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> Facebook: "Our users want to interact with brands." As distasteful as the hacker crowd may find it, this is probably a true statement. A significant number

> Facebook: "Our users want to interact with brands." As distasteful as the hacker crowd may find it, this is probably a true statement. A significant number of people (in the developed world) really do construct a large part of their personal identity by buying branded products from companies in order to signal something about themselves. There's a section on this on the Wikipedia page for "Brand": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand#Attitude_branding_and_iconic_brands http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand#Attitude_branding_and_ico...

yeswecan 15y ago
Perhaps if you conflate "users want to associate themselves, from time to time, with brands" and "users want to interact with brands".
potatolicious 15y ago
What yeswecan said, but to expand: people like brands - they will gladly and openly declare their brand allegiances on their profiles. We saw this before Pages even came out. What people don't want to do is to be constantly bombarded by bullshit communications from said brands. In many ways, openly declaring your brand preferences is signaling - the "liking" of brands is for their friends, not an enthusiastic wish to receive "special offers" from you. What they dislike even more are the highly intrusive ways brands are marketing themselves on Facebook. It's great that you're running a promotion for a brand I like. No, I will not let you post to my wall as me. No, I will not spam 15 of my friends with your stupid offer before actually receiving said promo. No, I don't want to be forced to "Like" your stupid brand before I can even look at your page. Brands, I want to receive pertinent information from you. If Starbucks is opening a new store in my area, I totally want to hear about it. What I don't want to hear are bullshit "news stories" concocted by your marketing department that is entirely content-free and screams like a cheap attempt to keep your name in my head.
- Pheter 15y ago
  But it works, which is why they do it.
  - rfergie 15y ago
    I work with some brands on trying to measure this and in many cases I'm not sure it does work. The typical process works like this: 1. Brand creates facebook page 2. People who really, really love the brand connect with the page. 3. The brand observes that people who have connected with them on social media are excellent customers. 4. The brand tries to increase the number of connected users by offering promotions and similar. 5. The new connections do not have the same value as the originals because they are attracted only by the offers and promotions. Which the brand then needs to keep offering otherwise "engagement" and other similar metrics drop off. 6. The original connections, the brands best and most enthusiastic customers, are now trained to only purchase when a discount is offered. Margins suffer all round. It can appear that social media offers an easy way to create revenue. The long term effects are much harder to measure (because there is a huge lag between action and measurement) but they are often negative.
    - andybak 15y ago
      I can see myself keeping a copy of this post to show to clients for years to come. Well done for crystallising something I've been floundering to put into words.
    - Pheter 15y ago
      Social media is by no means a silver bullet, but that's not to say that it doesn't have it's uses for brands. Raising awareness, however, is something that social media can be particularly useful for.
      - rfergie 15y ago
        I agree. If you look at it on a CPM basis it is possible to get insane value out of social. However, the main way I've seen people do this so far is with viral content. Producing something that can go viral is very difficult for some brands - their culture does not support the risky, balls out attitude that does well online. (If you have examples of viral content that does not fit this pattern then please let me know)
adabsurdo 15y ago
kind of ironic to say hackers are above branding, when here we are arguing Apple vs Google vs Facebook!
- angli 15y ago
  I'd argue that this discussion isn't at all branding - it's about something more fundamental — user expectations, privacy actual fact. We're not arguing that Facebook is bad because it's Facebook. If Apple and Facebook switched places tomorrow, we'd still be "arguing" (though I feel this is the wrong word) about the same basic points.
  - canes123456 15y ago
    But the reason people identify so strongly for or against is because of the branding.

yeswecan 15y ago

Perhaps if you conflate "users want to associate themselves, from time to time, with brands" and "users want to interact with brands".

potatolicious 15y ago

What yeswecan said, but to expand: people like brands - they will gladly and openly declare their brand allegiances on their profiles. We saw this before Pages even came out. What people don't want to do is to be constantly bombarded by bullshit communications from said brands. In many ways, openly declaring your brand preferences is signaling - the "liking" of brands is for their friends, not an enthusiastic wish to receive "special offers" from you. What they dislike even more are the highly intrusive ways brands are marketing themselves on Facebook. It's great that you're running a promotion for a brand I like. No, I will not let you post to my wall as me. No, I will not spam 15 of my friends with your stupid offer before actually receiving said promo. No, I don't want to be forced to "Like" your stupid brand before I can even look at your page. Brands, I want to receive pertinent information from you. If Starbucks is opening a new store in my area, I totally want to hear about it. What I don't want to hear are bullshit "news stories" concocted by your marketing department that is entirely content-free and screams like a cheap attempt to keep your name in my head.

Pheter 15y ago
But it works, which is why they do it.
- rfergie 15y ago
  I work with some brands on trying to measure this and in many cases I'm not sure it does work. The typical process works like this: 1. Brand creates facebook page 2. People who really, really love the brand connect with the page. 3. The brand observes that people who have connected with them on social media are excellent customers. 4. The brand tries to increase the number of connected users by offering promotions and similar. 5. The new connections do not have the same value as the originals because they are attracted only by the offers and promotions. Which the brand then needs to keep offering otherwise "engagement" and other similar metrics drop off. 6. The original connections, the brands best and most enthusiastic customers, are now trained to only purchase when a discount is offered. Margins suffer all round. It can appear that social media offers an easy way to create revenue. The long term effects are much harder to measure (because there is a huge lag between action and measurement) but they are often negative.
  - andybak 15y ago
    I can see myself keeping a copy of this post to show to clients for years to come. Well done for crystallising something I've been floundering to put into words.
  - Pheter 15y ago
    Social media is by no means a silver bullet, but that's not to say that it doesn't have it's uses for brands. Raising awareness, however, is something that social media can be particularly useful for.
    - rfergie 15y ago
      I agree. If you look at it on a CPM basis it is possible to get insane value out of social. However, the main way I've seen people do this so far is with viral content. Producing something that can go viral is very difficult for some brands - their culture does not support the risky, balls out attitude that does well online. (If you have examples of viral content that does not fit this pattern then please let me know)

adabsurdo 15y ago

kind of ironic to say hackers are above branding, when here we are arguing Apple vs Google vs Facebook!

angli 15y ago
I'd argue that this discussion isn't at all branding - it's about something more fundamental — user expectations, privacy actual fact. We're not arguing that Facebook is bad because it's Facebook. If Apple and Facebook switched places tomorrow, we'd still be "arguing" (though I feel this is the wrong word) about the same basic points.
- canes123456 15y ago
  But the reason people identify so strongly for or against is because of the branding.