Marketing on Social Networking Sites

Marketing On Social Networking Sites

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Social networking sites (SNSes) like MySpace.com and Facebook attract large numbers of mostly young users who are eager to engage with their favorite brands. But most marketers use traditional marketing tactics like run-of-site advertising and static microsites to push messages into these networks. Instead, to realize the full value of marketing on SNSes, marketers should be prepared to engage in a personal relationship with users by providing something of value. Promotions are good in this context, but even better are information or brand elements that users can pass on to their friends.

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE USERS REPRESENT A HUGE, ATTRACTIVE AUDIENCE
Most marketers salivate at the tremendous reach of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, which were visited by 57 million and 14 million users, respectively, in April 07 in the US alone. In a recent Forrester survey of social networking site (SNS) users they revealed that:

· Are young. While 20% of adults use SNSes, 47% of teenagers — and a whopping 69% of young adults ages 18 to 21 years old — have a profile and have contacted other users on sites like MySpace and Facebook.2 Youth also use SNSes much more frequently: 60% of 12- to 17-year-old SNS users and 68% of 18- to 21-year-old SNS users visit them every day. In contrast, only 42% of adult SNS users make daily visits.

· Predominantly use MySpace, with contenders on the horizon. Across all age groups, SNS users visit MySpace more frequently than any other site. But don’t count the competition out. While Facebook is especially popular with 18- to 21-year-olds, its growth has mushroomed since it opened its platform to non-students in September 2006.

· Want to engage with their favorite brands. The most common approach to marketing on social networking sites is to set up a profile for the brand, which members can then join, or “friend.” For example, the movie X-Men: The Last Stand has more than 2 million MySpace users as friends.4 And it works: Many SNS users actually welcome interactions with the brands that they love. More than one-third of Gen Y social networking users — the population with the greatest percent of SNS users — say that they would be interested in seeing a marketer’s profile. And the more frequently they use SNSes, the more likely they are to want to see marketer profiles: Almost half of all adult daily SNS users say that they would be open to seeing profiles from their favorite marketers.

· Are viral leaders. A look at the demographics and psychographics of adult and youth SNS users shows that the most interesting segments — daily users and users who are interested in marketer profiles — are more likely to consider themselves “natural leaders” and also to agree with the statement “I often tell my friends about products that interest me”. In addition, more than one-third of adult users and more than half of youth users who are interested in marketer profiles publish their own blogs.

How And Why SNS Users Engage With Brands
To better understand this phenomenon, I contacted several members of MySpace and Facebook to ask why they had friended a specific marketer. In almost all cases, they had done so because they felt an affinity with the brand. The following are some quotes from the users that we interviewed:
“I know it must seem really weird to friend a brand, like I did with Aquafina. I did because I drink Aquafina, and when I saw they had a MySpace page I just thought it would be fun to friend request them . . . it’s more of a way to list some of your favorite things.”

“I joined the group because I love the Victoria’s Secret line of clothes called PINK and I love the undies and panties line from PINK!!!”

“I joined the Jeep group because I own a Jeep and, well, Jeep owners are a very select group of people. By that I mean that Jeep owners, especially Wrangler owners, all share a common bond and that is why we wave to each other when we pass each other on the road.”

In addition, some users also learn about new products on social networks themselves, usually by seeing a brand associated with their friends. In a recent survey, almost one-fourth of daily youth social networking users said that they learned about new products on social networking sites.

“My favorite band is Linkin Park and they also like Starbucks and that’s how I heard about their coffee. The reason I added Starbucks is because I like their coffee and I enjoy drinking it.”

But some members were more calculating, joining a group to get a discount or promotion or because they simply liked an element of the marketing campaign — but not the brand itself.

“I joined Pepsi because they had a promotion for a can design, and I support the brand. After the promo is done, I’ll probably leave the group. But I only join groups that I support, for example if Coke had a promotion, I wouldn’t do it because I don’t like their soda.”

“I really don’t like Dodge at all. The only reason I added Dodge Caliber is because I liked the ‘Pig and Bear’ characters!”

USERS WHO CO-OPT AND PASS ON BRANDS CREATE THE MARKETING VALUE OF SNSes
Marketers who see lots of users congregated in one place want to pursue that place as an advertising channel. But many of the marketers that we spoke with admitted that their initial advertising forays into SNSes — typically run-of-site display ads measured on clickthrough rates — were abject failures. And marketers who posted profiles on SNSes weren’t necessarily winners either, as it was unclear what the real value of a brand having thousands of friends was. Instead, the true marketing value in networks is created not by reach and frequency of a message but by engaging users in co-creation and by encouraging pass-on of brand elements.

· Viral, downloadable elements deliver most of the marketing value in an SNS campaign. The study also found that the biggest impact on marketing results came when social networking site users incorporated a downloadable element — like an Adidas wallpaper or badge — into their own profile pages. On those user pages, these brand elements take on a life of their own because users provide context and meaning for the brand: A user’s friends see it, download it themselves, or tell others about it. In other words, once users become actively engaged with the brand, they become brand advocates. A Marketing Evolution study found that more than 70% of the marketing value created by the social network marketing campaigns resulted from the “momentum effect” of these viral, pass-along elements spreading across the network. Moreover, display ads played a catalytic role in driving awareness and traffic to the profiles — in effect, kick-starting the viral process