a desirable market for certain goods and services.
No doubt the older age demographic will become an increasingly influential group on Facebook, although correspondingly that means that new research will need to be done to determine what messages resonate most strongly with that set, since most research on the subject has been reserved for younger, early Facebook adopters.
While more concrete resources will be needed before fully engaging this audience with the most persuasive messages, don't discount the demo if you know it is a key target for your brand and you have messaging that you know have worked with that subset in the past.
How to Engage: Different avenues for reaching core audiences
In the eBook, Matt outlines all the various ways companies can market to the Facebook community:
- Create an ad on Facebook
- Create a branded Facebook page
- Use the Facebook platform to develop an interactive application around your brand's service and/or product
- Use Facebook Beacon to enable consumers to re-publish their activity on your site direct to their Facebook newsfeeds
- Facebook polls
- Working with a Facebook sales rep to develop a more tailored campaign
- Sponsored stories, which show up in a user's news feed
Interestingly enough, nowhere on this list are any references to using Facebook as a media relations tool to engage with journalists, bloggers, or other members of the mainstream and new media press. By no means does this signal a lack of PR opportunity to engage on Facebook. Rather, it means that PR pros should expand their views beyond using the traditional media relations model and view Facebook as an entirely new breed of communications platform with different rules of engagement and community involvement.
Whether you are working with clients to build branded Facebook pages, promote events among the community, or implement other marketing tactics listed here to support PR programs, Facebook is clearly an important tool in the new and evolving role of PR.
Overall, the study provides numbers backing up what many of us already know: Facebook holds the key to a highly valuable audience for most companies looking to hit the much coveted 18-34 demographic. There are a number of ways to target Facebook with marketing and PR outreach to reach the audiences that make most sense for your brand, and there's definitely a right and wrong way to do so.
Stay tuned for Part II of this post, where Chris and I will dial down into practice and implementation, and discuss how PRs and marketers can most effectively (and authentically) engage in the conversation and make inroads with the users they want to reach.
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[The above image, facebook by pshab on Flickr, used under Creative Commons]
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