Social vs Facebook. Is the Facebook page enough as a digital channel for a brand?

Social vs Website.

Is the facebook page enough as a digital channel for a brand?

Forget the old website.It’s traditional. One way.

The website usually is like the news on tv or radio.

It's a one way communication.

Social media is a powerful tool for consumer dialog and for building online reach for a business.

It’s a dialog, a conversation.

It's like the news on tv or radio...It's more fun to talk about the news, to share the highlights of a game over a beer, or discuss an event at the office (similar to social networks)

=

For a fair part of the population in our region, Facebook is now = the internet.

They don’t step outside the walled garden.But who are they? What are they doing?

They are on Facebook 2+ hours.Usually in multiple sessions.

They like (and Like):friends posts & updatesfun posts,informationbreaking news (in small chunks)comment and chatwatch photos/videosplay gamesinteract with brandsSELF PRESENT

mostly NOT purpose driven

for them, in more ways than one...a STATUS UPDATE!

Facebook is a huge channel in the region.

UAE: 3 million active users (1m+ on mobile)KSA: 6 million users (2+m on mobile)Over 55% users return Daily! (50% in KSA)

Average number of friends: 147 (115 in KSA)

Demographics:67% male. 33% female (69% male in KSA)47% are 25-34 (38% in KSA)22% are 18-24 (31% in KSA)18% are 35-44 (13% in KSA)

Neilsen & Pew Internet

What do people do online, after SN

With your own websiteit’s your game.And you have the controllers.

With a website that you own, you control the communications – the why, when, how, what and more

You can gather data, send emails, add sections, choose design formats, choose build platforms, control what you say and the design.

With a website, it’s your domain.

Not facebook.com/yourname

With social or earned media, it's WYSIWYG – What You See Is What You Get.

Your website gives you the full power of inbound marketing. Most social media platforms offer limited or no data – although facebook is now very strong on data

In contrast, website analytic tools (easy one is Google Analytics) can provide a bank of marketing data and insights on your communications.

Analytics allow you, as a brand manager, to improve your online marketing and, ultimately, grow your business.

On the other hand, Facebook tells me your age, your gender, where you’re from, what time you came in, and more

On any social media platform you have absolutely no control of your content in any way.

Your message becomes ‘their message’.

They can believe it, change it, share it, control it even.

Thousands of dollars worth of campaigns have been waylaid because they have been burnt in social media.

And, often because the reason people turned against the campaign or the brand had nothing to do with marketing at all.

And, if you’re running a display campaign, you really don’t want to link it to a vanilla SN page.

You want a specific landing page on your site.

Facebook is optimized for small chunks of info that can easily be shared and discussed.

People don’t go to Facebook to read lengthy prose,

and the kinds of things they share are brief, educational, humorous, or helpful in some way.

There are no limitations to the way you present information on your website, so you can organize it however you want, in as many different sections as you want, linked together however you want.

Your website is where all your content ultimately lives,

Facebook is a place you can promote/discuss/share what your website is all about.

Websites offer a way for search engines, and the people who use them, to find your site based on the keywords/phrases you use in the text throughout

You can fine tune who finds you and when, based on the kind of content you put on your site, and you can analyze that data any time

From an SEM perspective, you can create specific landing pages on your website for the main keywords you target – making the result far more valuable to your mission.

You can optimize your Facebook page with rich keywords and phrases, ultimately Facebook controls the way your page is discovered, and they can change it any time.

Google does not read anything on Facebook that you can’t see pre-logon

While you can add your logo and make minor changes in how information appears, you're still at the mercy of Facebook's look.

You follow the company's terms of service, which are continually revised, or risk your account being deleted.

Also, Facebook pages are frequently discovered through referrals, so there’s an implicit recommendation and expectation of common interests from friends.

Facebook is designed for people who are connected to easily discover common interests, so the nature of discovery is a little different.

• Website disadvantage

Your audience has to make an effort to come to your site for information.

With information so readily available on the Internet, it's a challenge to get people to make that decision to type in your web address instead of another media outlet's.

• FacebookYou're taking your information directly where your audience is spending their time connecting with friends and family. Your updates pop into their timelines the second they're posted, putting your news right in front of thousands of eyes instantly.

• Facebook (or any Social platform)is ideally, ALWAYS ON

But only 14% see your post in their Facebook timeline, and shelf life is a waking day

Your website's statistics are your secret. You don't have to inform your audience how many page views, hits or unique visitors you have coming to your site each month. • Facebook: Everyone can see how many fans you have or don't have. As you try to boost your brand using Facebook, you may notice your competitors have thousands of fans while you only have a few hundred.

Who is your audience? Many, many people are already on Facebook (not all of them regular users), but not everyone.

Yes, Facebook is continually being adopted by more mature audiences

It’s still the stronghold of those savvy enough to feel completely comfortable with social media & the public nature of online life – mostly: younger people.

Best utilization of new facebook format

31,000TOTAL NUMBER OF FANS

2.3mORGANIC IMPRESSIONS

3.9mVIRAL IMPRESSIONS

98%FEMALE FANS

72.9kCOMMENTS, LIKES & SHARES

25.5kPEOPLE TALKING ABOUT THIS

19%ENGAGEMENT

920.4kREACH OF CONTENT

1863FASTEST 24HR FAN INCREASE

NUMBERS AFTER THE FIRST MONTH

the Facebook audience has come to expect the ability to carry on a conversation with those involved.

If your business is reluctant to share or discuss things publicly, Facebook probably isn’t right for you because a static page on Facebook won’t get you very far at all

websites are better for any e-commerce propositions

Facebook has too much clutter to fight.

A website is the grand central of your online marketing initiative.

In fact, with an ever increasing digitally savvy society, it is the hub of ALL your marketing efforts – from tv, radio and print, down to your business card

PRINT TV RADIO OUTDOOR EVENTS & PROMOS

WEBSITE

SOCIALSEARCH

ONLINE

SPECIFIC LANDING PAGE

PAID

SEO

(OR MICROSITE)

FACEBOOK

ETC

SPECIFIC SOCIAL DRIVEN CAMPAIGNS

YOUTUBE TWITTER PINTEREST BLOGS LBS

MOBILE

WEBSITE ON MOBILE

NEED BASED

PUSH BASED / MARKETING

DISCOVERY BASED

BUS CARDS

MARKETING/INFORMATION

ENGAGEMENT

?

(HELPS INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGY)

(ALWAYS ON)

It is the one single destination (which you can totally control) to which you drive your target audience, your business partners, your stakeholders and your customers to.

Yes, today it's important to be on facebook, to have video content that's sharable, to tweet. But you still need a grand central, a hub – and that should be a rock solid website.

Your dotcom.