Questions I got yesterday at the IMS event. Anyone want to help me answer these?
Yesterday, while speaking at the Integrated Marketing Summit conference in Minneapolis, I got a bunch of great questions from the audience. Some of the questions were answered by other audience members (I love that), some I answered and some I needed more time to think about.
I’d love to hear how some of you would answer these questions. Pick one (or however many you want) and let me know what YOU would have said.
– With all these new privacy concerns, is Facebook going to be the next social network to collapse, ala MySpace, Geocities, Friendster, etc.?
– How should Facebook be used differently for a B2B marketer vs a B2C marketer?
– Have you heard of any good B2B case studies for Linkedin?
– With so many check-in apps out there, how do you decide which one(s) to use, personally and professionally?
– For white papers, how do you “free your content” so that people can get their hands on it across social networks if you’re used to requiring a lead form to be filled out? Aren’t you going to lose leads if you give your content away?
– Would you recommend that every company be on Facebook?
For the first question, I don't think the privacy concerns will be the demise of Facebook. The will (eventually) get it corrected to please the masses. The reason that sites like MySpace collapsed was because something “cooler” came along. IF Facebook is going to collapse one day, it will be because everyone decided to move to a newer, more “cooler” social network.
RE: How should Facebook be used differently for a B2B marketer vs. a B2C marketer?
From what I’ve read, Facebook isn’t generally the best recommendation for most B2B companies, but there are some B2B companies I’ve seen do a good job with their pages as far as creating brand awareness, generating qualified leads and driving sales. Some great examples are Cisco, Hubspot, Dell, Social Media for Small Business – Powered by Dell, Forrester, Gartner, Ernst & Young, and Cintas.
The main thing I see these B2B pages do well is share great content with their followers, that demonstrates they are thought leaders in the industry. B2C Facebook pages often use coupons to draw in fans, which encourages them to try their product. Likewise B2B companies can use great content to draw in qualified leads – once someone visits the page it is important to get their information to the sales team – either by connecting the fan with a customer service rep, letting them submit their e-mail address or giving them a special offer to try the product/service.
Will Facebook collapse? Hmmm….six months or so ago, I would have said no way. But recently I have found myself questioning it. Why?
As a social network, Facebook was engaging and interesting because the personal experience I had with other individuals on Facebook. Family and friends gave me a view into their lives and what is going on day-to-day. Now I find that more than half the status updates I get are really marketing messages. Do I really need to login to Facebook to be marketed to? And if I am less engaged then I ultimately become less valuable to marketers. I can see a world where Facebook evolves to be a social site for businesses and for people to connect to businesses, but also a world where another site evolves and picks up where Facebook started – as a real personal social network. Most people seem to think I'm crazy when I talk about this, but hey, maybe I am crazy!
Jeff,
These are some very good questions. I am happy to provide some feedback for a couple. With B2B and B2C Facebook pages many of the tactics are the similar, it is often the type of content and engagement that is different.
We highlighted some examples of this in a recent B2B Facebook eBook: 15 B2B Facebook Marketing Success Stories.
To answer another question, this eBook is an example of opening up whitepapers by including social sharing links as well as links to our related resources. It is important to stop making whitepapers static documents that don't connect to other valuable content.
As a developer of Facebook “apps”, I agree Facebook's downfall will not come from these privacy concerns. I believe the site itself will collapse under its own weight. From what I'm seeing, they clearly don't have the staff or infrastructure to keep things running smoothly. Things are breaking more and more often, and soon that will start having direct effects on normal users.
Also, folks like Zynga (Farmville, Mafia Wars) will bite the hand that feeds them and split away from Facebook who, among other things, is wanting to take a cut of their profits. In short, FB will alienate the people that have put them where they are, to the point of its eventual collapse.
With all these new privacy concerns, is Facebook going to be the next social network to collapse, ala MySpace, Geocities, Friendster, etc.?
I don't think Facebook is going anywhere. The new privacy issues are annoying, but I don't think it is going to stop people from using it. Facebook has a very loyal following. I feel like people will just find a way around it before neglecting the site.
Isn't this the same as Apple in many ways? Developers are upset, they take huge margins when you sell your songs/apps/shows in their store…yet everyone still does it because they are basically the only game in town.
There are some parallels, sure. But there are many more differences. For one, people are free to build apps and games outside of Facebook. For developers of iPad/iPhone apps, you have one choice, the iTunes Store. You could argue this is worse for Apple developers, but at least the platform works and is supported.
If Apple started providing tools that broke every other day or changed policies overnight with no notice, it would be more like the situation with Facebook. Developers might cut their teeth with FB apps until they build a following, and then they're getting the hell out of Dodge, as Zynga is about to do.
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