Is Facebook’s move to the Timeline format better for business? Believe it or not, the evidence is already in. The answer is…it depends.
Recently, I was lucky enough to attend a presentation by our T3 social team about the impact on fan engagement for early adopter brands to the new Facebook Timeline format. The team looked at research by Wildfire Interactive, a maker of online marketing software. The research looked at 43 brands ranging in fan size from 22,000 to 40 million fans for 42 days, 21 before the change and 21 after. In addition, T3 evaluated the brands we work with. What they found was fascinating, surprising and not surprising at all, all at once.
Timeline changes.
Let’s quickly review the changes that came with Facebook’s Timeline.
First, there’s the new cover photo with art restrictions that can be summed up as “Keep your sales pitch out of my Facebook.”
Second, there’s one fixed view and three visible tabs, with your other tabs visible only when you click to open them. No more driving people straight to different tabs. Your fans land on your profile page and that’s that.
Third, fan posts are in a separate container and large-format photos and videos can be used in your brand posts. There’s also direct messaging now.
Lastly, you can use brand milestones to illustrate the history of your brand.
And the survey says…
Wildfire Interactive collected data on the following metrics:
• Daily fan growth rate
• People talking about this
• Comments per brand post
• Likes per brand post
That’s pretty much a wish list for what brands want out of their Facebook pages. So here’s what the research uncovered: Brands with less than a million fans saw nearly a 70% growth in people talking about them. Pair that with 40% more comments and 60% more likes per post and you’ve got a huge winner, right? Well, almost. Fan growth rate didn’t change at all.
For larger brands with 1 to 10 million fans, the numbers were mixed. There was roughly a 30% increase in people talking about the brands and 13% more likes per post. But the comments on posts were down 17%. Once again, fan growth stayed exactly the same.
The super big boy brands with 40 million+ fans got pretty beat up by the transition. Everything was down. Significantly. Except one: Fan growth rate. Didn’t change a lick.
Mixed signals.
So is the new Facebook Timeline better for brands? Depends.
If you are a smaller brand on Facebook, it’s much better. Timeline has significantly increased the engagement behavior of fans. Stay focused on great content to keep that momentum going.
For larger brands, the answer is “by and large.” The new functionality has definitely increased interaction between users. If (and it’s a big if) you can create opportunities to join conversations in an unobtrusive way, you can become part of the increased engagement users have with Facebook.
For mega brands on Facebook, the results are worse. But if you’re one of these brands, don’t worry. You’re kind of like the homecoming queen. People only really like you because everybody likes you. Your drop in numbers is mainly because people are nosey and they are off checking out all the other brands in their life. Post another million-dollar giveaway and they’ll all come running back.
The biggest takeaway.
All three groups saw absolutely no change in their growth rate. Zip, nada, nothing. Which leads us back to the core truth of Facebook: People read, like, comment and share what interests them. Sometimes it’s an ad.
Technology simply can’t bear the full weight of generating interest in your brand. Only content can do that. Relevant human content that tells the story of your brand in a relatable way. Tell that story on your page and no matter what Facebook does, it’ll be better for your brand.
Go ahead, laugh. It’s not as ridiculous as it sounds. It’s certainly no more ridiculous than people calling themselves social media gurus.
No one can claim that title yet. Social is still too new of a proving ground to have any discernable best practices. What’s more, it almost evolves too rapidly to establish any.
So what does this have to do with a 900-year-old, two-foot-something Jedi master with a debatable grasp of English? Everything. Yoda’s mantras share the same common truths as the success brands are looking for from social media.
“Size matters not”
Every time I hear a client set Facebook “Like” goals, I die a little inside. Simply put, if you want a million friends, give away a million dollars. You’ll hit that number in a week. And your engagement needle won’t move.
We’re programmed to think bigger is better. But you have to ask yourself, what’s more powerful, an army of people who could care less about your brand or a crack squad of brand evangelists who will preach your good word to the masses?
“You must unlearn everything that you’ve learned”
As marketers, we’re taught to “craft and control” the brand image. We’re also taught that media is something purchased, like a hunting license on a private preserve stocked with our preferred prey. With social media, you can toss all that out the window.
First off, the second you enter the social realm, you are not in control of your brand. Swallow your pride and move on. In fact — in true democratic fashion — the more you turn control of your brand over to the people, the more successful you will be.
Secondly, you must remember your guest status in the conversation. You have to earn your right to be there. And uninvited guests are only welcomed when they are incredibly charming.
“Impossible to see the future is”
For years, marketers have talked about the “conversation” we’re having with consumers. Before social media, that was largely a lie.
With social media, you’re having a real-time, two-way conversation with consumers. And just like a regular conversation you’d have with a friend, it’s impossible to plan out what you’re going to be saying five minutes from now because it’s impossible to know where the conversation will go.
So as much as you want to plan out every post six months in advance so you can be positioned for a dynamic Q4, don’t bother. If you still want to be talking to people in Q4, follow the conversation closely and always have something interesting to say.
“A Jedi uses the force for knowledge and events, not for attack”
All marketers salivate over the engagement numbers in social media. Converting even a fraction it to sales translates into big-time money with an insane ROI. But here’s the bad news: social media is a listening device, not a direct sales tool.
In fact, social may be the best listening device ever created. If you’re willing to listen, you’ll never again wonder what your customer is thinking. Even better, your brand has the chance to respond to those thoughts with a human voice. That’s how brands become timeless.
“Do or do not, there is no try”
Obvious as it may seem, Yoda’s most memorable line seems to be the one brands most often forget. They seem to think that throwing up a profile is social media’s silver bullet. I blame that on the fact that social media appears free and sometimes effortless. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The most successful brands in social media either invest lots of time or pay lots of money for their success. Either way, they go all in.
More importantly, they realize that what drives any conversation is an idea. From Old Spice to Small Business Saturday, a big idea beautifully executed across many platforms was what got people talking, sharing and bonding with the brand. Find yourself an idea true to your brand and bigger than even the grandest post or profile, and “Master social you will.”
I have password fatigue. I’m not alone.
I’m tired of creating passwords, then having to go through mental gymnastics to remember what password I created 6 months ago when I signed up for a new photo-sharing site I haven’t used since.
Writing them down doesn’t make sense. In fact, keeping them anywhere but in my head seems like a pretty bonehead move. I’ve yet to find a foolproof system. If you have one, lunch is on me.
New technologies, new ideas
New technologies and ideas have surfaced to help alleviate the password control problem. Facebook and Twitter have certainly made it easier for people to sign into multiple sites using their social credentials, albeit not without some risk. Microsoft Live, LastPass, 1Password, Open ID and others have all tried to deal with the passwords issue, with varying degrees of success.
Computer scientists in Brooklyn are training iPads to recognize owners by the touch of their fingers, and banks are using software that recognizes your voice, according to this New York Times story. The man leading the iPad project, Nasir Memon, a computer science professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University in Brooklyn, says passwords are indeed a digital scourge. “If you ask me what is the biggest nuisance today, I would say it’s the 40 different passwords I have to create and change.”
The government’s plan
The password security and privacy challenge has prompted the U.S. government to get in the mix. They’ve introduced a plan, the National Strategy on Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, that calls for a private sector-led Internet national ID of sorts that would get the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s seal of approval. No telling how much support this will get, but pilot programs are planned for 2012.
I appreciate the efforts at standardizing and simplifying credentials, but short of having a unique username/password combination I can use until the end of time — kind of a digital version of a social security number — I don’t really see the problem getting better until we turn to biometric measures like eye scanners, fingerprint/handprint readers or multi-level methods of access, which seem to be gaining favor. Count me in.
Strategies and pain points
I asked people at work about their password strategies and pain points. Their thoughts:
• I make unique passwords for every site using a formula based loosely on the purpose of the site.
• I use the same username/password with subtle variations and it drives me crazy because I can never remember them and can’t find where I wrote them down so I constantly have to reset them.
• If I forget a password, I simply use the “Forgot password?” link and set up a new one.
• I use made up words and pass phrases in my combinations. I also never write down my passwords digitally.
• I use the same root combo of letters and numbers over time, but sometimes switch the letters and numbers around across different accounts.
• Been using the same username/password since middle school. Not really worried about security. If someone wants it, karma will take care of them.
• I use the same root for all passwords and change up the last character. That way I can always figure out my password within 3–4 attempts.
• Sites that I only use once or twice a year that require me to create an account become more trouble than they’re worth. I wind up just creating a new account every time I go back.
• I don’t like sites and apps that ask me to sign up before I get a chance to interact with their platform. It’s a big deal to give someone my e-mail address. That’s why I have one designated for promotional material.
• I often will back out of registering for a site if it won’t let me use the username/password combination I want to use, like if it won’t allow a special character.
• I use a password collection app to store username/password combinations in case I forget them.
Why it matters
Why is the password issue important to marketers? Because forgotten passwords mean abandoned accounts and unrealized customers. Because lax login approaches can lead to security issues and fraud. Because consumers often avoid the commitment of a login/password relationship with your brand. Because the more digital we become in everything we do, the more privacy matters.
