Marketers join the Facebook phenomena

Facebook, currently boasting about a million Hong Kong users, has started selling display advertising targeting local marketers in partnership with its minority shareholder Microsoft.

A January 2008 Hitwise study found that Facebook has overtaken Chinese language social networks such as Xanga and UWants with a 37.72% share of Hong Kong internet users.

Indeed, a number of major brands such as McDonald's, Nike and Coca-Cola have used the social networking platform to launch marketing campaigns in recent months.

McDonald's Hong Kong launched a digital campaign early this year adding a Facebook application called "Shake You" so users could shake their Facebook friends through a shaking game. More than 11, 000 users installed the application.

Randy Lai, vice president of marketing & communications for McDonald's Hong Kong, said Facebook is an intimate and engaging environment to interact with customers in a non-invasive manner.

"They are attracted to use the application, not forced in anyway. From a media perspective, it is free," she said.

Lai said using the social network has turned out much better than originally expected, especially with the viral features such as the mini-feed to drive awareness.

"Facebook is very effective in terms of engagement and generating talk value. The word-of-mouth that was generated as a result has created a lot of awareness", she said.

McDonald's believe the social network phenomenon is here to stay but is well aware popular social networks will come and go.

"The keyword for our digital strategy is engagement and social networks provide a great environment to do just that. In the digital world, doing things differently is a given, since new media emerge very frequently," Lai added.

Nike is another marketer that understands a digital campaign is not limited to just having a company website but allows brands to penetrate messages into the audience's mind by riding on the media they are already used to.

In the recent "This is Love" campaign, Nike used Facebook to target girls between aged 19 to 22 years by building an application based on an online dance movie. Users were able to invite five friends to join the Facebook premiere.

In just four weeks, more than 7600 Facebook invitations were sent out with more than 2200 users installing the application.

Albert Wong, brand communications manager for Nike Hong Kong, said social networks are very effective in terms of reaching the right audiences.

"You could easily find your target audiences on Facebook and from the response of the application you could see how many right audiences were using it," he added.

While Nike is receptive in using social networks again in future campaigns, Wong argues it will become more competitive as more marketers jump on board.

"Content is crucial, a successful application must have sufficient and interactive content that could encourage users to use it and share with their friends," Wong added.

Wong says a key concern for marketers is that brands cannot presume that buzz generated from social networks would always be positive.

Grace Ho, general manager for e-Crusade, said marketers need to accept the fact that they will have less and less control in the digital social media territory.

She said marketers need to understand the social media platform is about sharing and two way communication.

"If your brand and product is good, don't be scared of criticisms," Ho said.

Randy Lai from McDonalds agrees. "As long as we are being honest, open and transparent with our brand and attracting our consumers to engage rather than interrupting them to sell, I'm confident consumers will be happy to see us."

Melvin Yuan, director of digital strategies at Waggener Edstrom, said most marketers and communicators face a fundamental challenge in developing effective strategies with social media.

He said many think of social networks as tools to be used for mass marketing or mass communication, which can result in spam-like marketing, causing consumers to lose trust in companies.

"Social networks are potential customer communities that we must participate in; not try to use or exploit. This is what participatory marketing or conversational marketing is all about," Yuan said.

He said it should be about engaging customers in their environment in a way that is relevant to them and in a way that is useful to them.

"What's important is not to allow your campaign strategy to be guided by trends. Instead, it is important to have a sound influence strategy, so that regardless of the trend you can participate in whichever social network that is relevant, popular and effective," Yuan said.