You know how in life many of us tend to over complicate things? Admit it, you’re guilty of doing this from time to time. Someone asks you for directions to somewhere and the next thing you know you’re giving them the Magna Carta.
Well today, I want to make things very easy for Mr. Brand Manager and Mrs. Brand Marketer and any and all social media marketers out there entrusted with a given client’s Facebook page. All the folks who are asked to increase the number of Likes – even though we know size does not matter, there are still many brands who insist on seeing a large following.
The guys and girls at Lab42 – a research company, recently conducted a survey and I guarantee you this will not be the last one to reveal the following findings. Not by a long shot.
How do I know?
Easy, it’s human nature to want something and after all consumers are people, too.
[[from a much larger infographic - full version is at the end]]
Wow, how about that? A combined 55% of consumers will like your Brand – no, not because they think you’re swell and groovy. And no, not because they feel a sense of loyalty.
But because they want something in return for their precious Like. They want a promotion, they want a discount and you’re darn right – they want something for free.
By the way, my ‘wow’ above was completely sarcastic in case you couldn’t pick up on that.
And speaking of loyalty or lack thereof, check this out:
You see this above? Of the 46% of respondents said they Liked a brand on Facebook, over half of them said they did so to get something in return, AKA something for free.
And under the heading of “restating the obvious” this from the same infographic:
The moral here kids is give consumers want they want. Give them something in exchange for their Liking your page and then keep them engaged with interesting content and yes keep the discounts, promotions, free stuff coming, too.
Post With Care
There are a couple of other interesting findings from the survey/infographic and I want to share one with you and it deals with the ways brands can turn people off to the point of they (aghast!) un-Like them on Facebook:
So ease up there Mr. Brand Manager and Mrs. Brand Marketer and any and all social media marketers who want to keep posting more and more content to their client’s Facebook page. Slow your roll there just a bit and think before you hit post for the Like you save you may be your own.
As for the entire infographic, here it is for your disseminating pleasure.
As you say, it isn’t that surprising. But what’s wrong with that? What the info says, is that you can get new fans by offering discounts. So? You get new clients – and you can then build on those clients through targeted ads, specific content, and so on. So all is right with the world :)
I do agree to not go over-board with the posting, though.
The findings aren’t too suprising as social commerce is slowly transitioning into social media. The thing is what businesses tend not understand is that they shouldnt treat their online social media profile as a their ecommerce store. They need to build relationships or a community before offering incentives and etc. After building these kind of relationships which is why social media was invented for then you can implement a social layer which can offer incentives and try to build off of those already based consumers. Here at social annex (www.socialannex.com) we offer a various of tools that offer that adding a social layer to ecom businesses offering a more social shopping experience.
While this survey confirms similar studies and is accurate in some respects, its conclusions are similarly flawed. These studies assume that the predominance of Likes due to offers means this is all that works and all consumers want. We find this is more due to brand execution and misses the real value and opportunity in social media. Yes, most Facebook fans like pages due to a coupon or promotional offer. But this is mostly due to the failure of brands to do true social marketing for engagement. Most pursue a promotional strategy, get Likes for that, and end up with a low quality engagement fan base. But brands can pursue better engagement strategies, gain Likes without the freebies, build a higher quality fan base at scale and build better engagement with more loyalty. Case in point: Walmart which does not make such offers and is regularly ranked as the brand with the most engaged fans and getting the most value out of Facebook. (Disclosure: Walmart is a LiveWorld client). – Peter Friedman, Chairman & CEO, LiveWorld
So how many posts per day is too many posts?