A lot of brands have high consumer touch points. Footfalls, if you please. Literal footfalls, like in stores. Or airlines. Or cinema houses. Coffee shops. Etc, etc.
Or virtual footfalls, like in a popular web site.
Or remote footfalls like in television channels, with high viewer base.

When such brands go on to Social Media, as they embrace the new platforms like Facebook or Twitter, they do start from zero. Usually, the approach remains restricted to the Social Media space, and fan base is attempted to be built organically, or through other means, but by staying in the Social Media space, and creating interesting strategies, or spending money there itself.

Why not integrate the physical touch points, and convert them to be your fans?? Would that not accelerate the growth of fans on Facebook? How about converting those Footfalls to become your Fans?!

Here is a presentation that I made to the Social Media Club in Mumbai, India, about this proposition:

The interesting element to note is the second part of the story, viz. getting those Facebook fans, back into the stores. That is often forgotten or left to chance. However very little business is actually done on those Facebook pages. The money to be earned is in the stores, and not on Facebook.

The key element is to get the fan from Facebook, back into the stores, spending money. And which is all about converting the Fans back to being Footfalls!

What do you think about this? Do you see a closer integration of messaging in the offline space, and the Social Media space, for a brand? I’d love to read your views. Please share them as comments here!

Time was when companies would accumulate large email lists so they could write to these people, updating them about their offerings and promotions. In fact, we still come across a lot of companies who think in terms of creating an “email database”.

So for long since the Internet was recognized as a means to reach your prospects, email has lived and thrived. That one great way to have your brand message delivered directly to your prospect, in her email box, which she was certainly going to see. At such a low cost. And which is how, companies and brands started using email a lot.

Till the point of time that email was also discovered by few others: those that wanted to sell you Viagra, those who promised to get you rich quickly, and others that offered to deliver free porn to your desktop! With junk and spam coming into the email system, users got wary, stopped accepting many emails and suddenly, email became a dirty word, for sending out brand messages.

As we meet and talk to clients and prospects, there are many who want to drive traffic to their website and the website alone, even while using our services to generate Social Media engagement. They feel that the website is “theirs” with their brand name etc., and which is where the traffic should be ultimately driven. And where they can then pick up the email addresses of these visitors!

Well, I think they need to understand a few new realities:

1. People get just way too much email, and most users filter email and block spam. And there is every chance that your email may not really reach the customer.
2. People are very concerned about leaving behind their email ids at sites now. So the genuine customers and prospects may not even be in your email list.
3. This also means that when you drive traffic only to your website, it may be that one-off visit, but you lose the customer thereafter, as she did not leave behind any of her contact details.
4. It is the new world of convergence, and of using multiple devices to access the Internet. In scenarios like these, what is really important? To have your brand message reach your prospect and get read. Does it matter how that happens?
5. The other comfort that a mailing list used to give earlier was the possible reuse of that list, to reach the customer again, after a while. Well, on email in fact, people are less tolerant now. I will get into my email box, only that information which I really want to see. Anyone else sending email to me, and that too repeatedly, is taking up my time and attention, and is therefore not welcome!

So what options do brands have now, to deliver their message to their prospects and customers? If not email, then what?

A typical Facebook Fan Page

Consider the option of a Facebook Fan page.

You create one for your brand. You populate it with good content. You also put out images and videos there. You are subtle in your marketing messages. You genuinely show the human face of your brand. You actually converse with your customers. And in doing all these, you pick up “fans”. Those folks on Facebook who tell you that ‘they like what you are putting up out there, and will not mind your occasional updates coming on to their Facebook walls’.

Permission marketing, anyone?

Why is this working at this time?

Clearly, the nature of the medium teaches brands, and they comply as well, to keep their messages small, simple, friendly and subtle. As against that weapon of the HTML email that marketers had got in their hands, with Flash and what not, and which was blatantly pushy. And which consumers wanted nothing of.

So the simplicity of the Facebook update works well.

Then again, the brand is not expected to push too many updates, too often. As soon as a brand tries to overdo this, for the user who has her Facebook wall full of one brand’s updates, it takes only a click to withdraw her fan-dom for the brand. Email also offered the “unsubscribe” option in such cases, but too often it did not work, and it was also in the hands of the sender of the email, to stop sending those emails to you. In case of Facebook, the control is in the hands of the user herself. And if any brand still finds a way to abuse the system (say, by pushing “messages”), then big brother Facebook is quick to the rescue of the user.

So getting occasional updates and not too many, is also a good thing.

Facebook fans may become fans of many things. At this time, not many are un-fanning themselves that often. In other words, for a brand, if they acquire say, 10,000 fans, that is nearly as good, or perhaps better than acquiring 10,000 email addresses. With those 10,000 fans, even if you do not know much about them, you are able to reach them with your updates when you have something useful to tell them. They are usually around and don’t leave you. Unlike the email addresses which change every once in a while, a user’s Facebook account is normally not changing that frequently. And the other advantage is the viral aspect. Today, we have gone past the early stage of email usage, where we would forward good emails to long mailing lists of our friends. So an email is perhaps going to reach only that one individual to whom it is sent. On the other hand, a good Facebook update like a video is easily “shared”, and suddenly you get a possible viral surge on your fans list.

I have told many of our clients that they should not be obsessed with driving traffic to their website. Their Facebook page is as much “theirs” as their website. If they drive traffic to the website, but the user does not leave behind an email address, there will still be an effort to reach him the next time. On the other hand, if you drive traffic to a good Facebook page and manage to get the user to click a simple button and become your fan, you have reach to him for a long time.

So as long as Facebook rules ensure that companies remain disciplined on this front, till then, Facebook’s your new email! That one way to get to your prospects and customers, in a permission marketing mode.

And what about Twitter then? Is having Twitter followers also the same thing? I guess not. To penetrate a user’s mindshare on Twitter, amidst tons of tweets flowing past him continuously, takes more than getting the person to just follow you. With filtering concepts like groups and lists emerging, the user will have to pick your account and put it in a list that he “wants to see” for sure, and then only, does it become the equivalent of the Facebook case.

What do you think? Do you agree that Facebook’s your new email? Any other experiences that you have had? Please share in comments below.

Facebook users today were greeted with a message that a letter from founder Mark Zuckerberg was waiting for them. As this is not your every day occurrence, most of us ended up checking it out.

And while we found out that the galloping giant had moved beyond the 350 million user base number, it was also bringing about some significant changes in the coming days, to the way it has been functioning. While details about the exact implementation will be known over the next few weeks, there is enough information to generate many early reactions, to these changes.

I have a slightly different view to the opinions in that story in Business Standard.

1. On the subject of the regional networks which will not remain anymore, I have not seen any serious value to this so-called regional network, including the one of India. Networks, groups, communities are worth if they truly unify, generate exchanges and interactions, and are active. The specific Facebook Fan pages or groups that actually engage its members are the kind that are actively managed, have reasons for engagement, and have a common passion. Not the kind where you just ‘belong for the sake of belonging’. Regional networks were largely of the latter type.

2. The privacy factor, on the other hand is very crucial. As a father of two daughters who are active on Facebook, and as a consultant  and speaker on Social Media, this is one fact that I have highlighted many a times.

Let me explain with an example.

You go to a vacation at a beach resort, and have a rollicking time. Fun photos of the trip, including several in your two piece bikini find their way to your Facebook page. You are comfortable sharing these with your friends. After all, you have been selective about choosing your friends on Facebook. And as always, you get a lot of comments from your friends, on your photos.

Now few of your friends have large friend groups of their own, on Facebook. As they comment on your photo, a status update goes out to their friends, that <your_friend> has commented on <your> photo album. And in that status update, the ‘photo album’ is a link, that your friend’s friend can click on, and view!

Oops..that is not something that you expected / wanted / anticipated. And yet, you did not even realize that this could happen, because there were no apparent warnings (current version of Facebook also has selective privacy settings for many of its features, but often the default sharing is ‘everyone’ and most users do not realize the need to change it!).

And while that friend’s friend cannot comment on your photos, he can definitely view them, and should he have mal-intentions, he can do worse.

Not your best case scenario and something that is very real and happening, right now. I must admit for example, to not have any major celebrities as friends, but some of my friends have such friends. And once in a while when I see my friend commenting on their celebrity friends’ pics, I have been curious to check the pics out. I am sure the celebrity did not mean to share those with me, or many others like me!

So considering these risks, it is indeed a move in the right direction, to enable and basically prompt users to choose the level of sharing, for any piece of content that they update on Facebook. In a growing and large space, where abuse is so easy, even if it means a little change that we have to deal with, I think the privacy changes being proposed are a step in the right direction.

3. But does that mean that I will need to go and look over my hundreds of friends, one at a time, and set privacy settings for each of them? Surely that would be very tedious?

No, I don’t think that will be necessary at all.

Consider again:

a. At this time, the higher level of privacy was not present. It is being introduced. So whatever content you uploaded on to Facebook, you were comfortable to share that with whoever (largely, your friends) had access to it via your Facebook page. Just because you now have a choice to be selective, you do not HAVE to go and change privacy settings for your existing content. It was visible to your existing friends, and if you don’t do anything special, it will continue to be visible to them.

b. What is a choice for you is the NEW content that you will start uploading hereafter. At that point, while uploading, you may have a choice to decide if you want to share with friends, of friends of friends, or everyone. Again, as I read the open letter, it does not state anywhere that you will get to make selective permission settings within your friends. As long as someone is a friend, he is equal to all other friends. So you do not go and set levels of permissions to your various friends.

After all, Facebook wants to continue to remain a common user’s utility, and does not want to become a techie application. Multiple level of permission settings on users, is a techie activity, which I am sure, Facebook will not indulge in.

So what kind of consequences do I see as a result of these changes?

1. As an individual user, your privacy settings are certainly better protected. I would then recommend users to set their settings correctly, e.g. have private photo and video albums to be only shared with your friends and no one else. But if you post a link to your blog, which you actually want more people to reach, then that content can be allowed to be accessed by ‘everyone’. And of course, if it is just someone else’s content (like a neat video that you see), fell free to share it with ‘everyone’ again, as you have no need to protect that further!

2. But what if you are a brand? The one thing that brands found favorable about Facebook was its viral nature. Where good content could potentially fly on account of features like ’share’ and ‘like’. Will Facebook become less viral now with these changes? Will your content not move that fast?

I would think not. Unless users make mistakes in their personal settings.

As a brand, the content that you produce, you will anyway want maximum people to see it. So you will not put any significant privacy protection levels on the same. You will set your content to be accessible to ‘everyone’ (as against only fans, or friends of fans or something like that). With that setting as your content moves out from your fans to others, there are no stops really. The viral aspect remains.

Unless.

Unless some users have made their settings such that “all that they share is only accessible to friends” and no one else. Ideally they want to protect their personal privacy, and would protect personal content, photos and all. But a mistake in user settings could well make ALL content that they share, only reachable to friends. In SUCH cases, the content that passes through such friends may perhaps stop flying as much, as it will not go to the level 2, beyond their friends.

This should not happen, but if it happens to a small degree, to that extent, the viral flight of good content may be diminished to an extent.

Other than these factors, I do not see major consequences of these new features of Facebook.

What are your thoughts? Have I missed something? Do you agree? Love to hear your thoughts on this.